PDF Documents can be protected by the creator by disabling specific functions in the PDF reader. Some options are for example to prevent printing, copying or editing of documents. One way around those restrictions would be to make simple screenshots and print those screenshots if printing would be disabled. This however is not the best way and there is actually a solution that can remove PDF document restrictions easily.

PDF Unlocker (via Techtrends) is a free software that can unlock PDF Document restrictions. This is done by moving the pdf document on the shortcut of PDF Unlocker which will remove the restrictions automatically and create a new pdf document without the restrictions.

This pdf document can be printed, edited and copied. PDF Unlocker has a second function. PDF Documents can be password protected to prevent unauthorized access to them. The software provides a way to unlock the pdf document if the user can provide the password that protects it.

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Week 24 already and here is the next software updates post. I usually list all applications and programs that have been updated in the last seven days and have been mentioned previously here at Ghacks which usually means good, free programs. This week was rather uneventful and overshadowed by the release of Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3.

Some other great applications have been updated by their developers as well, talking about Locate, SMPlayer or Revo Uninstaller. If you follow my website regularly and install what I recommend you will spend some time updating today. That is, unless you monitor the applications yourself.

Update of the week is once again the best media player out there, SMPlayer. It’s fast, it’s lightweight and it plays almost everything without the need to install codecs. If you have not tried it yet I suggest you do so immediately. Wonderful application.

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As you may know from my blog, I love information organizers. I think that sounds a bit sad looking back at that sentence, but nevertheless I do, and I cam across a cool little application today called Tobu. I think this is a great application for a number of reasons, but while getting into details would take ages, I can tell you right off the bat that Tobu isn’t for everyone.

It’s one of those applications that will be used by the geeky sort, those who don’t mind a stark exterior with a pretty complicated interface. Tobu is also different because as it describes itself, it is a “freeform information organizer”, and that pretty much holds up. You can use it for task lists, notes, thoughts, ideas, project planning, anything you like, but it will take some time to think it through and apply it.

The basics of it is that you create notes, with a name, a tag and a description. You can then simply list your notes by tag, or tag combination. That’s really all to it, but underneath this simple method lies a pretty complicated system. Tags are the main way of navigating, just enter one or more and items will pop out quickly. You can also see the relation each item has to other tags for cross reference.

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Ever wondered what and how the Windows Search Indexer is indexing your files in Windows Vista ? Wonder no more the Indexer Status Gadget displays information about the current indexing status and the number of indexed files in the Windows Vista sidebar. Don’t be surprised to see 100K or even more items in the index.

The Indexer Status (via Genbeta) Gadget has another interesting function which is probably even more useful than displaying the information about the search indexing process. Users can pause and resume the Windows indexer which is excellent if you want to make sure that the application that you start in a few seconds will have all possible system resources available.

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Users are usually puzzled for a moment if they encounter a file type that they never heard about before and that none of their installed applications seems to be able to load properly. A search on the Internet is probably the main way to identify a file extension and the application it can be opened with.

Another solution is offered by applications like Trid that scan the file and display those information on the local computer. This method has a few advantages over the Internet search. The first and most obvious one is that no Internet is required to identify the file and the second that there will be no danger of landing on a website that might lure the user into downloading malicious software.

Trid (via Shellcity) is actually a very sophisticated software that comes as a command line interface version, a Tridnet version that comes with a GUI, an online version that can be used on the Trid homepage and a scanner that can add new file extensions to the database.

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