Mute Sound by Default on Macbook Aluminum

Before this latest Snow Leopard upgrade, whenever I started my macbook \all sounds would be muted unless I moved the volume slider up (fyi, before I shut down I did not have the volume button on mute). Where can I find this setting at now or at the very least put it back the way it was. So in other words, right now my volume is turned all the way up, but when I shut it down and restart it, after everything loads up it will be on mute again and that's the way I would like it. Can anyone help. Thanks