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Hello all, most of you that know me, know I am a bit impatiant. Waiting for iTunes to finally list my Podcast was killing me, but, I am happy to say it is there, and I will be trying to post at least 2 times a week with some great tips and tricks on Acrobat. With every one I will try to make you say...(all together now) "Man, I didn't know Acrobat could do that!". To get to the iTunes page Click Here.
Keep some Life in you Life!
Tim
Hello all you Acrobat heads, well, I have taken the big dive into PODCasts! Of course, the podcast is called Man, I didn't know Acrobat could do that! It should be listed on iTunes by Thursday November 15th , but if you are not an iTunes user, then you can go to my hosting site and watch it with any media player. You can also download it! Click here for my podcast site.
Well just thought you would enjoy that, so please as always, keep some life in your life, and show a little love!
Tim
Oh yes and if you have any suggestions on what you would like for me to cover in the podcast or this blog please enter it in the comment area!
Escalating attacks exploiting PDF files have prompted Microsoft to issue an all-hands-on-deck call to fix a vulnerability that lurks in the bowels of Windows XP
Ok, this is a bit of justification for us here at Adobe, Now please, I am not Microsoft bashing here, but, The boys in Redmond, took the high road on this threat vector and blamed us, along with any other company that creates PDF's saying it was our problem.
Bill Sisk, a member of Microsoft's security response team wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Because ShellExecute is a core part of Windows, our development and testing teams are taking extra care to minimize application compatibility issues."
For example: The vulnerability allowed a malicious PDF file to turn your PC into a zombie, so, after three months of sloughing off the problem to third parties Microsoft is now scrambling to fix it. It may take another two weeks or more to get a patch.
Microsoft isn't due to issue another patch batch until November 13.
The urgency and transparency Microsoft is showing is commendable. But let's not forget that for more than three months, Redmond's security pros maintained that weaknesses resulting when third-party applications passed malicious uniform resource identifiers (URIs) to Internet Explorer was "not a vulnerability in a Microsoft product." As such, Redmond maintained, responsibility for plugging the hole lay elsewhere.
Two weeks ago, Microsoft, reversed itself on this position, admitting for the first time that the URI-handling weakness was an issue that had to be addressed by Microsoft. The change of heart came as it became increasingly clear that the URI-handling weakness was doomed to repeat itself over and over on countless third-party apps. As Bill Sisk put it, "...these third party updates do not resolve the vulnerability - they just close an attack vector."
"In the meantime, users should take extra care when receiving email attachments, even when delivered from known sources, and when visiting familiar or unknown websites", Sisk said. Notice here that Sisk said all e-Mail attachments, because, this threat can attach itself to almost any attachment!
By the way, Sisk didn't mention updates we, Adobe, have issued here for Reader or here for Acrobat, but installing them immediately is critical to keeping you safe.
Ok, man that was a bit heavy for a Tuesday morning, but, it is very important stuff. Keep some life in your life and watch out for the boogie man!
Tim
Hello all you crazy Acrobat kids, I have been getting a lot of feedback on the entry I did on Custom Dynamic Stamps in Acrobat 8. I have to say that you all are doing great and I love the fact that you are thinking outside the box.
But, I have to say this method has its limitations. Today in Acrobat 8, stamps have no way of detecting selection, or gathering input. Your probably saying to yourself, whoa there Timmy boy, your starting to talk crazy again. But really I'm not! Many questions I have been getting is, "Tim, this is a cool tip and trick, but, I would like to have a field that would allow me to add an invoice number, or have a couple of check boxes, why is this not working?"
Well, it is working as it is programmed. In Acrobat, the stamps are dynamic, not interactive. So what that means is we can extract data from sources such as who is logged in, what is the system date....think of it as a "pull data system". So all of the "push style" data such as Digital Signatures, or check boxes, radio button, or what I call interactive data types aren't supported. The reason is easy to see when you look at the stamp you place, it is an annotation, or a mark up. Double click a stamp and you will see a pop-up that will allow you to add notes like a red line mark up. But you can not click individual objects with in the stamp.
With that said, the programmers here at Adobe are amazing people, and if I where a betting man, I would say that making a Stamp an interactive object is on someones plate. I will let them know that all of you would really like to see such a feature. Let me know what you think!
Well, I better go, watch the Cowboy game here, so put some life in your life, and smile and say Hi to a stranger today!
Tim Huff