Monthly Archives: December 2005

Adobe Acrobat Stupidity

I’m filling out a fellowship application that requires the use of Adobe Acrobat, and the free reader won’t cut it. I had been using a computer in Dr.Rudy’s lab, running Win XP, that had Adobe Acrobat Pro installed. Unfortunately, I’m not done filling it out yet, and I am leaving for NOLA tomorrow bright and early.

Therefore, I had to go buy Adobe Acrobat for Mac. I opted not to get the professional version. It cost $100 at the educational pricing level. It’s bad enough that I should have to fork out cash for this when a simple web form would have been just fine, but it gets worse.

It wouldn’t run. Nothing. Not run and quit. Double-click-then-nothing. I was pretty sure that I knew what the problem was right away: they assumed that my filesystem wasn’t case sensitive, and were accordingly careless in writing the program. When installing OS X v. 10.4 (Tiger), it’s possible to choose a case-sensitive HFS+ filesystem, rather than the standard non-case-sensitive HFS+. I chose case-sensitive, because I normally work with case-sensitive filesystems in Linux, and there have been times in the past where I had collisions — files that were named the same thing except where case differed, and transferring those files to Mac OS X had been a mess.

Luckily, I was able to figure out what the problem was. I ran the program from the command line, and discovered from the error message that the program was looking for AdobeBIBUtils.framework. The file that existed was AdobeBibUtils.framework. The difference is just the case in IB vs ib. I renamed the directory. The program then launched, but crashed moments later looking for AdobeBibUtils.framework. They had used two differently-cased names in the same program.

I just symlinked one name to the other, and now the program runs without a problem. Adobe has something about this problem on their support site. Their solution? Install it on a non-case-sensitive HFS+ filesystem. For many people this means reformatting their hard drive and reinstalling everything. That’s a great solution to Adobe’s shitty coding. There may be a few more of these spelling land-mines in the software. I guess I’ll have to find and fix them as I go along. How absurd.

Guess what, Adobe? It took 30 seconds to fix the problem. I suggest you take care of it on your end. I can’t believe I paid money for this.

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To Do for Move Back to NOLA

  • Clean Apartment: I’m not the last one out, but I feel like I should do my part and get it as clean as I can before I go.
  • Get Stuff From Work: I packed up a box of my desk stuff yesterday, but didn’t want to haul it home manually. I’ll have to drive over and get it.
  • Purchase Printer Cartridges: Natalia wants me to print something for her and leave it on her desk before I go. I’m out of ink. Stupid half-full demo cartridges that came with the printer ran out quickly.
  • Check Car: Fluid levels, tire pressures, etc. Make sure it’s ready to go for tomorrow.
  • Pack Food: Pack up all of the food that I still have in the kitchen.
  • Pack Kitchen Utensils: Mainly my coveted Calphalon anodized non-stick jumbo fryer, silicone spatula, and a few other odds and ends. (This and food must come after dinner… or maybe lunch. Dinner is some potlach party thing from 18:00-21:00)
  • Pack Up Room Stuff: There’s not much stuff in my room, but it must be packed nonetheless.
  • Pack Clothes: Except what I’m going to wear tonight (pjs) and tomorrow. Again, I just don’t have that much stuff.
  • Bathroom Stuff: Most of this will actually have to be packed after my shower tomorrow morning.
  • Something Something: I’m forgetting something. I have all day to remember, so hopefully it’ll come to me.

It’s going to be a busy day, but obviously I’m not going to get much done in the way of lab work. Our server’s going down tomorrow, so it’s not going to matter much that I’m driving then anyway.

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New Treo with Linux?

As I mentioned in my previous post, my Treo 600 sustained some damage to the screen. While it’s okay now, it may spread. Anyway, it looks like if I need to replace it, I should perhaps get a Treo 650 after all. Soon, I should be able to run linux on it and with a working phone!

Combined with my external keyboard, this would be fantastic.

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My Treo now has dead pixels…

I keep it in a holster, and last night it snagged on something and fell. It looked okay, but later in the night I noticed some bright orange pixels. Oh well, I thought, I can live with that. Unfortunately this morning it looks like there are more of them. Crap.

I wanted to wait for the Treo 700p, but now it sounds like it may not be out till May. If my phone craps out in the mean time, I guess I’ll buy a replacement 600 from Ebay. They run about $200.

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