Switching From Windows to Mac (13 page)

1. Once you’ve made a decision, click the blue Delete User button to confirm your choice and make the changes happen. 
   

Creating Groups

If the computer is being used in a place where there are dozens of users (a classroom or library, perhaps), then creating a group would be a good option for you.

1. At the bottom of the left sidebar, click the + button.
   

1. From the New dropdown menu, select Group
   

1. In the Full Name field, create and enter a name for your group.
   

1. Click the blue Create Group button to confirm.
   

1. The new group will be created, and you will be able to check boxes next to each existing user to designate who will be a part of this group.  If you have existing groups, you can also select entire groups to be a part of yet another group. 
   

If kids are using your computer, then Apple has Parental Controls to help you make sure the kids don’t get into trouble. It’s a pretty powerful app, but it does have a few limits—if you want ultimate protection, then there are also several paid apps like NetNanny (
www.netnanny.com
). Parental controls is also good for guests—if you don’t mind if people use your computer, but you
only
want them to use the Internet and have no access to anything else, then you could set it up like that.

To use Apple’s Parental Controls, first make sure you have created a user account for your child. Next go to System Preferences and Parental Controls.

If the padlock on the lower left corner is locked, then click it to unlock it and type in your password.

You can now set up parental controls for each child users. You can make it as restrictive as you want. The first tab lets you pick what apps they can use. You could block all apps except games, for instance. The next tab lets you control web usage. By default, Apple will
try
to filter out adult content. If this is a young child, then a better option might be picking the web pages they can access—you could, for instance, block every Internet website except Disney. The next tab is People. This lets you select who they can email and message—you could limit them to only emailing parents and grandparents, for instance. The second to last tab lets you pick time limits. You can pick when they use the computer and for how long. And finally the last tab lets you turn off the camera so they can do video chatting, hide profanity from the dictionary, etc.

Accessibility helps you adjust the computer if you have any kind of impairment or disability. It lets you change things like making the display larger, having a voiceover that describes what’s on your screen, and put captions on videos when available.

To open Accessibility, click System Settings and Accessibility. On the left side of the box that comes up will be all the various things you can change. Clicking on each one will create more options.

Vision

Under Display, you can make the screen grayscale, invert colors, decrease the contrast, etc. Zoom allows you to create a zoom effect over smaller areas of the screen when you hit a keyboard shortcut. VoiceOver reads back any text that’s on the screen.

Media

The Media section includes a few different settings for audio and video playback.  Click on Descriptions to enable spoken descriptions for videos.

Captions will apply subtitles and captions to videos.

Hearing

The Sound tab provides options for the hearing disabled.  You can choose to set up a visual flash of the screen each time an alert sound is played, and also decide if you’d like to play stereo audio as mono instead. 

Interacting

Keyboard includes settings for Sticky Keys and Slow Keys.  Sticky Keys allows certain buttons to remain activated without you having to hold down the key.  For example, if you have Sticky Keys turned on and want to copy some text, instead of holding down Command + C at the same time, you could press the Command button first, followed by the C key.  When enabled, you’ll hear a lock sound, and anytime you use a modifier key like Command, a large icon will appear in the top right corner of the screen indicating that a Sticky Key combination has been started.  Slow Keys increases the amount of time between a button press and activation, so if you press Enter, it will take a little longer to actually process. 

Mouse & Trackpad features settings like Mouse Keys, which lets you move the mouse around using the number pad on your keyboard, double-click speed, and the option to ignore the built-in trackpad (on MacBooks) if there is a separate mouse or trackpad connected to the computer.

Switch Control requires you to enter your administrator before making any changes, because it’s a powerful function that allows you to control the computer using one or more switches that you designate.  You can also modify other settings like what to do while navigating, determine pointer precision, and change the size for the Switch Control cursor.

The Dictation tab does exactly what it sounds like – it lets you dictate commands and write or edit text using only your voice.  To enable dictation, you first need to click on the bottom button that says Open Dictation & Speech Preferences and selecting the On radio button.

If your computer is in a place where other people can get to it, or if you are just generally concerned about your privacy being violated, then head on over to Privacy and Security in the System Preferences.

Strong passwords are the first line of defense against potential hackers (or smart children!); a strong password is not something like “password”; a strong password has letters, numbers and even symbols in it. It could be something like this: “@mY_MACb00k.”

You can use the Password Assistant to test how strong your password is.

1. When Keychain loads, you will be able to view the entire list of accounts that are already synced to Keychain. If you would like to change the password for an account that already exists, find the account and double click on it.  If not, click on the + button at the bottom to add a new account.
   

1. When the new window comes up, take a look at the bottom.  There will be a field for password, and at the right of it will be a small key icon.  Click the key icon to open up Password Assistant.
   

1. From Type you can select Manual (create your own), Memorable, Letters & Numbers, Numbers Only, Random, and FIPS-181 compliant.
   

1. Suggestions will automatically populate, and you can scroll through several different suggestions by using the dropdown menu.
   

1. Adjust the length slider to make the password longer or shorter.  Any password you create will meet at least the requirements to be considered fair. 
   

1. As you generate a password, the quality indicator will change to show you how safe and complex a given password is. 
   

Another line of defense you can add is a Firewall, which protects you from unwanted connections to potentially malicious software applications, websites, or files. 

To enable the firewall that comes with your Mac, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and select the Firewall tab.  Before you can make any changes, click on the lock icon in the bottom left corner and enter your administrator password to continue.

Just like your iPhone or iPad, Mac comes with a handy feature called “Find My Mac” which lets you find your computer if someone steals it or you just misplace it; you can also wipe its hard drive clean remotely.

To enable Find My Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud and check the box next to Find My Mac.  Your location services must also be turned on, so go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Location Services and make sure Enable Location Services is checked on.