On my Mac, PDF files generally open in an application called Preview which is quick, works well, and has just the right number of features. I’m upstairs here at silverorange borrowing a PC with a printer attached to print some PDF files, and I’m amazed at how slowly the Acrobat Reader opens under Windows, even on this zippy modern machine.

From the looks of things when Acrobat is loading, it loads extensions that handle everything from eBook reading to digital signatures every time it loads. Even if it’s just loading a 1-page PDF with no bells nor whistles.

Is there any way to configure Acrobat to start up lean and mean and to only load extensions when it needs to?

Speaking of quick printers, Action Press v. PEITFM [PDF] is an interesting case involving a local printer. The moral of the story appears to be “always have a contract.”

I want to be able to email simple black and white PDF files to a local quick printer (or even better, upload them directly to their digital copier) and have copies printed and delivered to me within a couple of hours.

Kwik Kopy comes close, but they’re sometimes slow reading their email, and they charge a flat $10 fee up front to simply open a PDF file.

Print Atlantic doesn’t seem to have a fee for opening PDF files, but they have turnaround times of a day or two, and seem more oriented towards press work that quick printing.

I think what I want is a Kinkos. Lacking that, is there anywhere else to turn in Charlottetown?

CBC is reporting that “The principal [of Queen Charlotte School] said he’s already met with some of the ringleaders, parents, and he’s told students not to travel in groups larger than six.”

So much for the whole “liberty” thing.

Now it starts to become clear how it is that RyanAir can basically give away seats on its routes: the flying is a loss leader for the upsold movies, snacks and so on. Can WiFi be too far behind? [points from Online Travel Review]

There’s a NetNewsWire 2 beta available now. NetNewsWire is my RSS newsreader of choice for the Mac; this new version is a long time coming, and I’m looking forward to exploring its new features.

Overheard this morning at the corner of Queen and Kent in downtown Charlottetown, two parking enforcement cops chatting about broken parking kiosks:

Cop One: That one up there is broken.

Cop Two: You mean that one with all the tree sap on it?

Cop One: No, that’s another one.

The Moon Handbooks come highly recommended: our friend Steve in Bangkok says their guide to Thailand is among the best (he lent us his copy when we were there, and it was very useful) and Edward Hasbrouck (whose own The Practical Nomad is published by Avalon, which publishes the Moon books) recommends them too.

But save our use of the Thailand handbook, I’ve never used them for other destinations.

Today I learned why: the list of countries they cover doesn’t include any countries in Europe, and as the balance of our travels in the past 10 years have been to European countries, there simply haven’t been Moon books for our destinations.

This is not entirely true: the Moon Metro series does cover several European cities.

Presumably this is all at least in part due to the fact that Avalon also publishes the Rick Steves guides to Europe (Europe Through the Back Door and related country or regional books).

I’m not a big fan of Rick Steves. I’m sure his advice and take on travel works for some, but I when I read his books, and watch his PBS television show I don’t see my approach to travel.

Speaking of travel, the big season finale of The Amazing Race is airing tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004) at 10:00 p.m. Atlantic on ATV (also on CBS, CTV etc. elsewhere). We’ll be watching. Go Chip and Kim!

I’ve added a new feature to the display of archived posts here, requested by my friend Oliver back in August:

What do you think of putting “next” and “back” buttons on the pages of your archived permalinks? The current set up makes it un-straightforward to read through a sequence of old entries, which I suspect must be a common desire (say, if one of your readers was away for a week and decides a month later to go back to read what she missed, or if a new comment on an archived blog peaks a reader’s interest in thoughts on that topic that you might have blogged in the hours or days immediately following).

Done. Good idea.

We recorded another episode of Live From the Formosa Tea House this afternoon (the first episode is here).

You can download today’s episode (it’s an 11MB MP3 file) or, if you’re using iPodder or its brethren, you can set up an auto-grab via RSS 2.0 enclosures from our RSS 2.0 feed.

Self-flagellation about this episode:

• We squeezed 30 minutes of content into 60 minutes of talking. We could probably lose a lot of the witty side-banter, and tighten up our conversation 50% and not lose anything.
• The sound is better. We were in the back room of the Formosa Tea House, where it’s quieter and more isolated from the fray. Things got worse the more we went along because we forgot to lean into the microphone as our audio guru John advised. We need a big “LEAN IN” sign.
• We were more focused: we had three set topics (Firefox, silverorange stuff and my phone adventures), and something of a structured “okay, now you’re the host” system worked out in advance. We can get better at this.
• We flipped back and forth between “intended audiences” from “telling Ann Thurlow what Firefox is” (which will bore the techies) to “using FOAF and RSS and GPS to drive location-based Thai restaurant wayfinding” (which will bore the normal people). I don’t know what the solution to this is. Maybe there isn’t one.
• Steven needs to read the how to pronounce Rukavina guidelines.
• We have a nifty intro theme, courtesy of GarageBand on my iMac.
• It was still fun and we’ll do it again next week.

Listener feedback is, as always, welcome.

Update: Here’s Steven’s original outline for the show:

• Steven (me): Firefox 1.0 Preview Release (grilled by dan)
  • How did we get involved, how are we involved?
  • 1.0PR features/fixes
    • RSS stuff (live bookmarks)
    • Overall polish
    • New Find toolbar
    • update notifications
    • SSL visibility
    • Nice linux keyboard stuff
  • Usage trends
    • Different types of users
    • Default install
    • Spyware/popups, etc.
    • Numbers - SpreadFirefox.com
• Dan: silverorange stuff site (grilled by peter)
  • reputations
  • vs. epinions/amazon-review
  • Google ads ($$$)
• Peter: The Reinvented telephony setup (grilled by steven)
  • Why?
  • tech setup
  • costs
  • future ideas?
  • other VOIP stuff