Mac Mini & iMac G5

Question

Hi Everyone
I am thinking about getting a Mac Mini. I already have an iMac G5 / Airport setup and have a couple of questions -
1. What administration capabilities are available within OSX for me. The Mini would be for my son and I wanted to take control over the administration of the OS and other applications on the computer for him.
2. What recommendations do people have for a flat screen? I dont want to spend many £'s and thought that it might be sensible to have one with speakers built into it to keep clutter down.
TIA
David

Answer 1

:D!
iBackup is another 3rd party program, for some users like me, it has served as a replacement.
Yes its completely possible to have access to all files and folders on the remote mac, in fact here's how to do the complete setup!
( Dave, I know you're WAY above the technical level i'm describing everything at! I'm not trying to talk down to you, and i know you're more than capable of finding buttons etc! I've written this detailing every step as closely as i could just so that if users are following on this discussion, they can apply the steps to their skill-level too. So apologies for the simplicity! )
With both macs on ( sorry, i know its obvious but even i forget that step sometimes - you can imagine the laughter )
Login to the mac mini (remote mac) as an administrator ( your admin account ).
Open up system preferences and click on 'sharing', its under 'Internet and Network'.
Under the Services tab, check the box next to: "Personal File Sharing", itll take a moment saying 'Personal File Sharing Starting Up', and then when its finished revert to 'Personal File Sharing On'.
If you have the os firewall on, the settings for file sharing will already be enabled.
Just a note here. Personal file sharing only allows access to the mac if the computer you are connecting with is on the local intranet, so no worries really about long-distance oddities accesing your mac's hdd.
Now we just go ahead and create your son's personal account to prevent him from changing any settings he might accidently bump into. To do this, click the back button in system preferences to bring you back to the main page. Click on Accounts under 'System'.
Now we just want to make your son a limited user account, preventing him from accidently changing those settings. From here you can go ahead and even apply parental controls and more to his account!
Click on the little plus button below the button that reads 'Login Options', itll bring up a dialog asking for your son's user details. Go ahead and fill in the name and password, but make sure the checkbox reading:
'Allow user to administer this computer' is UNchecked.
Once the account is created, to save your son any confusion we might want to have the mac automatically log on to his account, not displaying yours as a login option where no doubt, he'll probably have a shot at guessing dad's password. ( hey! i would! ).
Go ahead and click that 'Login Options' button i mentioned earlier. On the right hand side you can set the user you want to automatically login to the machine. In this case its your son's limited account we just created. You'll need his password to enable this setting, so you better hope you didn't just forget it, as i'm prone to doing!
Once done, you'll have the option to set parental controls for your son's account at your discretion by clicking on his account name and clicking on the Parental Controls tab.
One last security measure - head on back to the system preferences main dialog by clicking the back arrow. Click on 'Security', under 'Personal'.
Make sure you've set a master password for the mac, and go ahead and check the box reading:
'Require password to unlock each secure system preference'
and:
'Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver' ( this is just incase you leave your account logged on his mac by accident. Yikes! After the screen saver engages the account will be locked ).
So a quick review of what we've achived!!!!
we've enabled file sharing so that the mac can be seen on a network.
we've created that limited account and set it to automatically log in.
we've locked down the settings of the mac from accidental changes.
we've set a master password and secured the mac completely.
Now... here's the more fun bit.
We want to set up the network so that the iMac can access the mac mini, but not vice versa. Luckily, Mac OS X makes this a breeze.
Go ahead and jump on the iMac, and open up a finder window. To the left you should be able to see an icon named 'Network', if you cant see any icons on the left, click the little bubble button on the top right hand corner of the finder window to bring up everything nicely.
Click on network and after a few seconds it should display the mac mini. Go ahead and click on that, you may have to click the Connect button.
A prompt will appear asking you to supply a username and password. Supply the username and password of the administrator account on the mac mini (your account). Itll ask you what volumes you want to mount.
You can go ahead and select 'Macintosh HD'.
This means complete access to the entire Mac Mini HD, your son's user files and.. everything! This also of course means that if your son connects his iPod to the mac mini, you'll be able to mount that using the network too.
To prevent your son doing the same to your iMac, make sure you have each account on it secured with a password, and open up system preferences, back to sharing, and make sure you disable file sharing.
Final setup?
1 mac mini with automatic limited account login and locked down system preferences.
1 iMac with full admin rights to mac mini, and the iMac is secured from access via the mac mini.
All done. Appreciate your post Dave, i've enjoyed learning the steps to carry this out and sincerly hope that nothing goes wrong for you. If it does, jump back on the forum and post about it!
Good luck mate!
ps. I forgot to proofread. be nice. lol!