In the "make dashboard useful" vein, freeware App Update is like Apple's Software Update for your third-party applications. It can be set to check what's in /Applications against VersionTracker, MacUpdate, or Apple—manually or automatically. Growl support too. Not always 100% accurate, but close.
2 responses to Up-to-date apps via Dashboard
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Bruce, have you tried AppFresh? It's prettier (I think), but a standalone application. I like the idea of a widget doing this work in the barckground. But there's also a lot more power in AppFresh.
Thanks Rob; no I wasn't aware of this "preview" app. Looks promising, and I do like the way it separates out apps, pref panes, widgets, and plugins—and also the ability to reveal in Finder or go to the application website. It gives me a lot of "Update version empty" messages, however (about a third of my results, including major apps like Parallels).