Separate contact lists for separate accounts?

DMCrimson · Post by **DMCrimson** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:16 pm

Is this possible at all? I'm sharing this comp with my wife, and we both use messenger for various purposes. MSN for mac isn't usable at all, and Mercury, being Java, is just too heavy and prone to hogging memory. Today, I installed latest version of Adium, and set up both accounts... and to my surprise our contacts were all mixed up when both were signed in. I wonder if there will be possibility of several separate contact lists someday...

Post by **evands** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:18 pm

You should set up a user account in Mac OS X for yourself and one for your wife; this separates out all applications' data, such as Safari's web history and favorites, too. Be sure to turn on Fast User Switching so you don't have to have one person's programs all close for the other person to log in.

DMCrimson · Post by **DMCrimson** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:22 pm

hehe, that's just the whole point... she doesn't want to learn those things... I once tried setting us both accounts, and it failed:D She was constantly using my account:P

Post by **The_Tick** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:35 pm

DMCrimson wrote:hehe, that's just the whole point... she doesn't want to learn those things... I once tried setting us both accounts, and it failed:D She was constantly using my account:P

Log out!

DMCrimson · Post by **DMCrimson** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:51 pm

beuh, wrong option:P

Post by **bgannin** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:19 am

Or you could unique names for each group and use the tear off groups from the SoC project in 1.2 when it is released to keep them separate.

Post by **evands** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:50 pm

DMCrimson wrote:hehe, that's just the whole point... she doesn't want to learn those things... I once tried setting us both accounts, and it failed:D She was constantly using my account:P

Pretty easy to enforce this, actually. Here's how I set it up for my parents, who share an MBP:
* One account for each person
* Fast User Switching enabled
* Set the screensaver on each account to turn on after 5 minutes of inactivity and to require a password to get out of the screensaver

When the screensaver activates and then someone tries to use the computer, a password prompt is shown. The current logged-in person's name is shown. If that's not your name, click the big Switch Users button. You're then given a chance to click your name. Easy and self-enforcing.