Still Mostly Windows-Centric World Annoys Me - Again

OK - I was doing some last-minute tax preparation yesterday and the fact is, time was of the essence. So I got just a bit upset when my bank's web site made me click through the same silly notice that I "need the latest version of Adobe Reader to read this file" for every single one of the statements I wanted to print - and I sent them a snarky e-mail because of it.

The point is, I run Linux - and my system already has a PDF page viewer and print facility - in fact it has serveral (Evince, Xpdf, Google Chrome) as well as the "real" Adobe reader.

Even if I didn't run Linux, the fact is, one such notice for the whole session (or better yet, forever) would have been just fine thankyou. Popping it up every single document was not.

They're not the first to push proprietary stuff at me; probably won't be the last either - but hey, at least the PDF format itself is now openly published (by Adobe) - it's a step in the right direction, but it has been a long road to this point and doesn't look to be getting too much shorter...

I've been fighting back against silly, locked-in, proprietary program use for many years now; first simply because using Internet Explorer 6 with all its built-in proprietary extensions to the web meant I simply could not use many sites at all, and more recently because I truly believe that any company forcing the use of closed-source/proprietary software is doing me as their customer a big disservice, and they should understand that.

They're doing me a disservice because they're making their product more expensive to me - either by making me buy something that I otherwise should not need, or by putting artificial road-blocks in my way and costing me time (as in this case) - and this is not helping them retain me as a customer.

Back several years ago one of our local utilities wanted us to start printing their invoice out ourselves to "save the planet by using less trees." No offer of a discount, but hey, what the heck, it's only a couple of pennies, right?

Wrong! Their online billing statement ran to over 10 pages and included all manner of ads and such - and spread the needed information across the first, second and last two of those pages so you pretty much had to print them all; not much of a saving there - and in fact as far as the planet was concerned, a net loss, because we didn't have the double sided printer that they had.

I contacted them - and ended up actually speaking to one of the people who designed the system - and struck gold! "Gee, we didn't think of that - just created a PDF version of the original and made you print it. Yes, creating a one or two page accounting summary only does sound like a good thing - and no, marketing does not get a say in this - I don't blame you for not wanting to print out their messages."

Since then we've been more and more pressured into doing our own printing - and now the bank we deal with mostly simply does not send out statements at all, to anyone! You can look at them online (and they do keep them for 7 years, they say - but that's another story) and print them (with no marketing bumf) if you want. It's just that pesky popup and the exhortation to use Adobe that bugs me this time - but hey, have to have something to write about don't I?

richard

ps - Lauren Weinstein, a blogger I've been following since the days of Usenet News, points out that there is a problem with the latest update from Adobe for their "Reader X" where it causes problems with printing from (at least) Google Chrome on Windows.

pps - OK, the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup - and there are "riots" at a couple of downtown Vancouver locations - so I was "tweeting" some ideas and came up against the need to tell people how to send images to the Vancouver Police Department - and so I went looking - and ran across "This application is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above" while trying to find some place to send them pictures. I called their "non-emergency" number and got a harried officer who said "send us an e-mail"

Yup - really up to date - IE 5 has not been used this century!!!