Monday, December 28, 2009

Adobe pdf crash errors.

My wife has had recurring problems with Adobe reader crashing on her Vista machine. Our fix a year ago was to roll back to version 7 after version 8 was released, and at the time an extensive web search didn't reveal any other reliable fixes.


So when version 9 upgraded, I finally decided to attempt a fix, since this would be the second upgrade we were skipping. I did another web search, and Adobe is claiming that an upgrade to 9.2 is fixing this problem. I don't know about everyone else, but it didn't.

My search was returning sysadmins who were saying that they just quit using adobe and started using some other 3rd party pdf reader because they couldn't resolve the problem.

So, after hitting a page about 7-8 links down, I finally found this fix about halfway down the page on http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404597.html from user ATATKD:

I changed the HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/UserShellFolders AppData key value from %USERPROFILE%\Application Data to %USERPROFILE%\AppData .

Seriously, a REGISTRY edit?

I tried changing all the folder permissions, and nothing worked. I tried deleting and performing a clean install, nothing worked.

I'm used to screwing around in the regsitry of my winmophos so, I figured, what the heck? I backed up the registry, changed the above mentioned key value, and !viola! it worked. So my question is- Why can't adobe fix this in their code?


Sunday, December 20, 2009

Three points about leadership

I've been a fan of leadership and leaders ever since I discovered the role. I've always been that person in a room full of strangers to initiate the conversation, coordinate the activity, or move the discussion along. On the other hand, I've also learned that with experience comes a level of wisdom- a higher level of leadership that shows you have the confidence to stand back and allow someone else to lead from time-to-time. Here's three attributes of a confident leader:
1. A leader doesn't write themselves in as the star of the show. Just as a good writer doesn't have to make themselves the main character in every book they write, and a good director stays behind the camera, a good leader allows the people on their team to be their own star. If you are the pastor of an 80 member church, or if you are the owner of a one-person consulting firm, maybe you should take a step back and see if you are starring in your own production.
A leader can be a participant in someone else's thing without feeling threatened. In our connected, cooperative, collaborative society- no one can blaze their own independent trail 100% of the time. At some point, you'll be on someone else's team, you'll be a member of someone else's church, club, or group and if you are confident in your leadership abilities you'll leave them alone and let them lead it. If you find yourself meddling in someone else's thing, you'll probably find that something is lacking in areas where you are supposed to be focused- like on your own stuff.
2. A leader is big enough to have leaders under them. My friends in Australia call it the "tall poppy syndrome" and here in Maryland we call it crabs in the basket. Someone has the chance to rise to the occasion, and we sabotage their success because we are afraid they'll achieve higher successes than us. I want to leave a legacy of people who have succeeded as a result of my influence- not in spite of it. If your salespeople outsell you, or if your service manager handles their team better than you can, by all means let them- it will only benefit you in the end.
3. A leader understands it is about the mission, not the person. I know what it means to have something that you are completely passionate about (almost obsessed) but I also know people who value the success over the mission. In other words- if your company is selling widgets, the mission is to sell widgets not to BE SUCCESSFUL selling widgets. There is a subtlety here that some people just never get. As soon as you get over the knowledge or realization that you have created some great thing or concept, get out of the way and let it speak for itself.
I have known too many leaders who have to constantly have their hands in the activities of their team, and constantly fight the urge to micro-manage their activities, and I have known leaders who take it to the extreme, running their organizations like a cult, and always have to be the center of attention, the big Kahuna, the main man. Learn to be the servant, the support, and give your people the room and the flexibility to achieve great things on their own.
I will always admire a man or woman who can lead with quiet confidence, empowering the people around them to achieve in life, and have the ability to handle the burden and responsibility of leadership. These people have businesses, churches, and organizations that grow and prosper where others fail.