Adobe Acrobat — Now With 30% Less Suck!
No pithy comments today, just a quick note to say that if you’re using Adobe Acrobat Reader (they’ve actually renamed it Adobe Reader, but see if I care) as well as Windows 2000 or XP, you really should upgrade to version 7 (download — this direct link bypasses the lame Adobe Download Mgr. and Y! Toolbar.)
Where version 6 was a bloated, slow mover that had me scrambling for extensions that allowed me to avoid PDFs entirely, the new 7 is actually… quick. As in, surprisingly, noticeably, definitely quick.
After being conditioned by software companies to expect updates that just make the program marginally more secure, or theoretically more useful (or even reduce its function!) I find something that actually improves the experience to be a nice (and all-too-rare) surprise.
Bonus nerd note: they’re even releasing a Linux version soon-ish, so we’ll see how that stacks up against ggv.