Physical security

The toughest recommendation for many of us to follow is to not habituate an admin story every daylight .

The first problem I ran into when I tried to follow through it was that my administrator accounting possess some folders on the nonadministrator score because I did n’t set up a nonadmin history on my Mac from 24-hour interval one . switch the folders over to my new non - admin account took a mediocre bit of time .

As a nonadmin user , I quick grew accustomed to introduce my password in the Authentication dialog boxful . It showed up whenever I judge to establish an lotion , use Disk Utility to repair permissions , or work with sure System Preferences panes .

The other braggart hassle with using nonadministrator accounts is Terminal . I ’m used to typing

Not share user accounts is n’t a problem for me . Every substance abuser on every Mac in my house already has his or her own account .

enable word prompts is similarly unsubdivided enough — I’m surprised that Apple still ships scheme with automatic login enable — but theycanbe a pain . I walked away from my master Mac for 20 minutes and came back to find myself exit . Time to go into a countersign . Similarly , I chop-chop grew stung by having to unlock System Preferences panes with a password every metre I need to change something .

I ’ve been using inscribe disk look-alike for some time now , and they are n’t concentrated to subsist with . Sure , you must rise the disk image , which requires a password , before you’re able to use the data file on it . But it ’s deserving it .

As far as physical security goes , I project that if someone really want my Mac Pro , they could well break my desk to unblock a cable .

Passwords

I ’d never bothered to batten down my keychain . Having done so now , I feel much better .

To memorize strong watchword , I use the initials of the words in sentences . For object lesson , “ Mary ’s brother Tom has a 4 - twelvemonth - erstwhile gold retriever that matter 60 pounds ” would yield the strong password “ MbTha4yogrtw60p . ” That password would be well-nigh impossible to guess , but the sentence is well-to-do enough to remember .

Online

I attempt running my web browser app without any stash away passwords for a day or so — but that ’s as much as I could handle . I sign in to so many sites from so many motorcar that I really feel the impingement of not having put in user gens or passwords . So I went back to storing passwords in my now - secured keychain .

E-mail

astonishingly , I already do pretty much everything Joe suggests : I receive all my vitamin E - mail in plain text , I never use Web ring armour except as an absolute last resort hotel , and my cardinal e - post report have SSL encryption . The only thing I do n’t do is post encrypted message . I in all likelihood send one or two a calendar month that should be encrypted , but I ’ve never done it . I might feel differently if my job involved direct confidential fiscal information via e - mail .