Free PDF Writer

Sharing documents across numerous platforms can mean the loss of formatting or other unique features. The solution for many years has been converting the file an Adobe PDF file. The Adobe PDF Reader has long been a free program.

But writing a PDF file has been something else.

The problem for the occasional user has always been the high cost of either the Adobe PDF writer or its competitors. Cost is no longer a problem.

There are a number of free programs that can do the job. I have used CutePDF for a number of years and it really works.

Dennis O'Reilly from CNET has a column discussing the various ways to write PDF files with links to the appropriate sites: Convert any Office file to PDF for free.

And, yes, I know that you can easily write PDF files from any campus computer. But why should you always have to hustle down to the campus to convert documents to PDF when you can do it at home?


Cheers
Dan Kubiske

Why looking past the front door is important

Take a look at the list if foreign owned companies operating in Virginia and Fairfax County and try to tell me we should not be concerned with what is happening beyond our borders.

Foreign Owned Companies in Virginia

Foreign Owned Companies in Fairfax County

Media looks at Obama and itself

Interesting look at how the Democratic Party candidates are being covered from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

http://www.journalism.org/node/10004

Why words are important (An international example)

Once again here is an example of why it is important to use the right word at the right time.

AsiaMedia Columns :: From minor spat to cultural war

I agree the reporter was within his rights to use the word he did to convey clarity and precision to the story. The objections to the word he used was political not grammatical.

I have often talked about the meaning of a word and the sense of the word can be different.

My most common example is "regime."

By definition it means a form of government. Such as: The United States has a democratic regime.

Yet the sense of the word to many Americans is much more negative. It has a sense of a dictatorship.

Critics of the Bush Administration decry the "Bush regime." People talked of the "Pinochet regime" when denouncing the Chilean dictator. In both cases the use of the word is incorrect. "Bush" and "Pinochet" are not forms of government. But that doesn't stop its use. So the meaning of the word has changed in the minds of most people. The use of "regime" has come to mean something evil and wicked. It is a loaded word used to evoke an emotional response rather than to convey a precise and concise meaning.

I also use examples of how British English and American English have to watched closely. Knocking some one up in the morning has completely different meanings in the UK and USA.

With large portions of the world taught British English -- think India, Pakistan, Singapore and Hong Kong -- not knowing these differences can make a story go in a whole different direction.

As I told my students, when interviewing some one from a different culture if a phrase doesn't seem right, ask about the specific meaning. (And that different culture can just as easily be Midwest to Brooklyn or Vicksburg as USA to India. And here I speak from experience.)

Cheers

Dan

Latinos Looking Over Shoulder

Prince William County, Virginia, police begin enforcement of one of the nation's strictest anti-illegal immigration policies. The article looks at effects on the first day.

read more | digg story

Obsolete Skills List

Okay folks. Time to feel old.

Here is a list of Obsolete Skills.

Personally I still mourn the loss of WordStar. One of the best word processing programs around -- once you got used to its "dot command" format.