How to Fix: "Unable to find Adobe PDF resource files" - Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions- Acrobat Pro

Have you found yourself facing an Adobe Distiller (Adobe Acrobat Pro) error message something like this recently, when trying to print / output to a PDF file from a non-Adobe application on Windows?

"Unable to find Adobe PDF resource files" that mentions the directory "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF\Settings" and the supposed missing file "Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions"?

Well, I ran into this, and after searching the Internet for fixes, I found a whole lot of people talking in vagueness about how to "fix" this, to say the least, and providing little real information about how to fix the problem at hand (and, the advice produced zero resolution to the problem). Well, I figured it out myself, and I hope this information helps you.

Symptoms / Setup
First, I am using Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional (with 7.1 update), as was installed via the Adobe Creative Suite CS2 software, and on my Windows XP Professional desktop machine that has Service Pack 3 (SP3) installed. Producing PDF files was never a problem for me, until at some point (perhaps SP3?) it just stopped working, and every time I tried to produce a PDF from various applications, it would prompt me about "Do you want to run the installer in repair mode? ", to which I (foolishly, hopefully) said "yes" to, which of course does NOT fix anything. [note: I hate software like that!!! What is the point of a "repair mode" that does not repair the issue at hand?]

How to Fix / Resolve
Well, if you are "Unable to find Adobe PDF resource files" because your Acrobat Distiller can not find the file "C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Documents/Adobe PDF/Settings/Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions", let's get that file to exist!

It seems, from what I can tell, that Adobe Acrobat Distiller (i.e., the program that creates PDF files for you as a print-driver essentially), needs that EXACT NAMED FILE to exist, at that exact location. Never mind that you already have a "Standard.joboptions" file defined, and that logic would dictate SHOULD be used in the absence of the file "Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions"; you have to tell Acrobat 7.0 / 7.1 / 8.0 / etc that you really want that "standard" one to be used for performing conversions from certain non-Adobe applications that you are trying to "print a PDF from".

So, go to the folder mentioned: NOTE... THIS IS A HIDDEN FOLDER. So, to make things easy, presuming you installed on the "C:" drive, just copy and paste this following line to your Windows File-Explorer's address-bar, and you will go right to the folder, hidden or not:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF\Settings
Now, you should see other ".joboptions" files in that directory already, and presumably you do NOT have the "Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions" there, or you would not be getting this error message.

Choose whatever ".joboptions" file makes sense as your "default" for printing PDF files from your various Windows applications, and copy it to a file named,... you guessed it: "Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions" (in this same directory) I chose the "standard.joboptions" file, and copied it.

Now, try to print / generate a PDF from whatever application was otherwise having a bug or problem printing PDF files because of this pesky "Unable to find Adobe PDF resource files" Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions message and "run in repair mode?" not-a-fix option...

With luck, YOU CAN NOW PRINT A PDF from any application! (I sure hope so... it worked well for me!) What finally inspired me to FIX this issue on my desktop was when I was using the new VMware Workstation 7.0 feature called "Virtual Printer" which allows the guest VM's (virtual machines) to print to any installed host-printer (including, you guessed it, Adobe Acrobat / Distiller PDF printing!). Now I can print from ANY of my guest virtual-machines to an Adobe PDF file, using the host machine's installed Acrobat Professional 7.0 / 7.1, via a virtual-printer-passthrough mechanism. Sweeeeeet. But, this is a bit off topic aside from how cool it is!

Optional - Create your default PDF output-settings file first...
If you want to create a custom .joboptions file in this directory, just open up Acrobat Distiller, go to "Edit Adobe PDF Settings", and create a definition for however you want your default-output (when printing a PDF) to be, and "Save As..." whatever file name you desire. Then, copy THAT definition file to "Adobe PDF Converter.joboptions" in the directory I have been talking about here (which is where your new definition, by default, should have been saved during "save as" operation).

Final Thoughts...
From the types of web pages I was seeing when searching for a way to fix this "unable to find adobe pdf resource files" bug / feature, I noticed that it seems to occur with Acrobat Pro 7, Acrobat 7.1, Acrobat 8.0, and perhaps even Acrobat 9 (and Acrobat 6.0 ?).

So, hopefully this helps anyone trying to "solve the problem" on their machine with printing a PDF file and getting that darn message about running repair mode (which does nothing). If it helps, I would not mind a link to this page to promote a solution that really IS a solution (after all the time I wasted searching, and not finding one, I wish someone else would have promoted a real fix). Enjoy!

Guaranteed High Mileage Car Sales Boosting Plan

Forget Tax Incentives...
It should be rather clear by now that the average United States consumer has little concern for vehicle mileage when purchasing a car; at least, that is, until the price of gasoline is absolutely oppressive. And, tax incentives for hybrid vehicles and the like make little difference too. Doing what is "right" for the environment just does not seem to matter either.

So, how do we encourage people to save gasoline and purchase high-MPG cars over larger, more powerful models? Simple...

Mileage Incentives that Consumers
can Understand and Appreciate
I was just thinking about this the other day, and the answer became quite clear to me. The average person needs something TANGIBLE and right "there and now" to remind them why they chose to save gasoline with a high-miles-per-gallon vehicle, and the answer is this:

THE GOVERNMENT CAN MASSIVELY INCREASE THE PACE OF ADOPTION OF EFFICIENT VEHICLES BY GRANTING THE OWNERS THE "PRIVILEGE" TO LEGALLY DRIVE 15-20MPH OVER THE POSTED SPEED LIMITS ON HIGHWAYS (only highways) IF THE CAR THEY ARE DRIVING IS RATED AT OVER 50MPG HIGHWAY. PERIOD. HIGH-MPG CARS WILL SPEED (literally) OUT OF DEALER PARKING LOTS!

Sure, going faster will burn a (bit) more gasoline, but not much. I do not believe the hogwash that every 5MPH increase in speed decreases mileage 10 percent, because I have tested this with every car I have owned and have seen negligible impact from even a 10MPH difference in average speed over the same driving course of enough length to test completely. Not to mention, that bit of false information implies that if you doubled your speed, you would essentially get zero gas mileage. Ridiculous! And, regardless, people would be STILL be saving gasoline in a large way on the highway (compared to their current cars), and also consider how the "free pass to speed" is only valid on larger highways... the cars would save a LOT of gasoline everywhere else they are driven too.

So, come on government, incentive smaller, more efficient cars, in a way that the average consumer can quickly understand and embrace. When that consumer walks into the showroom and looks at the tiny little car that can get 50 or 60MPG, and then, with great surprise, again asks the salesperson: "So, you are telling me that if I buy THIS car, I can drive 15MPH (or 20?) over the posted speed limit on all Interstates and 4-lane highways, without getting a ticket for it?...(yes)... you are sure?... (yes)... I WILL TAKE ONE NOW!". Can you imagine how many people with long commutes, or traveling salespersons, etc., would want to suddenly save on gasoline by getting a high-MPG car?

Food for thought people... just thinking out of the box a bit. Though, dreaming is more like it :)

SQL2008 SP1 (Service-Pack) Released

In case you happen to be an enthusiast of Microsoft's newest SQL-Server Database software - SQL Server 2008 - you may be interested in knowing the latest Service Pack 1 for SQL2008 is now available. What you may not care to know is how small the list of new features is with this SP1 package -- it is mainly a cumulative bug-fix release.

Microsoft sums up the new features with three bullet points, that are essentially the following (which, I see potential in at least two items):

• You can "slipstream" a SQL Server 2008 update and the original installation media so that original media and the update [presumably Service Pack 1 for example] are installed at the same time in future installs. Slipstreaming is an installation method that integrates the base installation files for a program with its service packs and enables them to be installed in a single step. The [SQL-Server 2008] update setup documentation available from the SQL Server Download Center has the most recent description of the slipstream process [including SP1 changes that make slipstreaming SQL2008 SP1 possible]. I plan to try this out soon using SQL-Server 2008 Developer Edition with SP1 as my slipstreamed update of choice. I really hate having to install Microsoft products and then apply all sorts of Service Packs and updates in addition (which of course means, more installation time, more reboots, and correspondingly more system down time), so this is quite welcome!
• SQL Server 2008 SP1 now introduces the ability to uninstall cumulative updates or service packs via Programs and Features in Control Panel. I have not tried this yet; I will take their word for it, though I can only imagine the horror stories that will appear on blogs in the near future when people attempt to do this :)
  
• SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 provides a ClickOnce version of Report Builder 2.0. [my only comments: I have no idea what this is or why I even should care... I build databases, not reports, using SQL-Server; when I need reports, I use a "real" report builder that has wide adoption and a longer track record... at least for now]
  

SQL-Server is my favorite Microsoft software application, as I find it to be an incredibly robust relational database platform that is not only powerful and fast, but one that is easy to fully exploit from a software-developer's standpoint. Although it can handle very large databases (10's and even 100's or more Gigabytes in size), it is still quite manageable without a full time dedicated DBA (presuming your database and procedural code and queries are designed properly).

SQL2008 is yet another solid version of this database platform, and surely deserves a look if you have not upgraded from SQL2000 or SQL2008 (if you are using a version older than either of those, well, you are simply insane).

Now, I will look forward to SQL-Server 2008 SP2, or perhaps SQL-Server 2008 SP3 to introduces some nifty new features that may be more enticing to me as a database designer and database software developer. I expect the SQL-Server 2008 SP2 Release Date will be long ways off yet, and I suspect it will not even come until 2010. So, for now, off to play with SQL2008 SP1 I go...

Mortgage / Refinance Rates - Home Equity, Conventional, etc

With mortgage interest rates being at super-low, rock-bottom, and certainly historically low levels, I have recently been thinking about how these rates really filter down to the consumer. I see home equity loan interest rates advertised as low as under 4 percent, though I am having a hard time determining if those are fixed-rate home equity loans (since they are quoted as Prime plus 3.25% or so), or whether, after taking out the loan, those rates are variable rate loans or somehow "float" over time.

I have seen 30-year fixed rate mortgage interest rates advertised at under 5% recently, though most often only if points and the like are paid (no-point loan rates seem to be just above 5% still regardless of all this talk I hear on TV of sub-5-percent loans).

Well, fact of the matter is that anything down in this range is quite reasonable considering the history of mortgage rates in the United States over the past decades. I remember the rates being quite high in the late 1970's and even through the late 1980's and early 1990's (my first home loan rate was something like 10.5% back then!!!), and it really is just amazing how people complain about "high interest rates" being anything over 5% (yes, I have heard people complain about this) even as I had to pay on a loan at twice that rate.

I calculated the other day how, if I purchased the same house now as compared to 20 years ago, I could have a payment that is literally just over HALF the amount of payment I had to make back then, and this is not even inflation-adjusted. If you throw inflation adjustment into the mix, the current-day mortgage payment would be essentially 1/4 to 1/3 of the payment. As such, I am just amazed that the housing market is still completely terrible. Sure, jobs are a major consideration, but wow... how much lower can rates go?!

I can not help thinking that it only makes sense to perhaps "step up" to a larger home or bigger yard or whatever while these lowest mortgage rates, lowest refinance rates, and lowest home equity rates in *forever* are available. I like my current house and yard, but I sure am feeling the "itch" to make a step-up now if I can.

The job market is bound to remain shaky, unemployment is sure to stay elevated for a while, but there is also one HUGE amount of fiscal stimulus in play (think: the Federal Reserve printing tons of money - TRILLIONS), that should get things flowing eventually. The only question is how long it will take for the Fed's, and Treasury's, massive injection of stimulus to start causing inflation. IF one would know that inflation is inevitable (especially re-inflation of some intensely-depressed home prices), then it would only make financial sense to purchase a property now, while interest rates are low, and hope for perhaps just a modest rise in interest rates coupled with a more substantial rise in home prices... that way, in theory, you can pay off the mortgage with post-inflated dollars.

But, who knows. Theory just does not seem to be panning out, since if it was, all this dollar-printing would drive interest rates higher (instead of lower) and also cause the US Dollar to devalue (versus getting "stronger" as everyone does the whole "flight to safety" thing). Macroeconomics, per what we were taught in College, is simply out the window lately, and this makes it tough to know whether these lowest mortgage rates, refinance rates, home equity rates, etc are all worth pursuing. arhghghgh. I need a crystal ball!

Software Bloat: Acrobat Reader Executable Size Growth over the years

Does this image say it all? Since I develop various software applications that, among other things, create reports in Adobe's Acrobat / PDF format, I tend to keep quite a few versions of Acrobat reader around for testing my program output with. And, I just could not help laughing when I looked at my file-server's Acrobat Reader executable programs directory, where, since 1997, I have accumulated versions of Acrobat Reader 3.2, 4.0, 5.0, 6.01, 7.05, 8.12, 9.0, and now the newest addition of Acrobat Reader 9.1

Check out the Software Bloat factor in Acrobat Reader over the years:


What started as a simple utility to display PDF files (Portable Document Format files from Adobe), has grown from an under 4Megabyte (MB) installation program to a whopping 42MB installation for Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.1 - which now includes things like Adobe Air and Acrobat.com and all sorts of other ridiculous crap.

I find this all crazy... how a PDF-Reader application can grown 10-TIMES in size (for the installer executable download) in a period of 12 years. Sure, it is no worse than Microsoft Windows or most other major applications that also seem to grow by orders of magnitude over the years, but why?

Is there really that much more functionality in the applications these days to justify this explosive file-size increase, or is it lazy software develoment, a lack of tuning, a lack of focus on clean and efficient code and re-use, or a combination of all the above? It is just hard to accept (for me) why a program designed to allow me to view PDF files on any computer must require a 40MB Download (I will not even get into how insanely large the post-installation size-requirements for this application are!).

I remember the days when I had an entire operating system (on a TRS-80) running in a mere 32K of RAM with simple word-processing programs, games, and the like. Sure, those programs were much simpler, and did not have modern GUI desktops and flash, but the entire OS AND PROGRAMS ran in 1/1000th the memory that this latest Acrobat Reader intallation program download is. Unreal.

This begs the question: what will Acrobat Reader 10 be like, or Acrobat Reader 11, or Acrobat Reader 12, or Acrobat Reader 13, or Acrobat Reader 14, etc... will we hit a ONE GIGABYTE download for their future PDF reader eventually? Given the history, file sizes have gone up to nearly 11-times their size in about the same number of years, and the version numbers at about 1 for every 2 years... so, in a decade, expect a 1/2-GB install of Acrobat Reader 14! It is coming! And, you will be using it (note: I use Acrobat Reader nearly daily; many people do)

Allstate, American Funds : Misleading Advertising

Even after all the current financial market and investment related issues that have swept the market, I keep encountering advertising and marketing propaganda from investing, insurance, banks, and related financial companies that are nothing short of misleading - if not plainly incorrect or impossible.

Allstate (Allstate Insurance Company - NYSE:ALL)
The first example of misleading advertising I want to point out is from Allstate Insurance Company / Allstate Life Insurance Company. I was reading the February 2008 issue of National Geographic, and noticed the Allstate advertisement that occupied the entire back cover of the magazine.

This advertisement was about women, and how the average woman spends 11 years out of the workforce taking care of family - and, how this left the average woman without enough retirement money, due to missed earnings and corresponding missed 401K contributions during the same time. I am OK with this argument in concept, but where it fails is the specific numbers that Allstate provides in the advertisement. I challenge them to show me some real statistical proof of this following statement they make:

"Unfortunately, those 11 years out of the workforce put a woman even further behind, costing her an average of $659,139 in earnings."

YEAH, RIGHT! What a ridiculous statement or assertion! So, Allstate, you are trying to tell me, and the rest of the population, that the average working woman is making $60,000 per year!? This is impossible. And this utterly false statement follows a sentence (of your own writing) where you state in the same ad: "Fact is, women are still earning less than me do...". So, by that same logic, Allstate is telling us that the average man obviously earns substantially more than $60,000 per year!? ABSOLUTE FABRICATION.

Let me at least cite a source for my own assertion that Allstate is utterly full of it with this misleading ad of theirs. How about information from the US Census Bureau:

In 2007, the median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau. The real median earnings of men who worked full time, year-round climbed between 2006 and 2007, from $43,460 to $45,113. For women, the corresponding increase was from $33,437 to $35,102.

Now, could it be that the primary distortion that Allstate is using to inflate their case for whatever product/services they are selling has to do with the use of AVERAGE vs. MEDIAN. Allstate is asserting that women, on average, make nearly twice as much per year as the MEDIAN earnings for women. But, if that is their game (using Average vs. Median), it is just that - a statistical abuse to mislead.

Fact is, if you throw Oprah's earnings, and those of a few other top 1%+ earners, the AVERAGE earnings are skewed substantially. But, the true likelihood that an "average" woman in America is missing out on making $66,000 per year is statistically incorrect. I guess Allstate did not feel that 11 years of missed earnings, times the median of $35,000 (for a total of $385,000) was shocking enough to sell their product. Sure sounds like a lot of money to me, but I guess that it sounds so much better to throw out a number twice that high instead.

This is quite typical of so many financial service advertisements in America. Abuse statistics, or use statistics misleadingly, all in hopes of selling more of your products. And you wonder why people lose faith in your companies and products, especially as of late, financial industry.

American Funds
Next, I was reading over the latest American Funds Investor magazine from Fall/Winter 2008. American Funds is generally a decent mutual fund company from what I can gather, but I take issue with the fact that they, in their attempts to sell people on their products and services and the concept of long-term investing in general, make rather optimistic assumptions to say the least - especially given the current stock market meltdown.

My particular issue with their latest magazine / pamphlet has to do with their little push for College-Savings plans (i.e., 529 college savings plans) and how to build up funds for your childrens' college education. They show a graph of how, if you contribute $100/month for 18 years during your kid's childhood, that it can grow to an amount between $39,000 and $48,000 by the end of that period (taxable vs. tax-free savings respectively).

OK, that all sounds great, UNTIL you read the bull @#$! below the graph about how "this example assumes an 8% annual rate of return (compounded monthly) for both investments". EIGHT PERCENT AVERAGE RETURN PER YEAR OVER 18 YEARS - GEE, THAT IS JUST A BIT AGGRESSIVE! Wake up American Funds! The stock market is FLAT over the past decade now. Where are you making an average of 8%? If you can GUARANTEE me such returns, I will have you manage all of my money.

This is not an OLD issue of the magazine... it is current... and yet it ignores that simple fact that there will not be such huge returns available anywhere for years to come, barring massive inflation to go with it, and/or devaluation of our currency embedded in such numbers. It just is not going to happen. And, it has not happened (past tense) either looking at the numbers for the past decade or more. Consider the Nasdaq, that was around 5000 points a decade ago, and now sits around 1500. And, you surely are not making 8% in government bonds, notes, T-Bills, or bank accounts.

Summary
I am so sick and tired of these ridiculous advertisements that make, via assumptions, the case that you will essentially realize some fantastic pile of cash after a set period of time by using interest-rates and rates-of-return that are essentially unachievable (certainly not realizable as an AVERAGE of any sort). This is not just an issue with Allstate or American Funds, but nearly ALL financial service companies - I see this abuse of statistics and math constantly.

I guess companies just can not sell their products by making the only clear and honest statement they can, which is: SAVE MONEY, AND YOU WILL BE IN BETTER FINANCIAL SHAPE THAN THOSE WHO DO NOT, BUT WE HAVE NO WAY TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH BETTER. That just doesn't sound good enough... people want that chart showing that, if they save, they will be "rich" or have a huge pile of cash in the future.

Forget that stuff people... just start saving, and once you have established a decent record of saving, then you can start focusing on average-returns and projections if you still feel the need. But, projections are nearly meaningless; it is your ability to save that matters most.

Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 and Blinking Red LED / Battery Charging Issues

I just purchased a new MS Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 for my desktop computer. I used it for a couple weeks on the initial charge, and everything was fine and working wonderfully, but then it was due for a recharging and it just would not charge, and instead presented me with a blinking red LED while on the charging base after just a minute of green-LED status preceding that.

I was all ready to take the new Microsoft Mouse back to where I purchased it. But, I went hunting on the Internet to see if other people were complaining about the mouse recharge issues... YES! COMMON.

And the Microsoft Laser Mouse 7000 will not recharge for a RIDICULOUS REASON - which, I have to wonder how many batteries are pitched and/or mouses are returned because of, where MS needs to provide a SIMPLE FIX (due to a simple design flaw) by way of a new battery and/or workaround.

MS Wireless Mouse 7000 DESIGN FLAW; SIMPLE FIX!
I came across a solution someone figured out, which *appears* to be working now, as my Microsoft mouse, with its small rechargeable Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH) battery, is recharged again finally.

Symptoms / Debugging:
If you try to charge your mouse without a battery inside, you will see a red blinking LED on the top of the mouse [like the symptom you are experiencing during recharging attempts for previously unknown reasons]. If there is a battery in the mouse, and everything is functioning properly, that LED should be slowly blinking GREEN until it is fully charged, and then it should be solid green light.

Why do you get a red blinking LED / Light indicator instead of a green one, even with your NEW Microsoft Laser Mouse 7000, which presumably has a NEW rechargeable and fully functional battery?

Well, it turns out that the mouse has an internal switch/button/sensor positioned under the battery (when battery is installed) that senses the presence of the battery in the battery compartment. Unfortunately, the standard NiMH battery shipped with the Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 is too narrow of diameter and does not fully depress the battery-sensor switch, and the mouse acts as though no battery is present, even when it is.

Solution / Fixing Mouse Recharge Issues, Problem
The solution is to: 1) get a thicker battery (which, I have no idea where to find one) or more preferably, 2) wrap some paper and/or tape around the battery that came with the mouse - just enough to make the battery-diameter great enough to depress the switch under the battery.

I have taken the approach of rolling paper around the battery (2 or three turns around battery with normal letter paper I had cut into a strip the width of the battery) and taping the paper together on outside so as to prevent if from uncoiling itself. Then, I placed the battery back in the battery compartment an put the mouse on the base / recharger unit. Voila! It now charges.

Note: do not put so much paper around the battery as to make closing the battery holder compartment door impossible. My battery-cover door was a snug fit when I was done, but it worked.

Summary
I still can not help thinking how many of these otherwise-working mice are being thrown away and/or returned when Microsoft (or their designer, manufacturer, battery supplier, etc) made a rather simple design flaw error that has found its way into the market. Talk about LAME QUALITY CONTROL procedures! Simple test: assemble multiple Microsoft Mouse components, use, test, recharge, check for issues... BEFORE manufacturing and distributing a pile of mouse pointer devices that have an error that should be caught!

Well, so long as my Wireless Mouse 7000 Microsoft device is back to working and recharging consistently, I am OK with it. I generally like it otherwise. My ONLY other annoyance with it is the left-side navigation-buttons that are oddly small and positioned in a weird location for simple use (as compared to my older, and nearly perfect Microsoft wired Intellimouse Explorer 4.0 USB 5-button mouse). The ONLY reason I moved to the Laser Mouse 7000 was for the WIRELESS aspect, and if it recharges OK now, I will stick with it.