I finally upgraded everything and downloaded Creative Cloud. Sure there’s lots of speculation about having to pay a subscription for it, but since I haven’t had most of the programs before I really really wanted it. So here you have it. I did this tutorial from Abduzeedo about creating soft shadows in Illustrator as my first time playing with the new program.
Ham Eye Am 
Getting creative cloud and paying the subscription is the best thing I’ve ever done. Very happy having access to all the updated products all the time.
It truly is, after working on CS4 for so long, it’s nice to have an upgrade.