how to start a program at login

     Hi. Trying to set up a way to start a program automatically when I log in. Have other users on the system that don't need it, so I'm not sure 'init.d' or System->Preferences->Startup Applications is what I want. Used to put the program name into something like .bash_profile, but now that seems to be run every time I open a terminal (I work in terminals a lot). If necessary, I am thinking of writing a script (Bash) that will check for a text list of such routines in $USER home directory ($HOME) in a file called .startup_stuff, and execute each line as it reads it, but putting that into level 5 of an init script doesn't look like it will wait for the user to log in. Any ideas on how to manage this?