Ahhh, new software. It’s just like Christmas! You excitedly unwrap the box, pop the install disk into your machine, get everything set up, have the entirety of your computer’s free space sucked away and your system grind to a halt–

Wait, that can’t be right.

And yet, when it comes to newly released Aperture , online support forums have been lighting up with reports of massive virtual memory leaks in the program.

The premise behind such a leak is simple: when doing a data-intensive task that might be too much for the RAM installed in your computer, the program (in this case, Aperture ) can call on bits of your hard drive to be appropriated as virtual memory. The problem here is that for whatever reason, Aperture doesn’t know where to stop, and ends up gobbling every last byte of free space on the disk.

Apple declined to comment on the issue, but users in the Support and Discussion forums have come to several different conclusions over what processes may cause these particular system slowdowns. Faces is one rumored culprit; the feature analyzes all pictures in the library to pick out individual people and group their photos. Forum-goer James Stratford’s hypothesis? “Perhaps Faces is trying to scan images that are busy being processed rather than restricting itself to fully imported/processed images.”

However, the same memory issue is also being reported during the conversion of older Aperture libraries and heavy editing of RAW images, which may mean that the problem lies in the overall way Aperture handles its virtual memory assignments during processor-heavy interactions.

Former Macworld editor Rick LePage found the program “well-near unusable on my dual-core Mac Pro… importing my iPhoto library brought my entire machine to a halt, though [the photos] seem to have imported fine.” Constant lags during brush use and abrupt crashes convinced LePage to shelve Aperture until Apple provides an adequate update. “I want to use it, but right now, I don’t have time to deal with these things, so I’m shelving it until they come out with an update.”

For those of you who want to brave the potential ordeals of updating or those who need a quick fix until Apple’s official patch, here are a few suggestions from users in the Apple Support forum:

* For problems with Faces, forum user Traversario suggests turning off Faces entirely while importing (done in the Preferences pane of Aperture). After a restart, he turned the setting back on and the issue seemed to disappear, but this may not be true for all users.

* Importing or converting an old library: Keith Stead from Melbourne suggests manually converting the photos by opening the package contents of your old Aperture or iPhoto file, dragging your photos to the desktop, and then reimporting them month by month into a fresh Aperture library. Slow? Absolutely. Tiresome? Most definitely. On the upside, he reports no problems following these steps.

No, there may not be any sweeping sunrises or Elton John songs to show us the way, but nevertheless: Lion is coming. To prepare us for the changes ahead, Apple has posted a big summary on its website listing all of the more than 20 new features present in this version of OS X—but let’s be reasonable: As excited as you might be, you don’t have time to read up on every single one. Instead, let us do the work for you, and highlight some of the coolest new tricks your Mac will be able to turn in Lion.

Lion can correct, define, and accent your text

Taking one of many cues from iOS, in Lion, your Mac will be able to auto-correct your misspellings and accent your letters using the same bubbly pop-ups iOS device users have come to know and love. Misspellings will pop up under the word as you type, offering suggestions; accept one, and the word will gain a blue underline to indicate the replacement. You can add an accent a letter by holding down the key of the letter you wish to alter; after a moment, a pop-up menu will appear, showing all possible accented combinations.

You’ll also be able to define any word and have the definition or Wikipedia article pop up inline. If you have a Magic Trackpad, you can use a three finger double-tap on a highlighted word (or group of words) to launch a pop-up showing its definition, thesaurus entry, and Wikipedia article (if applicable). You can also effect the same action by control-clicking.

Lion can perform dynamic searches

Searching in Finder and Mail will not only be made simple, but also more intelligent in Lion: When you type a query into the search box, your computer will offer up suggestions of what, exactly, it thinks you might be searching for. For instance, type in “photoshop” and you’ll get an offer to look for all Photoshop files on your hard drive. Select that, and you can stack additional queries on top of it—say, if you wanted to look for every PSD file named “hat”—to get more precise results.

Lion can merge folders and files

In high school, I lost a good third of my personal writing—and half of my first novel—after my father, in what I’m sure he meant as a well-intentioned move, replaced a folder called “Ren’s Stuff” on my laptop with a folder of the same name on our older, shared desktop. He thought he was consolidating my work; in reality, he was replacing it with documents eight months out of date.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the real solution to issues like these is “Back up your work,” but Lion also goes so far as to remove this problem entirely with folder merge and file preservation. Now, when you attempt to move a folder to a location with another folder of the same name, your computer will ask if you’d rather merge the two together, rather than replace one with the other. Files are treated similarly: While you can’t obviously merge a file with another, your computer will ask if you’d like to keep both copies.

Lion can transfer files from your PC

Microsoft today launched a promotion that discounts Windows 7 upgrades as much as 58% when customers also buy a new Windows 7 PC.

The deal, which was available Thursday from the likes of Amazon.com and Staples, applies when consumers purchase a new computer equipped with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate.

Staples, for instance, will sell a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $9.99, a 58% savings compared to the $9.99 list price, when buyers also purchase a new Windows 7 PC. Amazon, on the other hand, dropped the price of Home Premium Upgrade to $59.95, a savings of $60, or 50%. Under the promotion, Amazon also cut the price of Professional Upgrade to $5.99, an $85 savings (2% off) and Ultimate Upgrade to $9.99, an $80 savings (6% off) when customers ordered a new Windows 7 notebook or desktop at the same time.

Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group, which specializes in tracking retail sales, called the promotion “brilliant” in a blog post this morning. “It gives incentive to some of that huge XP installed base to do the right thing and upgrade into a new PC, while offering them a way to cost-effectively upgrade that companion notebook they have bought in the last two and one-half years. which is running Vista,” Baker said.

“Windows 7 is even greater the more PCs that you have that run it,” Baker said in a follow-up interview. “People aren’t likely to go out today and buy multiple new PCs, but this is a great way to drive the value of Windows 7.”

Baker called out Home Group , a new feature in Windows 7 that simplifies the task of setting up file-, printer-, photo- and music-sharing between Windows 7-equipped PCs on a home network, as one reason to upgrade as many home computers as possible to the new operating system.

According to Microsoft, one discounted copy of Windows 7 Upgrade can be bought per new PC, with the discount applicable to the same version as that which powers the PC. In other words, buyers of a new PC running Windows 7 Home Premium can purchase an upgrade copy of Home Premium at the discounted price, while consumers who buy a PC with Windows 7 Professional can get an upgrade copy of that edition at the reduced price.

Amazon, however, appears to be offering buyers of any Home Premium-, Professional- or Ultimate-equipped PC the discount for any of the three editions’ upgrades. Buyers can order a notebook running Home Premium, for example, but buy an upgrade to Professional.

Some buyers are ineligible for the deal, however. New machines running the entry-level version of Windows 7, dubbed Starter, don’t qualify, essentially preventing most purchasers of netbooks — which are dominated by Windows 7 Starter — from taking advantage of the promotion.