*This is the last week to take advantage of a $300 Mail In Rebate for Autocad LT 2011.

1. Use thumbnail previews to navigate between open DWG files

Quickly locate and switch between open AutoCAD LT 2011 drawing files by hovering your cursor over the taskbar icon to display thumbnail images of each open drawing. Switch between drawings by clicking on thumbnails, or use the red “X” to quickly close a file from the thumbnail.

2. Access recent work with jump lists

Right-click on a program icon in the taskbar to display a jump list of your ten most recently-opened files. Open an item on the list simply by clicking on it, or drag-and-drop files to attach them to e-mails or copy them to a different folder. Use the pushpin icon to make sure that important files always stay on the list. Jump lists are also available for your frequently-used programs in the Start menu.

3. Pin your favorite programs for easy access

Pin AutoCAD LT and other programs you use on a regular basis to the taskbar with the option in the right-click menu, and launch them with a single click.

You can also store favorite programs on the Start menu. While your most frequently-used programs will show up there automatically, you can keep them there permanently by right-clicking on the program and selecting “Pin to Start Menu.”

4. Quickly resize program windows with Snap

Use Snap to display two programs side-by-side on your screen, without overlap, simply by dragging one window to the left of the screen and the other to the right.  Easily reference your email, spreadsheet or other program while working in AutoCAD LT 2011. Drag a single program to the top of the screen to have it fill your entire display.

5. Find files faster with Instant Search

Search is faster in Windows 7—libraries and other popular file locations are indexed so results appear as soon as you type in the first few letters of your keyword, whether in the Start menu or in the search box available in every Windows Explorer window. To make your search even more efficient, matching files and folders are grouped by category, and keywords are highlighted to make the list even easier to scan. Filter your results by type, date, size, or author to further narrow your search.

6. Safeguard your work with Backup and Restore

No matter how much care you take with your files, accidents can happen—drives can fail, files can become corrupted, and “copy” can even become “delete.” That’s when you need Windows Backup to store copies of your important files on an external drive and update them periodically so they’re as current as possible.

When you need to retrieve a file, the Restore function lets you select the entire backup file or specific files and folders. You can even specify whether to restore files to their original location or a new one.

7. Manage default printers with Location Aware Printing

When you run AutoCAD LT on a laptop, you can take your computer with you, but chances are you leave your printers behind. With Location Aware Printing, you can set a different default printer for every network you connect to. Then, when you change networks, Windows automatically sends documents to the correct printer.

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Ever wanted to re-design your home or yard, but didn’t want to deal with a costly consultant. Well now you can design your dream home or yard easily with Punch Home and Landscape Design. Featuring QuickStart the program allows you to start dragging and dropping rooms into place in seconds. This is truly one of the easiest programs to see what your dream home looks like. One of my favorite features is the “Building Green” tips; these are awesome suggestions for saving energy and money by going green. By choosing Go Green you can find out which energy efficient materials and objects will help you accomplish your eco-friendly goals. With tons of 3D objects built in, and even more available with built in support for Google 3D it’s never been easier to see your plans as if it were designed professionally in an advanced CAD program. When you’re done designing you can even print out a large format plan of your design, just like you would get from an architect! Think this program can’t get any cooler? …Well maybe not, but in July you can receive an additional $5 off from SoftwareMedia.com.

Check out this video we made a little while ago highlighting the features of Punch Home and Landscape Design.

Business Plan Pro includes all the essentials for building an effective business plan. Being a small business owner myself I really found the financing resources to be the biggest benefit to using the program. With the tools built in you can present investment information including potential growth, revenue, and profits all in a familiar format for potential investors. With the ability to import data from Excel it is easy to get data in your plan without having to re enter it.

Once you have gone through the program, and have the business plan you want Business Plan Pro creates a very clean and professional looking final product. This will leave you with a very impressionable plan to show potential investors. If you are looking for a solution for creating your Business Plan then look no further than Business Plan Pro!

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In this example, I cut the skier out of the photo completely. Content Aware Fill did a pretty decent job filling in the background but left a bit of a smudge.

In the next example I decided to delete a few elements that I didn’t like in the image. I removed the flag on the jump, the shadow below the skier, and the watermark in the corner of the image. Content Aware Fill was able to render a pretty much flawless background for all the elements I took out.

For my last example, I chose to test Content Aware Fill with some basic photo editing. I was able to remove glare from the sun, and imperfections in the snow within seconds, much faster than old Photoshop techniques.

Overall Content Aware Fill is an awesome feature, that will save alot of people time during the Photo Editing process. However Content Aware fill is not yet perfect, and leaves room for improvement. The amount of time you save is reason enough alone to upgrade to Photoshop CS5, I recommend checking it out today!

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Not too long ago, iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4 was released! I’m not sure if this is old news — I admit, I’m a bit out of the loop…

But tethering! That has to be somewhat fresh news… iPhone OS 4.0 beta has a tethering option! iPhone user? Not excited? Yeah, I wasn’t very excited either when I read about it on Engadget, Boy Genius Report and Gizmodo. Why? I had no idea what tethering was until just a few minutes ago. What was all this hype over tethering!

Contrary to what I initially thought (it’s nowhere near a virtual game of iPhone tetherball), “tethering” is the use of a mobile device as a makeshift modem to connect another device to the internet. The connection is usually made through Bluetooth or a (USB, perhaps) cable. About.com gave the best breakdown I came across in my ADD-limited timespan spent looking up the term. Tethering is particularly useful when you have no other means to connect to the internet. It also may save a bit of dough if you already have an unlimited data plan — no need for a broadband or wireless access card when you can tether off your unlimited data plan. And it may also be more secure than surfing from a public wi-fi hotspot. When I think of tethering, I think of a cell phone… and a wireless card… meshed together. If that confuses you more, I apologize… Anyway, apparently, tethering is highly anticipated.

Now, that I know what tethering is… I’d say I’m more excited… uh… well, for those iPhone users (which I am not — I oddly live in the stone age when it comes to upgrading my tech; I blame this on lack of funds).

To set up tethering — navigate over to your settings to see the new option. A pop-up will ask if you want to set up tethering on this account, just go to the website and follow the directions. There’s a quick video of someone doing this below, for those… more visual learners.

If you aren’t seeing the option to set up tethering, just reset your network settings. Once you’ve got it set up, feel free to share your experiences, frustrations, likes, dislikes, and all that jazz.

So what’s the biggest new feature that OS 4 has and none of the others have? Multi-tasking. “We’re not the first to this party, but we’re gonna be the best. Just like cut and paste,” says Steve Jobs. Yeah, what does that mean, exactly? I wondered the same thing when I tried to get the scoop from a friend (unfortunately, I was unable to check out the event as it occurred).

Multi-tasking, cut to the skinny of it, brings in better capabilities to run multiple programs. The iPhone OS 4 utilizes a dock for applications that are running. This makes it easy to jump from program to program… multi-task. Jobs speaks of an example:

I’m gonna launch mail, this has a URL — so I jump to safari — so I want to go back to mail… I double click the home button and a window raises that shows me all the apps that are running. Now I want to go to ebay — I go right to where I left off in the apps, now I want to play a game — now I want to play a game, Tap Tap Revenge, it keeps me where I was. Again, the game stops, let me go back and look at mail. And again, I can go home anytime I want. Boom I’m home. Make sense? Really simple UI, puts all the apps at the bottom that are running…

Other capabilities in regards to multi-tasking include:

• running Pandora in the background (music won’t stop when you switch apps)
• VoIP for Skype-ing (stay logged on, even while using other apps)
• Push notifications now will be “Local notifications” (no longer need to use Apple servers)
• Task completion (continue a task, such as uploading photos to Flickr, in the background while doing other things)
• Fast app switching (save the current state you are at with one app, switch to another, return to the same state for previous app)

Moving on… so what other cool features were mentioned in the preview today? Here are a couple of my picks…

Folders
Rather than flipping through page onto page for an individual application you are looking to launch… consolidate a logically grouped bunch of applications into a folder — less flipping through pages. Will, say, 2,000 apps be enough? OS 4 allows you to have over 2,000 apps on your iPhone now…

Unified Inbox
All your mail in one place, with the addition of multiple Exchange accounts. ‘Nuff said (sorry to sound thug-like, but the occasion called for it…)!

If you are interested in reading more, Engadget has a live blog from the events held earlier today; they also have a video preview. The Business Insider has a quick and simple slide show explaining the seven features highlighted by Apple. Or if you are just looking to recap every single moment of today’s iPhone OS 4 developer preview, watch the entire event at Apple.

Oh, yes, developers can download the SDK (software developer kit) version of iPhone OS 4 already. Check that out here: iPhone Dev Center.

In this day and age where many of us can’t get through the day without going online (and checking Facebook), Google decided to venture into the world of fiber-optic-speed Internet service. Must I reiterate my theory on how Google will eventually dominate the world? Let’s see… there’s the phone business (Nexus One), office software (Google Docs), politics, map services, Internet browser (Chrome), computer platform (Chrome OS), energy — am I missing anything?

Well, today Google posted a blog stating over 600 communities and 190,000 individual responses have all been rooting for Google to build a fiber network in their backyard — not literally, of course, just figuratively. Dustin and I have come to accept the fact that we just may not be competing hard enough. Topeka, Kansas was one of the first reasons we came across that proved the fiber fight would be a tough one. I mean, the mayor changed the name of their city to Google! And if that’s not enough, the Duluth, Minnesota “mayor” declared all firstborn males be named “Google Fiber.” If it’s a first born female? Well, “Googlette Fiber” of course.

Today is the last day before Google takes down their Request for Information. A more definitive number of responses will be posted on their blog  later today. Then, “over the coming months, we’ll be reviewing the responses to determine where to build,” says Google product manager, James Kelly. Google plans on thoroughly reviewing each response and thoroughly researching each possible site before making any final decisions.

Google will be announcing their “target community or communities by the end of the year.” Kelly also tells us, “our plan is to reach a total of at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people with this experiment.”

HEY GOOGLE — does this article help our cause for Salt Lake?! C’mon Salt Lake City!!

It’s all been very exciting here at SoftwareMedia.com — some of us looking at it as a great marketing opportunity and others of us just projecting our Adobe Creative Suite nerd-self. However, before you start checking your bank statements to make sure you’ve got the cash to shell out for this new edition, CS5.org reminds us…

Before you get too excited, let’s get one thing straight: This is the unveiling, or basically an introduction to the public. Adobe is going so far as to call it a “launch” day but you will not be able to buy the software that day. Adobe has not announced a release day yet, but October 2010 makes sense to me (just a guess).

Never fear. Even before the April 12th launch, Adobe has an incredible… jaw-dropping… eye-popping… mind-blowing… earth-shattering…. uh okay, it’s just insane MAGIC before your eyes. Check out this video demonstration of the Content-Aware Fill tool in the soon-to-come Photoshop CS5:

What did I tell you? MAGIC! Make sure to head over to the launch site so you can join the launch event with Adobe in April.