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Parental Controls In OS X – Part 3

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To access the Parental Controls we will be discussing in this article, please navigate to System Preferences > Parental Controls and click on the lock, enter your administrator username and password, then select a user account. If you have never turned on OS X Parental Controls before, we recommend you familiarize yourself with “Parental Controls In OS X – Part 1” before proceeding. Don’t forget that you can also read Part 2 before proceeding by clicking here. In Part 3 we will be looking at the options related to the Time Limits and Other tabs in the Parental Controls System Preferences panel.

Besides the obvious benefits for the younger demographic, this guide and the associated settings can also be used by businesses when deploying Apple computers in the workplace, or by the adult end user that would like to restrict the way in which their device is connected to the outside world. Due to this diversity, this guide will reference all users that are not the administrator of the computer as end users.

 

Time Limits

Depending on the end user requirements, many administrators may like to have set limits on the amount of time that the computer can be accessed. In this tab, shown in Figure 19, administrators are able to set the weekday and weekend time limits as well as specifying the hours of bedtime thereby preventing end users from logging on and accessing the computer during the restricted hours.

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Figure 19: OS X Parental Controls “Time Limits”

Weekday and Weekend Time Limits both perform in a similar manner by selecting the associated tick box in order to activate either option. Once activated, you will be able to adjust the slider from between 30 minutes to a maximum available usage of 8 hours per day.

The third option available in the Time Limits tab allows you to restrict access to the computer between specific hours of your choosing. While this option is aimed towards school based end users, it can be modified to suit any user. Administrators for business installations may decide to set access limits during the week from 8:55am to 5:05pm in order to restrict access of individual staff members to their assigned working hours. Should you decide to use this setting in this way, please note that Friday is included as a Weekend time limit.

 

Other

The Other tab presents a series of options that don’t necessarily fit in any other tab but nevertheless are important to the usage restrictions of an end user account.

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Figure 20: OS X Parental Controls “Other”

  • Disable Built-In Camera is the first option and should only be activated, by clicking in the tick box, should the end user not require access to services such as FaceTime and Skype.
  • Disable Dictation will prevent the end user from using the in-built dictation functionality. This setting may be of further use to anyone who is concerned about privacy as the spoken word is sent to Apple’s servers in order for the conversion, from speech to text, to take place. While this connection is secure we understand that some users may not feel comfortable with this setting being active.
  • Hide Profanity In Dictionary will prevent the end user from being exposed to written language that is profane from sources such as the Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wikipedia.
  • Limit Printer Administration will prevent the end user from making any changes to the printer settings. The end user will still be able to select page ranges and number of copies for example.
  • Disable Changing The Password will restrict the end user from changing their password. We recommend you select this option thereby ensuring that the administrator can only initiate the change of a users password.
  • Limit CD And DVD Burning will restrict the end user from burning CD’s and DVD’s from the Finder. While many Mac computers no longer have an internal optical drive, this setting still applies to external drives that can be connected to the computer. Please note that this setting will not restrict the burning of a disc from within third party applications, such as Roxio’s Toast.

This has been Part 3 of our guide to Parental Restrictions In OS X. Make sure you follow us on Twitter or Facebook to receive special deals and information pertaining to our group learning classes.

If you have any questions, please drop into our store and our knowledgeable staff will be more than happy to help you.

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