PDF Printer for Vista Systems

Ever since I have upgraded to Windows Vista, I haven't been able to use PDFCreator, one of the best PDF printer if you can't afford the PDF Creator that comes with Acrobat Professional. PDFCreator still doesn't support Windows Vista and so far I have had to stick to Microsoft XPS Document Writer and the XPS Viewer EP for my soft copy printing.

Just a few days ago, I was determined to search for a PDF printer for Vista and I found PrimoPDF, a tool that I have used some time ago but left in favor of PDFCreator. The good side of PrimoPDF is that it's free and the better side is it supports Vista, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

If you have upgraded to Vista and are in need of a PDF printer, this is just the right one. If you just want to save your Microsoft Office documents as PDF and you have Office 2007 version, you can get away with Save as PDF plug-in. If you want to have a more general printing and/or you don't have Office 2007, just install PrimoPDF and print to it. (Of course, if you are Windows XP user, you have PDFCreator as another option.)

If you are wondering why a PDF printer might be so useful, here are some uses: when you receive a confirmation web page that you want to retain as proof, you can simply print the page to PDF printer and save the page as PDF instead of having to print on your paper (this is wasteful and environmentally unfriendly); when you want to share a document with friends, you can make sure that they see your document exactly the way you want them to see by creating a PDF file and sharing it with them instead of the Word document itself; this is also useful when you have to print a document in another place on a different computer, so by bringing a PDF file, you can make sure that your document will print the way you want it to without having to worry about the misalignment due to different fonts installed on different system.

Finally, PDF is not the only answer for the above purposes. Microsoft's XPS is also an equally good format that can be used for all purposes above; it's still a new format competing in the market. So, if you want the network effect, you should stick to the tried and tested PDF format.

Technorati Tag: PDF Printer

An Invisible Cloak for Gmail Chat

Gmail chat now has a new status "Invisible" for you to stay undetected of your online status. This status is only available in the Gmail chat and if you use the Gtalk client or the Flash client, your cover will be blown.


If you stay under this invisible cloak, you will receive the offline chat sent to you as though they are regular chats. Be ware! If you reply to that chat (yes, you can), your cover will be blown too. You can actually "recon" by sending an offline chat (tempting him/her to reply) and if your friend is not careful, you can get his/her status. LOL

Technorati Tag: Gtalk

Happy Chinese New Year of the Rat

Today is the Chinese Lunar New Year Eve and I wish everybody a prosperous year ahead. And Happy Family Reunions too!!!

Google also celebrates the new year with this very cute logo. Please take a look: the calendar turns from the Year of Pig to the Year of Rat. ;)

Technorati Tag: Chinese Lunar New Year

Clinton Obama Spoof Video

I don't wanna spoil the excitement now going in the veins of Democrats. But this video is just so funny that I wanna share with you. Please be advised that it's an NC-17 content (my rating).



In the meanwhile, check out the Super Tuesday results below. (The gadget is provided by Google and the code can be obtained at this link.)

Technorati Tag: Clinton, Obama

Google Not Doing Well

Google stocks aren't doing well lately. They have been falling and now the below-expectation Q4 earnings and the Microsoft-Yahoo merger seem to make the situation even worse for Google. Now the stock has fallen below 500 for the first time in nearly six months.


Meanwhile, Google released a very harsh article about Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. In the blog post, Google referred to the bid as hostile and accused Microsoft of trying to monopolize the internet. Of course the internet is what keeps Google going and they wouldn't want it to be monopolized by their biggest opponent. However, if we look at the Search market, we wouldn't disagree that Google itself is creating a monopoly-like situation (you don't have to think hard; just think about when you say your friend, "Google it.") and is aggressively fighting against anyone who wants some share of the market.

Whether Google really doesn't want Microsoft to acquire Yahoo or Google is just playing a game to force Microsoft to spend more on Yahoo and make them have a hard time financially, we will have to wait and see.

Technorati Tag: Google

BSOD during Vista x64 Boot Process

I recently upgraded to 4GB of RAM, but my 32-bit Vista OS only detects 3.25GB since my graphics card is taking a considerable amount of address space; in fact, all 32-bit Windows can and will only detect that same amount.

Having some capable hardware, I wanted to give Vista x64 a try on my machine. The installation process was OK until it restarted for the first time. I was greeted with a BSOD and the installation halted. I reset the computer and tried resuming the installation and it went to the final stage. But, again when it restarted, the BSOD came up again during the boot process (while the Vista progress bar is moving).


I tried testing my RAM which took pretty long. But, it was no use. There was no problem with my RAM, yet the boot process wouldn't go pass the BSOD. I had no choice but to reinstall back the 32-bit version. I was pretty much disappointed since my Vista x64 saga ended up with only painful fingertips from removing and reinstalling the RAM modules.

I found out on the next day that it was Microsoft fault in Vista x64 that caused this problem. This KB article from Microsoft states that if any of the options below are true:

• The computer uses more than 3 GB of RAM.
  
• The computer uses a storage system that is running the Storport miniport driver.
  
• The computer uses a controller that uses 32-bit direct memory access (DMA).
  

The problem was that I was installing Vista x64 on a machine with 4GB RAM. So, I solved it by removing 2GB of RAM and installing the OS with 2GB. When it was up (yes, the installation finished without any problem), I installed this fix which ridiculously requires validation (I don't have problem with validation but I can't be bothered by it when I am in trouble). After the fix, I installed back the 2GB and I didn't see any BSOD now, at least until now.

What's the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit? So far I see no difference with the only exception that the 64-bit version can detect all my physical RAM. And the 64-bit version consumes more RAM than its 32-bit counterpart since it keeps both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of DLL in memory.

Technorati Tag: Vista x64

Get Rid of Security Warning Bubbles in Vista

If you disable UAC in Windows Vista, it will always show you a security warning in a bubble on the notification area every time you log into your account. That's very annoying indeed. There's luckily a way to get rid of it in a few clicks.


Go to Control Panel > Security Center. On the left hand side, click on Change the way Security Center alerts me. There are three options: you can go to the extreme and get rid of the security message bubble and icon altogether or you can just remove the bubble only.


I just remove the bubble and keep the icon. =D

Technorati Tag: Vista UAC

The Freezer Project

Don't be misled by the title I gave. I just give this video a funny name myself.

It's about a group of people acting frozen in New York. I'm amazed at the scale they did it.