pamelahowell's vaguetheories

What do you use for advanced PDF Editing?

pamelahowell — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 01:10:32 +0000

I’ve recently been having a discussion among several system administrator friends, all of whom sometimes have to use non-Adobe tools for PDF creation and editing. I’ve tried all of the ones on download.com, literally, and some on different or multiple platforms. Each has its’ pros and cons, but most of them have left me wanting more.

I finally found exactly what I, as a tech writing professional, have always been looking for. Even on first try, it was like what I would’ve designed, if I had designed it myself. The product is called Infix Pro.

One of its’ serious advantages is practically automatic page numbering when combining multiple original files into a book/binder (in adobe speak), and cloning headers/footers across the same originals, to give the look of a book to a diverse collection of files.

Infix imported my diverse files cleanly, sized them to fit the page properly (even Adobe binder didn\’t do as well!)…and the intelligent repagination tools were simply PERFECT! Text and object editing really worked, as opposed to the promises of other purported PDF editors on the free/shareware market.

My colleagues and I have been banging our collective heads against the wall, looking for a solution like this. Infix indeed!

http://www.iceni.com/infix.htm

Matt Simmons (@standaloneSA) interview is available

pamelahowell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:12:24 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to speak to Matt Simmons, of http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog. He just moved to NJ and also joined LOPSA; I had the privilege of being on the USENIX/LISA blogging team with him a few weeks ago as well.

I ask Matt about being a standalone system administrator, and how his blog, online and local face-to-face communities help him in his daily tasks. We talk a bit about volunteering for one’s community as well.

Please take a listen to the audio, available on http://www.youtube.com/pamelaEsoteric.

I will post the transcript here sometime later today.

LISA09 was phenomenal: awesome speakers, great news

pamelahowell — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:27:45 +0000

Video blogging was a lot of fun for the USENIX/LISA09 conference, although it would’ve been smoother with a staff or a volunteer to handle/help with uploading files. Especially with the awful conference bandwidth.

The quality of the speakers/presenters was truly amazing. Trainings, workshops and tutorials were seriously useful from the first to last minute of each session. Many sessions were more participatory, with attendees sharing experiences as to how they handle the tough issues in system administration.

Please check out the conference video blogging from both myself and Marah Rosenberg:

I interview several presenters/trainers, while Marah focusses mostly on pieces from attendees. There is some sheer silliness as well- really captured the true LISA experience, imo.

We had a lot of fun at the conference, as bloggers and attendees alike tried to scoop each other with relevant quotes from plenary and other sessions, mid-session, on Twitter (I usually did this from my cellphone’s numeric keyboard in T9). Feel free to take a look at my tweetstream (serendipitousP), or that of Matt Simmons (standaloneSA), or search for #LISA09 – there were several people contributing to this race for short tidbits of information.

There are also several people sharing pictures from the conference at http://www.flickr.com/groups/lisa09/ . Enjoy!

no demo at tradeshow? hrumph.

pamelahowell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:28:01 +0000

I’ve mostly decided that if there is no live demo available at a trade show, or promise of one (the next day, some other time, or at a scheduled training session)…I really don’t want to waste time talk to a company at a trade show. Hrumph.

I really don’t like all of the automatic screen resizing on laptops/netbooks these days

pamelahowell — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:49:52 +0000

I admit it. I have a bit of a neck/arm/hand disability. But I’m really getting tired of high-end systems designers automatically deciding that when my hands hit a touchpad a certain way, I mean to have the screen shrunk or grown astronomically. Sheesh! My hands hit the touchpad a lot, probably WAY more than the hands of non-disabled people. How frustrating it is to have to ‘fix’ this technological improvement a hundred times an hour just to use an updated modern lightweight computer! Can’t I shut this ‘feature’ off somehow?

—p, currently using Regina’s lovely Mac, but also griping about the Acer Aspire One and the Samsung NC-10

Hello world!

pamelahowell — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:50:33 +0000

10 print “hello world!”

20 cls

30 goto 10

(I typed a whole big BASIC program in at the Vintage Computing Festival recently, and only made a few typos!)