Link via VMware
New features in VMware Workstation 6.5 include:
- Seamless desktop experience with “Unity” — Run applications in virtual machines alongside applications on your normal desktop. The desktop of the virtual machine disappears and applications appear as a normal window in the rest of their environment. Color coding of Unity application windows makes it easy to run multiple versions of the same application across different virtual machines.
- Support for DirectX 3D graphics — VMware Workstation was the first desktop virtualization product to support 3D graphics and VMware Workstation 6.5 takes it to the next level with support for DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 3D graphics.
- Simplify creating Windows and Linux virtual machines with Easy Install – VMware Workstation 6.5 enables users to save time and simplify Windows and Linux guest operating system installation. Just answer a few simple questions and the Easy Install feature will perform an unattended installation of the guest operating system and VMware Tools in a single step.
- VM record and replay for groundbreaking debugging — VMware Workstation 6.5 lets users record a VM’s entire programmatic execution—every CPU instructions, every memory page, and every disk write—over time and then replay the recording to reproduce the exact behavior and state of the virtual machine to help analyze and debug hard-to-reproduce software defects until they are fixed.
- Create ACE encrypted virtual machines — VMware Workstation 6.5 users now benefit from the included ACE authoring capabilities. Encrypt important virtual machines and run them with the included VMware Player for improved data security, or create personal Pocket ACE virtual machines to take virtual desktop environments on the road with a USB thumb-drive.
VMware Workstation 6.5 is now available as a free, downloadable update for all VMware Workstation 6 customers from: www.vmware.com/products/ws/.
VMware Workstation 6.0 (download version) is available at an academic discount price of $119.
Link via eschoolnews.com
 With the rise of technology in art education, some might fear that traditional media, such as charcoal drawing and oil painting, are being shunted aside in favor of software-based creations, but the art educators who spoke with eSchool News said certain software programs and emerging web-based collaborations are helping establish a strong base of conceptual understanding–regardless of raw manual or technical talent. This enables a far wider range of students to appreciate art. It also encourages and facilitates the acquisition of more advanced, traditional techniques and skills by far more talented beginners.
Consider Stephanie Reese, a technology teacher at Notre Dame Preparatory High School in Scottsdale, Ariz. For the past 12 years, she, has been using Corel Painter, software designed to mimic traditional painting.
“I use art in the classroom to teach everything from communication and desktop publishing to web design and in yearbook classes,” she said. “We’re using it for students to be able to tell a story, and this allows them to do it visually. Whether they use video or artwork, they still manipulate the medium and create something that’s a story.”
Reese uses Painter software to teach different concepts–including 3D animation modeling, 3D figures for geometry, and sculpting for anatomy classes–and also to teach color theory.
Painter X with Learning Corel Painter X with Jeremy Sutton DVD is available at an academic discount price of $95.
Link via Digital Arts
 Cinema 4D can be found in many VFX studios serving the TV industry, so that market will welcome the tighter integration of Projection Man, the high-end matte-painting toolset in Cinema 4D R11. Although this has been available since version 9.5 as part of a bundle aimed at film studios, it’s now part of the core application. This useful tool is a camera-mapping application used to paint materials onto 3D foreground objects while allowing matte painters to use 2D image stalwarts like Photoshop as central to their workflow.
Maxon claims R11 renders about twice as fast as version R10.5, and it does seem like a rapid application all round. While its competitor LightWave 3D is slightly less expensive, the core application, bundled as it is with BodyPaint3D, is still well-priced and specified for single 3D artists. Studios, however, will probably find the best value in buying one of the bundles.
Cinema 4D R11 (includes BodyPaint 3D R4) is available at an academic discount price of $195.
Link via Adobe
Thanks to Adobe® Director® 11 software, developers like Mockworld now offer immersive and dynamic motion in casual games that play on anyone’s browser. Plus, with the Adobe Shockwave® player on a gamer’s PC, the exciting world of 3D online gaming is also easily accessible. And with support for over 40 video, audio, and image formats, the only limit is your imagination. So what are you waiting for? Watch the video and get inspired.
Director 11 is available at an academic discount price of $295.
All-New Adobe Creative Suite 4 Education Solutions for Web, Video, Design and Mobile
 New Adobe Creative Suite 4 solutions provide the industry-standard creative software, teaching resources, and licensing options needed to engage students in learning while preparing them for career success.
Adobe Creative Suite 4 products are expected to begin shipping late October 2008. If you need something now, order the Adobe CS3 or CS3.3 product and receive a free CS4 upgrade directly from Adobe when CS4 ships.
Link via vnunet.com
 Version 7.2 of Mindjet’s MindManager package, launched in June, has been upgraded since the 7.0 release in 2007, the main thrust being improved remote collaboration support with the ability to access MindManager map files from a Web-based Distributed, Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) server.
WebDAV lets users work on documents on remote servers as if they were local, but there are major restrictions on how maps are saved.
The basic productivity boost theoretically achievable by deploying MindManager is that employees thinking visually allows them to collaborate better if they have a centralised repository containing all the documents, prioritised schedules and thoughts around the goals they are trying to achieve, rather than a linear track and documents distributed all over the place.
This linking and layering of multi-dimensional information, combined with employees’ ability to see the whole plan and be able to drill down to pick up any related documents, again, in theory, should lead to more efficient task management and better project collaboration.
In conclusion, although MindManager requires a different approach to project and planning management, it could give a productivity boost to organisations, especially if employees are able to think beyond the constraints of traditional project and planning applications.
MindManager 7.2 update
MindManager Pro 7 is available at an academic discount price of $149.
Link via MacWorld
With Photoshop CS4’s Content-Aware Scaling capabilities, users can take a large image…
… and resize it without cropping people out of the shot.
Highlighting the new features in Photoshop CS4 is Content-Aware Scaling. This addition allows users to take a large image and resize it without losing the most interesting areas. Users can select an area of an image that you do not want to lose when resizing and Photoshop will protect it, making sure to remove other areas first.
Photoshop CS4 Extended is available at an academic discount price of $299.
Link via CGSociety
Back in 1999, a film project was produced about the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek computer. That was part of Producer Antonios Kotzias’ postgraduate research at Glasgow School of Arts in Scotland. Wild Dream Films, a production company in the UK, saw a story reporting his project and contacted him to buy part of the footage.
Since then, director Stuart Clarke and he became good business partners and they’ve always done work together. Big projects for History Channel arrived around 2005, after Antonio had been working in other companies, as Junior CG artist to studio supervisor.Since then, Yafka has done animation for 20 episodes of ‘Ancient Discoveries 3’ (over 100 subjects) and signed for several more.
The main software the Yafka studio uses is NewTek LightWave, and Adobe After Effects for post work. For more complex character animation and rigging they use Autodesk Maya. “We really wanted to use LightWave’s 64-bit capabilities but we were afraid of stability issues,” explains Antonis Kotzias. “In fact, LightWave 64 and Windows 64 worked perfectly together and we saw an increase in performance and stability much better than we have hoped in the beginning. Our humble experience made sure that we couldn’t have done it differently.
LightWave 3D 9 with electronic manual is available at an academic discount price of $195.
After Effects CS3 Professional with electronic manual is available at an academic discount price of $195.
Maya Unlimited 2008 Student Superpack (14-month term) is available at an academic discount price of $190.
Link via Sony Creative Software
 Vegas Pro 8.1 software has been engineered to take full advantage of a 64-bit operating system to enable users to work with multifaceted, memory-intensive projects. Vegas Pro 8.1 64-bit software is a standalone application that does not require prior installation of Vegas Pro 8 software, and is available to all registered Vegas Pro 8 users. However, Vegas Pro 8.1 has been designed with backwards compatibility with the 32-bit Vegas Pro 8 application so users can create a project in one platform and open it in the other. This provides users with the ability to work with the 64-bit version for the performance gains, but also work in the 32-bit system for continued broad hardware and codec support.
Benefits of Vegas Pro 8.1 software
* Vegas Pro 8.1 software has been designed to maximize the capabilities of the 64-bit system, providing:
o Access to large amounts of memory not possible with 32-bit systems
o Scalability for multicore processors
o Faster overall performance and rendering
* Vegas Pro 8.1 provides current users with more memory access which enables:
o Working with complex memory-hungry 3D projects
o Working with nested Vegas Pro projects
o Running multiple instances of Vegas Pro software
o More open
Codecs
Filters and Effects
Cached Frames for Ram Previews
* Features both improved rendering times and general performance optimizations
Vegas Pro 8.1 professional software is now available as a free downloadable update for Vegas Pro 8 users.
Vegas Pro 8 is available at an academic discount price of $309.
Link via eweek.com
At the ZendCon PHP conference, Zend and Adobe announce plans to collaborate to help PHP developers better leverage Adobe’s user experience technologies. The two companies will enable PHP developers to make better use of Adobe’s Flash and Flex technology.
At the event being held Sept. 15-18 in Santa Clara, Calif., the two companies said they will collaborate to make Zend’s PHP tools play nicely with Adobe’s Flex technology for building RIAs (rich Internet applications). Indeed, the two companies will deliver technologies, content and services to make it easy for enterprise developers to build RIAs using Flex on the client and PHP on the server.
One of the core deliverables of this collaboration is to integrate Adobe’s AMF (Action Message Format) support into Zend Framework. AMF is an open, binary, high-speed format enabling Adobe Flash Player and Flex-based client applications to better exchange rich media and other data with servers, Adobe officials said.
Flash CS3 Professional is available at an academic discount price of $245.
Adobe Flex Builder 3 Pro is available for free to all education customers.
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