On my computer,  I have a normal “everything goes” user account that lets me browse and use applications unrestricted. Unfortunately, that means there are a lot of distractions. However, to focus on particular work, like my GigaOM writing, I also have a separate, writing-specific account. My writing account uses parental controls to lock down certain things, because I can’t always rely on my willpower to keep me focused.

Setting up parental controls is easy. First, create a new account for productivity.

1. Go to System Preferences, and click the Accounts icon.
2. Click the lock icon in the bottom left corner. An administrator authentication dialog box will appear. Enter your administrator account password so that you can make changes.
3. Click the Accounts icon, then the (+) icon and then the New Account window will appear.
4. Go to the drop down menu next to new account and choose “Managed with Parental Controls” from the list.
5. Give the account a name of your choosing. You can set a password if you want, but the account is so limited I leave it blank.

Now it’s time to set the parental controls. Click on the account you just created, then on “Open Parental Controls.” You’ll be greeted with the System setting first. I turn on Simple Finder, which allows me to specify which apps appear in the Finder. Select only critical apps. For writing, I do it all on Google Docs, so I don’t really need many applications.  You might opt to turn on Microsoft Word or Keynote depending on your own preferences. If I’m reviewing software, I’ll enable that application as well.

The next tab is Content. Click “Try to limit access to adult websites automatically” and then click customize. Under “Always Allow,” add websites you know you’ll be using for work. Under “Never Allow,” add time sinks such as Facebook, Twitter, Hulu and anything else that might be a distraction.

The third tab is Mail and iChat. Since I primarily use Gmail, mail isn’t as relevant for me. Whatever you use, I’d recommend against using email entirely if you want to be at your most productive. For iChat, specify a small list of “safe” contacts. In my case, it’s my editors and key sources for stories. That way I won’t get family and friends chatting with me while I’m in productivity mode.

For productivity the next tab, Time Limits, isn’t as relevant. It can be useful if you want to limit your time per day spend working to achieve a healthier work/life balance. It may not pay off directly in terms of productivity, but in the long run it’ll help the quality of your work improve.

Finally, there’s the Logs tab. I use it as a way to balance my writing with other tasks. It’s great for billing purposes, and to see how much time I put into a task. Like many freelance writers, I get paid by the column, not the hours worked. I can then review how much time I spent writing for the week or month and compare it to how much I earned. If you set up accounts for individual projects, you can switch between the accounts and get real-time logs of what you did and for how long, making for a great way of tracking your time that doesn’t require any additional software.

Mac-based office might think about implementing these tips if they want more control over how their employees use the work day. Of course, if the computer is your own, you can easily switch accounts to enable and disable restrictions. But if your desire to procrastinate is so bad that you keep switching accounts or pull out your iPhone to check Facebook, then you may just be beyond help.

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In this TechUniversity screencast on Kidproofing Your Mac (subscription required), we’ll take you through what needs to be done and what tools are available to keep your kids safe.

Topics include…

• Limiting application usage
• Website restrictions
• Mail and iChat restrictions
• Setting time limits
• Checking web and chat logs
• Third-party web filtering

Below is a sample of the video. The full screencast clocks in at just over 11 minutes.

The first is to merely grant access to an overwhelming environment and expect time itself to wear down the mental faculties of the unsuspecting, in hopes of some sort of miraculous and divine intervention. In other words, rely on dumb luck by clicking on everything in sight until one achieves success.

The other path is a much narrower one where every user can quickly gain access to that which they desire most. With children, the key in either situation is to find a means to where the young user grows a sense of self-confidence, realizing that they are in control, and a sense of accomplishment that they know how to do it for themselves. This is where the iMac can learn from its little siblings: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. With these devices, access to what one desires is about all one can do when picking up the device for the first time. The goal is to create a user interface that’s as easy to access as the one on the iPad.

Creating a safe environment for the younger Mac heads in your family while allowing them to explore and expand their minds is not only possible in Snow Leopard, but is pretty straight forward and simple to pull off. Once you know that it can be done, it’s simply a matter of doing it. This article will assume we are targeting the very young, pre-school-aged Minis. Knowledge of their ABCs is a bonus, but not absolutely required. The only time they will be required to interact with the keyboard for input will be their password. And since a separate account will be created and locked down, allowing a simple password will not compromise security to such a degree that one needs to worry too much. The focus will be on creating large, clearly identifiable icons that can be clicked on to allow access to some of the basics of the Mac.

Creating a New User Account

If you’re not familiar with creating Accounts on a Mac, you’ll need to open the System Preferences application from either the Apple Menu, the Dock, or in the Applications folder. Once in the System Preferences, click on the Accounts icon. In order to keep things simple and consistent, first take a look at the Login Options section of the Accounts window. There may be times when your Minis want to use the computer but it’s not on or is asleep. It’s important to try to keep the experience as consistent as possible each and every time they want to access the computer. So it would be best to turn off Automatic login, display a list of users on the login window, and to show the restart sleep and shutdown buttons.

At this point, go ahead and create a new user account. Create a standard account. Various preferences will need to be modified by logging onto the account before the parental controls will be enabled. So do not enable Parental Controls just yet. For consistency’s sake, the Account Name may be the same as the child’s email or other online account ID, like their MobileMe family account ID. Use their full name as the Full Name since this is something that they will be learning more and more as they enter pre-school and kindergarten.

Make the password some sequence of characters that the child will be able to remember. This will break with all security conventions as it will likely be a weak password. The account will be locked down, and access to the full file system will not be permitted. This is also the first opportunity to allow unfettered access to the Mac, and a strong password that the child does not know will limit their access to the Mac and require someone else to log on for them. If this is a dedicated machine for their use only, and is in a permanent secure location (not a MacBook/laptop), allowing for a simple and weak password may not be an issue. Using the password hint will help later on once the child learns to read, unless one chooses to make the hint the actual password.

Once the account is created, establishing an icon with the account will help make the account unique and identifiable. At first, they will recognize the icon, and soon identify with the fact that their full name is also being displayed. This icon will be displayed on the login prompt when they first access the Mac. The icon should be an image they can relate to, like their favorite toy, or a self-portrait. Just ensure that it’s unique from the other account icons, and is something that the individual will not have any problems remembering. Keep in mind that depending on the age of the user, reading may not be a skill yet mastered. And in some cases, the full alphabet may not be known (yes, Mac users can be that young and still get things done on the Mac).

Some of the initial security setup lies in how things are currently configured on the Mac you intend to allow the Minis to use. It is more than just a good idea to create a separate Administrator account on all Macs and not allow any other user accounts to administer any Mac — it’s essential. This is configured separately for each User account in the System Preferences’ Accounts window:

Leave this unchecked

You may also want to configure any other accounts to log off after so many minutes of inactivity, and be sure that all remote access to the machine is disabled.

NOTE: Do not enable parental controls until after the user account has been accessed and configured properly. This is very important and will prevent one from having to re-establish the parental controls over and over again for each tweak of the user preferences. This is because one of the applications that the user will not be permitted to use will be System Preferences. These controls can be used to allow quite a bit of freedom for the Mini user without having to enforce constant adult supervision. This freedom to explore on their own creates a sense of freedom and self-confidence that just simply cannot be achieved with constant adult supervision. So rather than direct adult supervision, the Mac allows one to configure and control — to a staggering degree — indirect adult supervision.

Configuring the Account With the Mini User in Mind

Now that a user account is created, go ahead and log in to the account. Remember, the less there is to click on, the less that can go wrong. The goal is to eliminate as many unnecessary options as possible, provide a consistent experience with each successive login, and maximize the font and visuals. For the most part, this will lead to disabling most of the advance features, and controlling the behavior of the mouse, keyboard and screen as much as possible. Go back into System Preferences and proceed to configure the user account.

Appearance – Disable the number of recent items by setting Applications, Documents and Servers to ‘none’.

Spotlight – Uncheck all searchable items, and disable the shortcut keys. This is a user-specific setting and will only limit the search capabilities of the specific user for which this preference was configured. It may also be a good idea to establish which areas of the Mac should not be searchable under any circumstances.

Desktop and Screen Saver – Do not randomize anything; keep the desktop image clean and clear of clutter by selecting a solid color. The desktop will be where all shortcuts will be created to launch the applications and web pages. As an added bonus, think about purchasing a custom screensaver like SereneScreen’s Marine Aquarium for Snow Leopard.

Dock – This may not make much sense at first, but minimize the Dock to its smallest size, and hide the Dock. The goal here is to keep the individual away from the Dock entirely. All access to applications and websites will be made accessible via shortcuts on the Desktop. It’s also important to manually remove all icons from the Dock. The only two remaining icons on the Dock that will not allow themselves to be removed are the Finder, and the Trash. Think iPad.

Exposé and Spaces – Disable all hot corners in Exposé and disable Spaces entirely. Kids tend to overcompensate their mouse movements and this could be a confusing topic to broach when they constantly hit the hot corners of the screen. Since there is very little functionality that they will need to utilize, it’s best to simply disable all opportunities to access other features and applications via hot corners.

Task Bar Icons – Keeping consistent with the theme of minimizing the number of opportunities for a stray mouse to click on something, hiding as many of the tray icons as possible is a good idea as well. This includes but is not limited to the Displays, Airport (Network), Battery (Energy Saver), Clock (Date and Time), Bluetooth and Time Machine. If you have not been able to locate all of the preferences that add items to the Task Bar, simply hold down the command key and drag the items off the task bar one by one, just as you remove items from the Dock.

Finder

Now click on the desktop; the Finder menu should appear on the menu bar. Under the Finder menu, select Preferences. Under General, do not show any items like hard drives and peripherals on the desktop. All access to each application and website will be individually and directly controlled via a shortcut from the desktop. New Finder windows should open to the Desktop as well. Basically direct all attention to the Desktop as much as possible. For the sidebar, uncheck everything so that the sidebar is completely bare. When performing a search, search the current folder only, which again, will hopefully only ever be the Desktop.

Toolbar – Open the Finder and from the View menu, choose to customize the Toolbar. Remove all tools from the toolbar and leave it as bare as possible.

View Options – Right-click (option+click) on the Desktop and select Show View Options from the menu that pops up. If the dialogue that displays does not say Desktop at the top, click on the desktop. Once you’re sure that you’re modifying the View Options for the desktop, maximize the icon size, grid spacing and text size. Keep the label position at the bottom and continue to show both the item info and preview. The interesting part will be sorting the icons by their respective labels. This will give more control over the positioning of the labels, and create a color-coordinated option for organizing utility applications from educational and fun applications.

Safari

Within Safari, some of the basic configurations to establish include either setting up a blank home page, or a familiar home page, perhaps one that was created just for them with large image icons of their favorite websites. Additionally be sure to turn off all of the tool and status bars. This will initially create an experience that each website is a separate ‘thing’ accessible from a desktop icon. This is perfectly acceptable at first and can be a modified behavior once the Mini user learns that all of the ‘sites’ they’re accessing are not on the computer, not in the house, and in some cases not even in the country. Be sure to edit the bookmarks and remove all pre-populated bookmarks as well.

Safari Preferences

Setting Up Parental Controls

Everything is now configured just right and the account is ready for parental lockdown. Kid-proofing a Mac With Parental Controls is now possible. Log out of the account that was created for the Mini user, and log into an administrator account. While it’s not absolutely necessary to log in to an administrator account, this will eliminate the prompts to authorize each action that’s taken. Disabling and Enabling Parental controls will prove to be a real pain as well. Especially when you have an extensive list of email and chat accounts, as well as a good list of websites that you want to grant access. Not to mention, establishing a complex set of times and hours that the little one can use the Mac. The preferred route is to create a user account, strip it down to the bare minimum required to make things go, and then to enable parental controls to lock down everything else.

The first choice is to use the simple Finder, or to only allow access to selected applications. While the simple Finder is nice, and is what all of the configuring and messing around attempted to achieve to a lesser degree in the above recommendations, in the end, the ability to limit what applications the user has access to outweighed the simplification of the Finder. The recommendation is to utilize the “Only allow selected applications” feature of Parental Controls. From here, one can select exactly what applications the user can launch. At first, un-select all applications and log on to the user account and see what can be accomplished. Disabling the ability to administer printers, change passwords, burn CD/DVDs and even modify the Doc is also recommended.

Conclusion

Empowering the Mini Mac users in one’s life is simple and straightforward once one gets the hang of creating a user account, customizing System Preferences and setting up parental controls. The rewards of having a Mini user realize that they’re in control and are able to make the Mac do what they want it to are huge. Playing with Photo Booth and communicating with the grandparents via video over long distances is worth all of the set-up. It will not be too long before the Mini user is confident in their own skill set enough to go and check on their own to see if Grandma or Grandpa are online.

The fact that they included parental controls for games in the 3.0 beta sort of hinted at this, but along with the iPhone 3.0 update today came app ratings, which appear rather inconspicuously under the app’s price and buy button on the detailed info screen. It also appears next to an app’s name in the list view of the iTunes store browser.

Interestingly, all apps appear to be getting a rating, as I checked out even one so innocuous as HP’s MediaSmart Server iStream app and found that it was “not yet rated.” It may be that all harmless utilities will receive this nondescript side-stepping of a rating going forward.

Games, though, and apps like Exterminator – Shooter Sounds Massacre! (9+), definitely have been rated using Apple’s own internal standards. The ratings are are as follows, taken directly from iTunes:

4+: Applications in this category contain no objectionable materials.

9+: Applications in this category may contain mild or infrequent occurrences of cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and infrequent or mild mature, suggestive, or horror-themed content which may not be suitable for children under the age of 9.

12+: Applications in this category may also contain infrequent mild language, frequent or intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and mild or infrequent mature or suggestive themes, and simulated gambling which may not be suitable for children under the age of 12.

17+: You must be at least 17 years old to purchase this application. (emphasis in the original)

Applications in this category may also contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror, and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs which may not be suitable for children under the age of 17.

Sounds like we’ve got some exciting 17+ apps coming our way. And, without a doubt, endless debate as to the merit of Apple’s ratings system, and the categories they’ve devised, and which apps receive which ratings and why.

A quick test of the restrictions found that they do indeed prevent me from downloading Exterminator with the settings turned down to 4+ and below only. You can view the app’s info screen in the App Store, but that’s as far as you’ll get. Notice the grayed out “Free” button at the top right of the screen. No novelty gunshot noises for junior.

In addition to a rating, each app also receives a brief description of how it earned that classification, so you know Apple reviewers weren’t just choosing at random because their eyes are bleeding from reviewing thousands of apps. Doubt the ESRB is pleased with the company’s decision to go it alone, but I expect we’ll hear first-hand what they think of the move any moment now.

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Another new feature has surfaced in iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 (though it appears to have been available in beta 4, I just discovered), and this one should come as welcome news to beleaguered and frustrated developers dealing with inappropriate content-based rejection. Parental controls are now available on the iPhone, just as was hinted recently in a rejection letter to the developer of Newspaper(s), a news aggregation app.

The new controls should also please Trent Reznor, who recently had a very high-profile and vocal (albeit one-sided) argument with Apple over their rejection of an update to his app for objectionable content. Much like Google’s Safe Search filtering, they allow iPhone owners to restrict the types of apps which are allowed to be installed on their iPhone. This means that poor little Johnny might soon have to go without Bikini Blast, for instance, if his parents get wise to the new features.

The settings appear in the restrictions menu under General Settings, and allow you to control what apps can be installed on the phone by their age restriction, which range from 4+ to 17+, as you can see from the screenshot. You can also allow any, and disallow all, a feature which might be useful for particularly sensitive corporate use. The ratings suggest that apps will each also be rated according to the same scale, and that whatever rating the app is assigned will automatically allow or disallow it according to the new content filter.

Another new “feature” being reported is the loss of 3G data connectivity for a small number of AT&T customers who have installed the new beta, so tread carefully. That warning comes straight from Apple, so consider yourself duly warned. No word on whether that extends to any international carriers, but so far, it seems not to. Let us know if you run into trouble.

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If you’ve got young children, chances are they’re already quite adept at using the computer. This is a new generation of wired little ones, and we’ve got our work cut out for us as we attempt to stay ahead of them.

I’ll wager that you’re more concerned with protecting your children from the sketchy dangers of the internet, but equally important is protecting your Mac from your children! Luckily, if you’ve got a Mac, OS X comes with some great Parental Controls built right into the operating system which will help you combat both of these situations.

This post should serve as a quick guide to get you started in locking down your Mac, making it safe for your kiddos to use without your direct supervision. The process is quite simple (as is standard operating procedure with all things Apple), but I realize you may be starting from one of two different scenarios.

1. Children’s Account does not yet exist
   Starting from scratch is easy. Open System Preferences (under the Apple icon) and choose Accounts. Click the “+” button to create a new account profile. The very top line is a drop down menu — from that drop down, select “Managed with Parental Controls.” Create the rest of the account as usual. As soon as you finish that screen, the new account is visible with a button at the bottom to take you to the Parental Controls Preference Pane.
2. Children’s Account already exists
   Converting a pre-existing account is just as easy to convert for use with Parental Controls. From within the Accounts Pane of System Preferences, select the account you want to change to Parental Controls. At the bottom of that profile page, all you need to do is check the box that reads “Enable Parental Controls” and then click the button to open that Preference Pane for configuration.

Alrighty, regardless of where you began (above), we should all be on the same page now – or Parental Control Preference Pane, as it were. To get started setting the controls for this account, you’ll need to select the account from the list (if there is more than one available to be managed). If when you click on it your Mac beeps at you, you’ll need to unlock these settings by clicking the padlock icon below (at which point you’ll need to enter your password). It’s probably easiest to run through each of the high level features one at a time, so let’s take a closer look.

System

The System tab is where you decide what they will be able to use and what (if any) privileges you allow them. If this account is indeed for children, the Simple Finder may be a good choice. You can also go through all of the applications installed on your machine and only put check marks next to the apps you want them to be able to use. Last, there are some items that you can give them access to administer or not with their account.

Content

Protect your little ones from inappropriate content in this tab. Limit the Dictionary to not show profane entries, for instance. The other, more important option is how they will be allowed to browse the web. There’s an unrestricted option, a best effort to determine bad websites option, and the one that I like best, where you only set the websites you want them to be able to see. This last option gives the most control, but can also require more administrative overhead — but at least you know they’re only on the pages you deem to be appropriate.

Mail & iChat

If you’ve allowed them access to the Mail application and iChat, you can limit their communications within those apps, from here. Enter the names of the users they can email and chat with in this tab. If you set a permission request email address (it would most likely be your own), that address will get a request email anytime your kid tries to email an address that you have not yet approved.

Time Limits

You get the ability to limit the amount of time they spend using the Mac (with this account at least). You can determine the number of hours by week days, as well as weekend days. There’s also the ability to set the hours of the day they are not allowed to use the computer — like Bedtimes, for instance.

Logs

Get an accounting of the websites they have visited, the websites they’ve tried that have been blocked, iChat transcripts, and applications they’ve used. There are different methods of organizing this data (like the length of time Logs are kept, and then grouped by Date or Content/Contact). These Logs are probably more important if you’ve left more control to the user, but either way, is good peace of mind. (As a side note, I think it would be great if you could have these Logs emailed to you on a periodic basis, but that’s not available…yet.)

As always, the beauty of the Mac — and more specifically in this case, OS X — is the power available in such a simple package. With a few quick settings you’ve made your child’s computer-using experience that much safer from the outside world, while also protecting your machine from random clicking that could do some real damage.

Of course, your Parental Controls may need some care and feeding, as their web browsing interests change (or as is the case in my home, new commercials advertise websites they want to try). It’s a good point to make that some changes to the Managed account can be made from within that account, if the Administrator Password (yours) is entered. But overall, some solid controls have been implemented, and allow you to track just what they’re doing and when, while using your Macintosh computer.

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He writes in:

I enabled the Parental Controls on my new Leopard install, and after letting my kids play Frozen Bubble and browse to Playhouse Disney for an hour or so I found that the daemon named “parentalcontrolsd” was eating 98-100% of one of my cores (Core 2 Duo MacBook).

Anyone else had this issue with the new Parental Controls? Have certain applications possibly caused the increase in CPU usage?

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