Available at $0.99 in the Mac App Store, Hands Off is a very simple, yet clever utility that will come in handy if you’ve always wanted an easy way to block access to your Mac when you’re not around – without having to turn the computer off or log out. How does that happen? Well, Hands Off can block the keyboard and the trackpad with a shortcut that can be activated at any time. Say you’re going away from your Mac for a few minutes and you don’t want your kids, or anyone, to press keyboard keys and create problems, Hands Off can help you by completely blocking keystrokes and trackpad recognition. When in “Locked” mode, the keyboard and trackpad won’t do anything.

For extra security or “keyboard cat” prevention, Hands Off is just great. You can use “readable hotkeys” (CMD instead of ⌘), change the global shortcut and even turn on Growl notifications. Combine this with Prowl, and you’ll get remote notifications if someone ever finds the right combination to unlock your Mac’s keyboard and mouse.

Hands Off works as advertised, although I noticed things can get pretty messy if a VNC client tries to remotely access your Mac when the computer is locked. I had to kill the app from the VNC client before actually being able to use my Mac, but it took a minute for the app to quit because it started beachballing in the dock. I guess an update is needed to fix this little inconvenience with VNC clients and local blocking. Anyway, Hands Off just works and it’s available at .99 cents.

Go get it.