Hi Scotty,

Thanks for speaking to our CMS music educators last week.  I learned a lot from hearing you speak.

I have a question for you.  I took my computer in today to have a hardware problem fixed, and it will be gone for a while.  Friend has graciously agreed to let me use his computer.  He has an iPad and can function on that at school.  I set up a new user titled “user” on his computer.  I was able to get all of my settings, calendar, contacts, etc. on that user, but I'm not able to access his applications and the other files of mine that I have stored on his user account.  His user account cannot access mine either to let me drag things I need over.  How do I set the users to be able to access the information on the other user's side of the computer?  If I can't do this it's pointless for me have a separate user with my settings.  I would really like to have the best of both worlds while I'm stuck on his computer.

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Ok, so applications in the applications folder are common files between all users and should be accessable no matter what user you’re logged in as. If you don’t see a particular application in the applications folder from your user then that means that it is not currently living in the correct place. For instance, if one user drags firefox into their documents folder instead of the applications folder then the other user can’t see it or use it.

Mac OS X has a shared folder in the user’s folder area. This is a common area where users can drop important files that they’d like other users to be able to see and work with. Beware however, sometimes the permissions of a file do not set correctly when you move a file into the shared folder. This means that you may see the word document in the shared folder (dropped in by another user) but you may not be able to open it due to the permissions being wrong. To correct this problem, should it occur, select the file, choose “Get Info” from the menu bar under file I believe, then add yourself as a user by clicking the Plus button in the bottom left hand corner where you see “permissions”. You most likely won’t have to do this but it’s good to know if you do.

Now, if by applications, you mean iPad/iPod apps then this is a bit easier. Simply turn on home sharing in his itunes on his side then log into your user (while his user is still on)...{fast user switching must be turned on in system prefs to be able to log into multiple accounts}...then turn on home sharing in your itunes. His library should now appear in your itunes left hand column and you can pull apps of his into your own apps folder inside iTunes.

Hope that helps.