I was looking for a PDF editor to fix some irritating typos and inaccuracies in PDFs of boardgame rules before printing them (many specialty boardgame publishers provide additional copies of their rules in freely-downloadable PDFs).  I had tried PDFEDIT (GPL'd software) under Linux, but it was quite buggy and the user interface was horrible.

So I downloaded demo versions of a couple of programs that work under WinXP: Nitro PDF Professional 6 (demo is full version, limited to 14 days), and Foxit PDF Editor 2.2 (demo version puts an "evaluation mark" at the corner of each page).  The non-crippled version of each has a purchase price of $99.

Using the PDF I currently wanted to fix, I first tried Nitro.  I could not edit text successfully (perhaps because the font was an embedded subset, but that's pure speculation based on general ignorance of PDF technology), and gave up after about an hour fiddling with different things.  I then tried Foxit on the same PDF, and it worked like a charm.  I was able to change text and add text immediately. Later I added a transparent graphic, also very easily. It was easy to learn to use, and the user interface was intuitive. The program Help was very good, and the 140-page manual seems to cover things pretty well.

For reference, the PDF I used was marked as PDF 1.6, produced by QuarkXPress 7.5.

My impression is that the Foxit Editor is oriented towards modification of existing PDFs rather than creation of new ones (though it can do that).  Since that's what I want it for, it looks perfect for me.  The only issue (for the amount of use I will make of it) is the price, although it's only one-third of the cost of Adobe Acrobat.

Based on an extremely limited sample of PDFs :), I give a :Thmbsup: to Foxit PDF Editor 2.2, and I expect I will end up forking out that $99 (after I've tested compatibility with a few more PDFs).

It would be fascinating to do some sensitivity analysis on the data -- that is, to see how much differences in ratings affect the final predicted outcomes.
I suspect that changing around the scores of weak teams moderately wouldn't make much of a difference.
I could add a feature that increased the noise of weak teams.

-mouser (June 04, 2010, 10:33 PM)

Changing the forecast of results between weaker teams is not likely to change the predicted percentages for the top teams.  However, if the "best team to bet on" is e.g. 100-1 or 500-1, then changing the forecast for weaker teams could (obviously) change that statistic.

I think the predicted outcomes are in fact likely to be relatively sensitive to individual forecasts.  When I made my changes, I didn't have to change too many of the forecast results to end up with a noticeably different set of final percentages.

It would be interesting to use the so-called "Wisdom of Crowds" and average the individual forecasts for each pairing, and then use those averages to generate a set of percentages. You might have to allow fractional goals to do this of course ...

I have a TrendNet TK-400 4-port switch (PS/2) that I am quite happy with. The price was very reasonable. They also make USB version(s), but I have no experience of them.