CHRISdotTODD

My Thunderbird email client quit opening up links when I clicked them, regardless if they were in an email or from an RSS feed. Turns out the issue was with my web browser. I switched from Firefox as my default to Internet Explorer and it worked again. I then reset my default to Firefox, restarted Firefox, and it responded again, too.

I recently had to make a minor edit to an old PDF that I no longer had the source for. For large edits, there are PDF to DOC converters, but for minor edits I just use Acrobat. With this particular file I got an unexpected error message. All or part of the selection has no available system font. You cannot add or delete text using the currently selected font. Through a little searching I discovered that by selecting and then right-clicking the text, and entering the Properties dialog, I could change the font being used. In this particular case though, there were no system fonts embedded in the document and the only choices were from the original computer that created it -- a Mac. Since I was using Windows, this failed too. Fortunately for me I have Adobe Illustrator. With Adobe Illustrator you can open individual pages of a PDF and using the text tool you can make changes. If you don't have Acrobat or Illustrator and need to edit a PDF, PDFEscape -- a browser-based applet -- will ...

Updated Feb 18, 2011: I've received a few comments from people about the cost to upgrade from RoboForm version 6 to version 7. The issue is that apparently their original purchase was for a lifetime of upgrades. The RoboForm website indicated that any version 6 purchases made after Sep 1, 2010 are eligible for free upgrades to version 7. I don't have my original purchase receipt, so I can't verify the legitimacy of the claim myself. That being said, I cannot imagine a company surviving by charging a 1-time fee of $30. Regardless, the RoboForm product is one of the few products I would pay for again over using any of the current open source solutions available. (BTW: I'm still using version 6, as I have not ran into a situation that requires me to move to version 7.) I've been a user of RoboForm for nearly 4 years, and its allowed me to have secure and unique passwords for all my websites, while only requiring me to remember one. In January 2007, I wrote a post on...

In my last post, " Our search sucks! Why can't it work just like Google? ", I told you to also consider your content when improving your search. Poor titles and multiple articles on a single subject will impact success. I want to expand on content a bit more. First, consider the search results again. If your search engine displays the first part of the content underneath the title, is the information helpful? Next, when the user does click-through on a search result, can they quickly reassure themselves that the content presented is what they're looking for? I believe if you follow the advice of Tim Ash in his article " Fix Your Writing or Suffer Lower Conversion Rates ," you will be able to satisfy these two issues in regards to your content. Whether you're trying to convert a user to buy your product or you're trying to help a customer fix his problem with your product, the principles still apply. Tim begins, "The vast majority of Internet use...