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Setting Up Mac OS X for a Teenage Coffeehouse?

Posted by simoniker on from the not-teenage-cathouse dept.

WCityMike writes "I plan to donate a grape iMac to a local church-run non-profit coffeehouse for teenagers, and would like to give it to them appropriately set up for the atmosphere it'll be in. I'm seeking advice on a number of fronts - what freeware or shareware applications would be good for such an environment? Should visitors be allowed to have their own accounts (presumably created by the administrator), or should I just set up one 'student' account and one 'administrator' account? If the latter, is there a way to prevent students from saving things on the hard drive (thus forcing them to use a diskette and/or the CD drive?), and/or a 'Simple Finder' interface extant for OS X? Is there existing software that makes this easier or more configurable, or is it all inside the OS? I'm fairly familiar with Mac OS X, but have never needed to run anything outside a single-user environment."

4 of 348 comments (clear)

  1. Teens drinking coffee? by genericacct · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    I know what Starbucks' answer would be, but do we really need younger coffee drinkers already? Guess it's better than smoking. Not much cheaper though.

    I'd hazard a guess this isn't an LDS (Mormon) cafe.

  2. Re:A great act of kindness! by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I'd also suggest setting up Airport Express and stream audio to whatever stereo system you may have.

  3. live cd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I haven't done this with a mac, but what about using a Linux Live CD distrobution (ex. Knoppix, Feather, etc.)? We have a coffee shop in town that has a donated computer running Knoppix and it has been great. There is no hard drive, so nobody is saving wierd files, viruses, cookies, etc. To clean up any "damage" the owners just reboot the computer.

    Does anyone have any knowledge of Live CD distros for a Mac?

  4. Re:A great act of kindness! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    As long as you promise never to EVER share, impose, explain, or stand up for ANYTHING you believe in ever again.

    In fact, if you never spoke, wrote, or communicated a single word in your misbegotten, miserable, pathetic existence ever again, we'd be even.