I won’t go into the details here (though this guy can explain it in great detail), but because I very occasionally need features of Adobe Reader, I still keep it installed on my Mac, while I use Preview for all my other PDF needs. I’ve gone so far as to install the Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac for when I use Firefox, just to avoid Adobe Reader. And, really, there’s no point in Adobe Reader for most cases where you just want to be able to view or print PDF files. Doubly so, since Mac OS X lets you print any document to a PDF file as a default feature of the OS.

There are, though, edge cases where having Adobe Reader installed and available are useful. So I have it installed, but I refuse to use their web plugin. Adobe doesn’t care, though, and will periodically, sometimes randomly, and sometimes even without my consent, re-install the plugin. Even though I’ve told it not to. Adobe Updater, I’m looking at you, here.

Sadly, my solution is heavy-handed. I created a launchd task that will forcibly remove the Adobe Reader plugin from /Library/Internet Plugins whenever it’s created. It’s fast, efficient, and works.

And, as soon as I can figure out the new wordpress theme, I’ll post it here in a legible form

UPDATE: Thanks to Lynne and Chad on Twitter for suggesting the Preserve Code Formatting plugin!

And now, the Launchd config. Save this as:
"/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.unnerving.RemoveAdobeReaderPlugin.plist"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>org.unnering.RemoveAdobeReaderPlugin</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>rm</string>
    <string>-rf</string>
    <string>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin</string>
  </array>
  <key>QueueDirectories</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin</string>
  </array>
  <key>WatchPaths</key>
  <array/>
</dict>
</plist>

The first is “Reopen Last Closed Window.” This is very useful.

The second is “Reopen All Windows From Last Session.” This takes care of my biggest concern regarding session restore.

So I guess maybe a “Reopen Last Closed Tab” option might be about all I could add to that to be truly complete.

I do still look with great envy at Firefox’s extensions system, particularly for Adblock Plus, FlashBlock and NoScript.

I was happy to discover, this evening, that Saft had been updated to support the latest version of Safari. Despite my general revulsion for running InputManager-based hacks (let alone other system behavior modification software, like Haxies, that hook in even deeper to the system), Saft offers a subset of functionality that I simply don’t like doing without. A couple of the features, I feel, really should be integrated into Safari proper.

I’ve already mentioned my strong desire for one of the features, session saving and restoring. Firefox has this nailed, and it’s a built-in feature. I feel strongly enough about it to mention it again here. Hey, Apple, are you listening? I want full session-saving, like what Saft does now, built into Safari.

Another feature Saft gives me is (rudimentary) ad blocking. The various Firefox extensions (namely Adblock Plus) that exist give tremendous power in blocking ads on the web pages you view. I don’t know that Saft will ever approach the power of something like Adblock Plus, but it does a good enough job for the moment.

Here’s a question worth investigating: Is it possible to write an Adblock Plus-like Safari plug-in using the official Internet Plugins API? My understanding is that API is restricted to the content of the page, and doesn’t allow for any behavior modification of Safari itself. That should be enough, right? This is something I’ll have to investigate.

I’d definitely like to stop having to install InputManager-based hacks on my system, though. Safari is, in my opinion, an excellent browser, but the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Firefox does seem to have a mighty green lawn around their extensions garden.

After seeing it reported elsewhere that Spotlight’s “All Images” search on Leopard really does serve up every image on the system, I decided to give it a try myself and see what turned up. Sure enough, every single piece of spam I’ve received in the last week that included an in-line image (as a MIME attachment) ended up contributing to the show.

In this screenshot, you can clearly see all the images from the spam messages. The on of the woman in the hammock is actually from a spam message, if you can believe that. No idea who she is, but whatever email message that image was sent in got filed as spam.

I’ve simply turned off the Leopard “Firewall” for now, and reverted to the tried-and-true ipfw firewall instead.