The latest version of Magento, 1.4.1.0 has been launched, and much improved since 1.4.0.1.

The new version has made huge improvements to the content management system and WYSIWYG editor TinyMCE (started in 1.4.0.1). Live categories can be excluded from the navigation menu, URL rewrites now include a history to redirect older links to the new. The system configuration section has been given a make-over and your site can now accept recurring payments for subscriptions and the like. The Sales Reports (Orders, Tax, Invoiced, Shipping, Refunds, Coupons) have been reviewed.

Upgrading is not so easy, and there are still bugs which could mean some stick with older instillations. One issue relates to Magento’s themes and templating system which can break depending but there are a few easy fixes for most of the problems to date. For new websites it seems to be working well and we’ve had no major problems.

You can read through the official documentation on the Magento website magentocommerce.com

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Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for Windows.

When you require a quick retouch Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro can be overkill. Paint.NET is the answer. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface, supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. Paint.NET is backed-up by an active community which provides help, tutorials, and a growing range of plugins.

The latest versions (since 3.5) have really addresses many performance quibbles and offers some interface tweaks for the Aero-theme users, but fans of the “dancing ants” may not like the gray-overlay changes made to the selection tools. Paint.NET is far more advanced than Microsoft Paint, and given its free price, it’s a great solution for those requiring simple image editing software.

Download & Install

You can get the free download from download.com – Paint.NET 3.5.4 but you’ll also need Microsoft’s .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed on your machine.

Photoshop PSD Plugin

As the name suggests the Photoshop PSD plugin allow gives Paint.NET the ability to open any .psd file. Saving isn’t quite so simple, for that you’re best to stick with the native .pdn format. Lee Matthews has more – click here.

No Windows, No Problem

If you’re not a windows user and want to jump on the Paint.NET bandwagon there’s the Pinta Project. Written in C# Pinta uses GTK+ toolkit, Cairo library and some code from the original Paint.NET.

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Expression Web 3 is the latest version of Microsoft’s web development application.

Writing code in Expression Web 3 is a pleasure weather it’s XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP or any of the other built in web development languages. Intelligence effectively checks your code on the fly like a spell checker (which is also included)  underlining code or sections which have been entered incorrectly. You can also save a list of commonly used snippets which can be inserted by perssing CTRL+Enter, or if you’re looking for PHP/CSS press CTRL+L for all the various functions and properties.

And don’t worry about the rendering engine, it doesn’t use Trident. The smart people in the Expression Web development team have used a completely different, and standard complient. But just to be safe the SuperPreview is included to allow you to check rendering on IE6, IE7, IE8 and Firefox. The application looks good, is really easy to use, even if like me you get rid of most of the toolbars. The application loads much faster you’d expect from a Microsoft Application.

Like many other people have said, even if Adobe DreamWeaver didn’t cost like a million pounds, Expression Web (£6o-£70) is most certainly the one for me.

PS if you’re looking for a replacement for Microsoft Frontpage, you might be better looking at Office SharePoint Designer. It retains more of the more popular FrontPage features like  as pre-built web components, database, marquee, hit counter, navigation bars, insert maps etc.

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