Redacting Information in PDF Files - Free!

If you have a PDF you want to share, but want to hide some sensitive information, there is a way to do it for free. You'll just need the following ingredients:

• Adobe Reader® (free from adobe.com/reader)
• CutePDF™ Writer (free from cutepdf.com)
• The PDF file you want to modify

First install CutePDF Writer.  This is a very handy tool that adds itself like a printer to your system. Anything you print to it will be saved as a PDF file instead of going to a physical printer.

Next, open the PDF file you want to redact in Adobe Reader.  This is just how you'd normally view it. To make modifications, follow these steps:

1. Click on "Comment" in the toolbar. This opens the comment tools along the right side of the program.
2. Under "Drawing Markups", right click on the shape you'd like to redact with (typically the rectangle), and select "Tool default properties" from the popup menu.
3. Change the "Color" and "Fill Color" both to black, and make sure "Opacity" is at 100%, and click OK.
4. Click on the tool (rectangle for example) to select it, and draw a rectangle over the information you want to redact.
5. You can save this as a PDF if you like, but it's not necessary.

Now you have a document that looks redacted, but in reality you just drew black comments over the information, and that original information is still there.  If you save this and distribute it, someone can remove the comments, or even copy/paste directly from Adobe Reader.

To really redact it, there is one more step, and that's to print it using CutePDF.  By default this would not give you anything different than saving from Adobe Reader.  The trick is to tell CutePDF to print it as an image, and not a composed set of text and comments. Here's how to do that:

1. From Adobe Reader, go to the "File" menu and select "Print..." (or press Ctrl-P).
2. Make sure CutePDF is your selected printer.
3. Click the "Advanced" button to the right of the printer choices.
4. In the advanced dialog, check the box called "Print As Image", then click OK.
5. Press the "Print" button and select a file name when CutePDF prompts you for one.

That's it. Once CutePDF prints it as a PDF file as an image, the data you hid is no longer visible or retrievable.

Nissan Leaf: The Charging Timer

Before getting into complaints, I have to say I love the Leaf. Ours is the 2015 Leaf SV and I've got very little to complain about. Good job Nissan!

However... when it came to setting the charging timer to only charge when electricity rates are low, I found myself confused and stumped.

The Goal

Only charge during the cheapest rate periods. In my area that means avoiding 7am through 7pm on weekdays.  All other times are cheap. Sounds so simple!

How The Timer Works

The first thing that makes it complicated is that the Leaf charging timers work by telling it when to charge instead of when not to charge. Since most utilities give cheaper rates overnight, that means you're usually crossing the midnight boundary into the next day. For example, considering the following Timer setting:

Timer	Start	End	Assigned Days
Timer 1	5:00am	7:00am	Mon

This means that charging will start at 5am Monday, and end at 7am Monday. It's intuitive and straight forward.

Now consider this example:

Timer	Start	End	Assigned Days
Timer 1	7:00pm	7:00am	Mon

The only change is the start time is 7pm. Now it turns on at 7pm Monday, and turns off at 7am Tuesday (not Monday!). I was confusing "start" and "end" with "on" and "off". I thought that an "end" time for 7am assigned to Monday meant that the timer would switch off on Monday at 7am, but actually it's Tuesday because the "start" time was later.

The Solution For Me

For my case, I want the timer off during weekdays 7am to 7pm, so this is what I had to do:

Timer	Start	End	Assigned Days
Timer 1	7:00pm	7:00am	Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu
Timer 2	7:00pm	7:00pm	Fri-Sat

The following table shows how this works with each time block showing which timer is active, and when the start / end actions take place:

Time	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
12:00am	T2	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2
...	T2	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2
7:00am	T2	T1 end	T1 end	T1 end	T1 end	T1 end	T2
8:00am	T2	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2
...	T2	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2
7:00pm	T2 end T1 start	T1 start	T1 start	T1 start	T1 start	T2 start	T2 end T2 start
8:00pm	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2	T2
...	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2	T2
11:00pm	T1	T1	T1	T1	T1	T2	T2

Thanks to the folks at MyNissanLEAF.com for their help in the discussion forum!