| Author |
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R Adsett
Guest
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 Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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In article <gtdhp11idb82rgfuasj8d3cvlqogv4f4ea@4ax.com>,
SpamTrap@spam.net says...
| Quote: | On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 14:15:19 GMT, Christopher Cole
cole@scoob.coledd.com> wrote:
I just got a datasheet on a family of inductors from a vendor. When I open
the datasheet, it tries to connect to some website that tracks viewing
history of this particular PDF (IP addr, serial # of document, time/date,
etc.). Probably interesting information to their marketing department,
but it is a nuisance to the design engineer opening the datasheet.
Microsoft anti-spyware warns this is happening and allows me to block such
connections. This PDF is not confidential, and is not a controlled copy.
Has anyone else seen such behavior by component vendors? I have thousands
of datasheets archived for reference purposes, and I have never come across
this in any other datasheet. I hope this is not going to start a trend.
-Chris
I experimented with one of Remote Approach's PDFs with the phone home
feature.
http://www.remoteapproach.com/remoteapproach/pdf/Remote%20Approach-PDF-Measurement.pdf
You can see it talking back to the home location. You can disable this
by turing off javascript in Acrobat's preferences. You will get nag
screens about the document containing java script. Just say no to
javascript!
If you crack the password on the PDF, you can delete the javascripts
on each page to remove the phone home feature.
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Since I cannot find any such option in my V5.0 reader am I right in
hoping it doesn't support javascript? If so you've just given me another
reason not to upgrade.
Robert
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Winfield Hill
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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jstellberg@coilcraft.com wrote...
| Quote: |
This was also posted in the new thread that Pete opened:
Hello all,
I'm John Stellberg, Marketing Communications Manager at Coilcraft. Pete
and I have been communicating regarding this issue and I explained that
we had experimented with Remote Approach in an effort to prevent data
on 3 or 4 of our very newest products out of the hands of competitors.
Coilcraft isn't fond of being the R&D department for countless Asian
coilwinders.
I pulled the plug on our use of Remote Approach because of the security
concerns it raised with our customers and the realization that, even if
I did find that data had been routed to a competitor, the horse was
already out of the barn at that point.
There are perhaps 20 - 30 copies of tagged documents out there, and on
Monday we will be notifying recipients and sending replacement copies
without the Remote Approach code.
To anyone who has been inconvenienced or offended by this, I apologize.
Regards,
===============================
John Stellberg
Director of Marketing Communications
COILCRAFT
+1-847-516-7322
Fax +1-847-639-1469
jstellb...@coilcraft.com
1102 Silver Lake Road
Cary IL 60013
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John, please accept our thanks for your change in policy, you made
the right decision to cease using Remote Approach, and you were also
gracious in your response.
I have just safely signed up for a copy of your 0201CS datasheet.
--
Thanks,
- Win |
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Robert Latest
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:17 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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On 9 Dec 2005 03:23:07 -0800,
Winfield Hill <Winfield_member@newsguy.com> wrote
in Msg. <dnbper02j56@drn.newsguy.com>
| Quote: | What's all this pussyfooting around about? The company is Coilcraft,
and the document is simply their line of 0201CS Chip Inductors.
http://www.coilcraft.com/0201cs.cfm These are interesting small parts,
but it's not worth the hassle and control insult they put one through
to get the datasheet. In fact, with my computer's security settings
I'm unable to get the datasheet, perhaps that's what they intend.
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Hm, I just tried with Opera 8.5/Linux. Got the datasheet no trouble.
Xpdf opens it just fine without any net access. I can email you a
"clean" postscript version if you want -- heck, I can even convert the
PS back to PDF which then is guaranteed to have no internet strings
attached any more.
If we're talking about the same document. This is juat a 2-page thing
entitled: "Document 320-1, Chip Inductors - 0201 CS Series (0503)". On
the first page it lists the charateristic data of all parts in the line,
and the second page has Q(f) and L(f) charts and the SMD footprints.
Do you want it?
robert
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Robert Latest
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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On 9 Dec 2005 15:37:08 -0800,
Winfield Hill <Winfield_member@newsguy.com> wrote
in Msg. <dnd4f40pgu@drn.newsguy.com>
| Quote: | Moreover, they
won't let me extract a few pages to insert to the manual of an
instrument using the parts.
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Just print the selected pages to Postscript, convert them to EPS if
needed, and embed them as EPS figures into your document.
robert |
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Robert Latest
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:28 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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On 10 Dec 2005 13:50:20 -0800,
jstellberg@coilcraft.com <jstellberg@coilcraft.com> wrote
in Msg. <1134251420.263595.9880@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>
| Quote: | I explained that
we had experimented with Remote Approach in an effort to prevent data
on 3 or 4 of our very newest products out of the hands of competitors.
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Just how was RA supposed to prevent that from happening? But you give
the answer yourself:
| Quote: | even if
I did find that data had been routed to a competitor, the horse was
already out of the barn at that point.
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And you couldn't think of this before? Anyway, a competitor could just
have used a strawman's computer to download a two-page datasheet and you
wouldn't ever have learnt about it.
robert |
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Robert Latest
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:37 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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On 8 Dec 2005 07:57:16 -0800,
Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote
in Msg. <1134057436.577567.122390@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
| Quote: | Wthether the remoteapproach.com documents locks these other viewers out
or not, I don't know.
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RA is probably just a fake. They advertise their own "most read
documents" as "Not based on downloads but on real document and page
interaction."
Heck, I can simply download them using wget (that's not even a browser,
so much for "page interaction") and read them all I want with xpdf with
my internet physically unplugged (just tried).
robert |
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David Brown
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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Winfield Hill wrote:
| Quote: | Robert Latest wrote...
Winfield Hill wrote
Moreover, they won't let me extract a few pages to insert to
the manual of an instrument using the parts.
Just print the selected pages to Postscript, convert them to
EPS if needed, and embed them as EPS figures into your document.
Try it yourself, that doesn't work. I just tried it with Philips
Semi's BFT92 datasheet. Instead of writing the desired material
to the postscript file, Acrobat writes a zero-length .ps file,
plus a .log file with the following message:
This PostScript file was created from an encrypted PDF file.
Redistilling encrypted PDF is not permitted.
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
--
What did work, following your suggestion, was to convert the file
to .ps form using the xpdf function pdftops in a command window,
then convert back to Acrobat with distiller. Now the document is
unlocked and my full use of it is restored! I can add comments
(distributor stock, prices, etc.), extract a single page like the
package outline, ready for use documenting a CAD file, etc. In
short I can do the things Philips should have let me do all along.
Good stuff! Very nice, Thanks!
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Why not just install pdfCreator (open source) and "print" directly to a
new pdf? In the background, it uses Ghostscript and converts via ps,
but it hides all the details, giving you the ease-of-use of pdf printers
common on *nix systems. |
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Winfield Hill
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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Robert Latest wrote...
| Quote: |
Winfield Hill wrote
Moreover, they won't let me extract a few pages to insert to
the manual of an instrument using the parts.
Just print the selected pages to Postscript, convert them to
EPS if needed, and embed them as EPS figures into your document.
|
Try it yourself, that doesn't work. I just tried it with Philips
Semi's BFT92 datasheet. Instead of writing the desired material
to the postscript file, Acrobat writes a zero-length .ps file,
plus a .log file with the following message:
This PostScript file was created from an encrypted PDF file.
Redistilling encrypted PDF is not permitted.
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
--
What did work, following your suggestion, was to convert the file
to .ps form using the xpdf function pdftops in a command window,
then convert back to Acrobat with distiller. Now the document is
unlocked and my full use of it is restored! I can add comments
(distributor stock, prices, etc.), extract a single page like the
package outline, ready for use documenting a CAD file, etc. In
short I can do the things Philips should have let me do all along.
Good stuff! Very nice, Thanks!
--
Thanks,
- Win |
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Robert Latest
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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On 12 Dec 2005 04:18:32 -0800,
Winfield Hill <Winfield_member@newsguy.com> wrote
in Msg. <dnjpqo0t83@drn.newsguy.com>
| Quote: | %%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
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This line alone is idiotic.
| Quote: | Good stuff! Very nice, Thanks!
|
Glad to have been of help. As a Unix user one usually isn't exposed to
the typical Windows problems such as viruses and spyware. As for the few
proprietary file formats that are unopenable with the open-source tools
typically available on Unix-like systems -- those ususlly come from
suppliers you don't want to deal with anyway.
robert |
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Michael A. Terrell
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 12, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Tracking links in datasheet PDFs |
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Winfield Hill wrote:
| Quote: |
Michael A. Terrell wrote...
Burn them to a CD ROM and only use them in a computer that isn't
connected to the internet. I'm in the process of moving my
collection of datasheets to CD ROMs myself. I have collected
thousands of them, along with hundreds of PDF catalogs.
My collection at this point would require at least three DVDs.
I appreciate your suggestion, but I object to any manufacturer
providing any datasheets that prudently require extraordinary
measures to look at them safely.
I'm already fed up with the new padlocked datasheets that don't
allow me to add any comments, such how I'd use the part, what
distributor has stock, etc. I routinely do this with parts I
keep in inventory, or am thinking about using. Moreover, they
won't let me extract a few pages to insert to the manual of an
instrument using the parts. They're saying, "Hands up! Back
off, stop even thinking about using these parts."
--
Thanks,
- Win
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My other reason for burning them to CDR is for archival purposes.
Since I can't afford a DVD burner for the foreseeable future I use one
of the CDROM drives salvaged from computers that can't be repaired for
disabled Veterans, since I usually have three or four extras on hand. I
get a lot of computers without hard drives, and others with bad
motherboards so CDROM drives and burners are multiplying like rabbits.
;-)
--
?
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida |
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