Taxes and Training

If you are in the US, hopefully you got your tax return filed a few weeks ago. Those of you getting a refund have probably already received it. Even better, your "stimulus check" should be coming any day now. These stimulus checks are being sent to help stimulate the economy and can be as much as $600 for a single person and $1200 for a married couple.

I'd like you to consider using your stimulus check to invest in the future of your business. Wouldn't it be great if you could double or triple your investment within a year's time? That's exactly what you can get if you can improve your skills on tasks important to your business. Even better, your investment is most likely tax deductible so you can save money on next year's taxes.

You use CorelDRAW in your business, right? Most of you do and that's why you're here. No matter your current knowledge level of CorelDRAW, you don't know everything. Nobody does, not even the experts. Which means that you can certainly learn something new that will save you time every day. That's why I'm going to encourage you to "invest" in your future and join us at the CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference!

We will have something for all levels of users. If you are just getting started, we have crash courses on the first day to get you up-to-speed quickly. Industry specific sessions will be taught on screen printing, sublimation, embroidery, engraving, sign making, digital photography and much more. There will be something on CorelDRAW and something on Corel PHOTO-PAINT in every timeframe. So no matter what you do with CorelDRAW, you will find sessions that give you valuable information for boosting your productivity and creativity.

The instructors leading the sessions have been carefully chosen for their expertise with the software and most of them make their living doing production work with the software and thus you will get lots of practical information. We brought them in from all over the world to share their expertise with you. And when they aren't leading sessions, they will be in the 1:1 Expert Bar. This is the area where you can sit down in front of a computer with one of the experts and ask questions. Or have them help you with a tricky design problem. Where else will you have then chance to work one-on-one with one of the top CorelDRAW experts in the world?

You might ask how Corel Corporation is involved. The man behind the development of CorelDRAW, Tony Severenuk, will be giving our opening keynote and sharing with you the top new features in CorelDRAW X4. He'll also be leading sessions later in the conference where he will share tons of great tips for boosting your productivity. Of course you'll always find him carrying a notebook so he can write down your concerns, your wishlist of new features and anything else that will help shape future versions of CorelDRAW. John Falsetto will also be joining us from Corel and giving a keynote address on the Wide World of CorelDRAW. If you want to talk directly with the people behind the software, this is your opportunity.

Some users have told me that it is too far to travel. Tell that to the attendee who is joining us from New Zealand. There is no other event like this anywhere else in the world and we truly will have the world getting together to join us in learning to get the most out of CorelDRAW. I want to encourage you to invest in your future and join us for four days of incredible training!

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Mystical Painter Bundle Provides Great Value

The folks at Auto FX have put together a special bundle of products at an unbelievable price. The Mystical Painter Bundle is comprised of six separate software and training products valued at $900. With this special bundle, you can get them for only $349 until August 31, 2008.

Corel Painter X is the centerpiece of the suite. By itself, Corel Painter X has a list price of $429 and sells for $379.99 at Amazon. Even if all you want is Corel Painter X, the bundle is saving you $30! The next piece of the bundle is the Mystical Lighting plug-in from Auto FX. It has a price of $179. You also get the Mystical Tint Tone and Color plug-in from Auto FX. It also has a price of $179. Add to that a training video from Jeremy Sutton on using Corel Painter which sells for $65. There are also training videos for both Mystical Lighting and Mystical Tint Tone and Color. Each of those series is $29 each when purchased separately.

For those who are looking for a way to unleash their inner artist, this special bundle gives you the software and the training you need to "paint" on your computer. Remember, the special expires on August 31, 2008 so don't miss out!

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Corel PHOTO-PAINT Training/CorelDRAW Add-On Special Offer

By now I hope you are all familiar with the training videos produced by Tom Knight. If you aren't familiar with them, there are a number of free videos available.

Today I wanted to tell you about a special package that Tom put together. He has bundled his PHOTO-PAINT Power Training Videos along with the Advanced Artist Distress Generator plug-in for CorelDRAW. The Distress Generator alone cost $39.95 and the PHOTO-PAINT Power Training videos have a list price of $99. With this special offer, you get all of it for only $39.95. Basically you are getting the videos free when you buy Distress Generator.

There is one difference from buying the more expensive products. This offer is only for Web access to the products. So you'll need to have a broadband connection to download the add-on and the videos. It is same content, you just won't receive a physical CD or DVD. This also means you get access to it much sooner than waiting for a disc to arrive.

Check out the bundle now and get your order in!

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Who Should Attend the CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference?

Do you use CorelDRAW to make money? For many of you, it is a tool that you use all day long to produce artwork for your company. Others may use it occasionally and wish they could find a way to use it more. Maybe you are just a hobbyist that just enjoys using CorelDRAW and/or Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

As I was putting together the CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference, I wanted an event that that would take users to a higher, and more profitable, level with CorelDRAW. And we've done our best to provide information for CorelDRAW users of every type.

During each of the time frames where training is provided, you have six choices for what you want to learn. And we've gotten the top experts from the CorelDRAW community to lead the training. Nowhere in the world will you find this much CorelDRAW expertise in one location.

Maybe you are currently using CorelDRAW for laser engraving. Yes, we've have information on how to get more out of laser engraving. But what if you could expand your business by adding sublimation? You'll see how easy it can be. Maybe a garment printer would help your screen printing business. Best of all, we'll have an "output center" where you can try all kinds of different machines and see how your artwork can be output on the machines.

Now I realize that it is an investment to come to a conference like this. We certainly have to charge a fair amount to provide you with this level of expertise, provide tasty meals and give you the biggest productivity boost you've ever had with CorelDRAW. And I know there are travel expenses to get to Phoenix and join us for four days. Remember this is an investment in your business or maybe the info you need to start a new business. This is an investment that pays great dividends. When we save you time, you finish more projects and make more money. When you find that CorelDRAW do give you more types of products to sell, you have a wider product line and make more money from the designs you've already created. We take your investment seriously and our team will make sure that you return to your desk overflowing with information on getting the most possible from your copy of CorelDRAW!

Look over the conference information using the links I've provided. Talk it over with your boss (or yourself, if you are the boss) and register for the conference. We also know that during the summer that families often take vacations. You might want to bring your family along to enjoy the amazing resort where the conference will be held. I look forward to meeting you in July!

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CorelDRAW Workplace Ready Training On Sale

I never knew that folks in Australia celebrated American Thanksgiving. At least that is the only explanation I have for this sale. Scott Georgeson, the voice of Click N' Learn video training dropped me a note and said we should put the Click 'N Learn Workplace Ready Training for CorelDRAW 11, 12, X3 on sale for only $39.95. That's over 80 individual video lessons totaling more than five hours of training. I have no idea how long this sale will last so get your copy now before Scott asks me to end the sale!

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Registration for Spring Boot Camps Now Open!

Yesterday I told you that we had introduced a new registration system for the CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference. Today we have the new registration system hooked up to the CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camps as well. Along with the new system comes the official announcement of our Spring 2008 Boot Camp schedule. Boot Camps will be held on March 31-April 2, April 24-26 and May 8-10. With only 36 total spaces, we expect all three classes to fill up very fast.

There are a number of new things on the Boot Camp page. Graphics have been updated to our new theme. The Boot Camp slideshow has gone through a huge update with a bunch of new photos and we published on YouTube so you can share it with every CorelDRAW user you know. We hope to see you in a Boot Camp soon!

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CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference Updates

Hopefully you are already aware of the upcoming CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference to be held in July, 2008. Today I wanted to focus on some changes to the hotel and to the registration process.

We got a letter from the Pointe South Mountain Resort a couple of weeks ago announcing a name change to the Arizona Grand Resort. So while it may seem like the conference has moved to a new hotel, it is new in name only. It is the same building with all the same great amenities. The address has also changed only because the street on which the property sits is named after the property. So you might find it is hard to find with the online mapping services in the next few months until they update their databases with the new street name.

While I don't know all the reasons for the name change, I can guess that part of it has to do with the renovations they are making to the guest rooms. I've been in the current rooms and they are nice. The resort felt they could do better. So they are gutting the rooms and spending $35,000 on each room to make them absolutely spectacular. This construction is going on now and will be completed long before the conference. In short, you're going to be staying in an awesome room at a bargain price.

Behind the scenes on our end, there have also been some changes regarding the conference. If you haven't tried to register before, these changes would be invisible to you. We wanted to make the process as simple as possible for you, our guests, and yet have a system that automated as much of the process as possible for ourselves. Starting today, the new registration process is finally hooked up to the Web site and is ready for your registrations. For those of you who subscribe to the newsletter, the registration system will look somewhat familiar since they all use the same back end. In the next few days we'll also launch the same registration for our CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camps scheduled for 2008. There are just a few details left before we can launch it.

There are two changes of note to you for the CorelDRAW Unleashed User Conference. If you register prior to February 1, 2008, you'll save $100 on your registration. Also, we have posted the first part of our schedule. The optional Crash Courses for Wednesday, July 9 are now listed on the site and you can select them as part of your registration.

In the next few weeks we are going to ramp up the promotion for this very special event for CorelDRAW users so make sure you get yourself registered while we still have space. You do not want to miss it!

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New Camtasia Studio Unveiled

The folks at TechSmith just unveiled a new version of Camtasia Studio. If you aren't already familiar with Camtasia, it allows you to record activity from your screen along with a voiceover to produce a screen movie. If you are creating promotional or training material, you definitely have a use for Camtasia. The first time I used the product, I had mastered it within minutes. This new versions gives me additional options for recording movies for my CorelDRAW Unleashed books.

Jeff Harrison even created a 9+ minute movie on using "multiple ups" in CorelDRAW using the latest version of Camtasia. For those who are unsure, you can download a 30-day trial version.

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