A Neat Cheat in Illustrator

November 19th, 2008

I discovered a neat but little-known trick in Adobe Illustrator…

At work customers often provide pdf files as “artwork”; no originating files, supporting files, or fonts. In most cases we can take that pdf, import it into ArtPro, and outline the fonts, but it’s sometimes a hassle. And there are times when I’m at home and would like to do that for a project too. And what about someone who doesn’t have ArtPro or Nexus… What’s a graphics geek to do?

A properly created pdf will have all the needed fonts embedded within the file. Acrobat can open and correctly render the fonts because Acrobat can make use of the embedded fonts. But if you open that same pdf in Illustrator, those embedded fonts are useless, and when the fonts aren’t loaded on the system, Illustrator substitutes the fonts in the file with whatever it has on hand, and text goes all over the place. Totally unacceptable.

But here’s a neat trick to get around that.

  • Launch Illustrator and create a new document,
  • Place the pdf file in the document you just created,
  • With the placed pdf selected, pull down in the Object menu to Flatten Transparency,
  • In the Flatten Transparency dialog box, make sure that Convert All Text To Outlines is checked,
    Hit OK.

    That placed pdf file then gets converted to native Illustrator objects, with all of the text in the pdf file converted to outlines. Even the quirky font that you’ve never seen before becomes an editable filled path in Illustrator. If you intend to keep the content from the pdf in Illustrator, it’s likely that some of the objects may need a little tweaking, especially if the pdf file originated in QuarkXPress. When I’ve done this, gradients built with spot colors in Quark come out as numerous solid color CMYK boxes with a clipping path. Not so neat, but easily remedied.

    For the record, I’ve tried this in Illustrator CS3 (v.13) and CS2 (v.12); not sure how far back it goes, but I’m guessing that it should work on any version that supports transparency; I think that was introduced in version 7 or 8. I haven’t upgraded to CS4 just yet (good God; already?!) so I don’t know for sure if it still works there, but chances are it does. It probably also works on the same products on the Windows side, but I’ve not tested it there either. YMMV.

    Have fun with it!

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    Anti-Glare Solution For Glossy Macs

    November 18th, 2008

    We just set up a spiffy new 24″ Aluminum iMac in the graphics department at work; what a gorgeous display on that thing! Unfortunately, Apple has decided for us that you can have any finish you want on your monitor, as long as it’s glossy. And that was one of the things the new user on that machine just couldn’t abide.

    I checked around a bit, and found a lot of people are grousing about the glossy screens, most of them in the graphics industry. With the glossy screen you get a lot of reflection from anything around you, especially in a well-lit room. That not only makes adjusting color difficult, it’s really, really distracting. Personally, I don’t think I’d mind it so much, but the user on this particular machine isn’t quite as accommodating as yours-truly.

    One solution would be to dim the lights in the room, but that isn’t a realistic possibility at work, in a large room with cubicles. In digging around for a solution to the glossy screen problem, I did find a few solutions. One that does show some promise is sold by NuShield:

    NuShield AG™ Antiglare Screen Protector Film

    The harsh lighting in most office and industrial environments can make it almost impossible to do your job well when you have to rely on hard-to-read LCD screens. After a year in development, NuShield AG Antiglare Screen Protector Film will minimize annoying surface glare under bright lights indoors or in an office/industrial setting. The antiglare film also hides fingerprints and filters out 99% of UV light from reaching the screen or reflecting back to your eyes.

    NuShield films are non-adhesive, held in place by tabs that wedge between the edge of the screen and the case. I would imagine static and suction also help to keep it in place, but I do like the no-adhesive thing. NuShield makes films for all kinds of applications, mostly to improve the durability of flat panel screens on monitors, laptops and handhelds.

    There’s not much on their website that isn’t marketing material; I suppose it’s a little difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of a product like this with just photos. But the film isn’t terribly expensive, so I just ordered one for the iMac ($35) and one for my PowerBook ($15) as well. They have a handy-dandy product selector that shows custom-cut film to fit most all of the Apple products with built-in screens, and lots of other manufacturers also. So I figured it’d be ok to spend the money to give it a whirl (especially when it’s not my money!) I’ll post an update once my order arrives and I have it installed.

    Another possibility is to use a hood over the monitor. There was a day when hoods were pretty much standard equipment on high-end CRT monitors, but it’s been years since I threw the last one out. They usually ended up stashed under a desk, collecting dust. Well, they’re still out there; Compushade makes a universal fit model, priced in the mid-$40 range, and Photodon makes a much nicer hood, custom-fit for the iMacs for about the same money. Another option is to go with some cardboard cut to fit and spray-painted flat black. We’ll see how the film works out, and decide whether to give the hood a try.

    Edit: Click here to go to the review I wrote for the NuShield film.

    Posted in Computers, Cool Technology | Comments Closed

    My RJ-45 Zipper Pull Mod

    November 18th, 2008

    Last spring, the zipper pull broke on my light jacket. I used a paper clip as a temporary replacement, but that looked pretty nerdy. I wore it last week, and felt a bit self-conscious about it, and was careful to keep the clip hidden while out & about, and was thinking seriously about replacing it. After all, it was getting to be several years old, and not exactly the peak of winter fashion.

    But last Friday I walked in the front door carrying my tool bag, I had a sudden burst of inspiration; why not use a bit of wire and an RJ-45 plug for the zipper pull? It’d be the perfect geek accessory on the jacket!

    So here is the final result. I’ll call it Version 1.

    It was pretty simple, really; I took a length of Cat. 5 cable about 4 inches long, pulled the twisted pairs out of it and threaded two pairs through the business end of the zipper. I then doubled the wires back, straightened them out — being careful to arrange the colored wires in an aesthetically-pleasing manner — and clipped them off about 2 inches from the zipper. Then the RJ-45 went on the end and got crimped down, and there you have it!

    The same thing could be done with an RJ-11 plug and a single twisted pair, but the RJ-45 allows for two pairs, and presumably double the strength.

    A couple of afterthoughts about this mod upon completion; a much cleaner installation could be achieved by slipping some Cat. 5 cable jacket or heat-shrink tubing over the wire before crimping the connector in place… Just enough to fit in between the zipper and the crimp. As it is, the small amount of exposed wire doesn’t really present the effect I was hoping for. Another option would be to use solid color wire, and the same color on all four strands. That would allow the color to be coordinated with the jacket, giving a more pleasing color combination. Or maybe just wrap some black electrical tape around the exposed wires… It’d be nice to have a molded end on the plug, but that’d probably involve a used cable as most of those are molded with the cable in place. There you’d have to do some kind of twisting and/or soldering on the backside of the zipper to keep it in place. But then again I have seen some patch cables that have hoods that aren’t molded in place and could be slid onto the thing; I’ll have to keep my eye out for one of those for Version 2.

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    A Cool Old Trunk

    November 16th, 2008

    I spotted this trunk at a garage sale this summer, filled with some old tools that I wanted. It was a package deal, and even though I had no idea what I’d use the trunk for, the price was right, so I took it home.

    The trunk looks to be built of some rough wood underneath, but it’s covered on the outside with tin with hardwood strips holding it in place. The nails holding it all together have some cool rosette-shaped heads on them… It was probably quite a fancy thing in its day. The inside is covered with some cheap wallpaper-type stuff, with a slightly cheesy picture in the middle of the top.

    The trunk has definitely seen better days; the tin on the top is cracked/ripped lengthwise, and a chunk of it is missing behind the latch. The latch doesn’t work, and the hinges are missing their pins, allowing the lid to be lifted off completely. That should be an easy fix, but I still haven’t got around to that. And the wallpaper inside is pretty badly faded and peeling in places.

    The inside stank really bad when I first brought it home; it had probably been left sitting in a garage or workshop for a lot of years, with who-knows-what inside it. Leaving it sit out in the sun for several days this summer helped immensely in that department; much, much better now.

    Well, I’ve had it for four months, and still don’t know what to do with it. Our house really has no need for more furniture, and as big as this thing is, there’s no room for something not needed… So on to CraigsList it goes.

    Posted in Old Things | Comments Closed

    A Little Left Of Centrist

    November 11th, 2008

    I saw this cartoon at American Thinker last week, and thought it fit the situation perfectly. We as a country have just elected another guy who ran as something he is not and has no intention of being. Barack Obama is likely as far left as anyone in Washington, DC, yet he ran not as a leftist, but a centrist. Why? Because he knows he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting elected if he didn’t hide who he really was or what he really wanted for this country.

    Actually, the entire ordeal is very reminiscent of 1992, when William Jefferson Clinton became the first President elected without receiving a majority of the votes cast. Clinton’s ride to the White House was marked by claims that he was “a new Democrat”, vowing to work with both sides of Congress to do what’s right for the country. In those days I was admittedly pretty naive politically, and I took him at his word. His word proved to be worth little, as he demonstrated in the coming two years, taking the side of the Democrats and demonizing the Republicans at every turn, especially during the 1994 election cycle. It was then that I more closely examined what I believed was right in the world of politics and compared it against the platforms of both parties; I changed my registration to Republican that year, and haven’t looked back.

    Obama isn’t as politically savvy as Clinton, and despite his handlers’ best efforts, managed to show some cracks in his centrist veneer during the campaign, revealing his true ideological identity to be way, way to the left. Of course, that didn’t get much attention in the mainstream press… It would’ve made him look bad, and that’s the last thing they wanted.

    Now that he’s won the election, we’re likely to see his true colors. His pick for Chief of Staff is Rahm Emanuel; not exactly known for “reaching across the aisle” unless it’s an attempt to smack a right-winger upside the head. Jon Podesta is working as co-chairman of the transition team; he’s got about as much in common with Congressional Republicans as Obama. If those two are a sign of things to come… Well, it’s only going to get interestinger still.

    But still, as a Christian I’m called to pray for those in authority; that’s especially important when I think they’re up to no good. God can work untold miracles even in and through people who are far from him.

    Posted in Politics, The World | Comments Closed

    The 3 Square Puzzler

    November 8th, 2008

    I stopped at a garage sale a few weeks back and found a couple of good deals; one of them was this neat old game — The 3 Square Puzzler.

    The box is pretty nondescript, and looks like it’s seen better days.

    Inside is a milled & finished oak block with a series of holes for moving the pegs. The pegs themselves are pretty heavy duty; all metal. The finish on the gold-colored pegs is a bit worn, but it’s still pretty easy to tell which is which.

    The goal of the game is for one player to move the silver pegs to the holes occupied by the gold pegs before the other player moves the gold pegs to the other side. The rules are pretty simple; you move the pieces one hole at a time, jumping other pegs when possible, much like Chinese Checkers.

    It’s a fun game, and kind of a classy relic. The label on the box is pretty faded, but still somewhat legible;
    SETKO MODEL NO. 8114
    3 SQUARE PUZZLER
    another HOYLE OFFICIAL game

    In addition to the instructions on the inside of the box lid, there is a line that says the copyright was obtained in 1964 by the “Set Screw & Mfg. Co.” A Google search on that name comes up empty, but it kinda makes sense that a set screw manufacturer would make something like this.

    Probably not much of a collector’s piece, but I like it. Not bad for 25 cents, eh?

    Posted in Fun!, Just Stuff, Old Things | Comments Closed

    POTUS #44

    November 5th, 2008

    “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

    James Madison
    Federalist No. 10

    May God have mercy on us all.

    Posted in Politics | Comments Closed

    Animusic Pipe Dreams

    November 2nd, 2008

    Miss C. posted this video on her site over the weekend, referring to it as, “An oldie that never gets old”. Well, it may be old in Internet terms (2006) but I’d never seen it before, and it’s truly worth watching. And it turns out the animators — Animusic — has put out two videos with similar content. Too cool!

    Watching it, I can’t help but appreciate the time and thought that had to go into this piece… I’m sure the animators started with the music, and then worked backward to synchronize the balls striking the instruments, then figured out where the balls would go afterward. The timing, the creative use of percussion, the movement through the 3D space… Very, very cool. Had to be done in animation, cuz it would never, ever work in real life. You’d have extra noise from the balls rattling through the PVC and balls flying everywhere; no way could you aim balls coming out of a common tube to strike instruments in different locations. But I guess that’s where the name comes from!

    Never mind my geeking over the details; just enjoy!

    Posted in Cool Technology, Fun!, Gadgets, Geek, Links, Movies | Comments Closed

    The Wireless Extension Cord

    October 30th, 2008

    I was looking for a surge protector with an extra-long cord for a project at work, and bumped into this doozy at ThinkGeek; a wireless extension cord!

    With tongue planted firmly in cheek, they describe the gadget thusly:

    Just plug the Wireless Extension Cord (WEC) base unit into a standard wall outlet, and plug whatever you need into the satellite unit. The WEC uses microwaves in the 7.2GHz range, so it won’t interfere with wireless networks, Bluetooth components, etc. Now, all you need to do is adjust the antennae on the two units so they are aimed at each other. Turn everything on and you have the power! The distance the WEC units can broadcast differs from situation to situation (due to interference of such things as walls, power lines, and microwave ovens), but we’ve beamed power over 300 feet! The future is wireless – and the WEC’s are your ticket to the future.

    The best part is the Warning:

    Warning: Even though these microwaves are about as harmful as the leakage from an ordinary microwave oven (not much), do not put computers, televisions, other sensitive electrical equipment, food, liquids, paper, glass, flammable substances, magnets, or living things in between the base and satellite units. Just in case.

    If only…

    Posted in Cool Technology, Fun!, Gadgets | Comments Closed

    Windows Rant Of The Day: Removable Disks

    October 27th, 2008

    When something on a computer works well and works the way it should — intuitively — it’s said to be “Mac-like”. Windows XP and Vista are said to have many “Mac-like” features. But in working with XP the last few years, I’m left to wonder how could something as simple as adding a removable drive can be so decidedly un-Mac-like. I’m talking about connecting and disconnecting a removable drive from a computer.

    In the Mac OS, connecting & disconnecting any kind of external storage device to the system is painless & simple. Whether it be a USB thumb drive, a digital camera with onboard storage, or an external drive (connected via USB, Firewire, eSATA, or whatever), connecting it is a matter of plugging it into the appropriate port; the icon representing that volume (or volumes) appears on the desktop, and away you go. When you’re done with the device, you click on the volume on your desktop (or in a Finder window) and pull down in the Finder’s File menu to Eject (or hit Command-E, or drag the volume to the Trash). Once the device’s icon is gone, you can physically disconnect the device from the Mac. If there are files still in use, the system will complain by throwing up an alert; after you close whatever file is still open, then try again. Simple, straightforward, painless.

    Using USB thumb drives and true removable media isn’t much more difficult in Windows, but it’s still far from “Mac-like”. When you plug in a storage device it’ll usually pop up several bubbles on the system tray telling you it recognizes the device, and it’s ready to go. Sometimes you’ll need to install drivers for it, which is for the most part painless, but still, it’s one more step. Pulling the plug on the thing is when it gets interesting. An icon for the Safely Remove Hardware applet pops into the system tray when the device is plugged in; right-click on that icon and you get a somewhat confusing series of two or three dialog boxes that allow you to stop access to the device so it can be disconnected.

    Trying to do the same thing in Windows XP with a hard drive is a bit trickier, and so unMac-like it’s not even funny. I wrongly assumed that you could eject a drive from a Windows system like you could from a Mac; if nothing else, you could use the Safely Remove Hardware doodad for that. But not so.

    Last week I tried setting up a hot-swappable SATA drive (a Diamond Hard Drive Kit from Addonics) and a pair of 1TB drives on a PC at work… My plan was to have Retrospect back up the servers and several desktops to the hot-swap drive, then once a week I’d pull the drive out and replace it with another identical unit, always keeping one offsite for safety. That was the plan anyway. But Windows is making life difficult for me.

    Physically installing the drive tray in the PC and connecting it to the onboard SATA bus was pretty straightforward, as was setting up the disk after it was installed and the system booted up. But once the disk was mounted and accessible, what then? How do you eject it? With the Addonics unit, there is a key switch on the front panel that cuts power to the drive so that it can be removed. Nice feature and all, but Windows doesn’t allow such a thing to happen gracefully. In fact, hot swapping of drives is not natively supported in any current Windows product.

    I did some Googling to see if there were any 3rd party solutions for getting around this, and found a few that promised help in the task, but all were basically trying to trick Windows into thinking the disk was removable. They weren’t very convincing, and the system caught it every time. It’s still possible to cut power on the drive & pull it out. The system puts an error in the log complaining that some corruption might have occurred, and from what I was able to find, corruption does happen. Not terribly common, but it does happen. And when I’m yanking a 1TB drive out, it’s fairly important to me that the data remain intact. On top of the threat of corruption, the system was running pretty funkily when I did hot swaps without the proper tools. It took forever to recover from a reboot, and it just felt sluggish. So I had to find another way.

    Digging a little further, I found something on the Addonics website telling me what I’ve learned the hard way:

    Q4. I want to swap hard drive in and out of my computer without restarting my computer, will the Diamond drive kit support this and what components do I need?
    A. The Diamond Drive Cartridge System is designed for the hot swapping of drives without rebooting the computer. The Diamond Drive Cartridge System with SATA interface must be connected to a hot-swap compatible SATA controller. If this is not done, the removal or insertion of a Diamond enclosure will cause the system to freeze or reboot.

    Shame on me; I should have seen that before. The Windows OS doesn’t support hot-swapping drives without the proper hardware. Although the computer’s onboard SATA controller hardware will accept up to four SATA devices, it won’t allow hot-swapping, at least not without the proper adapter card. So I went shopping for a card that will allow hot swapping & found a fairly inexpensive one for not a lot of money; the PNY SATA S-Cure RAID card for $35. It arrived yesterday, I got it installed, and it worked great until I cut the power on the drive and pulled it out. At first it didn’t seem that the drive was gone at all because the system showed it still active — must’ve been cached information. After a few minutes the controller’s software had a conniption fit about the drive being gone, even after the drive had been reinserted and powered on again. I finally had to restart the machine to get it back to square one. Sheesh. As it turns out, I should have bought a non-RAID card; the card I bought was a RAID card, and will add and release disks that are part of an array, but won’t allow standalone disks to be connected & disconnected at will. A non-RAID supposedly will allow the SATA disk to appear as a removable drive to the system. A-shopping I will go. Again. With crossed fingers.

    For a short while I thought the solution would be to move the Addonics hot swap unit to a Mac, then share the drive over the network as a Windows volume. But the problem there is that native SATA support didn’t happen on the Mac until the G5’s hit the market, and none of the spare machines I have on hand or slated for semi-retirement (all G4’s) would be up to the job, at least not without adding an adapter card. The PNY RAID card might work in the Mac, but…

    All in all, the whole removable drive thing was a learning experience for me. The Mac may have had a leg up on the Windows machine, but because the Mac lacked the hardware to make it happen, I won’t find out any time soon. A question that remains unanswered is whether the Windows OS is unable to make use of the hot-swap feature because of a hardware shortcoming or if it’s software; I suspect it’s Windows, and am happy to lay the blame there (unless someone can prove me wrong.) If I were to install the unit in a G5, an Intel Mac, or say, a Psystar machine running OS X, with a spare onboard SATA port… Would the OS have a hard time with the drive being ejected? I’m pretty sure it would happen there without incident.

    As for using a plain vanilla removable drive on a Mac vs. a PC, the usability difference highlights one of the major benefits of using a Mac. A much superior user experience in that respect, and many more.

    Bonus Hint: The Safely Remove Hardware app is tucked away for safe keeping (I guess) and launching it without inserting a removable drive, while not impossible, isn’t easy. I found a discussion thread where someone posted a trick to do it; just right-click on your Desktop to create a New Shortcut. In the Create Shortcut dialog box that comes up, it’ll ask you to type the location of the item; type (or paste) %windir%\system32\rundll32.dll.Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll into that field, click Next, and give the shortcut a name, then you’ve got handy-dandy quick access to the SRH applet. As handy as that can be, anyway.

    Posted in Computers, Work | Comments Closed

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