Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

326 switching to the mac: the missing manual

As soon as you tab into this field, the Mac proposes a short name for you. You can

replace the suggestion with whatever you like, as long as it doesn’t have punctua-

tion marks.

• Password, Verify. Here’s where you type this new account holder’s password (Figure

12-3). In fact, you’re supposed to type it twice, to make sure you didn’t introduce

a typo the first time. (The Mac displays only dots as you type, to guard against the

possibility that somebody is watching over your shoulder.)

The usual computer book takes this opportunity to stress the importance of a

long, complex password—a phrase that isn’t in the dictionary, something made

up of mixed letters and numbers. This is excellent advice if you create sensitive

documents and work in a big corporation.

But if you share the Mac only with a spouse or a few trusted colleagues in a small

office, you may have nothing to hide. You may see the multiple-users feature more

as a convenience (keeping your settings and files separate) than a protector of se-

crecy and security. In these situations, there’s no particular urgency to the mission

of thwarting the world’s hackers with a convoluted password.

In that case, you may want to consider setting up no password—leaving both pass-

word blanks empty. Later, whenever you’re asked for your password, just leave the

Password box blank. You’ll be able to ...