Early Thursday, Apple released version 3.1.3 of Aperture, its pro-grade image editing application. The new version, a 292 megabyte download, offers the following fixes and changes:

- Improves reliability and performance when syncing web-published albums.

- Slideshow exports are now handled as a background operation.

- Crop tool now correctly supports use of gestures to define crop size.

- Gesture support can now be enabled or disabled in Preferences.

- Fixes an issue that could cause a blank sheet to display when placing a book or print order.

- Published MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr albums now appear in a Web section in the Projects Inspector.

- Shift-clicking snapshots on the Faces corkboard now allows you to make contiguous selections.

- Metadata presets are now correctly applied to imported audio files.

- Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when trimming audio in full screen mode.

- Resolves various issues when adding names to Faces using accented, Japanese, Korean or Simplified Chinese characters.

- Improves stability when browsing video clips.

- Addresses reliability of library repair and rebuild.

Aperture retails for US$199 and requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later to install and run.

If you’re tried the new version and have any feedback, let us know via the comments.

Late Tuesday, Mozilla.org released version 5.0.1 of its Firefox web browser. The new version stands as an 27.8 megabyte download offered the following fixes and changes:

- Worked around an issue in Mac OS X 10.7 that could cause Firefox to crash.

- Worked around an issue caused by Apple’s “Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 5″ where the Java plugin would not be loaded.

Firefox 5.0.1 requires an Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback, let us know.

Following up on yesterday’s stories about Apple issuing updates for iMovie and iPhoto, the company also released significant updates the the GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD components of its iLife ’11 suite.

Per AppleInsider, the other iLife ’11 updates offer the following fixes and changes:

- GarageBand 6.0.4 fixes an issue with lesson downloads from the GarageBand Lesson Store. It also corrects issues with tempo-based effects falling out of sync and resolves problems with Magic GarageBand project files.

The update is a 53.72MB download requiring Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later to install and runand is recommended for all users of GarageBand ’11.

- iWeb 3.0.4: A long-awaited and surprising update, as Apple indicated in a FAQ last month that iWeb publishing will get the ax when the MobileMe service is shuttered permanently on June 30, 2012.

iWeb has not received a major revision since Apple released iLife ’09 in January 2009. That update added new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds and integrated FTP publishing. Apple quietly bundled the older versions of iWeb and iDVD into iLife ’11 when it was released last October.

The release notes for iWeb 3.0.4 do not indicate any specific changes, noting only that the update “improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues.” The 178.57MB download is recommended for all iWeb 3 users and requires Mac OS X 10.6.4 or later to install and run.

- iDVD 7.1.2: Monday’s update to iDVD improves reliability of imported iPhoto ’11 slideshows. fixes a problem that could prevent files from re-linking and addresses an issue that could cause iDVD to use all available CPU capacity when searching for missing files.

iDVD 7.1.2 is recommended for all iDVD 7 users. The 36.12MB download requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later to install and run.

Apple also offes iPhoto, GarageBand and iMovie individually in the Mac App Store, though it has chosen not to make iWeb and iDVD available.

If you’ve installed the updates and noticed any major changes, please let us know.

On Monday, Apple released iMovie 9.0.4, the latest version of its consumer-level video editing application. The new version, a 76.2 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

- Support for opening projects imported from iMovie for iOS.

- Fixes an issue where some audio adjustments were not preserved.

- Addresses a performance issue when using large quantities of video clips with keywords.

- Resolves issue with slow application launch when working with large iPhoto libraries.

iMovie 9.0.4 requires Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later to install and run and can be snagged manually or via Mac OS X’s built-in Software Update feature.

Apple on Monday released iPhoto 9.1.5, the latest version of its image organization and editing application. The update, a 108 megabyte download which can be be snagged via Mac OS X’s Software Update feature, offers the following major fixes and changes:

- The date range of each event now updates correctly to reflect changes made to photos using the Adjust Time and Date command.

- Addresses an issue that could cause the Photos view to scroll incorrectly when Event Titles are displayed.

- Fixes a problem that could prevent Ken Burns animations from being applied correctly on photos in a saved Classic slideshow.

- Deleting photos from a web album using the contextual menu now removes them from the album without deleting them from the library.

- Addresses an issue that could prevent a crop adjustment from being removed from a photo when using the Revert to Original command.

iPhoto 9.1.5 retails for US$49 as part of iLife ’11 and requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the update and noticed any changes, please let us know.

As July begins, Mac OS X 10.7 (“Lion”) is due to hit this month and as of Friday, Apple has released Lion’s Gold Master (GM) seed to developers.

Per Macworld, The GM release traditionally signals the last major internal update before the release to the general public; save any major issues, this version (labeled build number 11A511) of Lion should be the one consumers will see later this month.

Lion still has no official release date from Apple beyond the nebulous “July”, but we’ll keep you informed as to any news or changes as they become available.

Late Tuesday, Apple released a pair of Java updates for its Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 operating systems. The updates (Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 10 and Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 5) make the same changes and per Macworld, offer “improved compatibility, security, and reliability.” The specifics on how the updates do this are unclear, however, as the release notes for both the 10.6 and 10.5 updates are a little light on the details.

Both updates are available via direct download from their respective web sites or via Mac OS X’s Software Update feature.

The updates require Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Mac OS X 10.6.4 to install and run, respectively.

If you’ve tried the updates and have any feedback to offer, please let us know.

Late Monday, Apple released Thunderbolt Firmware Update 1.0, a 486 KB download focused on providing stability and performance fixes for Mac with the new Thunderbolt port. The update will restart your Mac with a gray screen a status bar to indicate the progress of the update.

While the update is taking place, do not disturb or shut off the power on your computer during this update.

The update is also available via Mac OS X’s Software Update feature and requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later to install and run.

VirtualBox, an open source x86 virtualization project available for free has just hit version 4.0.10. The new version, a 82.8 megabyte download, sports the following list of fixes and changes:

- GUI: fixed disappearing settings widgets on KDE hosts (bug #6809).

- Storage: fixed hang under rare circumstances with flat VMDK images.

- Storage: a saved VM could not be restored under certain circumstances after the host kernel was updated (bug #8983).

- Storage: refuse to create a medium with an invalid variant (for example Split2G with VDI; bug #7227).

- Snapshots: none of the hard disk attachments must be attached to another VM in normal mode when creating a snapshot.

- USB: fixed occasional VM hangs with SMP guests (bug #4580).

- USB: proper device detection on RHEL/OEL/CentOS 5 guests (partial fix for bug #8978).

- ACPI: force the ACPI timer to return monotonic values for improve behavior with SMP Linux guests (bug #8511 and others).

- RDP: fixed screen corruption under rare circumstances (bug #8977).

- rdesktop-vrdp: updated to version 1.7.0.

- OVF: under rare circumstances some data at the end of a VMDK file was not written during export.

- Lion fixes (bug #8903).

- GNOME 3 fix.

VirtualBox 4.0.10 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback, please let us know.

Onyx, Titanium Software’s popular freeware multifunction utility for Mac OS X, has been updated to version 2.2.8. The new version, a 17.8 megabyte download (courtesy of MacUpdate), adds the following fixes and changes:

- Deleting Caches improved.

- Deleting Browsers History improved.

- Deleting Cookies improved.

- Deleting Recent Items improved.

- Deleting Temporary Items improved.

- Deleting Diagnostic Reports improved.

- Maintenance and Automation panels improved.

- New Info > Memory panel.

- Purging the inactive memory.

- Enable/disable virtual memory swapping.

- New Utilities > Packages panel.

- Bug corrected while deleting OnyX’s diagnostic reports.

- Bug corrected at launch OnyX.

- Bug corrected in the Preferences.

- Bug corrected while deleting Webpage previews.

- Bugs corrected in the Info panel.

- Help corrected and reindexed.

- Some cosmetic changes.

Onyx 2.2.8 requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later to install and run.