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Showing posts from April, 2021

Unlock CRA PDF Forms

Unlock Canada Revenue Agency PDF Forms It appears that there is a relatively new PDF feature to prevent casual copying and saving of a file and that some programs save PDF files with these foolish features active by default.  Many forms from the Canada Revenue Agency are locked in this way, which makes it difficult to do one's taxes, since one can fill the form, but cannot save it.  One can only print the form.  It should be possible to print to a file or export it to a new PDF file, but it is far better to reset the annoying anti-taxpayer flags, since the 'printed' form cannot be edited easily any more and I always manage to make a mistake or three that need to be corrected after review. If there is a Linux (virtual) machine handy, install qpdf and use it to reset the silly flags: $ su - password # dnf update # dnf install qpdf # exit $ qpdf --decrypt lockedfile.pdf unlockedfile.pdf One doesn't need a password to unlock these flags, so the fix is instant. La voila! He

Bucket Vacuum Cleaner

Bucket Vacuum Cleaner for Shop and Yard Work I needed to clean out 50 years of cobwebs and dirt from two garages and a shed.  The cobwebs were like a Hollywood horror movie and I needed to enter the shed armed with a broom and a shotgun.  A little 1000 Watt home vacuum cleaner would be instantly full, so I disassembled an old one and mounted the parts on top of a big bucket from the Hornbach hardware store, to give the little sucker a fighting chance. All the surplus Covid filter masks also came in handy in the shed while cleaning. It Takes Two to Tango! The trick is to use two buckets, one inside another, like two paper cups, otherwise the bucket can collapse when the pipe clogs up.  Screw the outer bucket to the castor wheel plate, then you can simply remove the light weight inner bucket only, to empty the cleaner. The most difficult part of this project, is to disassemble the old cleaner.  Evil one-time snaps and hidden little screws, may require using a wrecking bar and hack saw t