1. I go to download Acrobat Reader 9 at Adobe.com and find this download page
   
   I have no idea why I should be asked to download the Free eBay Desktop bundled with Adobe Reader, so I uncheck it.
2. Then my eye wanders up and I don’t know why I am getting a forced inclusion of "Acrobat.com on Adobe AIR". What does that even mean?
3. Well, I want to find out, so I proceed by clicking the "Download Now" button.
4. It makes firefox tell me that it has just "prevented www.adobe.com from asking me to install software on my computer"
   
5. What the … I think! Why is Adobe installing a firefox-addon to my computer. All I want is the freaking reader so I can view pdf files. Wait a sec, is this just the browser plugin, so that I can view documents inline?
6. I ask Firefox to allow it to download software and this is what I get:
    
   Adobe DLM? Download Manager? Am I on a 33.3kbps serial modem connection? When was the last time I needed a download manager? I don’t want a download manager to download the freaking reader. At this point, I have already decided to blog about how awful this is, so I go on to document this completely.
7. So I click "Install Now". Firefox does its thing and asks me to restart my browser.
   
   How annoying, I think. I hit the "restart firefox" button.
8. When firefox restarts, this Adobe DLM addon spawns some executable which is, of course, detected by Windows UAC (yeah, I haven’t got around to disabling UAC yet), asking me if I want to allow the spawned process to do what it wants to do. I allow it.
9. It opens up a download manager screen
    
10. As I wait for this "Adobe DLM powered by getPlus" I suddenly see what I have rarely seen in a RTM version of firefox:
    
    This is firefox 3. I wonder what the DLM is trying to do, but is has just crashed my firefox
11. I click on "close program" and the corresponding Adobe DLM window also disappears.
12. Hmm, so what’s going on here. Firefox is back on but the DLM process is not visible, nor is there any download manager.
13. Wait a sec, what’s that new link on my Desktop?
     
    Oh, look! It is asking me if I want to continue downloading. So that’s why you have a download manager, because the crappy download manager prevents you from downloading at one go? A very boot-strapped problem this.
14. At this point. I was going to uninstall everything from my firefox and my computer and go with Ghostview or something. But I just wanted to know where this all goes. So I double click on that desktop shortcut
15. I again get a UAC prompt:
    
    I allow that and move on.
16. Finally, when the download manager is at 99%, it spawns the familiar windows installer for Acrobat that I am used to seeing.
17. However, without any warning, or prompt, it silently exits. Is it done? Apparently so, because I have two fresh desktop shortcuts:
     
18. I know what Adobe Reader 9 will be. But what the heck is Acrobat.com?Oh, that was the AIR version of their site. Let’s take a look. So I click on the Acrobat.com desktop shortcut.
19. Oh, the Office Killer!
    
    The above window is an AIR window. Not a browser window, nor an application window in the traditional sense.
20. Here are the other services it is advertising:
    
21. Of course, clicking on anything makes you register or sign-in

I might have been more receptive to the other services and checked them out if they were not forced to me. I do not think this is any different from what Apple did a couple of months ago when it force-installed the Safari browser on un-suspecting Windows users as a software update for iTunes and Quicktime.

There is a clear line that users don’t expect respectable companies to cross. Adobe has always been a little on the bloat side with it’s reader; but this time it has gone too far. Most users will probably end up with an unwanted Ebay Desktop installation, an unwanted Firefox extension DLM, and an unwanted Adobe.com AIR installation.

Gotta get back and uninstall all the sh** from my computer and go get my Ghostview! If all you want is view PDF files, I recommend that’s what you should do to! Skip Adobe, they obviously do not respect you.

[Update: Corresponding discussion at Mozillazine or the alt.comp.freeware google group titled I installed Adobe Reader 9 - WARNING! ADWARE AND BUNDLEWARE!]

Tom’s Hardware has discovered that SSD drives end up consuming more power than even a performance 7,200 rpm drive. The conclusion is that though SSD’s improve performance (read/write throughput), they don’t seem to lend well to “road-warriors” for whom every milli-ampere of battery juice is very valuable.

[via Engadget]

It’s funny that most Mac users don’t seem to know about it. There doesn’t seem to be much need to buy Parallels and have a heavy overload on your system if most of the apps you want work fine here.

You can try and give it a spin. Here are the applications that are strongly supported, however, you could probably be lucky if you use any other software as well (Yes, many games are supported).

A crane of the Metro project toppled over, falling on the road and crushed an auto-rickshaw killing two people on the spot. I was at the Bhavan’s A.H. Wadia High school, overlooking the complete crash site and had a clear view of the site. Part of the school compound wall was also broken by the crane’s tip.

All pictures with full versions here: http://flickr.com/photos/sameerhalai/sets/72157605048202588/

Anytime I end up with software on my computer that I don’t want to startup automatically, I use msconfig to disable it. That has always worked for me with most programs from non-malware companies. So I do the same with Apple. But, no. The programs keep starting up on their own even after I set them not to.

The only way to do that is to go to services.msc and "disable" the process.

This is very annoying. And then Apple goes ahead and sneaks Safari onto my computer which violates it’s own EULA. You have angered too many people this time, Apple!

[Update: I am liking Ecto

]

This will be scary/weird for those who haven’t been on Second Life. But if you have already stumbled around Second Life, you might find it as hilarious as I did