change short name

hi everyone, well my transition to mac has gone quite well and I have to say I am pleased with it. It's much more reliable than my old PC! I do have another question, however.

Basically, I want to change my short name (the name next to the house icon in the finder thing) as when I first set up my laptop I didn't have a **** clue what it was asking and I put my email address in there for some reason. What an idiot I am. My long name is my full name however my short name is my email address and I would rather they match.

I checked out google and the articles say things like log in to root but I am scared that I will bugger up my nice mac so I was wondering if there is a simple way to do it? Or maybe a safe, reliable program that could do it for me?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

- Chris

With Leopard and Snow Leopard, Apple has now provided a safe way to change the short name that doesn't involve terminal voodoo or logging in as root, etc.

Here's what to do:

1. Before doing anything on this level, I *strongly* advise a complete backup be in place.
2. Create a new, admin-level account. You'll delete it later, this is just for safety purposes.
3. Log into that account, go to system preferences, choose Accounts.
4. Click on the padlock in the lower left corner of this window. Put in your admin password to unlock it.
5. Now right-click (or control-click) on the account you wish to change and select "Advanced Options."
6. Here's where you can change the short name. Don't change anything else!
7. Click OK and exit system preferences.
8. Log out of your "test" admin account, and the new name should be present in the login window. If it isn't, reboot the machine. If it is, go ahead and log into that account.

Be sure to go back into System Preferences and delete the "test" admin account at some point.

Just in case you didn't catch this wise advice from chas_m, I'll post it again underlined and in bold.
Before doing anything on this level, I *strongly* advise a complete backup be in place.

thanks for the replies, guys. I will give it a go.

- Chris

Yeah, I made that mistake when I bought my first Mac. However that was on Tiger. And that required having a lot of fun with Terminal!