Adobe has released a free public beta of Adobe Photoshop CS6.

And while these are relatively early days -- we don’t have information on pricing, yet, or a firm date for the final release -- it’s already clear that this is going to be a significant upgrade.

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There are countless websites that provide streaming content, either in an episodic or less structure form. Add to this the media files you already have stored on your hard drive and you have a lot of audio and video to contend with. Miro is a powerful media player that can be used to play local files, but is also geared up to playing online content from the likes of YouTube and Hulu. The application itself is nothing new, but the release candidate of version 5 of the program gives a tantalizing taste of what’s to come.

While there is a leaning towards video in Miro, the release candidate helps to highlight that it can be used for other media as well. If you have a hefty MP3 collection on your hard drive, Miro can be used to listen to your favorite albums and while you’re doing so, you can take advantage of the application’s ability to go online and retrieve the correct album art and information for any track or albums that are incorrectly labelled.

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Less than three weeks after launching jAlbum 10.4, an update that "perhaps should have been labelled jAlbum 11", according to its makers, the Swedish web album creation tool has been updated again with a number of improvements and feature tweaks.

jAlbum 10.5 claims to improve album downloading by up to eight times, plus adds the ability to import albums created in the desktop application as well as online. It also promises that album projects can now be moved and copied without breaking. jAlbum 10.5 is in fact the fourth update of the program since version 10.4 was released on March 2, with three minor updates appearing in a 48-hour period from March 7-9.

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One month after open-source media player VLC reached its landmark 2.0 release, the VideoLAN Organization has released VLC 2.0.1 FINAL. The brand new update of this popular cross-platform media player divided opinion, particularly among Mac users, when version 2.0 shipped, and this latest release aims to fix many bugs and annoyances reported over the intervening period.

Version 2.0.1 also tweaks the revamped Mac OS X user interface further, plus adds support for MxPEG files and streams as well as limited support for Blu-ray disc menus. It also improves support for multi-tracked MKV video files and removes version 2.0’s “flawed” auto-detection of ALSA audio channels. There are also a number of security updates.

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Equipping a PC to handle all your graphics needs can be a complex and expensive business. You’ll need one application to retouch your photos, another for drawing and illustration, and then there’s web graphics, desktop publishing -- and the list goes on.

If you prefer a simple life, though, you could just grab a copy of Xara Xtreme 5. The program can retouch photos; draw everything from simple business logos to complex technical illustrations; design greetings cards, invitations, calendars and more; and even produce web graphics, simple Flash animations or complete websites without worrying about code. And if you take advantage of our giveaway then you can have your copy, worth $79.99, for free.

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Who says Android device diversity is bad for developers? There has been lots of blabbering on the InterWebs about fragmentation and how it hurts Android compared to iOS. Not at Netflix, which claims support for about 1,000 different Androids. Yowza!

Fragmentation is real. As of March 5th, 93.9 percent of the install base was on Android 2.x -- 62 percent on Gingerbread (v2.3.x) and 25.3 percent on Froyo (v2.2). Newest version, Ice Cream Sandwich (v4.x) accounts, for just 1.2 percent, and that's nearly six months after release.

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It’s official. More than six years after its last stable release, Audacity 2.0 is now available. This open-source, cross-platform audio recording, editing and mixing tool is often bundled with audio hardware devices and has garnered a huge following since it first appeared.

Audacity 2.0 is based on the 1.3.x beta channel, which means those currently running this version of Audacity, the only version to support the latest Windows and OS X operating systems, won’t notice any differences between this and the latest beta release (1.3.14) that appeared in December.

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Apple dominated news the second week of March, but, not to be outdone, Microsoft released a couple of interesting tools that are well worth a look. Microsoft Research Cliplets 1.0.1 32-bit is a quite unique program that can be used to create something very impressive from your video clips. In short you can select a short video file and choose an area that should be played as normal while the remainder is montionless. You can come up with some very eye-catching results, and if you’re using a 64-bit version of Windows you should take a look at Microsoft Research Cliplets 1.0.1 64-bit.

You may have taken the plunge and installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Microsoft Device Center Beta 32-bit is available to help you to take full advantage of the Windows 8 specific features of Microsoft keyboards and mice. Again, if you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, there is a version for you in the form of Microsoft Device Center Beta 64-bit.

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When you’re looking to capture a moment in time then your first instinct might be to take a still photo. Getting this right is a challenge, though -- it takes skill and great timing to produce quality results.

And while taking a video seems easier, you can often end up with too much information -- shaky camerawork, noise and background clutter -- which only takes away from what should be the real focus of your movie. But now there’s a third option, in Microsoft Research’s newly-released Cliplets, which produces something that’s part still photo, yet also includes motion in just the area that matters to you.

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Burning discs has become so fundamental to computing that practically every computer produced in the last decade has a disc burner of some sort built in. But in order to make use of your burner, you’re going to need some suitable software. Windows includes some very basic support for disc burning, but if you want to do much more than copy files from your hard drives onto a recordable disc, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.

The software that is supplied with CD, DVD and Blu-ray recorders is often complicated and packed with endless features you’ll never use. Ashampoo Burning Studio 2012 is a user friendly burning tool that strikes the perfect balance between ease of use and depth of features.

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CyberLink is a company that is synonymous with software that is incredibly powerful yet also incredibly easy to use.  When it comes to the arena of photo editing, there are a number of extremely high-end tools to choose from, and these have a tendency to not only be very complicated to use, but also restrictively expensive. The same cannot be said of CyberLink PhotoDirector, which includes all of the powerful tools you would expect to find in a professional image editing tool, but it is far easier to use than the likes of Adobe Photoshop.

We thought we’d let you in on a deal which will get you the latest PhotoDirector 3, which is retailing with a $149.95 MSRP for only $69.95, saving you a huge 54 percent. Read on.

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Everybody loves a bargain, and if you’re on the lookout for software at a great price, look no further than the Downloadcrew Software Store where you’ll find something to suit every taste and budget throughout the month of March.

Perhaps you need to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of your computer; there are a number of applications that can help you out, starting with Auslogics BoostSpeed 4. For just $9.95, a saving of 80 percent off the MSRP of $49.95, you can speed up your start times, clean out the clutter from your hard drive and more. When taking care of your drives, Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro 4 provides a complete defragmentation solution, and it is currently available for 67 percent off the MSRP of $29.95 at just $9.95. Other performance enhancing tools worth taking a look at include TuneUp Utilities 2012 [3-PC non-expiring lifetime licence] which can be installed on up to three computers and costs just $14.99 (70 percent off the MSRP of $49.95) and IObit Advanced SystemCare 5 PRO [3-PC], which is also discounted by 70 percent from $39.95 to $11.95.

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During today's media event, where Apple debuted new iPad and new Apple TV, software also took the stage, including the new iPhoto for iOS and updates to GarageBand and iMovie. All three apps are available for $4.99 each. Apple also released new iWork apps -- Keynote, Numbers and Pages -- and they sell for $9.99 a piece.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company updated the apps in part to support the new iPad's 2048 x 1536 resolution "Retina" display. Yesterday I answered "Why does iPad need a HD display?".

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CyberLink may be a huge name in the video world, thanks to powerful applications like PowerDirector, but when it comes to photo workflow applications, they’re still relative beginners. And so it was no surprise that PhotoDirector 2011 was more about learning from the competition than leading the way. Still, the end result was a very capable budget Lightroom clone, providing plenty of features to help you organize, optimize and share your photos at a fraction of the cost of the high-end competition.

The company was clearly just getting started, though, as the latest release, PhotoDirector 3, represents a major upgrade for the product. Forget the usual minor cosmetic tweaks, the program is packed with important new features and functionality. If you’ve any interest in photo workflow tools at all then you need to give this one a closer look.

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When you need to capture what is on your screen, the chances are you reach for the Print Screen key on your keyboard to copy a shot of the desktop to the clipboard. This image can then be pasted into an image editor, tweaked in whatever ways you deem necessary and then used as required. For many people this is enough, but anything beyond capturing an entire desktop or program window involves some degree of work.

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft seemingly recognized that more and more Windows users were finding a need to capture desktop images and included the Snipping Tools to help make things a little easier. While somewhat more advanced than simply hitting Print Screen, if you spend any amount of time capturing what you see on your desktop, you really need to use a dedicated tool, and this is where Snagit 11 could be of assistance.

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