I have Foxit installed and can usually use that, but am forced to have Adobe Reader installed for other reasons.

Adobe Reader will now never be updated on my machine. It’s a small price to pay. And Foxit is great for most pdf tasks.

There was a point not so long ago where Adobe Collaboration Sync got so bad on my Windows 10 box it wouldn’t let me close any pdfs that were open. “File in use” error, even if all Adobe programs were closed except for that pdf. I’d have to go into Task Manager and manually kill it. Between that and Adobe Updater I couldn’t get rid of it by any known means, and it was choking the shit out of my machine.

I’m transitioning to Linux but not there yet, still need the Windows box for now, so I had to do something. But I’m old school, so it was a DOS batch file to the rescue. I call it “kiladobe.bat”:

taskkill /f /im armsvc.exe       
del "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\armsvc.exe"      
taskkill /f /im AdobeCollabSync.exe     
del "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\AdobeCollabSync.exe"      

It’s now a scheduled task in taskschd.msc. I put kiladobe.bat in the main Adobe program folder (heh) and run that task as administrator at startup and every four hours or so, give or take an hour.

No more problems.

Now, all that remains is that every so often I see the command window flash up for a split second because this batch file is killing Adobe shit, and it just makes me smile. (I could probably make it stop flashing up the CLI, but I genuinely enjoy the reminder of how I’m fucking Adobe’s virus-like install and lock endeavors up the ass.)

EDITED TO ADD a simple “@echo off” by itself as the first line would probably turn off any appearance of the CLI, if anyone wants to use this text for their own batch file. If that didn’t work I’d probably throw a space and a “>nul” at the end of each line to grab the output and throw it into neverneverland.

Install Blocktube or another extension that stops videos from starting when you open the link, and read the transcript. It used to be at the top, just under the video itself, but now they’ve moved it to the bottom of the video description so you have to go through all the affiliate links just to get to the fucking transcript button.

But once you’ve found it, transcriptions are your best friend: skim it to see if there’s any real reason to watch (usually not) and enjoy that portion of your life that you just saved for things that YOU want and not what Google and that content creator want. The transcript will also tell you what portion of the video you need to watch, if actually watching it suits your needs.

I also regularly speed up videos; 1.25 is great under most circumstances, 1.5 if they’re really trying to draaaag shit out. You can always slow it down again, but it’s great for getting through the fluff if you need to hear it all (like repair videos for something you’ve never done yourself).

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Excellent response. You put it perfectly.

I like this sub exactly the way it is. If something isn’t for me, I move on. Not a big deal. And OP asked a great question. I never thought about it either, lol.

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I never heard it explained that way. What an excellent comment. Thank you for taking the time.

It was mandatory but essentially had to be done on your own time.

In the US, if you are an hourly non-exempt employee, that is overt wage theft in all 50 states. If a task is made mandatory by an employer, they must pay you for the time you spent on it.

I know this doesn’t help you now, of course, but it’s good to know in case you run into it again and feel like pushing back with a report to the Dept of Labor.

According to the article it’s all about the data, not the product, and how Microsoft 365 breaches EU data protection laws..

Which is really kind of funny, because if MS had left users’ data alone and focused on the product instead of backend data brokering revenue, they’d probably be keeping this business and not losing it.

Eventually it started slipping

If you still have the printer (you may not but I’m going to put this out there for others too) that sounds like a simple roller replacement, and rollers/pickup pads are usually considered “consumables” instead of “parts” because they all wear out over time. This is true for most if not all consumer printers, ink and laser alike.

Replacements should be pretty easy to find for even old printers, and the installation is usually pretty straightforward. Last year I was still able to buy a roller replacement set for a 19 year old HP, and it took me ten minutes and one Phillips head screwdriver to replace them all.

You can also just take out and clean the hell out of anything rubber with isopropyl alcohol, letting it dry thoroughly and then putting it back in, or if possible rotate the rubber on it to present an unused side, I’ve done all that a few times too.

For pretty much any model printer, search on the printer model number and “maintenance kit” to find available roller/pickup pad replacements for sale, and printer model number plus “service manual” to get replacement instructions if you need them.

Awesome. Joined. Thank you.

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You can do it on iPhone too, and I still do. Yeah, I know, I’m antiquated.

I like to set my default ringtone to silence, and then give known contacts a real sound for calls AND texts. I’ve been doing this for about ten years and the peace of it is fantastic. I didn’t wait for Apple to do it for me, I just created a 2 second .wav of silence and then jumped through the hoops to get it on the phone as a ringtone and then set it to default. The very few times I’ve missed a first time contact that I actually wanted to hear from is nothing compared to the mountains of unwanted shit I’ve missed.

But there’s a catch. Now, whenever I blow away the OS of an old device, I have to manually re-import my SilentRing.m4r since the devices are all still connected to my Apple ID – it doesn’t matter that my iPhone ring is silent if my iPad starts ringing anyway, lol.

Easy enough to do, though. I think Apple gives you the option of a default silent ring in the OS now, but for anyone who is using an older iOS or just wants to try it:

https://www.howtogeek.com/248489/how-to-add-custom-ringtones-to-your-iphone/

Holy shit. I hadn’t seen that one. Thanks for the link.

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