Software News Daily » Smart Software Buying

Adobe Acrobat X – Buy Six & Save 25%

Dan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:57:22 +0000

For a limited time only, Adobe Acrobat X Professional and Acrobat X Standard are 25% off when you buy six licenses. The Adobe Transactional Licensing Program (TLP) is running a 20% off promotion, but here at SoftwareMedia.com we’re upping the ante by 5%, so you can save even more.

Adobe Acrobat X Standard lets you create and share PDF’s with ease and reliability. With X Standard you get PDF file conversion, which allows for simple conversion from the Microsoft Office suites, as well as Firefox and Lotus Notes, and then back to PDF. You can also easily scan documents, creating PDFs that can be edited and searched.

Adobe Acrobat X Pro has all the same features as X Standard with advanced applications. Acrobat X Pro comes with a Adobe LiveCycle, which can automate multistage tasks with the Action Wizard. You will be able to organize your PDF portfolios with corporate logos and branding and be able to permanently delete sensitive info with the redaction and sanitization capabilities.

Start the creation and collaboration of professional-looking PDF’s with the only PDF software that helps defend your security and mitigate risk. This promotion will be running from February 1, 2012 through July 31, 2012, so be sure to take advantage of the great savings before it’s too late.

To learn more information on the differences between Standard and Professional check out our article Adobe Acrobat X Standard vs Professional.

H&R Block Tax Software Just Reduced!

Lisa — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:01:52 +0000

We just got a great deal on some of our tax software. H&R Block At Home Deluxe 2011 has been reduced to only $29 ($44.95 on H&R Block’s website). This includes 5 federal programs and 1 personal state program. Additional personal states are $36.95 each and if you choose to e-file it is $19.95 extra for each state e-file used. We recommend e-filing so you can get your refund sooner and to ensure better accuracy. State programs are required for those who have investments such as owning a home or owning stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

These software programs make it super easy to do your taxes yourself, and you don’t need an accounting background to figure it out. These products guide you through every step of the way and are up to date with all the latest tax laws so you don’t need to worry about a thing.

Is your New Years Resolution to save money? Then start 2012 off right with Quicken 2012 so you can keep track of all your checking, savings, credit card, loan, investments, and retirement accounts in one place. Set reminders so you don’t miss payments and create customized goals and budgets to make sure you stay on track over the next year. And when tax time comes around next year, all you have to do is import your data into H&R Block Software and voila! See more info on Quicken Software.

Still have questions on tax software? Check out our Tax Filing Guide.

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 Review

Kyle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:05:14 +0000

Many organizations are constantly looking to address their business needs with flexible and scalable applications. In most cases, the time and resources necessary to build those applications are not always available.

Here’s the solution: Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 has the potential to meet these business needs.

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 is a flexible development tool that helps developers to rapidly develop polished and fantastic business applications for the desktop as well as the Cloud.

With an intuitive development environment, timesaving tools and templates, Visual Studio LightSwitch helps speed the development process. It also reduces the complexity from user-interface design to Windows Azure cloud deployment. LightSwitch is essential in the development of affordable, scalable custom software solutions that connect with existing applications, legacy systems and web services. It automatically handles the routine code and lets you focus on developing the custom logic that makes your application unique. It facilitates comprehensive and user friendly views of your business data.

Key Features of LightSwitch 2011

LightSwitch 2011 supports exporting data to Microsoft Office Excel for easy reporting.
The asynchronous data loading routines help in building load-responsive applications.
The built-in authentication models provide all the users with varying degrees of authorization and accessibility.
Automatic generation of administration console.
A simple and innate way of setting user roles and permissions.
The pre-built components and templates of LightSwitch 2011 are absolutely extensible.
LightSwitch 2011 ships with a set of Application Shells that gives a feel of popular Microsoft software.
It consists of predefined data types for commonly used fields like email addresses and phone numbers.

Major Benefits

You can easily enhance the functionality of LightSwitch application by adding extensions from third party vendors.
It is very easy to collect, analyze and reuse the content from various sources such as Microsoft SQL Azure, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle and other databases.
As LightSwitch 2011 handles the code, you can create user friendly business applications.
It helps in building the applications with built-in paging, filtering and sorting capabilities. This makes it easier in handling huge amounts of data.
The development environment simplifies all the phases of the development by providing assistance as and when required.
You can create custom business logic and rules that are unique to a particular business and the users.
You can change the behavior and appearance of an application by just changing one setting of shell and theme extensions.
With LightSwitch 2011, you can build applications that can be deployed to desktop clients, browser clients or through the Cloud. You can choose the deployment method according to your requirements.

As you create a new LightSwitch project, the only decision you need to make is whether to use Visual C# or Visual Basic. The projects are logically 3-tier applications and follow n-tier best practices. They also utilize Entity Framework and RIA services.

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 is in stock at SoftwareMedia.com!

Article Contributor: Satish Kumar

Insperity: Ultimate Employer Professional Review

Dan — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:07:11 +0000

One of Insperity’s best selling products just got better with the addition of OrgPlus 9 Professional. With Ultimate Employer Pro you get all of the great Human Resources features of Ultimate Employer with the added visualization and organization software OrgPlus. Ultimate Employer Professional is the quintessential HR software.

The standard version of Ultimate Employer helps you streamline all of your HR-related tasks with Policies Now, Performance Now, Descriptions Now and People Manager.

Policies Now allows you to effectively and professionally communicate your organization’s values, culture and expectations. You will be able to create a valuable employee handbook with the easy to use features of Policies Now. Some of the features included are the Q&A process that allows you to consider important issues and customize your policies, along with the wizard that provides professional results by writing policies for you. It can publish in 11 different design layouts with either formal, informal or plain English and can be distributed online or in print. You can record and track policy changes and maintain up to six different handbooks.

Descriptions Now is a very user friendly software tool that provides fast and easy ways to hire more efficiently. Defining jobs is made simple with their library of thousands of jobs that is customizable with questions about specific requirements and responsibilities. The ad writer will then help you create effective ads based on the job descriptions and links to advertising gateways online to make posting jobs easier. Descriptions Now will even generate interview questions so that you can ask the right questions once you start hiring.

Performance Now helps you to quickly write in-depth employee performance reviews. This tool allows you to track and measure employee goals and log performance year-round and provide them with useful feedback. Performance categories allow you to choose which measures are relevant for each position that you are evaluating. Perfomance Now will develop a concise performance review based on the elements and ratings that you enter with a customizable form designer.

People Manager is a personnel manager that helps organize your employee’s tasks and information. You can view daily tasks assigned to employees and schedule reminders. People manager keeps track of important employee information and maintains accurate records. As with the other features of Ultimate Employer, you can access Human Resources advice and information.

Org Plus Professional is the new addition to Ultimate Employer Pro and provides an easy to use organizational chart program. With OrgPlus org charts are made easy with various templates and built-in reports. You can add HR metrics and model scenarios to the org chart to help with visualization. You can track changes and manage your workforce with automatic data importation and dynamic reports.

For a limited time all Insperity Software will be 15% off only at SoftwareMedia.com

SoftwareMedia.com – Customer Advantage Program

Kyle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:07:43 +0000

Over the years, SoftwareMedia.com has established itself as the premier online software shop for businesses and individuals across the country. We pride ourselves in our knowledgeable sales staff, our quality customer service team and our consistent 5-Star Ratings from third-party sites.

In addition, we boast one of the largest software catalogs around and hold some of the highest certifications of many top software brands. Combine that with discount prices, free shipping with every order, and a Price Match Guarantee, and you’ll see why we strive to become your one stop software shop.

Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy – Changing the Rules (Again)

Dan — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:36:52 +0000

Back in November 2011 Adobe announced that you would need the most recent versions of Creative Suite, 5 or 5.5, in order to upgrade to CS6. This policy meant that if you had an older version, such as CS3 or CS4, you would need to upgrade to CS5 or CS5.5, which could run you anywhere from $400 – $1000, and then have to pay a fee to upgrade again to CS6 once it comes out. When Adobe announced this in November they offered a 20% off promotion till the end of the year for upgrades to CS5.5.

Here at SoftwareMedia.com we felt the pain of being forced to upgrade and dropped our CS5.5 upgrade prices even lower than Adobe’s advertised discount and now include a free gift with purchase. Late December, in an attempt to give customers a break, Adobe announced their 20% off promotion would continue until March 15th. But this plan still wasn’t satisfactory with customers and, most likely due to the overwhelmingly negative response, there was a change of heart over at Adobe.

Fortunately, Adobe has revised their upgrade policy once again. For a limited time customers will be able to upgrade to CS6 from versions going back to CS3, reverting to the previous “3 versions back” upgrade policy. So, if you have CS3 or CS4 you will no longer have to upgrade to CS5 or CS5.5 before upgrading to CS6 when it is released. But, this offer is scheduled to be a special introductory price only.

This special upgrade policy will be in effect from the release of CS6 until December 31st, 2012.

This change in upgrade pricing will hopefully allow industry professionals to stay on top of their game with all the new features in CS6, without breaking the bank. But, as we mentioned before, the previous policy wasn’t unanimously disagreed with. Some argued that encouraging people to stay up to date will make collaboration easier among teams by avoiding the headache of sharing files with older versions. In any case, creative professionals will now have more flexibility with upgrading older versions or upgrading to CS6 once it comes out. We’ll have to wait and see what Adobe does with later versions but we’ll keep you updated if Adobe releases any information.

Up to 50% Off Total Training Online Subscriptions

Dan — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:00:49 +0000

Did you know Total Training provides all-access online library subscriptions? Broaden your knowledge and fine tune your skills with popular software from Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, and more. With online subscriptions you have 24/7 access to all of the online training programs wherever you are without the need for physical software.

Subscriptions include all the great features of the Total Training software. Downloadable project files allow you to work along side the instructor as you learn applications and features. The interactive interface allows you to work at your own pace, track your progress and bookmark lessons. Subscriptions also include any new release to the subscription library as soon as it comes out, at no extra charge, for the entirety of your subscription. Some of the recent additions for training include:

Adobe Acrobat X Pro: Essentials
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
Microsoft Word 2010
Microsoft Access 2010: Essentials
Adobe InDesign CS5: Interactivity
Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: What’s New
And Many More…

In addition to the all-access subscription, you can opt for only the Adobe or Microsoft subscriptions at a lesser cost. Licenses are available in a variety of sizes to meet your personal or small business needs. Check out Softwaremedia.com for up to 50% off Total Training Online Subscriptions.

SAP Crystal Dashboard Design 2011 – In Depth Review

Kyle — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:36:31 +0000

Bored with the same old, bland figures in your spread-sheets? Want to impress your clients with some extraordinary dashboards? The new era of business intelligence begins with SAP Crystal Dashboard Design 2011. Formerly known as Xcelsius Engage, Crystal Dashboard Design is a powerful tool which can generate eye-catching dashboards in a very short time.

The main benefit of SCDD is its embedded spread sheet and flash format output files. Just drag a component from component list, map it with the embedded sheet and a gorgeous dashboard is ready for your viewing. In addition to dashboard development, normal flash development can also be done, such as flash slide shows or some normal visualization effects for web pages.

Crystal Dashboard Design contains several different categories of templates which can help to develop various kinds of dashboards. If, for example, someone wants to create sales, finance or other category-related dashboards, they need only select a template from the list, enter their data and the dashboard is ready.

Crystal Dashboard Design boasts a wide variety of features and functionality, including various types of charts, grids, analytics with alerts, maps, text boxes, radio buttons, labels, image containers, panels and much more. In addition, if a user cannot find what they need in the included components, there are a number of third-party SCDD-supported components are available for download, many of which have insertion functionality with multiple options which are very useful in drill-down development.

The key element to any dashboard is presentation, and with Adobe Flash being the primary output format, the aesthetic benefits and capabilities of SAP Crystal Dashboard Design should be self-evident. SCDD comes equipped with ten different preset themes, each with its own effects and component looks and color schemes.

SAP Crystal Dashboard Design 2011 is a unique business intelligence tool that offers a multitude of features, utilities and functionality that will allow users to present their reports and spreadsheet data in a compelling, visually engaging medium. Advanced compatibility with Microsoft Excel and Live-Office connection make this product a must-have for any business professional.

Article Contributor: Nisarg Kothari

Get Your Software by Christmas! – FREE 2-Day Shipping

Justin — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:00:32 +0000

‘Tis the season…for last minute shopping. Christmas is right around the corner and many people will be packing shopping-malls across the country looking for that last-minute gift. Don’t be one of them this year!

SoftwareMedia has the best selection of software titles to fit every recipient’s hobbies or profession. Additionally, no other software retailer can compete with our pricing, and we pride ourselves in our live, friendly customer service. What’s more, to make sure you get your gift in time, we’re offering FREE 2-Day Shipping on all orders made by Wednesday, December 21^st. Simply select the free 2-Day Air option at checkout, and receive your order by Christmas Eve.*

Year End Blowout Sale – Save hundreds on your favorite software titles!

Justin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:05:06 +0000

It’s the end of the year, and that means it’s time for SoftwareMedia’s Year End Blowout Sale! We’re clearing out the warehouse for upcoming 2012 shipments and need these products gone TODAY! Between now and New Year’s Eve you can save hundreds on your favorite software titles. See below for some of the great deals and be sure to check out all of the Year End Deals for even more savings!