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.

Version X5 newly packs in…

• a built-in content organizer — speed up your workflow with Corel CONNECT, which instantly finds graphics, templates, fonts and images on your computer
• blank document/image presets — choose from a range of preset destinations, document sizes and color settings with the Create New Document/Image dialogue
• a locked toolbars option — prevent toolbars from moving by locking them in position, unlock and reposition them on your screen at anytime
• Windows 7 Touch support and Windows 7 compatibility — work in the latest Windows environment with support for touch-screen navigation
• curve tools — create smoother curves, using fewer nodes than before, with the new B-Spline tool
• ability to coordinate drawing — precisely specify both the size of a new object and its location on the page with the live preview of the Object Coordinates docker
• Flash animation tools — create stunning, interactive Adobe Flash animations, banners and mor with SWiSH miniMax 2, integrated into CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
• photo effects — spice up your photos with Vibrance, Grayscale and Photo Filter effects
• color management — set application color policies to achieve the most accurate representation
• PANTONE spot color profiles — get support for the latest spot color profiles, plus new palettes from PANTONE
• document color palettes — automatically generate a custom color palette on the fly for each design project, gain quick access to colors in the future
• on-screen color proof — reliably preview how your artwork and colors will appear on different output devices or in other applications where you need to post artwork
• multi-core support — complete tasks faster with powerful performance enhancements that leverage multi-core processing to maximize your computer’s power
• Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications — create dynamic add-ins with Microsoft VSTA technology, which gives you more automation flexibility
• guidebook and insights from experts — do more than you thought possible with a visually rich guidebook that introduces each application workspace and provides insights from CorelDRAW experts

DRAW GRAPHICS STE X5 HARD BACK

Prices start at

$145.33

Avg user rating

0 user reviews

Merchant

Price

Rating

TheProDeal

$349.95

2 Reviews

$429.00

2614 Reviews

TheNerds.net

$436.99

11246 Reviews

$444.05

2463 Reviews

$444.20

7529 Reviews

Prices and availability are subject to change by merchant without notice. Please check with merchant for details. For all prices or availability click here

Buy or upgrade to QuarkXPress 8 today to access $750 worth of exclusive Flash resources for FREE:

• hundreds of exclusive, fully editable QuarkXPress 8 Flash assets
• web templates, animations and video players
• Flash tutorials, eSeminars and educational resources

After you have registered your product, access your free resources at Quark.com/Magic with a provided password.

XPress v.8.0 (Upgrade License - Standard - 1 User - Mac, PC - Retail)

Prices start at

$279.50

Avg user rating

0 user reviews

Merchant

Price

Rating

TheNerds.net

$275.99

11246 Reviews

$279.50

2614 Reviews

$279.63

2463 Reviews

$285.99

24301 Reviews

BZ Tech USA

$286.23

0 Reviews

Prices and availability are subject to change by merchant without notice. Please check with merchant for details. For all prices or availability click here

Just hit the “browse” (on FireFox or IE) or “choose file”  (Chrome) button towards the bottom to add an image to your comment. Click on the image to your right for a bit more direction.

Okay, a bit more in depth…

• Be sure to tell us why that photo is your favorite in the comment text. A simple sentence or two will suffice; we aren’t looking for novels or short stories here.
• Submit a valid email because if you win, that’s how we will be contacting you.
• All images must be in JPEG format, as you won’t be able to upload other formats…
• Deadline for submissions is March 31, 2010.
• Enter as often as you’d like! Just make sure you are following the above guidelines for each submission.

That’s it! SoftwareMedia.com staff will be vote for the winners by April Fool’s… we thought it’d be a fun tie-in for April 1st — tricky images for a tricky day. We’ll have three copies of Photoshop Elements ($99.99 MSRP value!) to give away. Start showing us those entries!

Oh, if you know the details, crediting the original artist(s) is encouraged.

Chinese Schools Spurred Online Hacking
Remember the series of cyber attacks not too long after Google first threatened to pull out of China? Although it was never proven at the time, China was highly suspected of launching those attacks. It’s recently been discovered that two schools in China may have been responsibly. According to the New York Times, “a series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military.”

Google Goes (and Gets More) Green
The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission has given Google the power to “sell energy, capacity and service at market rates,” according to Wired. And now, it can start going green like they’ve been hoping… In the summer of 2007, they had 9,212 solar panels powering their Mountain View headquarters. With the FREC order, the entire Google-polis could be solar powered and maybe even your home! Of course, consumers will have to pay for service… Again, another step in taking over the world.

Photoshop Turns 20 (and transforms into an iPhone app)!
Okay, it’s really not that much of a headliner… but I thought it was cool. There’s a dedicated 20th anniversary site that Adobe created, complete with an informative and interactive timeline. Who knew, layers didn’t appear until five years after the birth? A specially created iPhone app was also given out to a group of selected attendees at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals 20th Anniversary Event. “I really wanted to do something special to commemorate 20 years of Photoshop, and the best thing I thought of was a nostalgic iPhone app,” says Russell Brown, Adobe’s Senior Creative Director.

If Andrew starts to bug the crap out of you, click on the image above to get him to stop waving and bobbing. Don’t worry, I got annoyed too — so I made sure he built in that click to bring things to a halt. Just kidding, Andrew… you rock, for making this tutorial….

First, Andrew reviews how to remove the background from an image using the magic wand and eraser tools in Adobe Fireworks. After the image has been cleaned up, Andrew describes how to copy it to your Flash library. He also touches on useful functions such as tracing a bitmap, creating symbols and working with the timeline in Adobe Flash.

For more software tutorials, click the SoftwareMedia TV tag or follow us on YouTube. Are there other Flash or Fireworks applications/functions/features you would like Andrew to capture a tutorial for? Let us know by leaving us comments!

Fireworks CS4 v.10.0 (Web Development - Complete Product - Retail - PC)

Prices start at

$220.99

Avg user rating

0 user reviews

Merchant

Price

Rating

$169.99

60 Reviews

ComputerSoftwarePlus.com

$179.88

32 Reviews

SaveInTheUSA

$180.11

134 Reviews

$220.99

2614 Reviews

$221.00

596 Reviews

Prices and availability are subject to change by merchant without notice. Please check with merchant for details. For all prices or availability click here

Congratulations Brian! Your design won over the SoftwareMedia.com office today. Check out Brian’s winning design and the three following runner-ups. Careful not to stare at it all too long — there’s a whole lot of animation going on all at once below here.

Brian

Daniel

Dave

What’s your verdict? Do you agree with the SoftwareMedia.com office? Hit “Comment” and tell us your thoughts!

Thanks to everyone who entered! We look forward to utilizing the above favorite designs to promote SoftwareNewsDaily.com and gain more readers. Keep tuned via RSS Feed, Twitter or Facebook to learn about upcoming contests. Perhaps we’ll be upping the ante even more!

Adobe Captivate

Captivate allows you to easily and quickly create simulations and software demonstrations. It allows someone without any programming or multimedia skills to make engaging content with audio and video.  Dave Lukasik, chief learning officer for Professional Service Industries, an industry-leading engineering, consulting, and testing firm, attests, “With Adobe Captivate, we’ve achieved efficiency and effectiveness for both learners and training developers.” Captivate helped Lukasik train 2,500 employees at 125 offices across the United States with the new major overhaul of the company’s core operational system. Read more about his success story with Captivate.

In the same category that Adobe Captivate snagged a winning title, Atlantic Link Capture Point, Qarbon Viewlet Builder and TechSmith Camstasia were also given Awards of Excellence. And Adobe eLearning Suite (eLS), at less than a year old, won an Award of Excellence for “Best E-Learning Development Tool.” Congrats Adobe!

The Nexus One, closely designed in partnership with HTC, resembles an iPhone. Okay, maybe it looks a lot more like the DROID ERIS by HTC…

The Nexus One is 4.68″ (119mm) in height, 2.35″ (60mm) wide, no thicker than a No. 2 pencil (11.5mm) and weighs under 5 ounces (130 grams), or approximately 53 pennies. It features a high-resolution 3.7 inch 480×800 pixel AMOLED touchscreen. And it’s built with a second microphone for active noise cancellation, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack (eliminating the need for an adapter, as such with my LG), compass, Micro SD slot, light and proximity sensor, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and it’s Teflon coated (interesting). TechCrunch praises that this “is the best mobile phone display on the market today, blowing away the iPhone’s 480 x 320 display.” On top of being pretty, it’s also fast — the Nexus One, which runs the new Android 2.1 platform, is powered by a 1GHz snapdragon processor. This updated processor allows upped capabilities to handle 3D graphics and ability to run multiple applications simultaneously — less lag time and what not. Amped for more? Read more fancy tech spec stuff at Google.

Wait! There’s more cool stuff…

Google Maps Navigation, voice recognition, Facebook sync/widget, one-click YouTube upload, quick contacts, live wallpaper (there’s a wallpaper that pumps to your MP3s!), weather and a very cool new gallery app also come on the Nexus One. So that makes the phone… a weatherman, Rolodex, media library, GPS and social life manager all rolled into one, eh. And that wasn’t even a full list of everything the Nexus One has to offer! The new gallery app, a team-up with Cooliris, sounds will be awesome. Scroll and tip the phone to show a 3D layout of images? Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Then it syncs to Picasa! Awesome Bad ass! Get a taste for Cooliris by downloading their browser extension for FireFox or Chrome. I already use it and feel like I’m pulled into another dimension each time I search images through the 3D portal.

Mashable has a quick comparison chart if you want to make a more informed smartphone choice. But, I am psyched! Aren’t you? Verizon. Spring 2010. I’m ready.

We’re in need of a few banners to help promote SoftwareNewsDaily. Think something similar to: http://www.softwaremedia.com/link-to-us.html, but animated to give it more pop! There are just a few guidelines:

1. Image must be 180 pixels in width and 60 pixels in height.
2. Promotes SoftwareNewsDaily.com.
3. GIF file size may not exceed 1MB (original PSD file may exceed 1MB).
4. Animated GIF file must be viewable in Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.
5. Original work only.

All entries must be received by January 10, 2010, a bit after the New Year (so not to cram your holiday partying, of course). Keep these things in mind when you enter:

1. Include your name in the email with your entry.
2. Also, please tell us how you found out about the contest along with your entry.
3. Submission of artwork automatically grants SoftwareNewsDaily permission for use. Author may retain rights to artwork, but SoftwareNewsDaily has any and all permissions to use the image for promotion.

Submit all entries to SND@softwaremedia.com.

Here are a couple of examples to get those creative juices flowing:

Feel free to reference the animated GIF video tutorial that Ryan created: How to Create Animated GIFs in Photoshop CS4. Good luck! We look forward to receiving your designs.