Lock computer?

[ora]

No problem,

On the startup sound thing, it never bothers me because i never turn my laptop off . I just shut it to sleep so I don't get that sound.

[Sunnz]

Oh well, I was actually setting up my Mac when I just got it!! So as you can imagine what it would feel like to have headphones plugged in yet still hears that sound from the speaker; then these people all around the library give you that quick friendly stare!!

So umm... you always sleep your laptop?? Why not shut down? Is it normal for Mac users to use sleep instead of shutdown?

[ora]

Yep, macs don't need to be shutdown very often at all. I only shutdown for planes, and only restart after big updates or the very very occasional crash i've had. I guess i must have an average uptime of about 2-3 months on my laptop, which is more than 3 years old. With apple laptops, one of the joys is when you need to leave, you just shut the lid, chuck it in your bag and go, and it amazes non mac users when you arrive for a meeting, open your laptop and are typing literally 2 seconds later (i get impatient waiting the other 4 seconds for my wireless to find the local network).

Enjoy!

[lurk]

I only sleep it for planes and have never gotten any flack from the powers that be.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Just as an alternative to using the screensaver for "locking" the computer: you can also enable "Fast User Switching" then use that to simply return to the login window... you could possibly even assign a hotkey to it natively, or with some 3rd-party keystroke software.

That's how I "lock" my computer without logging out.

[Sunnz]

Ora, Lurk, but the ram is still running and consuming power, right? If say I shut the lid to sleep, would it cause any problem to walk at a fast pace or even running? Also, if I shut the lid to sleep, it would turn off the hard disk as well, right? Call me paranoid... I only want to make sure...

Ei, I used to do that on Windows!! I like to see those nice screensaver in OSX though.

[Bluefish]

I can recommend the program SizzlingKeys. It lets you assign a key (i use F16, Apple Keyboard) to the "Switch User"-function. So when I press F16, the box animation appears and switches to the login screen.

[fryke]

If you put your Macintosh notebook to sleep, everything except the RAM goes to sleep. Newer notebooks (some PowerBook G4 versions, all MacBooks) write the content of the RAM to the harddrive as well, in order to be able to resume even after the battery has completely lost its juice and the RAM has been powered down. So when you close your lid, your notebook might still write something to the harddrive - and I wouldn't throw it in the backpack for, say, another 30 seconds.

But, quite certainly, I never shutdown my MacBook. The sleep function works very well, and it means that I don't have to re-open all my applications and find the documents that I was working on. Lets me keep open my environment, which _greatly_ helps efficiency.