How to download files from www.adobe.com without using Akamai download manager

Yesterday I tried to download a theme pack for Adobe Premiere Elements only to be greeted with this window:

 

This happens in all browsers that I tested (Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer). You can find many posts complaining about the same problem.

But I found out how to download files without that cursed manager. You simply need to edit the download link this way. Lets say this is the link you are after:

http://esd.adobe.com/dlm.html?files=http://esd.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PRE/9/win32/PremiereElements_9_Content_HD3_LS15.exe|http://esd.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PRE/9/win32/PremiereElements_9_Content_HD3_LS15.7z&windowfeatures=height=500,width=550

There are two links hidden in the link. First one is:

http://esd.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PRE/9/win32/PremiereElements_9_Content_HD3_LS15.exe

and the second one is:

http://esd.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PRE/9/win32/PremiereElements_9_Content_HD3_LS15.7z

Just download those two files and run the .exe file afterwards. And that's it. No download managers, no hassle. I still don't understand why do they use download managers at all.

There are only three types of people who want Adobe Flash on the iPhone’s browser

As you probably know there are people who always cry about Adobe Flash technology on the iPhone. As you can probably guess I hate flash. Not that I don’t have it installed on my computer browsers but I just don’t see a reason for anyone to bother implementing flash on the iPhone.   

Three types of people who want flash on the iPhone:

1. group: reviewers on sites overpopulated with flash ads.

2. group: children who think that “half of the internet is on flash”

3. group: first group’s fanbois and those one who like to measure phone’s feature list heights.

Explanation:

Members of the the first group have explicit (conflict of) interest in users seeing their site’s flash adds. There are examples everywhere, reviewers from gizmodo, engadget etc all complain about lack of flash on the iphone. Visit any of those sites without adblock and get ready to be visually assaulted and raped.

Second group consists of children who think that internet consists of facebook, sites with flash games (oops, I’m repeating myself) and youtube (and sometimes justinbeibermusic.com. For those uninformed, youtube videos work flawlessly on the iPhone).

No unnecessary words should be spend on the third, mixed group. In any case, those are kind of persons who walk around with a brick with the longest feature list, and at the same time buy prepaid phone cards of lowest value and occasionally throw a call or a text message. They scowl when they see an iphone, they are prone to generalizations, ad hominems, quick phrases like “yes but you can’t send a file using bluetooth on the iphone”), they are judgmental, self-righteous, like to point out that their Nokia N95/N97 was “cheap” (even though they mostly bought them in cash etc.) even though here in my country, those mobile phones were much more expensive than an iPhone etc. 

Have any other group to add? Feel free to contribute and/or spread the word.

Solution to the missing TWAIN driver on your scanner

Yesterday I had a big problem with my Canon CanoScan 8800F scanner. I just couldn’t start TWAIN driver in Photoshop or any other program (I tested Paint, and you can obviously see the false inductive conclusion I made). Photoshop/Paint would just start the WIA driver and that was it. I installed all versions of all drivers but without success. But after couple of hours of fruitless agony (I just can’t stand when I can’t fix things) I found the solution on some page (and believe me, I did my homework on google.com).

The solution is simple: there are no problems with the drivers, you only need to install Photoshop Optional Plugins. That solved my problem in Photoshop (Paint can use WIA only as I found out). I probably missed optional plugins check box when installing Photoshop. Or maybe I even unchecked it. I just couldn’t believe that you have option not to install TWAIN support for Photoshop. Adobe installer installs everything and the kitchen sink but this crucial module for 80% of users is left out.

In any case I now know that I won’t have problem installing TWAIN drivers next time round.