Plato, Hegel, and Marx, move over! Jon Nathan's Dialectic beats the pants off of yours - it looks up phone numbers in your Address Book and then dials the phone (any kind of phone, from zippy new software to old-fashioned hardware).

If you're looking for a new keyboard macro utility, Stairways Software has just released a significant update to the elegant Keyboard Maestro, with which you can make macros that utilize numerous triggers and actions.

The makers of QuickMail debut the first new Mac email program in years: Outspring Mail. Along with the basics, the program boasts unique features like automatic filing based on content analysis, suggestions for automatic replies to frequently asked questions, and the capability to defer dealing with messages for later.

You're faced with a PDF file containing oodles of Web links. How do you verify that they're valid without clicking each one individually? Adam shares the process he's developed to check all the links in Take Control ebooks, and while it might not be exactly what you need, it should get you thinking about how to automate the task.

Microsoft has released a major update to Office 2008, fixing a wide variety of bugs in all the different applications, and closing a security vulnerability in Excel. Simultaneously, the company released a security update to Office 2004 to address the Excel vulnerability and another one.

Apple's AirPort Express is great for when you want to send music to your stereo wirelessly, but what if the source of your music isn't iTunes? Or if you want to send the audio to a Mac or PC? Enter Rogue Amoeba's AirFoil 3.1. Rich Mogull gives a real-world look at what it's good for in this review.

In addition to providing the usual complement of bug fixes and performance enhancements typical of a maintenance update, Aperture 2.0.1 adds enhanced AppleScript functionality to the professional photo organizer and editor.

In which Matt and Tonya find editorial happiness, doing in five minutes together (although 3,000 miles apart) what might have taken two days separately, and having a heck of a lot more fun too.

Aperture 2 is now available, bringing plenty of new features and performance improvements to Apple's digital photo management and editing application.

Six years after releasing iPhoto, Apple has finally made it possible for users in Australia and New Zealand to purchase books, cards, calendars, and prints.

Apple has released a minor update to iPhoto that probably fixes some bugs, but the only detail that the company is willing to acknowledge is the fixing of a security vulnerability.

Will Word 2008 not launch for you? Here's one possible solution.

Apple released updates to iWork and iWeb, but described three of the four updates with a mere eight words (and that's counting "Mac OS X" as three words. Read on, not for a useful description of the updates (which isn't possible), but for Adam's rant at Apple for not trusting us with real information.

There's a new entrant in the productivity porn genre: Mark Hurst's book "Bit Literacy." But Adam takes exception with, well, nearly everything that Hurst advises.

Interested in a new laptop bag? Whether you're looking for one that has oodles of pockets, wheels, an eco sensibility, or just a fabulous design in a hip fabric, the laptop vendors at Macworld Expo had something for you. Karen Anderson takes a spin through her favorites, and be sure to watch the slideshow for some pictures.