October 2007

(and probably many other cameras too)

I realized recently that I had deleted a picture that I kind of wanted to keep.  I deleted it using the interface on the camera, not by hooking it up to a computer.  Happily I hadn't taken any pictures since, so I figured on a reasonable chance of reclaiming the picture.

I was successful, and it was easy.  I used PC Inspector File Recovery.  The interface kind of sucks, and the hardest part I think is selecting which drive to search.  It did pick up the the FAT partition on the camera over USB though, which was good as I had half expected Sony to have some middle layer in which the camera represented the pictures it could see on the card to the computer (in which case I would have had to put the Memorystick in a separate card reader).

We had an issue at work where on any computer with Acrobat Professional installed Word 2007 would run really slow.  Opening, closing, saving, and creating new documents all took 3-4 seconds during which the entire computer would lock-up and the processor would be at 100% utilization.  Even switching between programs would seem to do this.

 A quick Google for Word 2007 lockups didn't turn up much other than a few references to the Add-ins menu, so I checked that out and found one for Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin which didn't really seem necessary.  Turning it off instantly gave Word the excellent performance that I expected.  Here's how:

• Click the Office button in the top left, and go to "Word Options" (bottom edge of the menu).
• Select "Add-ins" on the left, and notice the "Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin" under "Active Application Add-ins."
• Towards the bottom of the dialogue you will see "Manage:" followed by a drop down menu. "COM Add-ins" should already be selected.
• Click "Go" and on the next screen uncheck the box next to the "Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin."
• OK your way out of the all the menus, and you should have improved performance without even restarting Word.