Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition

Creating an Account

Suppose somebody new joins your little Mac family—a new worker, student, or love interest, for example. And you want to make that person feel at home on your Mac.

Begin by opening System Preferences (Chapter 15). In the System Preferences window, click Users & Groups. You’ve just arrived at the master control center for account creation and management (Figure 13-2).

To create a new account, start by unlocking the Users & Groups panel. That is, click the at lower left, and fill in your own account name and password.

Now you can click the + button beneath the list of accounts. The little panel shown at bottom in Figure 13-2 appears.

Phase 1: Choose an Account Type

As though this business of accounts and passwords weren’t complicated enough already, Mac OS X offers several types of accounts. And you’re expected to specify which type each person gets at the moment you create an account.

To do that, open the New Account pop-up menu (Figure 13-2, bottom). Its five account types are described on the following pages.

Administrator accounts

If this is your own personal Mac, then just beneath your name on the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences, it probably says Admin. This, as you could probably guess, stands for Administrator.

Because you’re the person who originally installed Mac OS X, the Mac assumes that you are its administrator—the technical wizard in charge of it. ...