Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

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CHAPTER 4 SYSTEM PREFERENCES
NOTE You may have discovered from my previous notes that I’m generally skeptical of most
parental controls (especially the content filtering stuff). This is because I’ve never seen one that
worked well and couldn’t be worked around by a clever kid wanting to break the rules (of
course, maybe you actually want to train your kid to become a skilled hacker). That said, I think
there is something to setting time limits. Seriously, there are days when I wish my computer
would kick me out after a certain amount of time using it.
The Logs tab (Figure 4-51) provides an account of certain activities that a user is engaging
in on the computer. If you are concerned that a user is up to no good, then this will often let you
check. It’s a little Big Brother–esque, yet sometimes it’s the only way to know for sure. The Logs
tab reveals what web sites a user is visiting (including ones that are blocked) and what applications
are being used, and keeps track of iChat chats.
Figure 4-51. The Logs tab on the Parental Controls preference pane keeps track of a user’s activities.
Software Update
The Software Update preference pane (Figure 4-52) manages the Software Update features of
Leopard. This allows you to set the frequency that updates are checked for automatically, and
also provides a Check Now button to manually check for new updates.