Automatically Lock and Unlock Your Mac Using

Portable Devices
Locking your Mac while you are away in order to prevent unauthori
zed access and keep prying eyes away from personal data is essential
to most users, regardless of the data and information stored on their c
omputer.
Mac OS X ofers several uilt!in ways to lock up your Mac, some of wh
ich include logging out, the "Login #indow$ option from the "fast user
switching menu$ and the "Lock screen$ one from the "keychain statu
s$ menulet.
On top of that, you can also use a password!protected screensaver an
d the %&'L(S)*+&(,-,%& or .O#,' key como to put your display
to sleep and lock your Mac. *t is worth mentioning that, for these two l
ast screen lock procedures to work, you need to enale the "'e/uire p
assword immediately after sleep or screen saver egins$ in the 0ener
al ta of the Security 1 .rivacy preference pane.
2ll of the aove!mentioned locking methods are trustworthy and relia
le, ut none of them are as cool and as practical as the ones provided
y &okenLock, a state of the art, highly customizale utility that make
s locking and unlocking your Mac a smoother and even more secure e
3perience.
&he installation process is pretty straightforward and it can e comple
ted in less than a minute. 4ou 5ust have to download the lightweight ar
chive and e3tract its content in your 2pplications folder or a location o
f your choice. &he low!key and unotrusive application is designed to r
un in the ackground and it is accessed via its status ar menu.
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+rom the clean and intuitive Settings window, you can /uickly and ef
ortlessly con6gure &okenLock, ased on your needs and enale or dis
ale diferent locking and unlocking methods. &okenLock is capale of
monitoring, tracking and using your 2pple *' 'emote, moile phone o
r any 7luetooth device for that matter, as well as 8S7 devices as locki
ng and unlocking eacons.
*f your device is eing disconnected or out of range, &okenLock autom
atically locks your Mac and, when you reconnect or ring the device
ack in range, &okenLock automatically unlocks your computer.
%onse/uently, you can use &okenLock to lock your Mac y putting its
display to sleep or y launching the screen saver, in which case, you n
eed to enale the login password in the Security 1 .rivacy prefpane. *
n addition, more demanding users are given the option to enale &oke
nLock to run various 2ppleScripts when the chosen device is connecte
d, disconnected, or in or out of range.
*f you choose to use &okenLock9s lock screen, you get the option to fad
e in and out the lock ackground, ad5ust its rightness and use your d
esktop image as wallpaper. 8nfortunately, &okenLock fails to use the d
esktop image as lock screen, ut allows you to drag and drop a pictur
e in the Lock ta and change the default image.
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&he great thing aout &okenLock is that you can use one or more locki
ng and unlocking options at the same time. )ence, you can lock your
Mac using an 8S7 device and con6gure &okenLock to check its serial
numer, if present. 7ecause 8S7 pen drives get lost all the time, &oke
nLock also allows you to use a ackup 8S7 device that you can emplo
y if the primary one is lost.
#hat is more, &okenLock ofers a user!de6nale "grace period$ that h
elps you change 8S7 ports, without locking your Mac in the process.
+or e3tra security, &okenLock is capale to actively check for the 8S7
device on launch or to wake and lock your Mac if the pen drive is not
present.
Locking and unlocking the Mac using a 7luetooth device is the metho
d that we liked and en5oyed the most, not only ecause of the advance
d control over the 7luetooth connectivity, ut also on account of its pr
acticality. 4ou can use any 7luetooth device that can e paired with yo
ur Mac and provide diferent check time interval values ased on the
power source utilized.
Moreover, you can ad5ust the 7luetooth timeout value and "tell$ &oken
Lock after how many reconnection attempts to lock your Mac. &okenL
ock allows you to enale or disale the 7luetooth warning messages a
nd also ofers you the option to lock your Mac ased on your chosen d
evice9s 7luetooth signal strength.
*n other words, &okenLock is capale of constantly monitoring the dev
ice signal strength and lock your Mac when the signal is under a user!
de6nale level. 2t the same time, &okenLock automatically unlocks yo
ur Mac when the device is near your computer and its signal strength
goes over your custom pre!de6ned signal level.
8sing the 2pple *' 'emote as a locking : unlocking device is another
uni/ue way to take control over your computer. 2s e3pected, you have
the option to choose the lock and unlock uttons after pairing the rem
ote with your Mac via the 2dvanced slide sheet from the Security 1 .r
ivacy preferences panel.
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*t goes without saying that some users do not need the aove presente
d locking and unlocking features at all times. +or e3ample, when you a
re at home or visiting a friend, locking your Mac every time you leave
the room might not e such a great idea, especially if you watch a mov
ie. Luckily, &okenLock allows you to disale all locking features when t
he computer is connected to speci6c #i+i networks.
2s previously mentioned, &okenLock also has the aility to run 2ppleS
cripts when locking or unlocking the computer. &his feature opens a i
g window of opportunity for users that need to start or stop applicatio
ns, play or pause i&unes and perform a wide variety of tasks automati
cally, when locking or unlocking their Macs.
+urthermore, &okenLock is easy to personalize and customize accordi
ng to your needs and preferences. 4ou can efortlessly enale and disa
le noti6cations for a wide variety of actions and change &okenLock9s
ehavior with ease. &hus, you can completely hide &okenLock9s status
ar icon and enale the re!lock feature to increase the security of your
computer.
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&hanks to the re!lock function, your Mac automatically locks after ent
ering the password if the 8S7 or 7luetooth device is not connected or
in range. *t is worth mentioning that if you choose to lock your Mac us
ing the system screen saver, &okenLock is not ale to stop the screen
saver once the 8S7 is plugged or the 7luetooth device reconnected. 2
lthough this disadvantage is clearly mentioned within the application,
it would e nice if &okenLock had the aility to automatically unlock y
our Mac from this state.
&hroughout our testing period, &okenLock performed e3emplarily and
promptly locked and unlocked our Mac 5ust like advertised. &he long li
st of customization options, along with the large list of features and su
pported devices, make &okenLock a must have for every Mac user wh
o needs to automatically and efortlessly lock and unlock his computer.
&he 0ood
&o sum it all up, &okenLock is a powerful and very ;e3ile Mac OS X u
tility that enales you to remotely lock and optionally unlock your Mac
using your moile phone, a 8S7 pen drive, an 2pple 'emote or a glo
al hotkey.
*n addition, &okenLock is also capale of running various 2ppleScripts
that can e used to launch applications or to perform a wide array of a
utomated tasks
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