The Basics

Whenever I get a new machine (which is not that frequent, even if the beginning of the sentence might lead you to think otherwise), the first thing I want to make sure is whether it's secure. I don't want people logging into my machine or being able to look at what I've been doing if I step out for a minute. So, here's some basics ....

1. Locking your screen - With Panther, you have Expose. So, you can set hot corners on your screen so that if you move your mouse to any one corner and keep it there for a few seconds, the screen saver comes on. Now, if you have your screen saver password protected, you get the result of locking your screen by just moving your mouse pointer to a corner.

2. Automatic Logins - I found this a bit strange. Max OS X has automatic logins turned on. Although you have to enter your password for a sudo or changing any system preferences, it still means that anyone can just turn off your computer and then login as you automatically. And then, people have passwords stored in their browsers, email clients, etc ... and you can guess the rest. Disable automatic logins using the Security option from System Preferences.

3. Right clicking the mouse - Not so soon. That's in my next post.