Changing Your Computer's Name and User Names

Now and again I meet clients who have bought a used computer, pre-installed with an operating system and user accounts that become disconcerting for them because it's somebody else's name.

It's simple to personalize your computer by changing the computer's name as well as the user name.

To change the computer name, simply navigate to the System Preferences > Sharing > Computer Name.

Changing the user name and password is just as simple, navigate to the System Preferences > Accounts, click the lock and login to make changes and change your name and password there.

That won't change the home folder name, however. To do that, you must hold the Control key and click on the account name who's home folder you'd like to change, that will take you to advanced options where you can change the account name and home folder.

When It Comes To Security, Apple's Got You Covered.

If data and internet security is an issue for you and your computer, the new Leopard OS X operating system from Apple is sure to help you sleep nights

Parental Controls

As the parent of an 11 year old, I dread the internet and any unfettered access my children may enjoy. Porn, violence, creeps and predators all pose hazards to our children. The new parental controls in the Leopard operating system are robust and comprehensive, allowing you to place time limits on your child's usage, to block broadly filtered and/or specific Adult or other sites, to limit the programs your child can use and even to log email and chat messages for parents to monitor. They're available in System Preferences under Parental Control.

User Accounts and Filevault passwords

For any government worker, medical practitioner, business person or researcher, it's imperative that one protect one's data from prying eyes. Apple's user account setup can effectively give varying levels of security depending on your specific needs. The user accounts and keychain passwords can keep your data relatively safe when sharing a computer with others in a home or office environment. Users with particularly sensitive data can store their entire home folder in an encrypted disk image using Filevault, or you can just as easily encrypt specific files.

The EfI Firmware password is a feature that can protect your entire computer from being booted with an external disk if that computer should fall into the wrong hands.

Just another reason, you should'a bought a Mac.