Adobe | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: Adobe

Application Tips — No Comments
28
Sep 09

Print Your Own Manual

photo credit: World Bank Photo Collection

To save on printing, shipping and packaging costs, many software and hardware companies no longer provide printed manuals. One of the top complaints I hear from computer users is; “I wish there was a manual.” Instead of printed manuals, many manufacturers use online manuals or Adobe Acrobat files on the item CD to house their manuals.

Often times these manuals contain great information, but can be hard to thumb through on your computer screen. My Canon camera came with a 250 page manual in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format on the CD. Instead of battling with the online version, I took the CD down to a local printer and had them print and bind it in small format. The total cost was under $25, and now I have a Continue reading →

Convert and-or Create a PDF file online

If you ever have the need to create a PDF file so you can share it easily with others, or have the need to convert a PDF file into a word processing file, then I recommend giving PDF Online a try. In just a few steps, you can upload a file you want to convert to a PDF or upload a PDF file you want converted to a Word file. Once the file is uploaded, it takes just a minute or two for the service to perform its magic and give you your finished product. Amazingly simple and amazingly accurate.

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 7 Comments
1
Dec 08

5 Reasons why YOU should be moving to the cloud

Over the past two or there years, I have written many articles about Web 2.0 or cloud computing. Cloud computing means that you work with programs and/or data that are not installed or saved on your computer. Instead, the programs and/or data live on an Internet connected computer (server) somewhere else in the world. These computers provide security via the password and user name that you choose. Five reason come immediately to mind on why you should start moving your data and computing power to the cloud.

1. Although more powerful than ever before, computers have become more unreliable than ever.

In particular, Windows computers require more expertise to keep them safe, updated, and problem free than at any time in the short history of home computers. Macintosh and Linux operating systems certainly require less technical expertise from the security standpoint, but still rely on desktop applications to create, save and edit data. Web based (cloud) applications provide plenty of power and flexibility for the vast majority of computer users while also presenting a simpler interface.

2. You already spend 90% of your time in the cloud already.

Non-business computer users spend the majority of their computer time emailing, surfing and researching the web and playing online games. Transitioning to web based mail and web based word processing, spreadsheets and more is easy and free with products like Zoho Office, Google Docs and ThinkFree.

3. Digital photography is easier in the cloud…and cheaper.

Too many computer users do not know how to properly resize and attach photos to email or gauge how many photos to attach to email. You spend way too much money and time on ink cartridges and paper trying to print good quality pictures. All these problems are solved in the cloud by helping you organize your photos better, share them easier, and print them in higher quality in more formats professionally. Flickr, Picasa Albums, and albums and services from Shutterfly, Snapfish, Winkflash, and others help you do all these things much easier than any desktop application. For those who like to edit their photos, these services offer some limited editing, but Pixlr, Picnik, Fotoflexer, Snipshot, Photoshop Online, and many others provide more than enough power for almost any digital photographer.

4. You either don’t know how or are too lazy to backup your important data.

I admit that I’m putting a lot of faith in Web 2.0 companies, but I know they will do a better and more regular job of backing up your data than you currently do. These companies have their reputations and big bank rolls on the line to take backing up your data lightly. If your data is truly important to you, learn to back it up. In the interim, your data will be much safer online than it is right now on your unprotected computer with no backup plan at all. If I’ve stirred you a little to think about backing up your current data, read my tips about online backup services that truly do make backing up your data easier and safer than learning to burn DVD’s, setup and configure backup programs and then maintain them.

5. Using cloud computing strategies sets you free from any computer.

Since your data and applications live on the web and are accessed through a web browser, you no longer are tied to any one computer or operating system. As long as you have an Internet connection (high speed only) and a browser, you can work and play from any computer!

I keep urging you to learn about and use these services because they are coming down the pike and becoming more mainstream every day. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and other stalwarts of the desktop continue to make their own plans to finally come on board and offer more and more cloud computing options.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below to tell me about your cloud computing experiences and questions.

Photo by ewen and donabel

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 10 Comments
2
Jul 08

Adobe Reader 9 update – DON’T DO IT!

Adobe released version 9 of their PDF (Portable Document Format) Reader program. Once the king and almost sole PDF reader on the market, it, like so many other mainstream programs, has become bloated beyond recognition. This software bloat slows down the performance of even the fastest computers, and for this reason, I firmly stand against software bloat.

I added Adobe Reader to my do not use list almost two years ago. Instead, I recommend the svelte and fast FoxIt Reader which does everything that Adobe Reader does, faster and better. The download for Adobe Reader 9 is almost 35 megabytes compared to under 3 megabytes for FoxIt Reader. Also, if you aren’t careful, you will add 12 megabytes to the Adobe download and end up with eBay Desktop, whatever that is. Do not upgrade to the Adobe Reader 9, and better yet uninstall all versions of Adobe Reader you may have and use the FoxIt Reader instead. Like Adobe Reader, FoxIt is free and a link can be found in the Links and Resources section of the site.

For those interested, my do not use list and their superior equivalents now looks like this:

DO NOT USE	USE INSTEAD
AOL	Any other Internet provider
Any Norton security or Utility product	AVG or Avast security
McAffee	AVG or Avast
Internet Explorer	Firefox or Opera
Windows Vista	Windows XP, Mac OS X or Ubuntu Linux
Microsoft Office 2007	Any previous version of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org or Zoho.com’s online productivity suite

General Computer Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 8 Comments
30
Jan 08

How to fill out a PDF form with your computer

I fielded a call from a client today who wanted to know how to transfer a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form he received via email to Microsoft Word so he could fill it out using his computer, save it, then email it back. My short answer was that he couldn’t do it.

Technically, it can be done through a series of computer hocus-pocus, Jedi mind tricks, a great deal of knowledge about the Windows clipboard, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word and a lot of time. Knowing that this client didn’t have these tools at his disposal, I elected to tell him that it couldn’t be done.

Adobe Acrobat forms (PDF files) are not easy to edit or annotate because the purpose of a PDF is to preserve the formatting and integrity of the original document. Some PDF form designers can make their forms fillable using our computers, if they choose to do so. For example, many government sites like the IRS have forms that can be downloaded and printed or filled out right from our computers. Again, these forms are designed this way and not all PDF forms can be filled in via computer.

It bothered me all day that I still didn’t know of a better solution for this common question; how to fill in a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form on the computer. I did some research tonight and found that our new favorite PDF reader (Foxit Reader) has this capability built-in (see illustration). However, the free version will let you fill it in, but if you save, print, or email the filled in form, it will have some verbiage along with it stating that the feature is a pay feature. If you pay Foxit $40, you can use the feature and not have the trial verbage printed on your form. If you need to fill out a lot of PDF forms, this looks to be a great solution.

I write and talk about Web 2.0 all the time and lo-and-behold there is a Web 2.0 option for filling in PDF forms online. Aptly, it’s named On-line PDF form filler. Unlike many of the Web 2.0 services I have introduced, however, On-line PDF form filler charges $1.49 per form. Considering the time savings a tool like this can provide, I think the cost is certainly more than reasonable for the occasional form. And if you need to fax the filled in form to someone, they can do it for you for just another $1.

I like the above two options just dandy, but I did find a few other PDF form fillers that can be purchased, but I haven’t tried them:

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 3 Comments
26
Dec 07

A Faster Way to View PDF Files

For years, most of us have used Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader, later named Adobe Reader, to view PDF files. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is the easiest way to distribute files and forms to many people without worry about compatibility. Like most commercial software, Adobe’s product used to be small, fast and work well. Since version 5 (now they are on 8), the product has become as bloated as many other big name software packages today. It remains free, but will plague your system with slow performance and lots of many irritating automatic updates.

Today, a Windows 98 customer of mine was having trouble with his Adobe Reader versions 5 and 6. After doing some research, I remembered a small, free program called Foxit PDF Reader that does exactly what Adobe Reader does but in an extremely small package. The Foxit download is barely over 2 megabytes which is just 1/10th that of Adobe’s 22.3 megabyte behemoth.

If you are looking to get better performance from your PDF reader software, give Foxit a try. It works for all Windows versions from 95 through Vista.

OnAir Solutions / Ubuntu Tips — No Comments
1
Nov 07

How to Create PDFs in Ubuntu

For those looking for a way to create PDFs in Ubuntu – this seems to be the most popular solution.

Digital Photography / Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
23
Oct 07

Stop the Photoshop Elements Browser Popup – VIDEO TIP

Adobe Photoshop Elements has a built-in program that searches for all of the photos on your computer and catalogs them. It then displays thumbnails of all of the photos it finds so that you can get to photos faster.

This seems great, but Adobe did a pretty terrible job with the program. It is slow and way to difficult to use for a basic program. Picasa is free and it works much better.

The worst part of the Photoshop Elements browser program is that it takes over. After installing Photoshop Elements version 3 on up to the current version 5, the browser program pops up whenever you plug in a digital camera or memory card. This is very annoying since the program is slow to load and difficult to understand, especially when you aren't expecting it.

Here is a quick video tip. That demonstrates how to turn off the browser popup feature.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — 3 Comments
11
Oct 07

Possible Ubuntu Alternative – Freespire

I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but the following is an excerpt from an email that my brother-in-law sent me. As Windows Vista proves to be a bigger lemon than anyone ever expected, Linux geeks are taking control. The future of non-Windows systems is very promising.

“You may want to check into this, though, if you haven’t already: http://www.freespire.org/

Freespire is the free version of Linspire (which used to be Lindows before Microsoft sued them). They started releasing a free version a while back to try to get some more community development going.

I recommend it because they start their codebase with Ubuntu version 7.04 (so underneath the hood, it’s completely Ubuntu), but they add in a bunch of really useful stuff.

The most useful of these extra features are the proprietary codecs and drivers. Linspire/Freespire is the only major Linux distribution that comes bundled with support for MP3, WMA, etc, plus a bunch of non-open source drivers for wifi and video cards and other hardware.
They also include a bunch of proprietary software like Flash, Java, Quicktime, and Adobe Acrobat.

The other distributions don’t include this stuff because they don’t want to pay licensing fees, and because it’s not open source software, so if you’re a purist, it kind of violate the Linux philosophy.

On my old laptop, I tried half a dozen different distros (Ubuntu, Red Hat, Gentoo, Suse, etc…), and Freespire was the only one that got my wireless card working right out of the box, without fiddling with ndiswrapper or any of that crazy command-line stuff.

Like I said, Linspire/Freespire both contain a bunch of stuff that’s not open source, so for somebody who’s moving to Linux as a political or philisophical thing, it’s probably not a good choice. For somebody who’s just looking for solid, free alternative to Windows, it’s pretty cool, though.”

Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
24
Sep 07

Photoshop Elements 6 is out – Yawn.

Adobe released a new version of Photoshop Elements this week. I haven’t read everything about it, but looking over the "What’s New" section on the website it appears that there is little to get excited about.

The new features and upgrades fall in four main catagories, organize, edit, create and share. These four catagories can be narrowed to two, useful and arts-and-craftsy.

On the useful side, Adobe claims to have improved the panorama feature for blending multiple pictures into a single panorama. Listed as a totally separate feature is improved blending of multiple group shots into a single good good picture. Perhaps what may be the most significant upgrade is speed. Adobe vastly improved the startup time of full Photoshop CS3, hopefully this same improvement has been made to Elements 6. Other vague improvements have been made to the clone tool, brightness and contrast, and the black and white conversion.

While I prefer Picasa for organizing and sorting photos, many people swear by the Elements photo organizing features. Adobe lists improvements to the speed of this feature, if the program opens quickly and thumbnails appear as fast as they do in Picasa, this could be pretty significant.

Now for the arts-and-craftsy features. Adobe has added features for creating photo books and other photo projects that have been so popular from services like iPhoto, Shutterfly and HeritageMakers. These features must be popular because adding arts-and-craftsy features have been the only major features added to each new edition of Elements since version 3.

Perhaps there is a major market for these features, I tend to believe that Adobe has perfected the editing program so much that all they can really do to sell new copies is add more fluff. Call it Vista-izing Photoshop Elements.