bruceb news

Here’s a service that might help you with an upcoming occasion or give you a new creative outlet.

MagCloud was put together by HP Labs to demonstrate what can be done with high speed printers that can handle small jobs as easily as big ones. It takes files that you create and upload and turns them into magazines for twenty cents a page, regardless of whether you order one copy, a hundred copies, or a thousand copies. The magazines are printed on heavy glossy paper, with high-resolution photos and perfect color reproduction.

HP designed the service for fledgling […] continued

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Leave your computer on overnight and prepare for it to restart. It’s Patch Tuesday and Microsoft will install a large crop of updates on all versions of Windows tonight.

Tomorrow we should see the icon in the lower right corner alerting us to an important patch for Adobe Flash. Adobe has another important update for Acrobat and Adobe Reader scheduled for June 29.

After I look at the feedback and do some testing, I’ll be installing updates on client servers.

Install legitimate updates promptly – and be careful out there!

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In December the Transportation Security Administration released its airport security screening procedure guidelines with redactions that failed to remove the underlying text. (Boing Boing: “Unfortunately, the security geniuses at the DHS don’t know that drawing black blocks over the words you want to eliminate from your PDF doesn’t actually make the words go away, and can be defeated by nefarious al Qaeda operatives through a complex technique known as ctrl-a/ctrl-c/ctrl-v.”) It has happened over and over in lawsuits and releases by high profile government agencies.

So it’s hardly a surprise to see another story in the news […] continued

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Last year I wrote critical comments about the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 desktop scanner’s lack of a TWAIN driver. There’s a way around that shortcoming – one of those tips that’s easy when you find out about it but apparently not obvious, since Fujitsu’s Product Marketing Manager felt he had to write a blog post to point it out. The tip is below; let me give you some background about it.

The S1500 is a very likable scanner at a time when small businesses and law offices are scanning everything they see.

• Inexpensive all-in-one printer/scanners

[…] continued

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Law offices and small businesses are using Acrobat very aggressively to archive email folders and preserve business documents. Lawyers are more likely now to handle case documents onscreen with PDF files than to touch real paper.

The Acrobat For Legal Professionals blog has a tip today that could be invaluable for law professionals with a certain amount of Acrobat expertise: how to search case documents for words or phrases and mark the terms so they can be reviewed later.

It involves an unexpected use of the redaction tool. Legal professionals should take a look – it’s one […] continued

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Your computers will likely restart tonight after Microsoft delivers the monthly crop of updates for Windows and Office. It’s a particularly busy month – eleven patches, five of them critical, although the importance drops if you’re running Windows Vista or Windows 7. Newer versions have better armor against security attacks.

Adobe will deliver updates for Acrobat and Reader tonight as well. Reportedly Adobe will be activating an “automatic update” feature in those products tonight as well, theoretically allowing them to be kept up to date without the extra click on the icon in the lower […] continued

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Last September I ran into the only serious issue I’ve had with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 – an error in Quickbooks 2008 using its PDF converter to create email messages with attached invoices. After an annoying amount of digging, I found an answer that worked for me, which supposedly had been fully implemented in Quickbooks 2009 release 9.

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded to Quickbooks 2010 and guess what! The return of an old friend: an error message from the Quickbooks PDF Converter when I attempted to send some invoices. Actually several messages, […] continued

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There’s finally a solution to a bug that Adobe has allowed to stand unpatched for far too long. This only applies to a few of you but you’ll be glad to see it if you’ve been one of the victims.

Background: if you use Outlook 2007 to open an e-mail message with a PDF attachment, you should be able to preview the attachment directly in the Reading pane. When you click on the attachment, you’ll first see the dialog asking you to confirm that the attachment comes from a trustworthy source. (Leave the box checked for that warning […] continued

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Here’s an updated list of ways to be safe and secure with your computer.

Install updates from Microsoft promptly. Look in the lower right corner for the gold shield (WinXP) or update icon (Win7/Vista).

Install updates to Acrobat, Flash, Java, and Quicktime promptly. Each will alert you from the lower right corner.

• An easy and safe way to keep up with updates: visit Secunia Online Inspector once a month and follow its suggestions.

Install antivirus software and keep it up to date.

Know the name of your antivirus software. If you get a security

[…] continued

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The technical side of Google’s blowup in China is shaping up as an explosive story about technology and hacking. Keep an eye on this one!

On Tuesday Google announced that it would no longer comply with Chinese censorship demands and might cease operating in China altogether. As I understand it, Google has set up a separate search page that operates within China and censors some search results as requested by the Chinese government. I believe Google also cooperates with the government in blocking access to Google.com. Update: Apparently Google.com can be reached from Chinese computers but search results are […] continued

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