Filed under: Mac 101
Start iChat (or Adium) without logging into services
Have you ever wanted to open iChat or Adium to check a chat log, account setting, or other information, but didn't want to connect to your instant messaging services? Rob Griffiths at Macworld offers a great tip on how you can easily do this, and it won't annoy your online buddies with incessant signing on/off. Before clicking on iChat or Adium, hold down the shift key and continue holding it until the application launches. When the app opens, none of your accounts will be logged in. You can then manually login to individual accounts as necessary. Try it and see!
If you use your Mac as a public computer (or family computer), then you might not always want it to load your user account when the computer starts up. By changing one option in the Accounts System Preference pane, you can have your Mac display a list of user accounts upon startup. 
A lot of folks write in complaining about the login system for commenting here on TUAW. While we completely sympathize (all the TUAW contributors have to login the same way to leave comments) in this day and age of comment spam it's an unfortunate necessity. That said, computers are supposed to make things easier, right? Well in a 
If the design of Apple's Mac OS X login screen just isn't floatin' yer boat, 
So the other night, while covering Sundance Film Festival for 
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
