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Find Text Leading from Acrobat PDF

Ever have to recreate a document from an Acrobat PDF? You can find out most everything about the text by using the Object Inspector, except the leading. Well, here's a cheesy way to figure it out. Open the PDF in Illustrator (you just need one page). Release any and all clipping masks. Draw a guide at the baseline of the first line of text, and one on the line below. Now, Option-drag the first line to make a copy, and position it exactly next to the original first line at baseline. Then put a return anywhere in the copied line. Now adjust leading of the copied lines, so that the second line of copy rests on the baseline of the second line of the original. Now you know your leading.

Or you could buy expensive software to find the leading. Your choice.

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Business Apps | 09 Jun 2010 | Listen  | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article | Comment (3)

Anti-Social Software Turns Your Tweet Off

by Glenn Fleishman Send Email to Author

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What's that giant sucking sound? It's the noise made by your productivity swirling down the drain as you check Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, or any of hundreds of other social-networking sites instead of getting work done, writing that essay that's due, or focusing on real life. Fred Stutzman's Anti-Social software can help.

Anti-Social disables access to over 150 social-networking sites for a period of time you specify, up to 480 minutes (8 hours). The software's Web site includes a list of blocked domains. This includes api.twitter.com, the URL used by third-party Twitter clients to access Twitter messages and account information. A reboot is required to restore access to those sites before your specified time limit has passed.

Anti-Social is a case-specific version of Stutzman's earlier utility, Freedom, which disables all network access for up to 480 minutes, optionally allowing local network access to remain available. Freedom was written for the Mac, and was recently also released for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Stutzman is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in information and library science, and his software reflects his interest in the impact of social networking on how people make life transitions.

I interviewed Stutzman for a recent Economist article, "Stay on Target," which looks at the notion of using software to prevent yourself from doing something.

Anti-Social costs $15; Freedom is $10. Trial versions are available for each application, but include just five uses before the software is disabled.

 

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Comments about Anti-Social Software Turns Your Tweet Off

Luis de la Rosa  2010-06-14 16:30
A similar Mac app with a sleek design and more options to eliminate distractions is Concentrate: http://getconcentrating.com/
Bren  2010-06-15 08:35
I really liked the idea of AntiSocial, and tried it out for a day. Unfortunately, it also blocked my VoIP softphone. Kinda funny, but not particularly helpful. :-)
Glenn Fleishman  2010-06-15 09:37
Did you write the developer with feedback? It's a one-man shop, so he's open to suggestions.