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Learning to use a software application can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task. Some people spend years learning the ins and outs of the various software suites required for their profession. Well, we have some good news: learning how to use your software doesn’t have to be a time-intensive, mind-bending endeavor.

Atomic Training has been providing high-quality, award-winning e-learning solutions for more than a decade to over 16 million users in 45 countries.  With Atomic Training’s online Help Desk Solution, your company can reduce training costs and enhance employee productivity. Atomic Training’s fully integrated online training platform provides an easy-to-use search interface allowing employees to quickly find answers to their software questions.

No matter what industry your company is in, Atomic Training  has software tutorials to meet your training needs. Some companies, such as graphic design firms or those with graphics-intensive creative departments, will benefit from products such as Adobe Creative Suite Training, wherein users will learn to utilize the full range of features and tools for such programs as Flash Professional, InDesign, Dreameweaver and Photoshop. Companies with a predominantly (or entirely) Macintosh workflow will greatly benefit from Mac OS X Training, while a corporate office environment may find Microsoft Office Training to be the most useful. Whatever your training needs, Atomic Training has the know-how and tutorial resources to meet them.

Many companies employ multiple departments, each with their own software and training needs. For those who require access to training for multiple software applications, the Atomic Training All-Access Subscription is probably the best option.

With the Atomic Training All-Access Pass, your employees gain access to Atomic Training’s entire tutorial library, with unlimited 24/7 availability. With more than 50 thousand software tutorial lessons for such industry standards as Microsoft Office, Skype, Google Services, Adobe Creative Suites, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, AutoCAD,  your employees can find the exact training they need, on demand. Don’t let software slow your company down. Provide the right kind of training today.

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Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2012 will be released in the first half of 2012 in three versions: Standard (for basic database and reporting capabilities), Business Intelligence (a new version providing premium corporate and self-service BI) and Enterprise (for large scale data warehousing and mission critical applications). Microsoft is holding a “virtual launch event” for SQL Server 2012 on March 7, 2012.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is a significant product release that provides mission critical confidence with greater uptime, blazing-fast performance and enhanced security features.

SQL Server 2012 is a cloud-ready information platform that helps organizations unlock breakthrough insights with pervasive data discovery across their organization.

SQL Server 2012 Enhancements & New Features

 Availability

 For protecting application databases, SQL Server 2012 introduces the AlwaysOn SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances and AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature.

 AlwaysOn SQL Server Failover Clusters:

• A multi-subnet failover cluster provides a disaster recovery solution in addition to high availability.
• The improved failure detection and addition of failure condition level property lets you configure a more flexible failover policy.
• The indirect checkpoints feature provides a database specific alternative to automatic checkpoints that are configured by a server property.  

AlwaysOn Availability Groups:

• An availability group is a container that defines a set user databases (availability databases) to fail over as a single unit. It defines a set of availability replicas to host copies of each user database.
• It also provides a rich set of options that improve resource usage.

Manageability

Manageability of SQL Server 2012 is improved by enhancements to tools and monitoring features.

• The Database Engine Query Editor introduces enhanced functionality for Transact-SQL debugging and IntelliSense.
• Point-in-time restore has improved by the addition of a visual timeline.
• Restore plan algorithm has improved and a lot of edge cases are dealt more efficiently than in previous versions.
• Data tier applications now support many more objects than in SQL Server 2008 R2.
• The new Windows PowerShell 2.0 feature loads SQL Server components into a PowerShell environment.

Programmability 

Programmability enhancements include FileTables, statistical semantic search, ad-hoc query paging, support for sequence objects and numerous improvements to Transact-SQL.

• You can now store files and documents in special tables in SQL Server.  You can access them from Windows applications as if they were stored in the file system, without making changes to the Windows applications.
• Semantic search enables new scenarios that extend beyond syntactical keyword searches. Semantic search lets you query the meaning of a document.
• You can specify a range of rows returned by a SELECT statement based on row offset and row count values that you provide.
• A sequence object generates a sequence of numeric values according to the specification with which the sequence was created. Here the sequence numbers are not restricted.
• The THROW statement can be used to raise an exception and transfer the control to a CATCH block of a TRY-CATCH construct.
• The OVER clause has been extended to support window functions.

Scalability & Performance 

Scalability and performance enhancements in the Database Engine include columnstore indexes.

• The columnstore index improves data warehouse query performance by hundreds to thousands of times and can routinely give a tenfold speedup for a wide range of decision support queries.
• This allows end users to get more business value from their data.
• As columnstore indexes can eliminate the need of pre-built aggregates, IT workers can reduce the development costs and ETL times.

Security

Security enhancements include new SEARCH PROPERTY LIST permissions and new user-defined server roles.

• New GRANT, REVOKE, and DENY permissions are available to a SEARCH PROPERTY LIST.
• To manage user-defined server roles and to add and remove members from all server roles, CREATE SERVER ROLE, ALTER SERVER ROLE, and DROP SERVER ROLE are available.

Key Benefits

• The new MDS Add-in for Excel helps end users to manage and maintain central data.
• Create and scale business solutions from server to cloud.
• Provide complete view across business data through integration, cleansing and management.
• Reduce complexity and accelerate time to solution through SQL Server appliances and cloud offerings.
• Ensure peace of mind with premier services and support, and free access to software service packs.

The upcoming release of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 promises to further protect the infrastructure of an organization, especially for mission critical workloads. As you bet on Microsoft, you get more than a trusted platform. You also get a trusted business partner as well as a trusted ecosystem of experienced vendors.

Article Contributor: Satish Kumar

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Continue reading »]]> 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

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Continue reading »]]> SoftwareMedia.com is now carrying Intego Mac Antivirus and Security software! 

The Internet is rife with dangers: from viruses and malware that can infect and delete files, to hackers and vandals who can infiltrate computers. Mac users have special security needs, and Intego has been working to protect them from the dangers of the Internet for more than ten years. Founded in 1997, Intego is the only company focusing solely on Mac security. With a full range of products to protect Macs, Intego makes the Internet a safer place for Mac users.

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Continue reading »]]> For the past few months, the internet has been abuzz with news of some controversial -many would say dangerous- pieces of legislation:  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). If you are not yet familiar with these proposed pieces of Orwellian control, you can read the full text of the Stop Online Piracy Act here.

Today, January 18th, 2011, SoftwareMedia.com and Software News Daily have joined hundreds if not thousands of websites (including Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Tumblr, and many others) in the National Internet Blackout Day, one of the largest online protests the world has ever seen.

You too can do your part to help tell Congress that We The People oppose SOPA and PIPA, by signing Google’s Online Petition.

Protect the freedom of information – say NO to SOPA and PIPA!

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Continue reading »]]> SAP Crystal Reports 2011 software continues the tradition of reporting excellence and innovation. SAP Crystal Reports software enables the end-users to create reports with amazing visualizations while they conduct on-report business modeling and execute the decisions instantly from the report itself, reducing dependency on developers.

Whether you are an IT professional, a report designer, an application developer or a business user, SAP Crystal Reports 2011 delivers richly formatted and actionable data for more informed decision-making.

Crystal Reports 2011 builds on the existing features of Crystal Reports 2008 and provides certain new features to the report designers and IT developers.

 Comparison of SAP Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011

SAP Crystal Reports 2011 can connect to almost any data source including relational, online analytical processing (OLAP) and XML data. Whether you require access to relational databases, spreadsheets, log files, OLAP cubes or applications, you can use SAP Crystal Reports to access them.

Benefits

 These are the seven major benefits of upgrading from 2008 to 2011:

• You can protect the investments made in the design of your reports by using the new Read-Only report format

• Additional viewing and interaction features such as data exploration.

• Exporting up to one million rows from a Crystal Report by leveraging the new XSLX format

• Version control and configuration features

• Integration of the Crystal Reports with Visual Studio

• Crystal Reports 2011 is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7.

• Life cycle management.

SAP Crystal Reports also supports Unicode, so you can create reports from data stored in virtually any language. For developers, access to user-defined or application in-memory data is available through Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) and ADO.NET.

Hence,  SAP Crystal Reports 2011 provides comprehensive tools to generate specialized reports.

Article Contributor: Satish Kumar

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Continue reading »]]> As most of you know by now, SoftwareMedia.com and Software News Daily love to give stuff away. From free iPods to free copies of Corel Painter 12, we just can’t keep ourselves from spreading the wealth.

So, in keeping with our long-standing tradition of gift-giving, SoftwareMedia.com will be including free calendars with every purchase over $500. The calendars feature original photographs of some of the most breathtaking landscapes in Utah, taken by photographer Andrew Jensen. As a little bonus, every month features software tips to help you get more familiar with your favorite software titles.

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Can I deduct Blackjack as a business loss?

Update: SoftwareMedia.com has put together a comprehensive Tax Filing Guide, in order to help you determine the best way for you to prepare and file your 201 tax return.

Tax season is just around the corner, and unless you have your own personal accountant, or Rain Man’s knack for numbers, you’re probably going to need some help.

We are happy to announce that you are not alone. With the forboding shadow of the IRS collectors looming on the horizon, SoftwareMedia.com is here with the latest editions of your most trusted tax software.

Get TurboTax or H&R Block at Home for your personal, business or corporate tax needs, and get the biggest refund possible, along with other awesome features like audit protection, guaranteed accurate calculations, and free federal e-files.

Just check out the Tax Software available at SoftwareMedia.com.

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...we know where our towels are.

Don’t freak out, but Software News Daily has had a bit of a digital face-lift. After upgrading to the new version of wordpress, we realized that there were alot of things we could do to make your favorite source for software and technology news even better. “Not possible,” you say? Well, just sit back, sip a nice pan-galactic gargle-blaster and remember not to panic as you explore the shiny, new layout of Software News Daily.

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Continue reading »]]> Cyber Monday is here… the day when we grudgingly return to work after a 4-day weekend filled with feasting, football, shopping and awkward conversations with relatives that you don’t necessarily get along with. Oh, and the insanity of Black Friday.

Black Friday has come and gone with -hopefully- minimal trampling, but there are still some awesome savings to be found. Cyber Monday is upon us, and with it some of the best online-shopping savings that the all-powerful internet has to offer!

Check out SoftwareMedia.com Cyber Monday 2011 Software Deals for discounts of up to 60%  on the leading brand-names in software!

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