I have been having major problems with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and Windows Vista. I bought Acrobat almost a year ago, paying close to $500, and have consistently had problems with the software saying it needs to be activated even though I have already activated it numerous times. I worked with their lousy customer support when I first got it, trying to figure out what the problem was, and nothing ever worked. I use it infrequently, so I put up with the annoying messages and dealt with having to close it and restart it every 5 minutes.

After almost 8 months of not using it, I started using it again for a project. It kept having activation issues and I dutifully called tech support again, figuring they must have a solution now. After my activation failed over the phone with the automated system, the tech support person told me I either need to install on Windows XP or pay $150 to upgrade to Acrobat 8. I couldn't believe it - Adobe isn't going to make their product work with Vista, even though Vista had already launched and was in use when only Acrobat 7 was available. It's not like I want a super old version of Adobe to work with Vista. I had my Vista machine when I purchased Acrobat 7, I didn't have the fucking option to purchase Acrobat 8. And there was no indication their product wouldn't work with Vista.

So Adobe, excuse my french, but fuck you. That's ridiculous. I'll encourage everyone I know not to buy your products if they can help it. Expect some posts on how to accomplish common tasks with non-adobe products.

I flew out to Vermont in October on Delta, and for some reason did not get frequent flyer miles for one leg of the trip. After filling out an online contact form with the info, I received the dreaded cut and paste response that I needed the send my flight info by fax or mail.



Not wanting to waste paper, I opted for a fax. And since I had an electronic E-ticket, I simply copy and pasted the info from the confirmation email into a word doc, put in a cover sheet I had saved in word and converted it to a pdf with Adobe Acrobat. Now I just needed to send the darn thing through my Dell All-In-One Photo 964 printer.

I opened up the software, but couldn't find the right option. It had links to scan an image, and then fax, but nothing to open an existing document. After some searching in the help documents, I realized all I needed to do was open the document, select print, and then select Fax Dell Printer as pictured below.





It then popped up a window where I put in the number and info, and viola, the fax was sent. Make sure to just put in the fax number without any other characters. I copied the fax from an email, and it had parentheses around the area code. Needless to say, the fax didn't make it through...

I bought the Dell Photo 964 Printer last February, as my old printer was, well, getting old. I have been pleased with it. It sends and receives faxes without a problem, and scanning and printing documents has been easy. It is nice to have the top loader when scanning multiple documents, and it also works for faxes. On an old scanner I had at a previous job, you had to lay each document on the scanner, scan it and then rinse and repeat, which was very time consuming for large quantities.

I am not a heavy user, preferring to stick to the digital world, so I have not explored some of the other features of the printer, such as managing fax lists, the OCR reader that lets you manipulate text from scanned documents, or printing images directly from memory cards. But all in all, I am very happy with the purchase – it is amazing that you can get a printer, scanner and fax for a little over $100 dollars!