Q: I have set up an Internet account with Portal and use [email protected] as my address. Should I change the name of my home directory from "me" to something more representative? The manual gives me the impression that the "me" account should not be altered.
Robert M. Williams
A: Other than changing its password, it is best to leave the "me" account alone. If you want your e-mail sent out to be from "Robert" instead of from "me," you should create a new account for your own use. You'll definately want to do this if you want to give anyone else an account on your machine, so that people on the outside world can send mail to either one of you. The entire process for creating a new account is described on pages 17Ð20 of the Network and System Administration book that came with your NeXT computer. The process is as follows:
1. Launch the UserManager program that is in the Next Admin directory.
2. Type in the root password
3. Provide the new user's full name, the user's username (one word, all lowercase, eight characters or less), and a password. Make the password difficult to guess.
4. The computer will ask you twice if you are sure. Click "Yes" each time. Then log out and log back in to your new account.
By the way, don't attempt this if you are not the system administrator for your machine or network: There are many complexities to system administration that can bite you if you're not careful.
Dan Lavin is a senior editor at NeXTWORLD.