Amir's Rant #3: Adobe: It is not 1990s anymore!

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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0
Seattle, WA
I download a lot of PDF files. Whether it is instruction manual for stuff I own so that I don't have to go find the had copy anymore, or hundreds of research papers, Adobe pdf files are everywhere in my computer.

Of course that creates a second problem: how to find the file I am looking for. Yes, Windows has built-in search but that doesn't do me any good. In their infinite wisdom, the file names are just random so searching by that will not work. AES papers for example just have the paper number and nothing else in their file name. I save them with the title of the paper appended to it but that still doesn't describe what is in the file. "Where is that Dolby paper on equalization?"

Windows does not index PDF files. There is an obscure plug-in called "PDF iFilter" from Adobe which remedies this and indexes pdf files so that when you type things in Windows search box, you also see pdf file content matches. This morning I realized I had not installed PDF iFilter on my new laptop. So spoiled with Android automatically migrating apps from one tablet/phone to another that I forget the antiquated system called Windows where you have to remember and reinstall all the apps yourself.

Anyway, I start the download and had a flashback to 1990s:

i-NwwmfZK.png


Didn't realize Rip Van Winkle had become a programmer at Adobe! 56K modem? T1? T1 being faster than "DSL?" Hello McFly, anybody home? We got rid of these time estimates years ago.

I know, you are using some third-party service Adobe for these file downloads. Let them know you don't want to look like you just discovered the Internet!

P.S. Despite installing the indexer, I still can't find anything in my PDF files. Oh well. Time for a reboot. :(
 
I download a lot of PDF files. Whether it is instruction manual for stuff I own so that I don't have to go find the had copy anymore, or hundreds of research papers, Adobe pdf files are everywhere in my computer.

Of course that creates a second problem: how to find the file I am looking for. Yes, Windows has built-in search but that doesn't do me any good. In their infinite wisdom, the file names are just random so searching by that will not work. AES papers for example just have the paper number and nothing else in their file name. I save them with the title of the paper appended to it but that still doesn't describe what is in the file. "Where is that Dolby paper on equalization?"

(
Had similar issues with these and crash dumps or extractions of them over years. Would concatinate my own coded verbiage to the copied filename so I could find it later somewhat easier. Helped most of the time ;)
 
Didn't realize Rip Van Winkle had become a programmer at Adobe! 56K modem? T1? T1 being faster than "DSL?" Hello McFly, anybody home? We got rid of these time estimates years ago.(
Our T1 line is faster (barely) than our DSL. Our DSL has a max of 1.5 Mb/s due to the wiring infrastructure in our company's location. We did just hear last week that the wiring is being redone and we will have up to 40 Mb/s available. I currently use load balancing on the firewall to aggregate the T1 and DSL bandwidth.

Regarding PDF's, one of the little known features of JRiver Media Center is its document management capability. You can import the PDF's and tag them however you like and even create custom tags. Then you can create views based on the tags to filter the PDF's. Double clicking the PDF in JRiver will launch it with your default PDF viewer.

Your import folders don't have to contain just PDF's. In the import setup you can specify that you only want PDF files imported into JRiver.

You can also set it up so that JRiver will watch folders and automatically import. It can apply tags to to the watched folders. For example, you can dump instruction manuals into a common folder and every thing in that folder will be imported and tagged as "instruction manual" automatically. This eliminates manual tagging unless you want specific keywords, etc. for the files.
 
I HATE Adobe software. Everything of theirs that I have used, or use, is over complicated. While I have forgotten its name, I still curse their word processor I was forced to use at a startup in 2000, until the majority of the engineers rebelled and said get rid of this POS. Whoever came up with the idea to allow copy of text to be disabled in a PDF should be given life in solitary confinement.
 
Crtl+F ?

You would hate where my father lives. They told him he uses too much bandwidth on his unlimited DSL account where he paid as much for 1.5 line as anyone else pays for 7-15. They kicked him off! It's an uphill battle in his area with fighting phone companies all on the same line from town to town. Now he's got satellite which is some sort of cruel stupid joke; it's damn slow, and I get more data on my phone for less money at dozens of times the speed... (it's 10gb a/month) Oh wait, between 2am and 6am he can use all he wants.

Supposedly because they offer digital cable they have to offer cable internet, so that'll be a huge upgrade since it'll be all new and may reach 70 speed. However he gets like 7 HD channels, and on 70" TV the rest look like some sorta live cam from 56k in the 1990's... When I visited him I was certain something was seriously broken and thoroughly went through it all, nope it just looks like a cellphone video from 2005.
 

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