Embedding BASE-14 Fonts in PDF from Latex output

By looking into the fonts pane of the  properties of a PDF File with Adobe Acrobat Reader you see, whether all fonts are embedded or not.

Initially I followed this little Tutorial to set the options right:

http://www.hamilton.ie/gavinmc/docs/timesinpdfs.html

However, one configuration entry was still missing to get everything embedded in a Miktex Windows environment:
-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress

Finally, I print to pdf with the following flags using GPL Ghostscript 9.14:

-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress  -dCompatibilityLevel=1.3 -dHaveTrueTypes=true -dEmbedAllFonts=true -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile="%bm.pdf" -c save pop -f "%bm.ps"

(%bm.pdf are just wildards for document names of texnic center)

Thanks to Georg for sending me his options and giving me the important hint!

Enable/Disable Hibernate/Ruhezustand in Win 8.1

.... and probably Win7 as well:

powercfg /hibernate on

Cannot run batch file with double click (Windows 8) (*.bat)

All you have to do is open the registry and delete this key:

"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.BAT\UserChoice"

Done.

Taken from here

Powerpoint 2010 / Office 2010 crash in Windows (8.1) due to Optimus

Recently I discovered that some of my presentations crash on my new laptop running Windows 8.1 and Powerpoint 2010. The error was: "Powerpoint stopped working" or "Powerpoint funktioniert nicht mehr".
Excel and Word worked like a charm, and some older presentations did as well.
So first of all I suspected an error in the presentation file itself and tried it successfully on other machines running Windows 7 and the same office.
I tried some other tests with converting the files back to *.ppt scheme and removing animations and slides.
However, nothing worked.

In the end the problem was GPU related. By default, Office gets launched on the integrated Intel GPU. However, Powerpoint, or at least my highly sophisticated presentation, requires the "real deal" GPU.

I started Powerpoint using the NVIDIA GPU and the Presentation worked on this machine as well

Windows 8.1 First impressions and first problems with freezing touchpad on Dell Inspiron 17 7000

Unpacking my brand new Dell Inspiron 17 7000 I was keen on test-driving this new touchy, feely stuff for the first time.
Acutally I was prepared for the worst and went out really impressed!
I, for myself, am using this machine as it would be with Win7, just nicer.
Hit the Start (Keyboard) button like before and the instant search returns your applications, files and more stuff just like before. With the metro area you have now even more space to arrange the most-often-used applications and give them a little bit of grouping and prioritizing by having larger or smaller icons.

Still, I need some time to get a grasp on full-screen apps and how to switch between full and desktop mode.
Alltogether,  I cannot comprehend why everybody is having problems with this new kind of design and paradigm.

Now comes the bad news. Win 8 and Win 8.1 is still having a lot of pitfalls. I for myself had to disable hibernation or the new windows stand-by mode because my laptop kept freezing after the second or third resume. Furthermore, eventually after switching users or returning from stand-by, the mouse is unresponsive to left-click but everything else works just find.
For my type of laptop this can be solved by double-finger scrolling once, which rips the touchpad driver out of its misery and everything is back to normal again.