Apple does not have a fix for the problem yet, but you can be sure that they will be all over it and issue a solution fast. In the mean time there are a few things that you can do to safeguard yourself, which we will get to a little later. With the new Lion OS you have to type in a password each time you wish to make any changes to your system, so seems funny that Lion has a loophole to allow someone to see these passwords.

Once in a hacker can lock you out of your system by changing these passwords. This is made easy, as the new Mac OS will not ask for authentication. Crave explains that there is a command that can be typed in Terminal that will allow you to make these password changes. That is not the only issue though, as there is a way to also find other passwords as well.

You can understand why users would be worried, but there is not really a need to – well only if you are the only one who uses your Mac that is. This is not exactly the biggest issue, but it is still one that Apple will want to resolve. However, if your Mac is being shared or is a public computer, then your are in a spot of trouble.

Thankfully three are three things that you can do to safeguard your Mac running on Lion, the first is to switch-off auto log-in, enable passwords when your computer wakes up and finally turn off guest accounts. Please add your comments below if you have experienced any issues with mac OS X Lion.

Even with this done, boot up times for Microsoft Windows has always been slow and in most cases slower than Apple Mac’s. A few years ago we installed our first SSD (Solid State Drive) in a Windows computer, and following this we discovered how much faster an OS can boot up using SSD. It was a drastic improvement but also at a much higher price for the drive.

This was followed some years later with our first Mac purchase, the iMac with a normal drive and this booted up really fast in comparison to a Windows machine, which was obviously due to the way the Apple OS boots. With this in mind, we jumped ship and also bought a MacBook Air a little later with SDD. To say it was the fastest boot up yet would be an understatement.

Now we’re in 2011: SSD’s are much cheaper, we have Mac OS X Lion, and Windows 8 has a expected release date of some time in 2012. The battle between Windows and OS X boot up times has stepped up a gear, with Microsoft finally looking to catching up.

You can see a video below this article that shows an official demo of the Windows 8 boot up time, you have to see it to believe it. Just how is this achieved? You’ll want to read this article to find out more.

Could a much faster Windows boot up time make you want to jump from Mac to Windows?

Last week we heard about an external display bug with Launchpad on machines running Mac OS X Lion, and after testing the software since release, we have found one problem that sticks out above the rest. One of the best improvements I found when moving to Mac computers was how solid they are, and the lack of crashing / freezing was bliss. Sadly since we installed OS X Lion there have been a number of lock ups at random times.

Having had OS X Lion freeze on us over 10 times, we slowly found a pattern. Occasionally when viewing YouTube videos everything would freeze, and only the mouse pointer could be moved. When this happens there is no way to close programs, or do much other than move the mouse pointer, which means a force shut down and this just hurts, especially on the Mac operating system.

Other emails sent to Product Reviews point to flash causing the crashing, and we know Steve Jobs opinion on this. While we’ve not confirmed Flash is causing Lion to crash and freeze, it does add up. The other pattern we noticed was the crashing happens mostly when the computer returned from sleep mode, videos would play just fine other times but seemed to freeze Lion not long after returning from sleep. The idea of doing a hard reset with the power button is not a good option, but luckily Lion does include an auto save feature, which means every time we’ve had to do this all our work was saved, and the windows open just as we left them.

Has your OS X Lion install crashed when watching videos or using Flash? If so, make sure you inform Apple support so they can work on a fix. We’ll update you when a patch/fix is available to download.

Released by danholt4mac the application offers users the chance to track their weight and have automatic BMI calculation. Users can track their weight using the practical and easy to use balance panel, and have a variety of large food databases at their disposal. There is a built-in food editor for users to create their own foods, which can be added via a simple click when needed.

Calories 2 is currently being offered at a big discounted rate until July 24th for only $5.99 instead of $29.99. Users can enter everything they eat during the day into the quick to use data entry screen. The application is fast to use with meal categories such as breakfast, diner, snacks, and more. Users can create personal categories which fit into their habits.

The practical balance panel makes tracking your weight quick and easy, and can be done twice a day if required. It can also be extended to store lots of data including body fat, water, muscle, and bone mass. The calendar function allows users to go back and look at any point in the past.

Users create a profile to set their desired weight goal, with limits set for daily caloric intake, carbohydrates, sugars, and fats. They can check against common guidelines for the use of many nutrients, and to keep a check on getting the right amount of vitamins.

A feature of the app is the brand new wiThings body scale, which sends weight scales and other body information for each weighing wirelessly to a wiThings account. The application offers users a direct link to the wiThings information, which includes all the recorded values of the user’s wiThings balance that will be automatically added into Calories 2. All of the user’s weight data will always be up to date and available in the Calories 2 application.

The app will show users a graphical representation of their calorie consumption, which includes those burned as well as calculation and representation of the net balance. Calories 2 is available on the Mac App Store for the discounted price of $5.99 until July 24th. Price will then increase to $29.99.

We were aware of previous external display niggles with Lion during the developer preview of the new software, but we expected Apple to iron out the issues before the full version went live on the Mac App Store just hours ago.

Unfortunately, it appears as if problems are still present, as you can see in the video we have discovered here, as evidence. Watch as the user connects the laptop to an external display running Lion, and as soon as the new LaunchPad interface is selected, the user is met with one big distorted mess as they try and navigate through the selection of programs.

Obviously, we’re not sure if this problem is specifically tied down to the external display, Launchpad or a combination of both. We’ve done some digging and found this related article back in June which does suggest that Apple are having issues with external displays and Lion. However, that particular issue is related to using Lion in full-screen App mode, while the incident seen in the video below happens as soon as an external display is connected, which obviously isn’t good.

Further research from Twitter users has revealed that quite a few of you are also having external display related problems with Lion. Check out a few complaints below as an example:

Knusi said ”Just found out that the FullSceen mode in #Lion is a mess if you want to use it in combination with an external display.”

Ryanmoulton said ”Full screen in Lion is useless. Blocks out the external display to save 20 pixels on the other.”

Deekstar said ”It’s gonna take me a while to get used to the scrolling on #lion – it’s messed up the resolution on my external display too!”

As you can see, this problem is becoming a hassle for new owners of Lion, and it’s not the kind of headlines that Apple will want to see after just getting their latest software out of the door. On a side note, it’s interesting to see that users are having difficulty getting used to the default inverted scrolling on Lion as well, as we only just mentioned this in an earlier article here.

We’re not sure how widespread this problem is at the moment, but it’s clear it is not an isolated issue. If you have been having any resolution or external display problems with Mac OS X Lion, get in touch with us below.

So what are these features we here you ask? We have not had a chance to try all the new features, but one of the main issues is with the Touchpad. Earlier this morning we discussed how to could turn off Inverted Scrolling, but you will see a few other features in there. At first when we tried them all, we assumed that there was an issue with the install but these features do not work on my MacBook Air or iMac.

The first feature that we are unable to see working correctly is Look up, now this works fine in Safari, but will not work when you are using Firefox. Three zoom in or out is another that will not work for us; again we tried this in Safari and it worked fine but not with Mozilla’s OS.

With Three finger drag you are meant to be able to place three fingers on your Trackpad and then drag a program around on your desktop to place it where you want; this feature will not work at all. Also with rotate, you should be able to rotate an image slowly by placing two fingers on the Trackpad and moving them in a circular motion; instead it just moves round at 90 degrees at a time.

These are currently the only features that we have not seen in action, and it is a shame, as these will be ones that most of us will use on a daily basis. It is not all bad though, as Apple has included a number of new multitouch gestures within Mac OS X Lion, and we have to say that we are very impressed so far.

We are not the only ones having an issue with this, as you can see on Apple Discussions that a few other Lion users are experiencing the same issues. There are some gestures that are set to a different amount of fingers to what is shown on the video when you hover over each gesture, but they do not apply to those missing above.

Update: Something strange is happening, as one or two features have now decided to work.

Yeah that’s right, Lion features inverted scrolling out of the box, and acts the same as if you were using Safari on both the iPad and iPhone. While many of you have become used to using inverted scrolling, it just won’t gel for the rest, but you’ll be pleased to know that there is a simple fix around the problem.

If inverted scrolling on Lion is giving you a headache, simply head over to your preferences.app menu. From there, select the Trackpad heading and then once you’re there go to the Scroll & Zoom tab and untick the selection that says ”Scroll with finger direction”. Once you’ve done this you’ll find that you can actually scroll the direction you want rather than have Lion do the opposite, problem solved.

This isn’t really a huge issue we feel and we can understand why Apple set it as default. They are obviously trying to integrate the features of iOS 5 and Lion as much as they can, and since it’s also default on the iPad and iPhone they were always going to do the same on Lion. However, we expect most of you will disable inverted scrolling, as many of you will want to use Lion for computing purposes, and inverted scrolling just doesn’t offer the experience that most of you are after. On a mobile device, it’s irrelevant since many just use Safari for casual browsing, but many consumers will use Lion for professional purposes so on this basis – inverted scrolling just isn’t needed.

As far as we can see, inverted scrolling seems to be the only gripe with Lion so far, as we’re loving our experiences with the new features and OS as a whole at the moment. It really is a fantastic package for the low cost upgrade price that Apple are asking for, so if you do own a Mac device, we definitely recommend upgrading as soon as you can.

If you are having any problems installing Lion on multiple computers, you may find our previous article related to this issue handy. In the meantime, give us your impressions of the new OS so far – are you enjoying the Lion experience or not?

The steps are pretty simple; if you have a qualifying computer then you need to add a few details in here. You will see a series of dropdown boxes, these are as follows: qualifying system type, date of purchase, serial number, which can be found by pressing the Apple button at the top left of the desktop and then clicking “About this Mac” and then “More info.”

The next step is the place where you purchased your Mac and finally the City and State. Once you have done this you will then be asked to sign in with your Apple ID, then all you have to do is select purchase – do not worry, as the price will show up as free or zero. You will need to copy your content code and then proceed to the Mac App Store.

This was where things get a little complicated. You will be advised in the email to look for Redeem in the quick links on the right, but for some reason this did not show up for me. This then forced me to press install, which then asked me to sign in, which I did do. It was from that moment that the new OS starts to download, which meant that I had been charged.

Now the funny thing was, after this issue happened on my iMac I then did the same process on my MacBook Air, and noticed that the redeem link showed on the right. So was it just be not seeing it correctly or was it not there in the first place?

Knowing that my account had just been debited, the next step was to contact Apple support. After explaining what had happened it was about an hour or so later that they contacted me back. This is where Apple comes into their own, as previous experiences with their support center have been positive. Thankfully they told me that my card would be credited with the full amount.

We would like to know if you have had a redeem problem with updating to Mac OS X Lion, and if you were able to resolve it as quick as I did?

Going back to last week, that report should have signaled the alarm bells; whenever have you known Apple to release something in the UK first? We are still uncertain if Lion will appear today, because it is already July 20th and still nothing. However, we have seen in the past that we have to wait for the US to get up before downloads begin, which would mean that those of you in the UK will have to wait until early afternoon.

As the new version of Mac OS X will now be made available via download we cannot look back at previous version for clues, as to when we can expect it to go live. However, we can look at recent versions of iOS instead. The past two versions have seen download times of 8am PDT, 11am EDT and 4pm GMT. If Apple follows this pattern then we can expect downloads to begin in under six hours.

However, today could be a little different, due to the fact that the new MacBook Air and Mac Mini are also rumored to be released today. Currently the Apple Store is still up, so this could also be a false start for the new Mac’s. There are still many hours in the day, and we have to remember that most US consumers are still asleep, and will be for several hours yet.

Before you upgrade to Lion you will need to make sure that your Mac is compatible and that you take these five steps, just so you do not run into any issues down the line.

Update 1: We have just noticed that the Apple Store is now down, so maybe the MacBook Air and Mac Mini are coming today after all? However, there is still no sign of Mac OS X Lion on the Mac App Store.

Update 2: Apple officially confirmed that Max OS X Lion 10.7 will be released today during their recent quarterly earnings call. So it will come today, it’s just a matter of time.

Do you think that today is finally the day that Apple releases a handful of products today, if so this will no doubt help their profits soar even higher?

9 to 5 Mac explains that to begin the recovery process all you need to do is hold Command-R down while starting up. This will then take you to the new recovery mode, and from there you will then be able to restore your Mac to a date that appears on a Time Machine backup. That is not all, you can also access Disk Utility and perform a series of tasks that you would normally find when fully booted.

However, the best feature is how Mac OS X Lion users are able to reinstall the new operating system over the Internet. Both these are welcome features, but you have to wonder why this has not been made available before now? Maybe the reason is due to the fact that you will not have a physical copy, as you will have to download Lion as an app via the Mac App Store?

We cannot moan about this, as you will be getting a brand new Mac OS for just $30 – just think how much Microsoft charges for an upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7? We are uncertain if that figure apples to just one Mac device, then you will have to download a copy for each Mac that you have in your home or office.

There are other such utilities to look forward to in this latest version, such as being able to wipe the content from your Mac from another Mac remotely. We can see that this will become one of the standout features; we just hope that it does not become a security issue down the line.

Before you even consider upgrading your Apple Mac device to Lion there are a few things that you will need to do first. You will need to make certain that your device is all ready to go ahead with the update. The second is to go through these steps; only then are you ready to update to Mac OS X Lion.

What feature are you happier with, the remote wipe of the recovery system in boot?