Despised software, anyone?

Santilli

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Right now, it's taken me 30 minutes to get into Nikon's website, and, another 15 minutes to print the manual, thanks to Adobe Acrobat Reader, 7.0.

Adobe is becoming enough of my life I'm wondering if going up to Reader Professional might not be worth it?

Anyone worked much with it, or that line of products?

Thanks

Greg
 

Mercutio

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The full version of Acrobat is different in only the tiniest ways from Reader. I've gotten to use it a few times and as far as I can tell it sucks no less than the free version. Basically, you gain the ability to set content protection and to copy and paste bits of text or graphics. That's what you're spending your money on.

I've got FoxIt Reader on a Windows machine right now, and it seems better-behaved to me, but sechs seems to think there's something wrong with it. *nix has about a billion programs that deal with PDFs, all of which are better than the Adobe Abortion.

I don't mind so much dealing with Acrobat itself, but I despise the Acrobat plugin/extension for web browsing. Under Firefox I normally set the Default Action for PDF files to "View with Adobe Acrobat" rather than "View with Adobe Acrobat Plug-in", which helps tremendously.


Other software I hate:
Anything that says McAffee. I hate McAffee more than Norton stuff. It seems to be even worse for screwing up PCs, and... I am not exactly sure how that is even possible.

Anything that says "Norton" that isn't Ghost. See above, only slightly less vehemently. Last weekend I found out what happens when someone does a complete install of Norton Internet Security 2006 while they have Kapersky AV installed. Answer: The 3.0 GHz/1GB PC takes six hours to boot and another 15 minutes for Add/Remove programs to open. McAffee is still worse, but saying that is like saying I'd rather have my leg amputated below the knee than above.

Frontpage: Frontpage developers and everyone who uses it should be raped with a butcher knife sideways.

Windows Media Player: Why the hell do they put that thing on every Windows PC? Skins support, song libraries, CD-ripping-to-a-retarded format... Why should this software be on a business machine? Why do I have to support it? And why can't I get rid of it?

IE: The less said the better.
 

Groltz

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Santilli said:
Adobe is becoming enough of my life I'm wondering if going up to Reader Professional might not be worth it?

There's no such software.

The document reader component of Acrobat 7.0 Professional is no faster than the standalone Acrobat Reader.

If you want your install of Acrobat Reader to run faster, use PDF SpeedUp. Run it with all the boxes checked except "No Browser Integration" and also don't let it remove the following four api's from the Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\plug_ins folder, or your AR install will complain:

EScript.api
EWH32.api
Search.api
Search5.api

I just drag those four api's out of the plug_ins folder, let PDF Speedup run, and then drag them back in afterward.
 

Santilli

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I thought it was the scanning features in Adobe Pro that might have made it worth more then a few cents.

That said, it finally converted, and printed the Nikon D50 manual, but it took about a half hour.

*nix?

S
 

Tannin

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Everything Mercutio said goes for me too. I could probably add some, but he's already nailed the main offenders.

Oh, plus anything Apple wrote that runs .. er ... I should say "crashes and crawls" on the Windows platform.

And I can't say I have any time for any flavour of Microsoft Outbreak

Also pretty much anything Corel has polluted with its magic touch. I was going to buy the previously excellent Paintshop Pro until I saw that Corel had bought it and ... sure enough .. the V10 I downloaded on 30-day trial crashed regularly.

Oh, and how could I forget? Kodak, the people who write the Camera Software from Hell.
 

Sol

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Ditto the above but add anything MS have produced and stuck the Live! branding on. Sure most of it's still in Beta bt I still don't understand how they can go from a more or less stable product to a hideously unstable beta wihtout making any significant changes to a product at all.

*nix refers to all flavours of Linux and Unix in a generalised way.
 

Santilli

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Anyone else used AcroPDF?
Tannin, I'm typing on a machine using Corel Suite 12, and, for 12.00, how in the world could you beat it with a stick??? OEM.

My SO, Lisa, has used Wordperfect 8 and 9, and 12 has been bug free, and an easy transition.

S
 

sechs

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Santilli said:
Right now, it's taken me 30 minutes to get into Nikon's website, and, another 15 minutes to print the manual, thanks to Adobe Acrobat Reader, 7.0.

Maybe you could explain what you were doing that took 30 minutes just to get into the website and how Adobe Reader caused that....
 

Santilli

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Before you can download the manual for your camera, to get a printable version, you have to go through a registration process, that requires screwing with cookies, etc.

Then, you find out either your name is taken, or, you forgot the password, unclear which, or, you failed to register the product.

After you try their suggested stuff, you just have to keep trying different names, and passwords, until you hit what you entered. You can't have them email you your screen name, or password, due to some screw up in their software.

Finally after getting the manual downloaded, it's 168 pages, it takes Reader FOREVER TO CONVERT THE DOCUMENT FOR printing.

S
 

Groltz

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  1. Google "D50"
  2. Enter NikonUSA's website at the D50 page
  3. Click "Digital Tech Support"
  4. Click "D50 Set (body only)"
  5. Click "Manuals, Guides and Notes"
  6. Click "D50 - Guide to Digital Photography - User's Manual"
  7. Click "Click here to agree to license, validate and start download" button (this is for the printable version of the owner's manual PDF)
  8. RightClick "User ID" box and LeftClick "Login with BugMeNot" (Firefox BugMeNot Extension) ...Now logged in
  9. Click "Click here to agree to license, validate and start download" button a second time.
  10. Printable version of owners manual downloaded in 4 seconds.

Elapsed time for above operation: 2 minutes
 

Mercutio

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Don't for get the magic of google's "site:" keyword, for searching obnoxious monolithic web sites (cough IBM/Microsoft/Sony cough)
 

Santilli

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Try it after you forget that you logged in prior, without purchasing a Camera, because you wanted to look at the features and manual prior to purchase.

Also, if you don't hit your magic little sequence, getting through the
Nikon website is really annoying, and, when you get messages that you didn't fill out the form right, it has a really annoying habit of shuting down your browser, when you didn't want to.
Of course, I forgot to write down my login name, and password, and, their site
suggested typing in my email address as the user name, and they would send me my login name, as long as the password was correct. This didn't work.

So, I played Gandalf, guessing at the gate, to get the exact case sensitive login name right.

I did, eventually, maybe 5 minutes.

Now, try taking a 160 page document, and prepare it for printing, using Reader 7, and let me know how fast you computer does it. The only thing that helped speedwise, was upping the priority on the program. It used very little ram, and, saved the entire thing until it was done with the translation, before sending to my printer. It also seems to be stuck in the 90's, using no more then 70 mb of ram to do the task, when I've got another 1.7 gigs avaliable, plus VM.

Also, this is the same website that made it impossible, or didn't work, to download the forms you needed to apply for rebates, and, even after repeated calls, I STILL couldn't get them to email me the forms.

If the camera wasn't still a great value, despite the 250 dollars in missing rebates, I'd get my money back from Costco.

Nikon is also the same company that stopped supporting my scanner with any OS, after about 5 years, and, the scanner was going strong.

S
PS Yes, there is some PEBCAKE here, but, it shouldn't be you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to print a stupid manual for a camera.

That's bull....
Also, the only reason I needed to print the manual was to make it READABLE. The manual shipped with the camera is in MICROTYPE;...
 

LunarMist

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The problem is crappy customer relations, not Acrobat. Unfortunately it is more and more the norm. At least the Canon manuals are still downloadable, but they are watermarked with "COPY" so printed versions are difficult to read. Do they think people would be printing the manuals and selling them on the streets? The firmware updates require a serial number. :(
 

Santilli

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My manual would require me to get a jeweler's lighted magnifying glass to read.

I suspect the reason the manual took so long to print is that each page was tiny, and, reader had to resize each page to make it readable. It still failed to use the resources avaliable to speed up the process, however, so, it IS reader's fault. Programs REALLY need to be able to sense, and use, avaliable resouces, since other then priority, I know of no other way increase the resouces for a program. Also, the program has to efficently USE those resouces.

Photoshop, for example, will sense RAM, and use it, minimizing swapping, and really increasing speed.

Likewise games can sense virtual memory, store information there, and also use RAM as well. Why can't Reader use the processor, and ram avaliable, to speed up the program? Keep in mind, Reader, due to it's monopoly, at least in the Windows world, on PDF documents, runs near 200 dollars OEM, for the basic package. The pro version is considerably more, read double.

S
 

sechs

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I'd be interested in looking at this file, as I just did exactly as Groltz described with similar results.
 

Handruin

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Santilli said:
What is Bugmenot???

S

A repository of username/passwords for websites that require you to sign up. It is a useful site when you want to go read a one-off article and you don't want to be bothered dishing out your e-mail for a stupid registration to a website you'll likely not return to.
 

Santilli

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Sechs:
Drop me a private with your email, and I'll attach the file, and you can try converting and printing it, if you'd like. The document won't print until it's converted, which in this case, meant changing from Micro to full size.

S
 

Santilli

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Downloaded BugMeNot, then opened the file from Firefox, and it installed.
Wouldn't do it from their server.
VERY COOL.

Thanks

S
 

Groltz

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The last few times I wanted a full paper manual for a device that only had documentation available via PDF download I just went and had it printed for me.

For instance, the E815 cell phone that I just got has a 100+ page PDF manual. I burned the PDF manual onto a CDr, took it to Kinkos, and had them print it doublesided from the Cdr. As long as you only have them print the document and no other services, (hole punching, binding, etc.) it's pretty cheap. Afterward, I just took the pages home, hole-punched them, and put them in a spare binder.

My home inkjet isn't made for doing big jobs like that and my current employer doesn't have a huge laser printer for me to "borrow" during lunchbreaks, unlike the last one. Plus, if they screw up you can make them do it over without paying for the mistakes. Printing PDF's via AR has several variables that can be set. This last time they didn't set the "expand to paper size" option and the first batch had 3" x 5" prints centered on 8.5" x 11" paper . :roll: They got it perfect on the 2nd try after I spoke a little more persuasively on how I wanted the pages to look. You do have to check their work; never assume it will be flawless on the first try.
 

sechs

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Greg sent me a copy of the PDF in question, and I did a few tests.

To save trees, I printed to a file; as long as the print is spooled, there should be negligible difference in how long it takes Acrobat/Reader to "print" to a file versus an actual printer.

I have Acrobat Professional on my computer, but also setup the lastest version of Reader in a VMware virtual machine. Performance was similar, but the VMware-based Reader was consistently slower.

The key setting appears to be page scaling. With page scaling set to "Fit to Printer Margins," it took about a minute to print; with it off, it took about twenty seconds. If printed two-up (which fits nicely, requires no scaling, and saves trees), printing took about thirty seconds.

Page scaling is largely dependent upon the content of each page and how much processing power you can give to the process. Acrobat would nail one of my processors to 100% during the conversion of the 148 pages. There is little dependency on RAM, as scaling one page can consume all processing power and little memory. Acrobat never used more than 20MB of memory during my tests.

The conclusion is that Santilli had scaling on and printed from a pokey machine.

I'd suggest a pair of reading glasses. Or, just use the manual in case of emergencies.
 

Santilli

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HMMMM.

I printed from a Dual Xeon 2.8 GHZ,2 gigs of ram,going to a HP 4000N, over my network.
However, it maybe that PC MACLAN is the culprit, since for some reason, the card in the HP was setup for macs, and, without a intervening program, the computer is not viewed on the network, unless connected directly to another machine.

I was scaling the document, and, I guess some would call that a pokey machine...

S
 

time

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Apart from Greg's networking problem, variations in print speed seem to be down to the printer driver. For me, printing the D50 manual to a file took 11 seconds, regardless of whether I scaled or not. Printing two-per-page took 12 seconds.

This is with Acrobat Reader 7.07 on an Athlon XP2400 with 480MB RAM. The printer is a networked 1200dpi Kyocera rather than an HP.

Changing the printer to an Epson inkjet blew out the time to about 3 minutes.
 

sechs

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Although I know it's not true, makes you think that Acrobat might be optimised for AMD chips.
 

Santilli

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Tried it again. Took 3 minutes to spool 10 pages. It looks like a Reader 6.0
problem. It goes to "Not Responding" in task manager for no reason.
So, doing the math, 16 X3= 48 minutes to get ready to print.

Have to try updating reader, maybe that will help.

It only uses 3% of the processor, and to speed it up last time, I upped the priority to Real time.

S
 

Santilli

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Updated to 7.07 and that seems to have solved the problem. Did it twice, in less then a minute. First time considerably less, like 15 seconds.

S
 

time

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Santilli said:
I printed from a Dual Xeon 2.8 GHZ,2 gigs of ram,going to a HP 4000N, over my network.
...
I was scaling the document, and, I guess some would call that a pokey machine...
Not at all - it still manages nearly 75% of the performance of my three-year-old single-CPU XP2400 (with a quarter of the RAM and a solitary ATA drive). :)

Tried it on a 33% overclocked Athlon 64 2800: 8 seconds.
 

Santilli

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No, I've been blowing the fuses around here with our microwave, so I shut the printer off, to save money.

Turns out, after updating to 7.07, it does the job in around 15-30 seconds, and, starts kicking pages at 35 seconds.

PEBCAKE!!! :oops:

Gs
 

time

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ddrueding said:
Looks to me like printing the D50 manual is not allowed in the security settings?!?! :evil:
Wrong one, Dave. Use BugMeNot to get the printable version (as Groltz outlined).
 

Santilli

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David, Exactly.

Should have updated the software..., and turned the printer on for the test.

S
 

sechs

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Santilli said:
It looks like a Reader 6.0 problem.

Didn't you say that you were using 7?

Shoot, if you'd said that you were using 6, I'd known that was probably the issue. Speed optimizations is one of the secret features of Acrobat 7.
 

Santilli

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I might have thought this computer was updated, and forgot to check. My bad.

Greg :oops:
 
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