Kiosk mode?

[709]

Here's the skinny. I've got an iMac I want to set up in the Brewery for patrons to check their email, surf the web, Google for 'who's right' before a bar brawl starts out...that sort of thing.

I've got all the wireless voodoo set up properly, now I just need to figure out how to make the Mac 'dumb'. Just a couple of browser aliases on the desktop and that's it. Maybe some rotating screen savers of our labels. Nothing else the user could get into and futz with. A kiosk, for lack of a better term.

I seem to remember back in the OS9 days there was a way to set the Finder to 'dumb' mode. That is, locking the user out of pretty much everything but the basics. Is there something similar yet more customized in OSX?

Can this be accomplished by simply setting up a new user? (Don't know, as I have just me me me on all my machines).

Any advice would be appreciated. TIA :)

[murbot]

You can set up a new user, and set it to Simple Finder. You can also limit what applications they can run.

They get a dock with nothing in it except a Documents and Shared folder, and a My Applications folder. That has only aliases to programs that you allow the user access to. There are no Preferences available for the to muck in, no HD icon on the desktop, nadda.

There might be some extreme hacker way around this, but probably not going to be a problem for what you're doing.

You can just log out, then log in as an admin if you have to change/fix anything.

[709]

Sweet. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks Murbot. :)

[murbot]

I'll take a 6 of your finest in return. Thanks.

:lol:

BTW, I just did this for my 3 year old for her Caillou gaming sessions, after she managed to dump my iTunes library. heh

Thank goodness for backups!

[billybobsky]

I'll take a 6 of your finest in return. Thanks.

:lol:

BTW, I just did this for my 3 year old for her Caillou gaming sessions, after she managed to dump my iTunes library. heh

Thank goodness for backups!


a wee murbotess hacker in training... pbs gets them while there young...

[Banana]

*blast from past*

Ok- I want basically same thing- but there's just one thing that annoys me:

In simple finder mode, the dock won't have any applications and I don't want to tell people where to find the application or adore it with a ugly sign.

If someone can tell me how to either have the application folder open at startup or have the application persistently stay in the dock, I'd be so grateful.

Note: this is for OS X 10.2.8. So... another blast from the past, please. :)