Monthly Archives: April 2012

Adobe Cloud – Good Buy?

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So here’s why I did not hold out for the Adobe Cloud and purchased CS Web Premier 5.5. I thought the monthly fee would be too much at $600/year. It made more sense to me to buy CS 5.5 (later upgraded to CS6 for no extra cost) for about $879, because I knew I would use it for at least 2 or 3 years before I would really need to upgrade again. So if I upgrade in 2 years, that’s like spending $440/year for each year – less if I go 3 years = $293.

Now I see that the Adobe Cloud has an introductory offer of $30/month or $360/year for current CS3 and above users for the first year. See promotion here

So did I make the right decision? My gut says “yes” because I am saving money in the long run rather than pay $360 the first year then $600 the next which will come to $960 over 2 years and $1560 over 3!

What am I sacrificing? The latest and greatest when CS7 comes out. I can live with that.

 

Adobe CS 5.5 Web Premium Upgrade

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Goodness, it’s been awhile since I posted anything here. And this is not about WordPress, but about the tools I use.

So I just bought the Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium Upgrade. My previous version was CS3 Web.

I was planning to buy the CS 5.5 upgrade from Amazon with my tax refund money. The day my refund was deposited, the price jumped up to $890 from about $750. I could still afford it, but I was not happy about the price increase. Plus news of CS 6 launching soon made me hesitant to buy 5.5 because I did not how much the price would be for upgrading.

So I found on Adobe’s Special Offers page there is a 10% discount for orders over $375. The code is “Spring10”. This knocked down the price to $854 which is $36 less than Amazon’s price.

Now it is important to note Adobe will charge sales tax. Indiana’s sales tax is 7% so my total bill went up to $913. Call me a sucker if you want, but I do believe it is right to pay taxes.

I am a member of Ebates.com and will get 4% of the total $913 credited to my account because I clicked through their site, so I will get $37 back (maybe $34 if they don’t include tax when figuring the 4%). Update: It was $34 – they did not include the tax.

Final amount paid: about $876 $879 (doing taxes put me in the habit of rounding)

Another bonus to buying the CS 5.5 upgrade now was the promise from Adobe that the upgrade to CS6 would be free for anyone who has purchase CS5.5.

Yet another bonus: tax-writeoff! (Thanks to my brother Ryan for reminding me about that!)

TL;DR

Until April 15, 2012, you can get 10% off any order of $375 or more using the “SPRING10” promotion code at http://adobe.com. Plus, you will get the Adobe CS 6 upgrade for free when it launches if you buy Adobe CS 5.5 (full or upgrade). I believe this only applies to the download version. State sales tax will be included in the final price. Get 4% back if you click through Ebates.com.

Check out more at Adobe’s Special Offers page.