PDF files won't open in FireFox?

I noticed a few of our local machines suddenly stopped being able to display inline PDF files in Windows based FireFox 2.0.0 versions after about .7. I uninstalled both Firefox and Acrobat Reader, reinstalled, disabled add-ons and plug-ins and re-enabled them. I searched high and low for a solution but really ended up striking out.

Whenever I went to ToolPartsDirect.com, our tool repair site and clicked to blow up a PDF schematic, it would ask if I wanted to save to disk or open Acrobat Reader. It turns out that after one of the upgrades to Acrobat or Firefox somehow the setting in Firefox to use the PDF plug-in got reset. It is actually pretty simple to turn it back on.

1. Go to your Tools menu, and click on Options...
2. Choose the Content tab
3. Under File Types click the Manage... button
4. On the Download Actions page, look for the Extension PDF, and highlight that line
5. Click Change Action... button
6. Click the final radio button, that reads Use this Plugin: Adobe Acrobat

If for some reason, at step 4 you cannot find PDF. Find a PDF file on a website and click on it from your browser, when it asks what you would like to do with the file, check the Do this with files like this from now on and select either save to disk or open with Acrobat Reader. Then repeat the steps above. You should now see PDF and be able to select the plug-in.

Hopefully this helps some other frustrated people out there, maybe even some trying to view schematics on our sites.

The Tool Industry's Dirty Little Secrets: Replacement Batteries

An anonymous commenter on my Cordless Tool Battery Primer asked this question:

Why are two replacement batteries the same price as a new cordless tool WITH two batteries?

Ahh, so you noticed the secret. Yes, it is quite possible to buy a tool and two batteries for only a few dollars more than two batteries.

I've talked to several manufacturers about this situation, here are some of the things I have been told (these are not necessarily direct quotes):

"The most expensive part of most cordless tools are the batteries. We purchase the cells for production runs of tools in larger quantities and therefore they are less expensive to manufacture than the smaller runs of replacement batteries."

"Margins on tool sets are low and the replacement batteries are much higher. We need to get people to buy a tool so they will buy accessories for the tool down the road."

"Modern tool batteries often last longer than the tool with which they were purchased. So we focus on keeping the battery price down in the kit form."

"Replacement accessory batteries have more packing and handling as a percentage of their cost."

I can tell you that as a distributor/seller the basis of the higher cost comes from the manufacturer. Regarding the reasons above, I have a feeling all of the above have a little bit to do with it... as well as the need to show units shipped of new tools to executives, bankers and the press.

RapidSlide Adjustable Wrenches

Contrary to popular opinion, RapidSlide is not a digestive ailment caused by eating at greasy spoons. It is a new way to adjust the opening in your favorite adjustable wrench. Crescent has introduced this technology somewhat recently and I purchased one of the wrenches a few weeks ago for use in residence.

The AC10NKWMP Crescent 10" Adjustable Wrench was the tool of choice for me. I decided that I needed to put in a flow control to reduce the water pressure in my shower. I was looking at our selection of wrenches and decided to try out the RapidSlide tool.

The main selling point for me was the easy way to adjust the wrench. You don't twist a spirally threaded knob at the head to open or close the jaws, you actually just move slider. Moving the slider towards the head closes the jaws, and moving it towards the Crescent logo opens them. It is an elegantly simple design and one that is logical in use. The mechanism used is fairly clever, too. There is a rod with a spiral groove that lives under the slider and moving the slider laterally rotates the rod opening or closing the jaw. The motion is very smooth, so long as you aren't trying to press down on the slider.

The funny thing about the slider method is that I felt like I couldn't "bite down" on the on the job as much as I could with the traditional mechanism. I could literally put a grape in the jaws and close the wrench as tight as it would go and not crush the grape. At first that seemed like a problem, but it turns out that the problem was how I was looking at the situation. No matter what I threw at it, the RapidSlide gripped the bolt head firmly for rotation but I could easily slide off the wrench with no further adjustment.

In addition to the adjustment slide, another little touch I liked was the scale at the jaws of the unit. There is an etched measuring area below the jaws. With the ease of slipping the wrench off without moving the jaws, it makes a nice and easy way to see, for example, what size socket you might need on a nut as you hold the bolt's head steady with the wrench. On the 10" model, the scale will measure up to 1-1/4" which is the capacity of the jaws. The scale is marked down to sixteenths of an inch (1/16").

The product is well machined and the tolerances are right where I would expect them to be. All in all, it is a great wrench. If the 10" is a bigger wrench than you need, Crescent also makes an 8" RapidSlide Adjustable Wrench. After seeing this tool, it becomes clear why Crescent has become so strongly associated with the adjustable wrench.

Are you a pet owner?

We are in the process of re-launching a pet supply website and could use input on types of products pet owners would like to see online. I have put together a short 5 question survey, and would really appreciate anyone's input on the topic. To fill out the survey, click here.

I promise we'll start posting some more tool news and views soon!

Thanks,
Matt Griffith
Director of Information Technology
ToolBarn.com, Inc.

The IT tools I promised sooo long ago...

So, it's been a bit since I have had a chance to post to the ol' blog. I apologize to the non-geek crowd, as this week I'm going to talk a bit about my day to day job here at ToolBarn.com.

Originally, this blog was going to be a bit of a mixture of power tool news, observations from the IT department of a Internet Retailer Top 500 company and just personal observations. I haven't posted anything in that second column, so today I will rectify that situation. I will still talk about tools a bit, but today it is tools for doing my job.


We utilize Google Calendar for scheduling our conference room and training room in our facility, and currently I print out a daily schedule to place on the door for people to know if it is safe to head in there for a quick 5-minute discussion, or what not. Google Calendar works great, but there is one hint I have for people working with it. When you print a day's schedule, if there is a meeting in the morning, but no afternoon meeting that day, Google tries to be "helpful" and skews the day to center around that meeting. This ends up shifting the printed hours to 4am to 3pm, for example. Obviously this looks a little silly, as we are not expecting impromptu meetings at 4am. Until the Google Calendar team gives us an option of a set printing schedule, my solution is to add a 1 minute meeting with no title later in the day to counteract the skew. Works like a charm... but I'd still like an option to set what hours print.


Another thing I get to do frequently is troubleshoot a problem PC. A while ago, we bought a power supply tester, thinking that it would be nice to quickly see if the problem was related to a bad power supply. Well, I have now replaced my second power supply which tested fine. All the lights go on as they should, but the tester doesn't test any load beyond what it takes to light up 9 LED's. So much for saving time. Brian suggested a switch to test for a rated draw, but I think just testing for 50 or 75 watt draw would be enough to catch most of the offending power supplies. In the mean time, I have a very high-tech paperweight.


Today's final tool will be OpenOffice.Org's office suite. Version 2+ of the suite has brought it to the point that I have not needed to open Microsoft Office in 6 months. And with the recent round of Zero Day exploits that Microsoft seems to have no quick responses to, OpenOffice.org looks much, much business friendlier than Microsoft's suggestion of not opening Word documents "even from trusted sources." The only things keeping me from rolling out OpenOffice.org version 2 exclusively are the people using Outlook for scheduling and the few people using shared workbooks in Excel. I know Sun has contributed some people to work on the calendaring support in ThunderBird and last I looked on the to do list at OO.o they were promising shared workbooks in the next major version. If you are tired of paying high Microsoft prices and then enduring Genuine Advantage check / redesign / re-check, perhaps you, too should consider OpenOffice.org 2.0. A handy hint if you are thinking about it: Go to Tools, Options, Load/Save - General and set the Default file format for Text Document and Spreadsheet to their Microsoft counterparts. It makes sharing your documents nearly seamless.