Late 2012 Mac Mini (MD387LL/A) With Attached Devices

• Apple wireless keyboard & wireless “magic mouse”
• Dell 24 Ultrasharp U2412M 24" LED-backlit monitor
• LaCie DVD/CD writer (TSSTcorp CD/DVDD SH-W162L:)
• SD (camera) memory card reader – builtin
• external speakers, powered
• Wi-Fi and gigabit ethernet networking
• LOGITECH Webcam C270 – camera and mike for FaceTime or Skype
• 500GB internal disk

Disk Partitioning

Partition the 500GB disk into a “start-up” partition of 250GB for Karola and a 250GB partition called home

Initial Install

1. Install Mountain Lion (Mac OS X 10.8.4) from DVD after securely erasing the disk, writing zeros to the entire space

2. Run “software update” to update the Apple system software

3. Create account bickasoft with administrator privileges

4. Create account karola with standard user privileges

5. Disable the Guest account

Use the /Users/Shared folder to exchange files between the accounts, and use AirDrop for exchange between local machines.

Execute the following command on both systems to allow Airdrop over wired as well as wireless connections – and restart the Finder afterwards

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

Change the name of the “start-up” disk to root to have this appear in the sidebar as an alias for / (see setup for Dock)

The “start-up” disk (now called root) is to link to the file system on the home disk such that it mimics the top level structure of the web space at AceWebHosting, \our personal “cloud space” in the USA. The web space begins at /home/karamu and the web server “Document Root” is at /home/karamu/public_html.

The following commands create a structure which allows programs to use the same absolute addressing on either system. Also, the Finder sidebar can use home and www as labels for /Volumes/home and /Volumes/home/karamu/public_html:

sudo mkdir /Volumes/home/karamu
sudo mkdir /Volumes/home/karamu/www
sudo mkdir /Volumes/home/karamu/www/filestore
sudo ln -s /Volumes/home /home
sudo ln -s /Volumes/home/karamu/www /Volumes/home/karamu/public_html

(On AceWebHosting the folder is public_html whereas www is the symbolic link)

The filestore folder is my personal “TiVo” or place for temporary storage of media files where they can be accessed from anywhere I might be, by browser or FTP program

System Preferences

Most preferences are unique to an account so this covers only the settings which apply to all accounts on the system and differ from the defaults

• General
• Desktop & Screen Saver
• Dock
• Mission Control
• Language & Text
• Security & Privacy
• Spotlight
• Notifications
• CDs & DVDs
• Displays
• Energy Saver – set CPU & display to 3 hours

• Keyboard
• Mouse (if Magic Mouse)
• Trackpad (if one is attached)
• Print & Scan
  • set up to use printers CottageA4 & CottageA3, an HP Photosmart 3310 All-In-One and Canon PIXMA IX5000 respectively. In addition a program, Printopia, provides access to these printers by simulating an “AirPrint” printer. This is active only when the bickasoft account is logged-in
• Sound
• iCloud
• Mail, Contacts & Calendars
• Networks
  • set the IP address for the wired ethernet connection to 192.168.1.101 using DHCP with manual address
• Bluetooth
• Sharing
  • share the cottageA3 printer
• Users & Groups
  • set the karola account to login automatically, the bickasoft account to require a password at start up, after awaking from sleep or showing the screen saver.
• Parental Controls
• Date & Time
• Software Update
  • sign in as bickasoft@brackenbury.nz for all purchases
• Dictation & Speech
• Time Machine (set up later)
• Accessibility
• Startup Disk