Kid-proof your Mac Page 2 of 2

Working Mac

No kids?

Parental controls aren’t just for parents. Use these tools to limit users to certain tasks on any Mac—whether it’s at a computer lab, a library, a kiosk, or an Internet café.

All-ages iTunes

If you’d like to supervise your kids’ music purchases, you can with Apple’s iTunes 5. iTunes now offers parental controls that let you both disable Podcasts and prevent your kids from buying music with explicit lyrics from the iTunes Music Store. (You can also choose to disable the Music Store altogether.) To activate parental controls, go to iTunes: Preferences and click on the Parental tab. Select the main options here (Disable Podcasts, Disable Music Store, Disable Shared Music), and the related items disappear from iTunes’ Source list. Select the Restrict Explicit Content option, and the Buy button for albums or songs with explicit lyrics will be grayed out. If you’re using Tiger, click on the lock to require that users enter an administrator password to change parental control settings.— Scholle Sawyer McFarland