In continuing to provide the direct download links for such major Adobe products as CS5.5, Acrobat X, Elements 10, and Lightroom 3, below you’ll find the DDL for the brand new just-released Adobe Flash Player 11.1 (the final version).  This is important because the free Flash Player is the most widely-used and often-downloaded software in world, and some folks find it easier to access it quickly and directly, without a download manager (e.g., Akamai), or with their own DLM, and without additional products or toolbars included.

Check your current Adobe Flash Player: What version are you running now?

What’s New in Flash Player 11?

Flash Player 11.1 contains dozens of sophisticated new features and enhancements, here are some of the major ones – for more, and more details, see the Official Release Notes:

• Stage 3D Accelerated Graphics Rendering
• Native 64-bit Support Available
• H.264/AVC Software Encoding for Cameras
• Flash Access Content Protection Enhancements
• Native JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) Support
• Asynchronous Bitmap Decoding
• TLS Secure Sockets Support
• Cubic Bezier Curves
• Updated iOS 5 native extensions
• Updated Native text input UI for Android

So, without further ado, here are the direct download links – just click to download and install:

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Arguably the biggest announcement to come out of the annual Adobe MAX Conference last month was the unveiling of the Adobe Creative Cloud…

It was the major focus of the first day’s keynote address, and then different components of it were covered in greater detail in a number of the later educational sessions.

What Is the Creative Cloud?

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch describes it as an optional membership-based program formed of three pillars: Creative Services, Creative Community, and Creative Applications.

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[UPDATE — Show special!  Save 20% on CS5.5 upgrades at the Adobe Store.]

Adobe MAX 2011 – the worldwide user conference – runs this week and if you aren’t in Los Angeles, the two major keynotes will be broadcast free, with both live and on-demand streaming… The company is promising lots of big news and announcements, so if you can’t join us there in person, you can see it all unfold online.

What’s more, over 160 free hours of the best training and tutorial sessions from this year’s show will also be available.

Adobe Dreamweaver tweets, “To hear BIG Adobe MAX announcements, register now to listen LIVE to the keynote presentations Monday & Tuesday morning…”

Adobe Creative Suite posts, “The countdown has officially begun for Adobe MAX! Even if you can’t make it to the live event, you can still join in on the fun! To hear the BIG announcements we have planned, register now to listen LIVE to the MAX keynotes Monday & Tuesday morning.”

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Though the economic recession officially ended over two years ago, the job market remains pretty challenging. In the U.S. officially no new jobs were created last month, continuing a slowing trend from the spring – and this situation is currently a major focus of Washington. However, Adobe is one company that continues hiring new staff at a healthy pace, and more broadly, Adobe product skills remain in strong demand by employers worldwide.

Adobe Systems (the company itself) presently has 358 job openings around the globe (adding another 4% to their workforce) – but if you know Adobe software generally, then the opportunity is even larger. Right now there are nearly 50,000 employment openings across North America that require Adobe skills, and you can see these and browse for yourself with the free downloadable Adobe Job Feed app.

All major tools are represented here: Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, Premiere, After Effects, and so on. You can drill down to sort by city/state or ZIP code for jobs in your area, and then view the complete descriptions and even apply for positions directly from within your web browser.

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In our tradition of providing the direct download links for major Adobe products such as CS5.5, Acrobat X, Photoshop & Premiere Elements 10, and Lightroom 3, below you’ll find the DDL for the just-released new Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (final version). This is important because the free Flash Player is the most widely-used and often-downloaded software in world, and some folks find it easier to access offline without a download manager (Akamai or Adobe DLM), or with their own DLM, and without additional products or toolbars included.

Check your current Adobe Flash Player version: What version are you running now?

What’s New in Flash Player 10.3?

Flash Player 10.3 improves stability, enhances security and user privacy protection, and provides new desktop video and audio capabilities for enterprises and developers.

Besides a dozen bug fixes, this release contains several new features and enhancements:

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[UPDATE (June 6th) – MAX registration is now open!  Save $200 with an early-bird discount - or an even better promotion, save $400 with coupon code from Adobe product purchased.]

MAX is the big annual conference for all-things-Adobe. One of the best aspects of MAX last year was the key presentations and announcements were webcast live, and most of the rest of the talks and lectures were offered later on-demand. These sessions are still available for viewing and are a fantastic free resource (see the list) for learning about Adobe software. There are more than 200 recorded videos on topics ranging from Photoshop Tips, Techniques & Power Shortcuts to “Deep Dives” for Dreamweaver and Flash.

This year, MAX will happen from October 1-5 at the Los Angeles, CA Convention Center. It’s a great time to tune in online or to attend in person for the news, excitement, training, gather­ings, and giveaways (last year all attendees received free Motorola Droid 2 smartphones and Google TVs) – plus the chance to meet the experts and ask your own questions.

(…not to mention, enjoy all the hilarious fake commercials for Adobe products!)

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Following our custom of providing the direct download links for major Adobe products such as CS5.5, Acrobat X, Photoshop & Premiere Elements 10, and Lightroom 3, below you’ll find all the DDL for the just-released new Adobe Flash Player 10.2. This is important because the free Flash Player is the most widely-used and often-downloaded software in world, and some people find it easier to gain access without a download manager (Akamai/Adobe DLM), or with their own DLM, and without additional products or toolbars included.

Check your current Adobe Flash Player version: What version are you running now?

What’s New in Flash Player 10.2?

Flash Player 10.2 introduces Stage Video, a full hardware-accelerated video pipeline for best-in-class, beautiful video across platforms and browsers – making Flash video dramatically more efficient (a 10X reduction in CPU usage in some demos). This advance in performance builds on the benefits of H.264 hardware accelerated decoding and optimized power consump­tion introduced in 10.1, and works with all of the existing video on the web viewed in Flash Player – so will save significant battery life on portable computers and mobile devices.

Additionally, this release of Flash Player offers all new features like multiple monitor full-screen support (enabling you to watch videos in true full screen on one display while multi-tasking on another), custom native mouse cursors (another popular request from designers and devel­opers), and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) hardware accelerated rendering support.

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In a week where we learned that Google’s Android has become the world’s best-selling smartphone platform, Adobe’s President and CEO Shantanu Narayen gave an interesting interview to Forbes Magazine, copied below…

In it he extols the virtues of an open ecosystem winning out in a fragmented world, perhaps not unlike the PC and Mac market dynamics of twenty years ago. Narayen cites Flash as a key differentiator and unifier of that fragmentation. Regarding Apple, he says it’s a non-issue in that they’ve made their decision, although they did recently relax some restrictions for Flash apps.

As evidence of growing momentum, he cites 10 million Flash-based devices (smartphones, tablets, and consumer electronic devices) having shipped in the latter half of 2010, essentially since the mobile-attuned Flash Player 10.1 was officially released.

Here at ProDesignTools we love both Android and iOS, Adobe and Apple – we don’t take sides, but we think the space and players are worth watching, not to mention entertaining…

Watch or read the interview’s full 4 minutes below:

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This year, as in years past, Adobe is sharing a holiday greetings card online that’s attracting thousands of visitors… And their card this year is all about finding inspiration.

Only this year, the tradition is even better – because for each viewer, Adobe will make a $1 donation to Mercy Corps to help children around the world. Mercy Corps is a global aid agency dedicated to helping people in the world’s toughest places through crises of natural disaster, poverty, and conflict.

So please take a moment to view Adobe’s Holiday Card 2010 (and be inspired), and you’ll also be helping Adobe and Mercy Corps help millions of young people around the globe.

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Adobe’s big annual user conference MAX has been going on this week and you can watch all the keynotes and hundreds of sessions free, online, and on-demand – but one of the best bits was the assortment of parody commercials that highlighted yesterday’s keynote, User Experience: The Next Generation.

Some of these were truly hilarious and we’ve put together a reel of the best ones below. Perhaps the funniest of the 10-minute collection is the first one about new Adobe Acrobat X, but we’ll let you decide… Here’s the playlist:

Which one was your favorite? Share your vote and thoughts below…