[help] locking down tiger for my 3 y.o. nephew

i don't think 3 y.o.'s should be on the puter yet, but his parents and the fine folks at noggin disagree...

so, i set him up with his own logon, which he can do. it's a managed account using simple finder. the only rights he has is to safari and the only page i've allowed is noggin.com. that all works, but...

right now his desktop looks like this: nothing on the desktop except the dock. on the dock is a disabled finder icon, a disabled trash bin, and 3 folders: apps, docs and shared docs. (i'm not there right now so no screenie, sorry). he has to click the apps folder to get to safari and then click on safari.

what i want is either 1) no dock, and just the safari icon or a noggin shortcut on the desktop or 2) nothing on the dock except the safari icon or a a noggin shortcut. so far, i've gone back and forth giving him rights, adding shortcuts, taking away rights, being disappointed, etc...

i don't think it's possible without maybe knowing *nix or maybe a 3rd party app or maybe even automator. anyways, can anyone here advise?

thx!

#347118

well you could hide the dock and place a link and/or icon of safari on the desktop

#347143

Go to the activity monitor and quit everything that says dock and put a shortcut to Safari on the desktop.

#347146

hide the dock, yes. but, in simple finder mode, there's no way to create shortcuts. (as mentioned, i created the shortcut as admin the relogged in with reduced rights and the alias doesn't show up). thx, though.

#347147

couldn't you set up the startup folder - so that when he logs in, it automatically loads up safari with noggin.com?

#347225

couldn't you set up the startup folder - so that when he logs in, it automatically loads up safari with noggin.com?

i thought about that. but, from his account, i can't get to sysprefs. and from the admin account, i don't see the 'login options' tab. is there another way? is there actually a 'startup' folder?

#347277

yeah sorry I meant through system prefs - to load safari and have it pre-booked to have its home page as noggin.com. Couldn't you de-restrict his account - set it up and re-restrict it? I'm not on a mac here so I can't test this silly ideas before I type....

#347331

thx again. yeah, as i mentioned in my first and second posts, i've tried that. but, i did find a way to do what i want, and it's so simple! on the locked down account, log in. then open safari. then - and here's the so-simple-it's-elusive part - right-click on safari on the dock. one of the options is 'start at login' (or some similar wording). ta da!

now, to phase II: i wanna remove the dock, period. i suppose even hiding it would be good enough, but i can't figure out how. (yes, i tried un-restricting, hiding and re-restricting. simple finder mode wants that freakin' dock there.)

any ideas?

#347374

http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/extras.html

Could you run that at startup? The DockDisabler one, that is...

I'd be surprised if you had permissions, but it's worth a try.

-NC

#347466

ah, cool. i'll try it out. thx nc!

#347471

Maybe you can find it useful?

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?sto...060102193149138

#348257