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Adobe wins again

Trying to download Adobe Digital Editions. Should be easy, right? I downloaded an eBook from ebooks.com, and now I wish to read it. This is simple.

THIS!!!

IS!!!

ADOBE!!!!!!

Here's the drill:

Try to download it from the main site. BAAAHAHAHAHA...fuck you, you're running Mac OS X 10.5. So after looping through, literally looping a few times, I google it. I find the beta from Adobe labs, and download that. Yeah...that's my choice. A beta. Thanks a pantload Adobe.

Now I try to download the book I purchased legally. I get an ebx.etd file. Double click on it. Adobe Digital Editions opens in all its Flash glory. (Seriously, other than YouTube and Foamy, does Flash have any purpose OTHER than being the most useless pile of crap code on the planet? All it ever does is annoy people, and make everything it touches suck.) It initializes, and now it must authorize my content. Oh, but it can't, and here's the very simple error message I get:

Adobe DRM Error
System: 5
State: 4
Class: 400
Code: 41
Message: Error on response from server.
Scroll below or view error.log for more details.

Adobe DRM client Error: 441
Could not authenticate with voucher engine at server

Server Code: -4

Requested URL:
http://66.135.49.27/fulfill/ebx.etd ?action=purchase &orderid=411419592703012 &bookid=EBK:000216998

--- end ---

Man, that must suck if you aren't a sysadmin or a programmer. Way to make this usable for the nontechnical reader. And people wonder why ebooks are teh suck.

I could call Edna Buchanan and beg her for an autographed copy of "The Corpse Had a Familiar Face" in the time it will take me to read a file.

This is why I hate eBooks. Because what should be a simple operation is now complicated beyond all sanity, and requires PDF, Flash, some complicated-assed DRM, and beta software.

Screw eBooks, screw Flash, and once again, just like their installers, a big middle finger to Adobe Digital Editions, for making reading a file take longer than ordering and receiving the physical book off of Amazon.

Adobe: We Make Everything Complicated, Because You Have No Choice.

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Adobe Can Kiss My Ass, Adobe: Simplicity is our enemy