ultimate geek girl

I just upgraded my WordPress installation, and lo-and-behold, my blog wouldn’t load after I upgraded! The administration panel loaded just fine, so I knew that it wasn’t a database error. So, I did a little poking around to see if I could find the cause of this error.

First, I checked out my plugins – it is possible that plugins may be incompatible with an updated version of WordPress. I disabled each one, then reloaded my website. No dice. Page still doesn’t load.

Now, on to re-enabling all of my plugins.

Once that is done, I say to myself, it has to be the theme – so I disable the theme I was using – SuperPress – and yay – my site now loads. I’m a little confused as to why my theme would stop working, since it is 1) a premium theme and 2) from what I read, no major theme changes were made.

I downloaded a couple of other themes by other theme designers, and those themes would not work, either. Only the default WordPress themes worked with my WordPress installation.

If you upgrade your WordPress installation and get a blank page instead of your blog, first disable your plugins to rule out a buggy one, then check your theme to see if it is incompatible. If you have a buggy plugin, look for a replacement using WordPress.org or check out my post “Stop Using WordPress Plugins” and learn how to customize your theme to add functionality of plugins without the bloat. If you suspect your theme is the culprit, disable it and choose one of the two default WordPress themes. If you still can’t get your site up and running at that point, look to the WordPress forums or Twitter for assistance.

In my last post, I wrote about the death of Michael Jackson, and noted some of my favorite songs.

I live in Harlem and have been avoiding going down to the Apollo since Thursday – but I trekked down this afternoon to see what was going on.

Imagine this – a block of people hawking Michael Jackson (bootleg) CDs, t-shirts, posters, hats and more. And at least 100 people singing along to “PYT (Pretty Young Thing)” in front of the Theater. I even joined in for the chorus. People of all races, white, black, Hispanic, Asian – ages, and types – short, tall, fat, skinny, all writing notes to Michael on the wall outside of the Apollo, singing to his music – songs from vendors overlapping each other, dancing, smiling, some crying. It was moving. I only got a few pictures because it was a bit tight and so many other people were trying to get to the Theater to get in to see memorabilia and listen to even more music.

I am still sad to hear of Michael’s death, but at least I know he’s up in Heaven moonwalking and can see how much people care about him, despite the events of the last few years.

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died at age 50 today. I have been a fan for as long as I can remember – from his Jackson 5 days to present. Despite the controversy and no recent records in the last few years, Michael still invoked strong emotions in people from all around the world.

His songs spoke to many of us through puberty, young adulthood and into our middle age. Some of us literally grew up with Michael – while others of us caught the last 30 years of his career and life – and still value him as not just the “King of Pop” but a storyteller for the ages.

My favorite Michael Jackson songs are: PYT (Pretty Young Thing), You Rock My World, Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough and Heaven Can Wait. What are yours? Any great memories of the King of Pop?

Free and low-cost software is seriously awesome. Oftentimes, these programs can not only perform as well as a high cost program but can do the job better. I really like programs that are open-source – users know the things they don’t like and can edit them to fix it how they want. Here’s my list of great free programs:

FastStone Photo Resizer – I can quickly resize entire folders of photography. This comes in handy when I’m trying to quickly get a folder up to share. If I need to crop a photo first, I look towards IrfanView, another free program, to do basic edits of a photo before I turn into something a bit more advanced. I admit if Im trying to prep my photos for something major, I do in Photoshop, but I used IrfanView to prep the photos I gave my mom for X-Mas.

photo credit: etharooni

Mozilla Thunderbird – I’ve got Microsoft Outlook, but I don’t like it nearly as much as Thunderbird. Thunderbird doesn’t require as much RAM and is simple to install and use. Some folks may think it doesn’t look fancy enough, but it sends emails, recieves emails and has great tech support. Plus it is from the makers of Firefox, what could be better?

FileZilla – I swear by this FTP program. It is not resource intensive, can process huge numbers of files at once (I process about 150-300 files at a time usually), and can easily store ftp connections for future use.

doPDF – Forget downloading Adobe Acrobat Pro just to print things as a PDF. This program is very small and allows you to print anything as a PDF. It installs as a printer so just print as you normally would and choose doPDF as the printer instead of something else. I find it really helpful when I’m shopping online – I can print my confirmations and shipping info and store online instead of wasting paper. Or I can use it when I’m doing school work and send my professors PDFs instead of documents that can easily get corrupted.

photo credit: James Mooney

IZArc – I was really bent on using WinZip – it was all I knew and I hadn’t found anything else to replace it. Until I found IZArc. This program is quick and works just like WinZip plus it’s free!

twhirl – I’m all over twitter, but I like the instant messenger like look of twhirl when I’m on my computer. Of course, there are lots of different twitter programs, this one is just the best and easiest one I like. I can change the colors easily and don’t follow so many people that this becomes burdensome.

photo credit: Jaboney

Google Earth – What’s a cooler way to check out what the earth looks like and explore monuments and ruins than to use satellite imagery? Google Earth is pretty awesome for what it does. I like being able to see the overhead views of where I am and then zoom in as much as the program allows. Plus you can easily email others what you’re looking at. Very helpful if you’re trying to use topography for a project.

Picasa – I just started to use Google’s Picasa software but I really like it. It’s easy to organize all my photography and upload to the Picasa website. One day while in class I used it to regroup and upload 3 different albums to their website – awesome!

Avast – My choice of anti-virus programs. It’s professional grade and has worked better for me than McAfee or Norton. Catches problems as you browse the web and has a nice graphic interface to help you browse for problems on your own or set up regular checks. Always free for home users with free registration.

photo credit: wenzday01

JAlbum – JAlbum is a pretty neat program with downloadable extras to create slideshows for your website. I used this for several batches of photos to create really cool displays of photos I had taken on trips. Really basic to use and self-explanatory for the most part.

Arachnophilia – When I need to work on my website, this is one of the several programs I know I can rely on. Having used it since I was in high school, it has remained pretty much the same – easy to use. It has tools to help those that are beginners or advanced. I like that it is now a Java based program so it’s usable on many machines.

Sunbird – Another Mozilla project, this allows you to create and print your own calendars as well as share with other people. Very simple to use, I even used it to do project calendars for my paid job. If you would rather not have a stand-alone calendar program, try the extension for Thunderbird called Lightning.

As some of you guys know, I’m a member of several fraternal organizations. It is difficult to call hundreds of people when information needs to be passed along quickly AND accurately. So, I searched for a way to send messages and connect with my fellow club members, family and friends. There are literally dozens of reasons to use a mass messaging system – send meeting reminders, notify family of resturant location for dinner, send words of encouragement, announce an enagement – and many, many more.

I tested a few online message systems until I got to Phonevite, which has totally exceeded all of my expectations. The service is free for basic message sending, but if you are like me and need to send out 100 or 200 calls at a time, you can pay a great low rate per call and send messages to large groups of people.

Phonevite is reasonably priced at free for up to 25 calls, or 5 cents a call for larger “phonevites”, and you can store cash balances in your account for use later. The service is simple – record a voice message either online or via phone, select (Premium accounts only) or enter your contacts, and schedule or immediately send the message. There’s even a neat option to send the message via email, too (Premium accounts only)! The free account offers some great features, but to get the full Phonevite experience, you really need a Premium account.

Phonevite is now open to sharing messages on social media such as my favorite social networking site, Twitter, so check it out and let me know what you think of it.

One of the most dreaded chores for most computer users is finding and installing updates for your software and operating system. There are programs out there to make this process easier, and many programs have built-in update checkers.

One of the top programs for updating your software is FileHippo, which works on PCs only. However, VersionTracker works on PCs, Macs iPhone and PalmOS.

No matter which program you use, it is important to look at the settings for your software first and see if it has the capability to check on its own for updates. You might have to manually check for an update or set the program to check for updates periodically, but at least you’ll be prepared to update your software quickly!

Another great thing to do is to follow software developers on Twitter – and see when updates are released and the company tweets about it. Evernote, my favorite notetaking software, has an account on Twitter and posts updates to their profile.