OS X Lion is now available from the Mac App Store and we know that many of you are preparing or have already started downloading and installing the new cat.

Because installation takes place entirely from within the Mac App Store, the usual “clean install” option isn’t present. If you’ve followed our guide for preparing your Mac for Lion, you’re probably in good shape to proceed with an upgrade. If, however, you long for the ability to do a clean install without having to first install Snow Leopard and THEN install Lion, Mashable has you covered.

If you want to create a bootable USB stick or burn a DVD of OS X Lion, read along.

Step 1: Download Lion From the Mac App Store

Go ahead and download OS X Lion from the Mac App store. This is a nearly 4GB download, so if your Internet connection isn’t super fast, you may want to plan to get some other stuff done while you wait.

As soon as the download is complete, exit out of the installation prompt. We don’t want to do an install right now.

Step 2: Find The Install Lion App in Finder (in Your Applications Folder)

Locate the Lion installation program.

Step 3: Right-Click on the Installer, Select “Show Package Contents”

Right click or control-click on the program icon and select “Show Package Contents.” Now, you want to browse to the “Shared Support” folder inside of “Contents” and locate a file called “InstallESD.dmg.” This is the file we will use to create our bootable Lion image.

Copy this file to your desktop or another folder you have easy access to.

Step 4: Start Disk Utility

Open up Disk Utility (it’s in the Utilities folder in Applications). At this point, you should see the various hard drives connected to your Mac. If you haven’t already plugged in an empty USB thumb drive or a hard drive with an empty partition, do that now.

Step 5a: Insert a Blank DVD

For users that want to create a DVD for installation purposes, go ahead and put it in your Mac.

In Disk Utility, click the “Burn” icon and then select the “installESD.dmg” file that we just copied to our desktop.

Let it burn.

Step 5b: Select the USB Drive You Want to Use

Click on the tab that says “Erase.”

If, however, you’d prefer to create a bootable USB drive. Select it now.

In the source menu, select the “installESD.dmg” file we already copied to our desktop.

For destination, choose the partition of the drive you want to use. Be aware that you will erase everything on this partition and replace it with OS X Lion, so be sure you don’t have anything important on that drive or partition.

Click Restore.

After the image is burned to USB or DVD, restart your computer by holding down the option key. You will now be given an option to boot from the DVD or USB drive. Go through the installation, ready to enjoy a new, clean install of Lion.

For the Uber-Scared

Apple will be selling OS X Lion on USB thumbdrives in its stores in August for $69. You can buy several 8GB USB thumb drives for that price, so our advice is to skip the Apple release and just burn your own Lion installer copy for safe keeping.

More About: apple, how to, lion, mac, mac apps, mac os x lion

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Go to Source

Now, more than ever, we carry more digital information on thumb drives and, in many cases, this information is sensitive and, in the wrong hands, could be used in ways we’d like to avoid. In this guide, I’ll show you how to encrypt your USB drive so that only you can access your data.

This guide covers the following steps:

1. Install TrueCrypt.
2. Use TrueCrypt to encrypt your thumb drive.
3. Access your encrypted data.

Install TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt can be used as a portable app, which is useful if you want to carry TrueCrypt around with you on the same drive with an encrypted container. I find using the containers isn’t the easiest solution so, in this guide, we’re going to install TrueCrypt on your PC and then use it to encrypt your whole thumb drive.

1. Download TrueCrypt and double click the installer to install it to your PC.
2. When asked, select Install to install the program files on your local machine.

Use TrueCrypt to Encrypt Your Thumb Drive

Once installed, you should insert your thumb drive into your PC and backup and data on the drive.

1. Open TrueCrypt and click a Create Volume.

2. Select Encrypt a non-system partition/drive and click Next.

3. Select Standard TrueCrypt volume and click Next.

4. Click Select Device…, click your thumb drive, click OK, and click Next.

5. Click Create encrypted volume and format it and click Next.

6. Select your encryption and hashing algorithms and click Next. I used the default options (I’m no encryption expert.) If you’d like to find out more about encryption and hashing algorithms, follow the links below:

• More information on Encryption Algorithms
• More information on Hash Algorithms

7. Click Next.

8. Set a password and click Next.

9. If your thumb drive is less than 4GB select FAT, if it’s over 4GB, select NTFS (the FAT file system doesn’t support files >4GB.) Click Format.

10. Make sure your files are backed up and click Yes.

11. Sit back and wait for your drive to be encrypted. This may take some time if you are on a slower PC and are formatting a drive that is large.

12. Once the encryption is complete, click OK.

Access Your Encrypted Data

Please note: Each time you insert your drive, Windows will ask you to format it–do not do this (Click Cancel.)

1. Insert your encrypted thumb drive, open TrueCrypt and select a drive letter. This drive letter will be used to access your data. Click Select Device.

2. Click your thumb drive and click OK.

3. Click Mount.

4. Type the password you set for the drive and click OK.

5. The drive will show up in the drives list.

6. Open Computer (Winkey+E) and double click the drive letter you just mounted.

Once you’ve finished with your data, go to TrueCrypt and click Dismount.

Download TrueCrypt

Download TrueCrypt

Further Reading:

• Create Multiple Choice Menu in a Batch-File [How To]
• EXCEL: Create a PullDown Menu [Quick Tip]
• Windows Commands (cmd) to Help Manage Your PC & Improve Productivity
• Disable “This program might not have installed correctly” Message in Windows 7 [How To]
• Best Technology Blog Posts of the Week (December 12th, 2010)