Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » Adobe

Print Your Own Manual

Rick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:22:05 +0000

To save on printing, shipping and packaging costs, many software and hardware companies no longer provide printed manuals. One of the top complaints I here 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 CD to house their manuals. Often times these manuals contain great information, but can be hard to 'thumb' through on your computer. My Olympus camera came with a 175 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 wonderful easy to use manual at my side.

Convert and-or Create a PDF file online

Rick — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:14:58 +0000

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.

5 Reasons why YOU should be moving to the cloud

Rick — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:56:56 +0000

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

Adobe Reader 9 update – DON’T DO IT!

Rick — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:42:54 +0000

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.

How to fill out a PDF form with your computer

Rick — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:40:40 +0000

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

A Faster Way to View PDF Files

Rick — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:15:59 +0000

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.

How to Create PDFs in Ubuntu

Rick — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:40:45 +0000

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

Stop the Photoshop Elements Browser Popup – VIDEO TIP

Rick — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:38:58 +0000

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.

Possible Ubuntu Alternative – Freespire

Rick — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:46:13 +0000

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.

Photoshop Elements 6 is out – Yawn.

Rick — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:31:50 +0000

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.