Apple today announced the availability of Aperture 3, the latest release of its photo editing and library management software. Aperture 3 incorporates many of the features first seen in iPhoto, including Faces and Places, which allows you to quickly create photo libraries based on common locations or people within images.

Courtesy of Apple

A new Brush feature has been added for image editing. Brushes let you paint effects onto your images. Brushes can detect edges and apply changes only within the edges. Who said drawing outside the lines is always good? You can use the Brush feature to apply 15 different pre-assigned effects including dodging, burning, polarizing, and blur. Additionally, the Brush-based effects don't require building layers, saving you time and tedium.

Aperture 3 also adds new slideshow themes and support for bringing together photos, text, audio, and HD video to create an astounding presentation of your images.

Aperture 3 is available starting today, for $199. Existing Aperture users can upgrade for $99.

It's Macworld time again, and this year two things come to mind. First, February is just so wrong a time to hold Macworld. I know. It makes a lot of sense from the viewpoint of IDG, the parent company of Macworld Expo, because there's no competition with other conventions. It used to be you had to choose between CES and Macworld each year. Now, if you're so inclined, you can hit both. Still, it just doesn't seem right to have Macworld Expo in February.

And second, Macworld seems to be on track for a large attendance, even without the pull of Apple and Steve Jobs' keynote address. Thirty thousand people pre-registered, and over 300 vendors will be there. That means it's likely to outperform last year's Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

There's also a lot of excitement about add-on product announcements for the new iPad, plus seminars and events designed specifically for iPad devotees and those who are on the fence.

Macworld Expo 2010 looks like it will be a roaring success. I'm glad to hear everything is going well. Macworld was always one of the most fun conferences around, at least in the technology sector. The stories I could tell you... But I can't, because I was sworn to secrecy.

If you're attending Macworld, leave us a comment and let us know how it's going!

Dragster 1.1.0 from Ambrosia Software is an elegant and easy-to-use drag-and-drop file transfer utility. Dragster resides in the Dock, so it's always available and never in the way. When you wish to transfer a file or folder, simply drag the item to the Dragster dock. A pop-up menu will appear with a wide choice of destination locations.

Dragster from Ambrosia Software

Destination choices are user configurable. The predefined locations are: Local Folder, Flickr, Email, Server, iDisk, Picasa, YouTube, Bluetooth, and iChat. You can also create shortcuts for commonly used locations. For instance, you can have shortcuts that point to multiple local folders, letting you easily move files to your Pictures folder or your Music folder. Likewise, you can configure the Server destination to support multiple locations, such as the root folder for two different web sites you maintain.

Dragster is a 64-bit universal binary application that works in OS X 10.4 or later.

Dragster is $19. A 30-day demo is available.

See other software choices from Tom's Budget Software Picks.

My fellow guides and I were given a heads-up on a security article by Elinor Mills. In her writing for CNET, she asks 32 security experts from various groups which OS is more secure for consumers, Mac or Windows. It's an interesting read, especially for the security conscious among us, and maybe a little scary for everyone else.

There is an important key to her question, and that is the idea of which is more secure for consumers. Both Mac and Windows systems can be made very secure. A little fiddling here, a firewall setting there, and both OSes can be made relatively immune from viruses and other malware.

But how secure are the respective operating systems out of the box, or as users commonly configure them? The answer may surprise some. Many of the security experts believe that when you compare the Mac OS to either Windows Vista or Windows 7, you end up with about the same level of security, but the Windows OS is more likely to be attacked, simply because of its much higher market share. This means that while both OSes have about the same security, the Mac operates in a safer environment, one with fewer risks present.

Some of the experts even believe Windows is more secure out of the box, because it doesn't have Adobe's Flash or Java pre-installed. Of course, most users install both Flash and Java before the end of the first day with their new computer.

I came away with two main points after reading the article. Macs are safer, not because of how secure they are, but because they are less of a target. And it's not the OS that presents the main attack vector, but applications such as browsers.

I've mentioned here before that I recommend using an anti-virus application for the Mac. Although there are no current virus threats, there are many web-based phishing and malware exploits that anti-virus applications can protect you from. If you ever find yourself the victim of malware, you're not going to care that it wasn't a virus that caused all your problems.

Mary Landesman, About's Guide to Antivirus Software, has a great article, The Best and Worst of Mac Antivirus Software, that I recommend reading if you're interested in an antivirus application for your Mac.

And finally, how about a simple poll: