i found the answer in this forum thread. some applescript to switch to the login window. note that for this to work you need to enable fast user switching and disable automatic login. switching to the login window will suspend your session, keeping everything open and even pausing itunes if necessary. of course, i didn’t want to download Spark for hotkeys. i’m sure it’s a fine program, but it’s just something else for me to download and install and that’s not what i was looking for.

however, i recall reading somewhere that quicksilver, my very favorite keystroke app, could do applescript stuff, and it can do custom hotkeys. i already had quicksilver installed, so i went into quicksilver’s preferences, custom triggers, copied the code text and pasted it into a custom quicksilver trigger like so:

login window custom trigger (click image for large view)

so no matter where i am, all i do is press windows key + L and i get the login window, securely locking my screen. the windows key on my aspire one is really the option key in os x, and in windows i always use win + L to lock the screen, so that is why i chose this key combination. i’m sure this will work with a legit copy of os x on a mac, in case you were wondering.

Update: so, i updated to 10.5.6 and now the screen is successfully locked when the screensaver is activated, so that’s great, but now that i have the login screen thing working i think i’ll either disable the password on screensaver option or use them both depending on how i’m feeling =p