Newsletter Archives

• How to fill out a PDF form with Adobe Acrobat Reader

  Posted on September 23, 2019 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  PRODUCTIVITY

  By Lance Whitney

  Entering information into PDF-based forms can be an exercise in frustration — especially if it’s something you don’t do often.

  Let’s say, for example, that you have a PDF tax form that needs to be filled out. You could use Adobe Acrobat to complete the task (and also do lots of other tricks with PDF files), but that’s a pricey proposition — around U.S. $180 per year — especially if you rarely need to edit or annotate PDFs.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.34.0 (2019-09-23).

  Productivity Adobe Acrobat Reader, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Digital forms, PDFs

• Acrobat Reader XI Now Offered Upgrade to Acrobat 2017 Reader

  Posted on June 19, 2017 at 14:26 CDT by Kirsty • Comment in the Forums

  This month, Adobe has started upgrading Reader XI to 2017, which was released this month. This comes with new options for upgrading, and EULA changes.

  You can read about this over on Browser & Desktop Software:
  Acrobat 2017 is now being rolled out

  Other Adobe Acrobat Reader

• Ten bulletins, 31 patches, a million potential problems

  Posted on June 10, 2009 at 07:06 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s a huge crop of patches waiting for you, covering 31 separate vulnerabilities, and I dunno-how-many different downloads.

  As usual, the best overview is at the SANS Internet Storm Center.

  Bottom line (tell me if you’ve heard this one before): don’t use Internet Explorer. Apparently none of the bad problems (except the ones in IE) have exploits that you need to worry about. Don’t apply any patches until the screams have subsided.

  We remain at MS-DEFCON 2: Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don’t do it.

  Oh. Don’t forget to patch Acrobat Reader, if you have it. Adobe just fixed 13 security holes in Reader. You could take advantage of the unease you’re feeling right now and install Foxit reader, which works just fine most of the time and has a significantly better track record for fixing security holes.

  An interesting note: several of you have asked how Microsoft and industry pundits count the number of bugs: Gregg Keizer at ComputerWorld reports, for example, that this monster set of patches fixes 31 security holes – a record, by his estimation. Brian Krebs at the Washington Post echoes the statement. Brian credits Symantec.

  All of these people are counting the number of CVEs that Microsoft claims to fix in the security bulletins. CVEs are “Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures” listed and maintained by the MITRE organization, which is an independent non-profit originally associated with MIT. Each CVE number corresponds to one or more identified security holes. While the CVE count is a better indicator of how many holes have been patched than the number of security bulletins, it frequently doesn’t differentiate between different versions of programs, and other subtleties.

  Windows Patches/Security Adobe Acrobat Reader, CVE, Foxit, June 2009 Black Tuesday, MITRE