Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Simple Finder and Other “Rubber Walls”

As noted earlier in this chapter, Mac OS 9 offered a clever but little-known feature called Simple Finder. It was designed to protect the Mac from—and make it easier for—the young or easily overwhelmed.

Mac OS X 10.2 has a new version of Simple Finder. It’s certainly not a feature you’d ever use, of course, but you might find it extremely useful for someone you love (or at least worry about).

Edit the Account

After creating a Normal account for your lucky friend as described earlier in this chapter, you should wind up on the Accounts panel of System Preferences. Click the account on the Users tab, and then click Capabilities.

Take a break while your Mac scans its hard drive for information about all the programs you’ve got installed—it can take a minute or two. Eventually, a sheet slides out of the top of the Accounts window, as shown in Figure 11-10.

From here, you can restrict this person’s access to the Mac in three different ways, described next.

Limit the Programs

At the bottom of the dialog box shown in Figure 11-10, you see a list of all the programs in your Applications folder (an interesting read in its own right). If you turn on “Use only these applications,” you can then turn the programs’ checkboxes on or off. Only checked items will show up in the account holder’s Applications folder.

Note

If you don’t see a program listed, click the Locate button and find it, or drag its icon from the Finder into the window. You’ll have to do that when, ...