What would Jason do?

You ask Mac questions. Jason answers…

Why Does iTunes Launch Automagically?

Question From Lizzy: I just got this computer from a friend of mine and every time I start up iTunes opens automatically. It always takes a min or two to load and never use the program anyway. Its a real hassle to shut it off every time. Is there a way to stop this from starting automatically?

Jason Answers: Hi Lizzy, there are a couple of ways to stop this. I’ll show you both.

1. Go to the Apple menu on the top right of your screen and click on System Preferences. Click on the Accounts preferences as shown in the screenshot.

The System Preferences Window

2. After you click on the Accounts preference, click on Login Items.

Accounts Preference Pane

3. You will be presented with a list of items that startup on login. You can select items and click on the “-” button to remove them. Some items are needed by applications, so if you don’t know what it is, then leave it alone. As you can see, I have a lot of items launching at login, but no applications like iTunes.

Lots of Login Items

This is a long way around approach.

You can also right-click (hold down the “control” key while you click if you don’t have a right-click mouse or trackpad) on the icon of the application that launches on startup in your Dock. You will be presented with a contextual menu that has an option to “Open at Login”. Click it if it is checked to turn it off.

The Dock Icon Contextual Menu

This way is much easier!

- Jason

posted by mark@macorama in About,Care and Maintenance and have Comment (1)

Admin roles: Who is in charge?

Question from Ed: Is there an Administrator hierarchy? Who can remove/bestow admin powers?

Jason answers: Leopard and Snow Leopard have four types of user accounts: Administrator, Standard, Managed, and Sharing Only. The only account that can remove or bestow admin powers is the Administrator account.

The Administrator account can create, delete, and modify any account, install software in the /Applications folder, and change system settings. Standard accounts cannot administer other accounts, they can install software in their own account folder and change settings related to their accounts (like their desktop picture). The Managed account can have parental controls set up by an Administrator account. Some of the restrictions that can be applied are inappropriate Internet content, the amount of computer use, and access to applications, email, or iChat. Finally, Sharing only account users have remote access for file sharing only.

If you were to put them in a hierarchy from most powerful to least powerful: Administrator, Standard, Managed, Sharing Only.

Jason

posted by jason@macorama in Mac Fundamentals and have No Comments