Fading Whispers » Review http://fadingwhispers.org/home A chronicle of my passions in life Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Problems with Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional and more http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2008/08/14/problems-with-adobe-acrobat-80-professional-and-more/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2008/08/14/problems-with-adobe-acrobat-80-professional-and-more/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:20:24 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/?p=438 Okay, this is a semi-technical, but bear with me. So, I purchased the educational version of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional. Not a big deal because I’ve worked with version 6.0 before and it works perfectly on my Windows XP Home computer. Well, that was XP. This is Windows Vista and 64-bit vista to boot. [...]]]> Okay, this is a semi-technical, but bear with me. So, I purchased the educational version of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional. Not a big deal because I’ve worked with version 6.0 before and it works perfectly on my Windows XP Home computer. Well, that was XP. This is Windows Vista and 64-bit vista to boot. There were so many problems that I don’t know where to begin. So, I’ll bullet-point the issues.

  1. “The file AdobePDF.dll is needed“: The first time this happened, i panicked and quit the installation. I re-installed Adobe Acrobat 8.0 a second time and when this dialog popped up again, I looked for the Amd64 folder (versus the I386 folder it initially looks at for AdobePDF.dll) and found a file called AdobePDF.dll there. I thought, “Voila!”, all was well. Then, I discovered that printing was extremely sketchy i.e. it would print, then it would hang up my computer and I’d have to go into the Windows task manager to kill the process manually. The issue with printing to the Adobe PDF printer started with being unable to print from Firefox then Internet Explorer until the Adobe Printer entered an error state. At this point, I decided to “modify” my installation which, prior to all of this, had been since been updated to Adobe 8.1.2 from 8.0. Modifying my Adobe Acrobat installation was done by going to the Control Panel in Windows Vista (64-bit version) and clicking “Programs and Features”. I right-clicked on the installation I wanted to change and a dialog box came up asking if I wanted to: modify, repair or remove my installation. I selected “modify” and simply re-installed the program again. Notably, I didn’t get a dialog box asking for AdobePDF.dll anymore. So the point of my ramblings, if you are having trouble with your Adobe PDF printer, your first tactic should be to modify the installation and simply re-install.
  2. Here’s the gnarly part of my suggestion. After I had a second Adobe PDF printer showing up in my “Printers” list, I tried to print out a page to the “working” PDF printer. Well, it printed, but somehow it kept printing to the faulty Adobe PDF printer also!! I got my PDF file alright, but the other PDF printer was going nuts. I finally went into the printer properties by right-clicking the troublesome printer and then, selected “properties”. I went to the “Ports” tab and clicked the 2 Adobe PDF printers listed then. Then, I hit “enable printer pooling.” I have no idea what that did at the time, but I was just frustrated. To my uneducated mind, I understood the solution to my problem at the time (having 2 printers that did the same thing except one worked and the other didn’t) as being: I needed to merge the 2 printers. “Pooling” meant something close to “merging” so I pooled the 2 printers ports which were: (i) LPT1 (the bad Adobe PDF printer) and (ii) Documents\*.pdf which was the working Adobe PDF printer. Immediately after pooling the printers, the bad Adobe PDF printer disappeared from the Printers” list.
  3. The story didn’t end at that though. Sorry to disappoint. I tried to print and I got the another darned error message. Thankfully, this error message was rather descriptive so I was able to understand that I need to send my print command directly to the printer! This is in contrast to spooling your documents in order to print to an actual printer.
  4. After I did that, I was able to print and life is back to normal! :D Enough technology for you? I was so worried that I forgot to take screenshots of the process. One idea that I’d had in my mind is creating a site where a real person who doesn’t really know that much about computers can come to and find step-by-step directions (or close to step-by-step) directions. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve searched online for answers to issues that have ridiculously simple answers and yet, many sites unknowingly provide non-answers.
  5. Some things I tried that may have impacted the happy ending were: restarting the print spooler service by going to “Administrative Tools” and clicking “Services”. Your best bet to solve your particular issue would be to go to the Adobe Knowledge Base article that addresses the initial error message of the AdobePDF.dll file being needed. The other thing that will shave a couple of hours of your time would be to update your  Adobe Acrobat 8.0 base installation to the new version 8.1.2 which addresses some of the issues that could lead to printing problems.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, my next program to attack will be the Microsoft Sync Center and the Mobile Device Center. I’m really unhappy with that and I hope they release a solution soon. Matt’s returning home today from his camping trip. I can’t wait because the apartment was boring without him there.

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2008/08/14/problems-with-adobe-acrobat-80-professional-and-more/feed/ 2 Have you seen Mr. Brooks? http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/12/11/have-you-seen-mr-brooks/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/12/11/have-you-seen-mr-brooks/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:05:37 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/12/11/have-you-seen-mr-brooks/ Matt brought this movie home as a Redbox DVD rental and we (a.k.a. I) haven’t stopped talking about it. We told our landlord about it and he can’t stop talking about it. My lab mate watched the same movie and he can’t stop talking about it. It was wicked and very well done movie. [...]]]> Matt brought this movie home as a Redbox DVD rental and we (a.k.a. I) haven’t stopped talking about it. We told our landlord about it and he can’t stop talking about it. My lab mate watched the same movie and he can’t stop talking about it. It was wicked and very well done movie. My God, I’m enthralled with Kevin Costner all over again. The soundtrack was perfect for the movie in its eerie spooky way. Please, just go see this movie. I can’t even talk about it without giving it away. :D However, Matt recently brought home another movie that hit me in a not-so-good spot. It is called “Poor Pretty Eddie” and I’m still wrestling with what this movie was trying to do. Matt feels this movie was trying to show the deep South a(it was filmed in Athens, GA) and their prejudices. I say this movie is playing to those sickos who dream of repeating the atrocities that were perpetrated in the movie. Without spoiling the movie, the revenge doesn’t even come at the hands of the wronged character. Revenge comes on the mind only when one of the character’s pet meets an untimely death. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t like the movie and I don’t know what made me continue to watch. I felt so dirty and sad at the same time. M and I have agreed to disagree on this movie so I’ll leave it at that. Next time he brings any movie, I’ll be sure to do my research on it.

In other news, an aunt called and wants M & I to come on over. We’ve got Christmas eve and Christmas Day booked so the only “free” time for both of us to come jointly will be the day after Christmas and the next. I, on the other hand, am technically free because my employer gives us from Christmas eve up until New Year’s eve. I’m wrestling with myself about taking the plunge and taking all the days I’m allowed. Afterall, they are paid holidays. Nevertheless, I’m torn between wanting to do all the work I can possibly do in order to feel like I’ve “achieved” a little bit of something. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I should start by informing the bosses about my being off on the 24th and 25th. Then, depending on our financial situation, we may (or just I) go to visit my aunt.

In yet other news, PC bought a router to match the wireless adapters we have i.e. a Belkin G + MIMO router to match out Belkin G + MIMO USB adapter. I have to say that we have been experiencing a lot more uptimes. It’s unbelievable. Previously, we were using the regular Belkin G USB adapter with his Belkin G Wireless Router. Needless to say, from all the bellyaching that has happened on this blog, you know by now that we were hardly ever able to get on the internet. This frustrated me to no end considering that we were footing two-thirds of the internet (and phone bill) because there was no “internet without the phone.” Expectedly, I wanted to be able to have a good browsing experience for all the money we were chipping in (at least $50). After much complaining, PC conceded that:

(1) No, encrypting the wireless network doesn’t somehow cause intermittent connections or nor was the encryption the problem. I got some grief from him because I refused to surf without putting some protection on the wireless network. He was not very willing to do this because he didn’t “have anything sensitive on his computer.” Well, seeing as I paid my bills on the internet and did have sensitive material on my computer, I sure as hell was not going to back down on this issue. I’m happy to say that: (i) Yes, we do have WPA encryption with a kickass password that he thought up.

(2) The problem with connection was more than likely the weak Belkin G USB router. We are easily 2 rooms away from him and it’s explicitly stated on the package that walls do interfere with signal. Even before, we were right next door to him, it was always a game of plugging in our router and praying that the Wireless Gods would let us connect. So, first of all, we upgraded our usb adapter to the belkin g plus mimo thingamajig. We still weren’t able to connect very well so we pushed for a router upgrade. Thankfully, the upgrade happened and we didn’t have to spend any more money. We didn’t have to argue over whether or not to encrypt the network because I was armed with information from the US Government no less!! lol. Just ask Matt.

That’s enough kvetching for now. Take care! and Happy ChrismaHanuKwanzaKah! :)

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/12/11/have-you-seen-mr-brooks/feed/ 4 My take on Knocked Up http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/my-take-on-knocked-up/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/my-take-on-knocked-up/#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:37:40 +0000 Matthew Banick http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/my-take-on-knocked-up/ I wouldn’t normally take the time to write a review about a movie I disliked, but as I was reading Jane’s review, and voicing my opinion she simply suggested that I should write a review in rebuttal of the points she made. Well for starters, I don’t think that what she said was off [...]]]> I wouldn’t normally take the time to write a review about a movie I disliked, but as I was reading Jane’s review, and voicing my opinion she simply suggested that I should write a review in rebuttal of the points she made. Well for starters, I don’t think that what she said was off base per se, but I will just add a few points about what she didn’t say about the movie and it’s main characters.

In summary, Alison and her older sister could easily be seen as superficial and over identified with the material world. A very unattractive quality to those interested in living for a deeper purpose. As a an avid fan of horror movies, psychological thrillers, and many films that are a down right nasty expression of human nature, I am not one to be offended by a film’s portrayal of human nature, shock factor, and the like. It does make me uninterested however, when the protagonist’s shallowness is portrayed as “normal.” In fact, it probably is “normal” by todays standards to frequent night clubs as a mature adult and get your news from Entertainment Tonight in the evenings after a hard days 9-5 it . After all club hopping is something any “normal” healthy, successful young adult should enjoy, right? And in Alison’s sisters case, a 40 + year old married woman. Yes, I know, to a certain degree the females’ materialistic attitudes and shallow behavior was intentional but I began to lose my moral compass in the film as the only relatively redeemable characters, primarily the sisters husband, and secondly, the stoned loser did nothing to dissuade the insanity.

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/my-take-on-knocked-up/feed/ 1 The movie, Knocked Up, had a few nuggets. http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/the-movie-knocked-up-had-a-few-nuggets/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/the-movie-knocked-up-had-a-few-nuggets/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:12:25 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/the-movie-knocked-up-had-a-few-nuggets/ Okay, Knocked Up is rated R and by God, rightfully and sinfully so. It hits the right notes to attract males and just enough to keep the females happy. By box office accounts, this movie has done well. This movie struck me as having an anti-abortion stance and not justifiably so. The basic premise [...]]]> Okay, Knocked Up is rated R and by God, rightfully and sinfully so. :) It hits the right notes to attract males and just enough to keep the females happy. By box office accounts, this movie has done well. This movie struck me as having an anti-abortion stance and not justifiably so. The basic premise of the movie is this: girl gets effing drunk, and has a one night stand with a man. Said man is epitome of stoner nation in America i.e. jobless with crazy-as-hell friends who are just as uncouth as he is. Eight weeks later, she ends up with a bundle of joy. What to do? First of all, Alison (girl who gets preggers) lives with her sister (plus husband and kids) in an apparently spacious mansion. This means she has a warm and supportive place to stay with her pregnancy. Her mom counsels her to consider things carefully, but the movie writers expose their anti-abortion bent with a sentence they make Alison’s mom utter, “… when you get married, you’ll have a real baby.” What was up with the ‘real baby’ line? The mother-to-be is not in denial of the fact that her fetus will morph into a ‘real’ baby soon. In fact, it will make no difference to the mother-to-be, IMHO. We, the viewers, can see that the arguments to terminate the pregnancy are just as strong for the arguments to keep the baby i.e. she’s got a good job, good place to stay and a good environment overall. Contrast that with the real life situations that unprepared mothers find themselves in: shitty job, shitty environs, and the list goes on. The good thing is that some unprepared mothers will look beyond that and still keep the baby. The point is that there’s not that big solution (i.e. the instinctive keep-the-baby chant) to this problem. Anyhow, back to the movie, some lines struck a few chords within me such as the need that women feel to want to change their partners for better or worse, living and letting your partner live, resolving conflicts, etc. I could definitely learn a thing or two from this movie, believe it or not. Heck, I probably learned what NOT to do in a relationship. The biggest issue was the lack of communication between both couples. Or I should say, inability to communicate without deterioration into a shout-fest. It largely puts a lot of the blame for relationship woes on women and maybe it does that unknowingly, having fallen into the easy (and funny) way out of things. I do wish they had developed the plot between Alison’s sister and her husband so that we could see how they managed to salvage their marriage. I was a bit disturbed by Alison’s proclamation that her sister & her sister’s husband were miserably unhappy with each other. Oh well, I guess there’s always sequels. Read this review at Slate for more on what was wrong with this movie, but it’s still a must-see movie anyway. It says very articulately, what I feel about this movie. I saw this movie for the princely sum of $2.00 (no tax added) with Matt who took something away from it too. He’s disdainful of modern day movies and their penchant for silliness. :) I dragged him screaming and kicking to see this guy flick even though Daniel, his friend, was the one who suggested that we go see it. In other news, I’ve received semi-official confirmation from the powers-that-be (via email so it still doesn’t feel very official). In other words, say hello to your friendly neighborhood CPR. :D

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/23/the-movie-knocked-up-had-a-few-nuggets/feed/ 0 The movie, Descent. http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/21/the-movie-descent/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/21/the-movie-descent/#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:38:12 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/21/the-movie-descent/ Well, well, well. I’m on round two of “negotiations” i.e. another look-see or interview. Just when I was lamenting to Matt about how things didn’t seem so good. An interesting thing that happened today: I actually turned down an interview. I was mentally kicking myself about it, but Matt reminded me of the facts: [...]]]> Well, well, well. I’m on round two of “negotiations” i.e. another look-see or interview. Just when I was lamenting to Matt about how things didn’t seem so good. An interesting thing that happened today: I actually turned down an interview. I was mentally kicking myself about it, but Matt reminded me of the facts: city was 3.5hrs from where I currently live. My riposte to that was: we could move! However, right now, that would be not-so-smart of me because I surely haven’t exhausted all my chances in this city. I’m excited and really psyched. In other news, I saw the movie “Descent” with Paul and Matt. This movie made me mad, in a good way. First of all, they should bill this movie as “required viewing” for would-be spelunkers or cavers. This is a horror movie and the premise is this: group of 6 girls who are ‘experienced’ and outdoorsy types decide to go caving. This is a fun trip to do with your girls except there are several things that go wrong namely: their ‘leader’ forgets a book that details the entrance & exits; another ‘leader’ conveniently forgets to file a “flight plan” of where they’ll be so in other words, no one knows that they’re there; another ‘leader’ forgets to inform the others that the cave they were currently in was not the cave they thought they would be visiting. Ostensibly, said leader does this because she wants them to claim the cave as theirs. Give me a break. Anyhow, they get trapped in the cave and start getting stalked by some humanoid creatures. Straightforward, right? They get the horror down and I liked the movie up until the screenwriters made a serious error in judgment on who they killed off and who they didn’t. It was like the screenwriters lost their sense of direction once their characters were trapped in the cave. There is an unexplained killing of the main ‘leader’ by another caver and it really pissed me off. In honor of the dead main ‘leader’, here are my suggestions for real-life group spelunking:

  1. Subject everyone to a psychological test to isolate and drop-faster-than-a-hot-potato those who are most likely to wig out on you when it’s pitch-black or wiggling in a tunnel.
  2. Subject would-be cavers to a virtual simulation to buttress the psychological tests and ditch nutcases.
  3. If you are the group leader, ensure that you hold the sole flashlight versus everyone turning on all their flashlights and running out of light energy at critical moments.
  4. In order to prevent Wandering Wilhemina’s from taking off after seeing “daylight” which is truly phosphorus glowing in the cave (which WW would know if she had taken her basic Caving 101 classes); feel free to give WW a stinging slap to jolt her senses back into place.
  5. If a group member is wigging out on you in the cave, feel free to bestow another stinging slap on said group member’s face.
  6.  This one’s for group members: feel free to be more interested in specifics of where you’re going, what you’re doing to avoid going to no-man’s land.Yes, it’s cool to be an “extreme sports” person, but temper your exuberance with a little bit of common sense!

Finally, check out synopsis/review from Hollywood Reporter.

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/21/the-movie-descent/feed/ 0 The highs and lows http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/the-highs-and-lows/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/the-highs-and-lows/#comments Sat, 18 Aug 2007 03:13:15 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/the-highs-and-lows/ I’m discovering that I can be a very impatient person sometimes. It’s frustrating to feel like someone else holds your future in their hands, but I know that there are always other options i.e. there’s no one sole option. It’s always a question of whether or not one is willing to go against the [...]]]> I’m discovering that I can be a very impatient person sometimes. It’s frustrating to feel like someone else holds your future in their hands, but I know that there are always other options i.e. there’s no one sole option. It’s always a question of whether or not one is willing to go against the odds or dare the consequences. Anyhow, it’s been 4mths on the job market and I’ve got 4 interviews under my belt. The first 3, I knew would be bust because I hadn’t squared out my immigration paperwork. As He would have it, the 4th interview came right as things started turning around with respect to my USCIS stuff. I’ve got a 5th one in the works that should happen next month. Matt’s very happy for me and I’m happy for me. I really want to stay in this part of town, this city and in this state. Granted, there are not many jobs here, but I’m hopeful that I’ll find the right one/fit for me. That said, I’m not averse to moving. I’m not necessarily tied down to GA and Matt isn’t either. It would be foolish of me to discount moving although the chances of getting a job out of state are not any better than GA. Georgia’s got a thriving biotechnology industry. Hell, I live next to a university so right now, my targets have been set on working there. Wish me luck. In other news, this one is sure to make my momma smile. lol. I blended some tomatoes that Matt’s coworker gave him from his garden and made a banging stew. :) No beef/chicken due to the horrendous prices. However, we just ate some potatoes with the stew and Matt’s verdict: awesome. Not that he had any other choice of words. :D

Before I forget to write about this ever, did I tell y’all that I went to see Live Free or Die Hard a while ago? That movie was awesome! From the start to finish, I was rooting and cheering for Bruce Willis and Justin Long all the way. That was a heck of an action movie and I’m inclined to go see it again. It helped immensely that I saw it at the fabulous dollar theatre I live close to. Some googling action on your part will give you the brief synopsis of the movie. The fight scenes are just fabulous and sometimes, a bit of a stretch but done in a way that will leave you cheering rabidly. lol. The directors knocked this movie out of the ballpark. Go see it! Ooh, my brother, Nick, is having his b-day on the 22nd. Here’s wishing him a wonderful 24th and many more good things to be had out of the year!

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/the-highs-and-lows/feed/ 2 Watching the number 23 and plugins galore! http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/watching-the-number-23-and-plugins-galore/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/watching-the-number-23-and-plugins-galore/#comments Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:26:02 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/watching-the-number-23-and-plugins-galore/ Ok, scratch Tallulah Gorge. Events conspired to prevent us from making it. Nevertheless, we visited one of our favorite spots (by Lake Lanier) and Matt got a good swimming workout while I read by the lake. It would be considered in the realm of TMI (too much information) if I went into the reasons [...]]]> Ok, scratch Tallulah Gorge. Events conspired to prevent us from making it. Nevertheless, we visited one of our favorite spots (by Lake Lanier) and Matt got a good swimming workout while I read by the lake. :) It would be considered in the realm of TMI (too much information) if I went into the reasons I wasn’t able to get into the lake. Anyway, it was fun and we took some neat pictures with Matt’s dad’s camera. He has a nifty Sony Cybershot DSC-P72 camera and while the user interface is not very friendly (IMHO), the pictures are way better than what my old Kodak Easyshare CX7300 would have come out with. I’m inserting some pictures of us and Lake Lanier. Enjoy!

In other news, Matt and I watched a new movie (The Number, 23) that came out featuring Jim Carrey. Now, I’ve trusted Jim Carrey with my comedies and the like. I was a bit leery of him in a serious role like this although I’d heard good things about him in that movie with a really long name (eternal sunshine of the spotless mind). I have to say that this movie was not worth my time. I felt like getting my money back from Hollywood Video . The writers of this sub-optimal plot would have you believe there is some hokey significance in the number, 23, with the silly way they thought up coincidences to this number. Am I the only one who thought it was a bit of overkill to start with the 23-significance-overload right as the movie was starting?? I didn’t like the style of the movie nor the plot which I couldn’t figure out in time to stay for the rest of the movie. I guess I can’t even really speak to the plot because I didn’t finish the movie. I couldn’t finish the movie because it was that bad. It plodded on and on till I gave up. Matt stuck it through although he had some difficulty explaining what the hell the movie was about. This movie attempts to achieve the psychological thriller status (kinda like the Secret Garden) but fails miserably. I think Carrey should have taken a rain check with this movie. He didn’t fit the role and I couldn’t get past the unsignificance of the number especially as they made every attempt to beat it into our heads that something’s not right with that number. Puleez. Not to mention the horrible camera angles or the filming method (I don’t know the lingo). I suggest you pass on the movie, The Number 23 and go rent Legally Blonde … or something. Save yourself the misery. *exhales*  :)

I’ve added a bunch of old static html pages that I had sitting on my hard drive. In a few short hrs after they were up, they were indexed by the Google bot and I started getting hits. I am simply amazed by the efficiency of Google’s crawlers. I have some quality stuff in those pages and with time, I’ll keep validating and adding to them. I’ve decided to use WordPress as my publishing platform in order to save me HTML hell. Right now, some plugins that are keeping me from pulling my hair out:

  1. TinyMCE Advanced: Turbo-charges the inbuilt TinyMCE in WordPress.
  2. WordPress Blog Stats by Automattic: Stats galore! Hosted by WordPress.com so need an API key. Not a hassle as you most likely are using Akismet ergo have an API key.
  3. WordPress reports: Condenses my Google analytics reports into an easily digestible form. I would love to see some referrer, network location, etc detail there.
  4. Cforms II: Excellent documentation and tracks sent messages. Useful for cases of misdirected mail. :)
  5. Clutter Free: Jebus! If you don’t have this, get it. It customizes your “Write Post” screen to remove unwanted things like the post preview, upload box, etc. It minimizes the loading time to write a post for me.
  6. Embedded Video with Link: The un-fussiest embedding video application I’ve tried. You can save your bandwidth by linking to videos from a broad variety of sites including Youtube and many more. It also adds an ‘easy’ button to your tinyMCE toolbar thus making life easier for the video freak!
  7. Extended Live Archives: This plug-in hasn’t been updated since God knows when. However, several WordPress updates later, it still works seamlessly for me! It saved my butt when my WPG2 plug-in messed with my categories and there was no way for the reader to view my posts via categories. This plug-in beats out the other archive plug-ins in my book.
  8. Google XML Sitemaps: This plug-in has been in beta for a long while, but I’m sure there’s a lot of production going on in the factory. Heck, it works fine beta or not so I’m not complaining. Simplifies the process of notifying major search sites of your new and updated content. A must have for search engine optimization.
  9. WordPress Database Backup: This is a time-saver and a lifesaver for some. I’ve had plug-ins ruin whole installations before, but my life was spared as I had a database backup lurking around on my hard drive. Get this for the most painless database backup experience. :)
  10. Exec PHP and Executable PHP Widget: These two are especially handy for working with plugins that may need insertion of PHP code into WordPress posts. These are indispensable right now and will be for you.

Phew! That was an honest-to-goodness mouthful. I wrote my list in order of what I thought of (not priority based). In essence, if I had to start a blog over again, I would have these plugins as staples. Feel free to tell me what your plug-in staples are.

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/17/watching-the-number-23-and-plugins-galore/feed/ 1 Putting authors on blast http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/15/putting-authors-on-blast/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/15/putting-authors-on-blast/#comments Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:35:09 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/15/putting-authors-on-blast/ Matt and I just spent a night at his mom’s. I love going there because there are lots of books for me to read. She (Margie) and her daughter (Maggie) are into reading books just like Matt and I. It was just funny how we were all in the same room with our noses [...]]]> Matt and I just spent a night at his mom’s. I love going there because there are lots of books for me to read. She (Margie) and her daughter (Maggie) are into reading books just like Matt and I. It was just funny how we were all in the same room with our noses in different books. I just got done reading a book by James Patterson titled “The Quickie” This was the same book I saw at Barnes & Nobles and passed over with good reason (in hindsight). Normally, I love reading books by James Patterson because he writes fast-paced action books. Hell, one of his books made it into a famous Hollywood Blockbuster (Along came a spider). In this book, he seriously disappointed me. I thought it would get better with each chapter, but I only got more disgusted. Here’s the scenario: a female cop spots her husband with a PYT (pretty young thing). She assumes the worst and decides that tit-for-tat is better instead of direct confrontation. She picks a fellow cop to do the honors of dishonoring her marriage bed and becomes witness to said cop’s brutal death … [spoiler alert]at the hands of her husband nonetheless! Several things are running through her mind and no matter what James Patterson will have you think. she thought of herself first and foremost. She did what a cop should not have done i.e. concealed and tampered with evidence! My jaw literally dropped down with the amount of fraud that she committed and no one seemed to know! She does all this cloak-and-dagger stuff and I am left wondering, what the hell is she doing all this for? What is the worst case scenario if she ‘fesses up to her limited part in his death? Here’s what she was guilty of: Sleeping with a fellow cop who happened to have a family although the dead cop conveniently neglected to inform her of that teensy weensy detail. Worst case scenario: if she had come clean about the events of that fateful night, she would have been discharged w/out prejudice for having workplace relations, I don’t know. That’s exactly what Patterson fails to let the reader know … that there is such an overriding need to keep covering up for her lying piece-of-shit husband. This book feels contrived and had such a bullshit ending, I’ll spare you the details. My take on it: I could have done without the indigestion brought on by this sloppy meal dished out by Patterson. :)

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]]> http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/15/putting-authors-on-blast/feed/ 0 My experience with the band, Pelican. http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/05/my-experience-with-the-band-pelican/ http://fadingwhispers.org/home/2007/08/05/my-experience-with-the-band-pelican/#comments Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:41:09 +0000 Jane Ullah http://fadingwhispers.org/home/?p=21

Artist/performer: Pelican

Price: $10

Begins: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 at 11:30 PM

Ends: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 at 1:30 PM

Location:

285 W Washington Street

Athens, Georgia 30601

USA

This band (Pelican) simply rocks! First of all, they don't have a singer/lyricist. They make the music with their instruments consisting of a bass player, a drummer and two other guitar players. As you may or may not know, my husband is Caucasian and I'm Nigerian. We went downtown to a part of the city and to a club where my kind isn't frequently seen. This place was the 40 Watt club and I've actually been there before with Matt (to see The Melvins). As expected, I had to wear earplugs, but I could hear fine although Matt kept mothering me. :) There was about ~25 people in the club by Matt's estimate and still, in his words, "they played their heart(s) out" Their sound is nothing like I've heard before and I'm frankly speaking. If their songs could have lyrics, they'd be almost melancholy. Matt pegs their styles as "emotional, dramatic and heavy." He took the words right out of my mouth. They've got a hectic tour schedule so go listen to them while they're in the US. Or check out their Myspace page for samples.

Tags: the melvins, pelican, 40 watt club, caucasian, nigerian, bass, guitarist

[...]]]> Artist/performer: Pelican
Price: $10
Begins: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 at 11:30 PM
Ends: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 at 1:30 PM

Location: 285 W Washington Street, Athens GA 30601

This band (Pelican) simply rocks! First of all, they don’t have a singer/lyricist. They make the music with their instruments consisting of a bass player, a drummer and two other guitar players. As you may or may not know, my husband is Caucasian and I’m Nigerian. We went downtown to a part of the city and to a club where my kind isn’t frequently seen. This place was the 40 Watt club and I’ve actually been there before with Matt (to see The Melvins). As expected, I had to wear earplugs, but I could hear fine although Matt kept mothering me. :) There was about ~25 people in the club by Matt’s estimate and still, in his words, “they played their heart(s) out” Their sound is nothing like I’ve heard before and I’m frankly speaking. If their songs could have lyrics, they’d be almost melancholy. Matt pegs their styles as “emotional, dramatic and heavy.” He took the words right out of my mouth. They’ve got a hectic tour schedule so go listen to them while they’re in the US. Or check out their Myspace page for samples.

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