A Cry Heard Round The World: Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
Looking At And Longing For Mars: Reflections on a childhood dream.
A Robot May Not Harm a Human Being. Is The Opposite True?: Thoughts on the future rights of artificial intelligence.
Long After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone: What makes a relationship work?
Winter Of Our Feline Discontent: What the cat wants, the cat gets. But what DOES it want?
To Tell The Truth: There may be no honor among thieves, but can't we find it even in a few good men and women?
Should The Human Brain Retire?: We know that we cannot win forever. We know that machines will continue to improve. So why don't we let the human brain retire gracefully now, with honors?
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Published: Sep 16, 2005 01:41 PM
Fri - July 23, 2004
Seeing Is Believing
By that standard, PDF Browser Plug-In, Word Browser Plug-In, and Tofu are must-have Macintosh utilities—and best of all, like so many other fine tools that I've reviewed here, they're free for private, non-commercial use.
How cool is that?
PDF Browser Plug-In grants Safari and some other internet browsers a function that they're sorely lacking: the ability to view, print, save, zoom in and out, and search files created in Adobe PDF format. You can view PDF documents as individual pages or in a continuous display style (like scrolling through a word processor document, except that scroll wheels won't work with the plug-in). A handy split screen display even lets you compare different parts of the same document.
Word Browser Plug-In does many of the same things, but for Microsoft Word files. This plug-in isn't compatible with Internet Explorer.
Once you've downloaded them, move the plug-ins to ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ and restart your web browser. Any PDF or Word files that you find on the internet will suddenly—and seemingly magically—become accessible through your compatible browser. Imagine reading documents such as the 9/11 Commission's report, clicking on links in the text, and even adding your own helpful annotations:
Where these plug-ins expand the format compatibility of many browsers, Tofu transforms into newspaper-style columns as high as your viewing window the format in which you can browse almost any kind of data file.
You can scroll from column to column horizontally, viewing text in easy-to-digest chunks or jump to any point by typing a few letters near it or by using your voice to navigate. There's even a View In Columns service to aid in reading web pages. Because Tofu never changes your underlying data, that information remains intact and unmarred.
Drag Tofu into your Dock, then drag your files onto Tofu. I guarantee you'll never look at your documents the same way.