Live to Love on the Edge Blog - Caridad Pineiro® Romance Author

February 22, 2008May 12, 2017

Fun Friday – Programmer or Serial Killer?

Besides writing romantic suspense, in my other life I’m an attorney and also responsible for the technology at my office. Plus, I lean toward the nerdy if you haven’t gathered. So, while using Stumbleupon (a very addictive way to surf the net), I came across this great quiz at Malevole.com which kind of combines two of my biggest interests — suspense and computers! 🙂

Take the quiz to find out if you can identify the serial killer or the computer programmer. And remember that old adage, “Don’t judge a book by the cover” while you’re at it.

Here’s the link to the quiz: http://www.mattround.freeserve.co.uk/files/killerquiz.swf

Here’s hoping it at least gets a chuckle from you on this Fun Friday.

February 21, 2008July 6, 2017

Thoughtful Thursday – Cuba Finally Free?

This Thoughtful Thursday may be a little rambling because I suspect it will be an emotional Thoughtful Thursday.

On Tuesday, I had quite a few e-mail and text messages forwarding the news that Castro had resigned. A number of people, especially the political pundits, see it as a sign of welcome change. For a lot of others, like me, it’s just another end run in the game that Castro has been successfully playing for the last 50 years.

Let’s face it. Castro turned over power to his younger brother, Raul, in July ’06. Some say Raul is ready to make changes to better the Cuban economy and has made overtures to the United States since accepting power. With his older brother still alive, I find it hard to believe that the necessary changes will occur.

What kinds of changes? The right to free speech. The right to travel freely. The right to be able to earn a sound living and keep what you earn. The right to freely choose who will govern your country.

In other words, an end to dictatorship, whether it be Fidel, Raul or some other puppet. If that happened, I could finally say that Cuba was free, but not before that.

Many have asked me if I would go back if that happened and the answer needs little thought. I’d go back once Fidel was dead to see where I was born. To see the home my parents lost to the Revolution. The home were Fidel would send soldiers to harass my grandparents and two small children so that my parents, once supporters turned dissidents, would return and face their punishment.

I’d take my daughter with me to see it because she understands the wound in my heart that is Cuba. I remember the early years here in the U.S. and all the sadness in my family and with their friends. I remember being 5 or 6 and asking my mother when we’d go back. She said “Soon.”

I remember my daughter at 5 or 6 asking almost the same thing. “When can I go see Cuba?” I said, “Soon.”

Soon isn’t here yet. It may not be here for awhile. Not until there is true freedom in Cuba. That’s a vow I made to my grandparents and parents who never got to return.

But there’s one thing left to say when people ask me if I will go back. I will go back, but I will also return to what is now my home and my country — the United States. It’s the country that’s made me who I am and given me all that I hold dear, chief amongst that — LIBERTY!

I am proud of this country. Proud of how it treated me and so many others like me. One of the proudest days in my life was the one when I stood up and became a U.S. citizen.

Unlike some in politics today who can’t muster that pride in the United States, I have not doubts about my feelings for the United States and no doubts that freedom for Cuba may still be a long way off.

February 19, 2008July 8, 2019

I’m on the Web, Therefore I Am

An Internet presence is one of the most important steps that an author can take, and it doesnâ€™t require a big financial investment. The problem many authors face is deciding what kind of web presence they wish to have since there are so many types of websites and each has different benefits and burdens.

I hope this Tuesday Tip provides you with some basic information about establishing a presence on the worldwide web and the different ways you can accomplish that.

The most common way of getting a presence on the web is through a traditional website, such as the one that I have at www.caridad.com or THE CALLING site at www.thecallingvampirenovels.com. Websites such as these generally require the following:

1. Registration of the domain name (for example, www.caridad.com).
2. A server to host the site (in laymenâ€™s terms, a computer which will hold
the computer files for the website).
3. An FTP (or file transfer protocol) program to copy/upload the files to the
server.
4. Coding of the website.
5. Maintenance of the website.

If youâ€™re not tech literate, you may require someone who can do the above steps for you. Companies such as Stone Creek, Moonglade Designs, Crocos Designs, Noveltalk, Writerspace, Coffee Time Romance, Romance Designs, and others will provide packages that can do all or part of the above.

One advantage of going with such a package is that you can choose for your website to be listed with other websites in the companyâ€™s â€œcommunity.â€ Belonging to such communities may result in increased traffic to your site and added benefits, such as the ability to chat with readers who visit the community, or inclusion in a monthly newsletter. Most of these packages include maintenance as part of the services offered.

Another option is to register the domain name on your own and then have a programmer do the remaining steps or a combination of same. For example, I registered my own domain, engaged a hosting service (siteocity.com or bananahosting.com are ones I would recommend) and had the programmer do steps 3 and 4. I do maintenance and upgrades on my own.

This has the benefit of allowing me to control the website and do unlimited updates whenever I want. The down side to this is that I had to learn some HTML coding in order to update my site. A great site for information on HTML codes is HTML Code Tutorial at http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/. The other down side is that doing the web coding will take time away from other things. However, if cost and control are factors, this is a nice mix.

If youâ€™re not tech literate, you can reduce the need to learn a lot of code by going with a platform such as WordPress for your website. WordPress is a free program that has quite a number of additions (plugins) that make it relatively easy to maintain the site or even add features such as video trailers, flash, etc.

WordPress also has a number of free themes (themes are the look of the site). You can choose from a wide variety of themes or hire a programmer to create a unique theme for your site.

If you are not familiar with hosting, FTP, or coding, you will likely need a programmer if you are going to install the WordPress site on your own, but if cost is an issue, there is the alternative to create the website right at the main WordPress site at www.wordpress.org. This will avoid installation, hosting, and FTP issues.

One nice feature of WordPress is that it is basically a blogging program, so you can create a site that has traditional website features (pull-down menus, etc.) as well as a blog. There are a number of other free blogging programs, but I am going to save that discussion for a future article.

Once youâ€™ve decided whether you are going to go with a hosted website in a community or a website you will manage in whole or in part on your own, what do you need to do next?

Research, research, research. You want your website to reflect your unique style, and the programmer (or you if you decide to do it on your own) will need to make basic decisions about the following:

1. Colors and fonts
2. Kinds of pages you want (For example biography, booklist, contest)
3. Menu Styles (Will you want them to drop down, or will they be links on the page? Will they be on the side or along the top?)
4. Flash or no-flash (Those animated intros that so many sites have)
5. Blog
6. Getting listed on the Search Engines
7. Joining a community

For the first four, take your time searching the web for sites that you like. Make a list of the sites and what you liked about each particular site. Check the site to see who designed it if youâ€™ve decided to go with hiring an individual programmer rather than going with one of the packages. For fonts, one good site to visit is cooltext.com which lists a number of different fonts grouped by styleâ€”for example, horror or gothic fonts.

Whether you are going with the package, individual programmer, or on your own, make a list of all the things you wish to see immediately on the website. The price of the site is oftentimes linked to the number of pages you wish to have.

Then, make a wish list of those things you would eventually like to do, but canâ€™t do right now. For example, those flash intro pages can be quite eye-catching, but sometimes slow to load when using dial-up lines. They can also be rather expensive, ranging anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars for a small header flash to thousands for larger and more complex flash elements. Let the programmers know what you would like to add eventually so that they can create the flexibility in what they are programming to allow for change.

Good programmers should show you a mock-up or two of a possible site based on the information you have provided them. This way you can fine tune the general look of the site before developing all the pages.

Some other things to remember:

1. Make sure your name or the name of the site is clear and prominent. The purpose of the site is to build your brand.
2. The site should reflect your writing style or theme. Again, this will help to build your brand visually.
3. If you are going to add a blog, Myspace, or other page, try to keep the above two items in mind and create a unified brand across all of your web presences.
4. Have key information on the main page and keep it current. There is nothing worse than visiting a site that has outdated information.
5. Give your visitors information about yourself, and give them some fun things to do while they are visiting. Fun things can include: video trailers, recipes, photo galleries, excerpts, contests.
6. Ask the programmer to include some kind of site meter so you can see how many hits you are getting and from where. Google has some wonderful site tracking software that is free for sites below a certain volume of hits.

If you do not have a web presence, I hope the above will help you in establishing one. If you do have a presence, maybe this information has provided you with some new ideas.

February 18, 2008

Guilty Pleasures Monday – Zac Efron Barely Legal

Visit Toby Forage the Provider of this photo Today’s Guilty Pleasure is barely legal Zac Efron who has been making hearts beat faster in the High School Musical franchise.

Some of us, however, first took notice of him in the shortlived Summerland on the WB. While the second season of Summerland went south, the first season the show was a great family drama with an amazing proportion of hotties! To name a few, Jesse McCartney, Shawn Christian and Ryan Kwanten.

But back to Zac! You can also catch him singing and dancing in Hairspray which also features the incredibly hot James Marsden (now of Enchanted fame).

I know that at 20 Zac is young, but he’s still a hottie.

Hope you enjoyed this Monday’s Guilty Pleasure.

February 15, 2008February 17, 2021

Fun Friday – Cats, Cats, Cats

I love both cats and dogs, but am most decidedly a cat person. Our cat’s name is Osiris and she’s a friendly, rather vocal cat. Slightly odd as well since she loves to fetch and will bark at birds and other animals she sees from the window. She also plays fetch with raw pasta! We saved her from a local shelter where the volunteer mentioned how hard it is to place black cats. It wasn’t hard for us since she was the friendliest cat we’d seen and my daughter immediately bonded with her.

For the other cat lovers on the blog, here’s a Fun Friday video all about Funny Cat moments.

But before you go chuckle over cat antics, please take a moment to vote for me at the following sites:

FANTASM Awards – Best Vampire Romance
BEST BLOG award at Isn’t It Romantic. (Way down at the bottom of the post)

February 14, 2008

Thoughtful Thursday – The Biggest Loser and Societal Values

Hunger Pangs Okay, so you all know by now that I’ve had my own personal battle of the bulge. Maybe that’s why I’ve gotten hooked on THE BIGGEST LOSER. I can so identify with these people since at one time or another, I probably weighed enough to be on the show.

I’ve totally been engaged not just by their personal stories, determination and of course, the diet and exercise tips, but about the societal values we see at work during the game play. Like what you may wonder?

The contestants originally completed a challenge in order to choose who would train them — Bob or Jillian.

If I had my druthers, I would so totally choose kick ass Jillian. I can definitely see her as the heroine in one of my novels!

The groups (consisting of couples this time) split off with those trainers, but a few weeks ago the trainers had a challenge and Bob won. Bob got to pick the people for his new blue team. No surprise to me who he picked. He picked mostly men. Big, heavy muscular men who are more likely to post big weight gain loss numbers compared to the smaller and less heavy men and women who were then sent to Jillian, including one couple who had chosen Bob as their original trainer and were the original blue team.

The sweet justice of all this is that since then, Jillian’s team has won 2 of the 3 weigh-offs! Love it!

What happened the first time that the mostly male blue team had to choose someone to eliminate? They voted off the only woman on the team.

Hmm. Are you seeing a pattern here that maybe reflects societal values? Big men good. Small woman bad.

Well, this small woman is going to keep on watching as the game play and weight loss continues. I’ll be rooting for Jillian and her mostly female black team.

February 13, 2008

Wicked Wednesday – Snow and South Beach

I think I cursed myself on Friday by saying we hadn’t had any snow. We got hit with a few inches last night that forced me to cancel out of a book signing down in Princeton since all the major roads were at a dead halt. Then came the freezing rain and this morning, it’s gloomy, cold and raining again. Everything is icy and slick, which has me dreaming of being in Miami.

Of course, that mean’s that today’s Wicked Wednesday treat is a trip to South Beach to chase away the winter that has finally arrived in NYC. Today you’re going to meet Sylvia’s mom who was so interesting when she appeared in SEX AND THE SOUTH BEACH CHICAS that I knew I had to write more about her in the second book.

Hope you all have a safe and warm day!

*****
What do you wear to meet a hero? Virginia Cooke considered as she flipped through one outfit after another as she contemplated her upcoming surprise visit to her daughter.

Sylvia apparently couldn’t make it to their usual Sunday gathering. Her daughter had been obtuse as to the reason why she couldn’t make it, but rumor had it that earlier in the week Carlos had come home with her from the hospital. Carlos, the man Virginia hadn’t heard anything about until her daughter’s tearful visit nearly a month earlier.

Even now the memory of that night still sent a chill through her. The late night buzz on the intercom and opening the door to find Sylvia there, her tear-stained face cut and bruised. The expensive designer gown she wore bloodstained and torn in spots.

She had opened her arms and taken her in, held her as Sylvia had cried for nearly an hour, explaining about what had happened and how she had nearly gotten a man killed. But not just any man, Virginia had known immediately. A man for whom Sylvia seemed to have some affection, not that her daughter would admit to such emotion.

Which was why Virginia now intended to surprise her daughter with this visit. Although she was glad that Sylvia might finally allow someone into her heart and stop being alone, she was perplexed. First that her daughter had suddenly decided to take him in — Sylvia had never been the nurturing type. And again there was the confusing bit about her daughter actually feeling something for this man other than distrust. For too much of her adult life, Sylvia had run away from any kind of emotional involvement with men. Not that Virginia would mind her daughter finally falling in love. She wanted what was best for Sylvia, which was yet another reason why she intended to visit.

She wanted to know for herself that this man was possibly the right one. The one who might finally make Sylvia happy.

Pulling out a dark blue suit, Virginia held it up against her body and examined herself in the full-length mirror along the back wall of the walk-in closet. So sorry for your loss, she thought since the suit was fine for either a business meeting or a funeral — which sometimes were not all that different.

Definitely not what to wear to meet Sylvia’s new man. She didn’t want her daughter thinking that she was regretting Carlos’s presence in her daughter’s home.

On the contrary, she was actually pleased about Sylvia’s surprising actions.

She slipped the suit back into the section of dark blues and blacks and moved to the next area. After scanning several more outfits, she pulled out a dress in a fire engine red and again perused herself in the mirror. Hello, good lookin’. I’m Sylvia’s hoochie mama.

She really should give this one away to the Salvation Army, it occurred to her and tossed the too-revealing outfit from Frederick’s of Hollywood into a corner of the closet. She had bought the dress during a Valentine’s Day moment of vulnerability. She normally wasn’t one to get overly sentimental or worse — remotely depressed — over the state of her love life. But for some reason it had hit her stronger than ever a few years back that beside Sylvia, no one was special enough in her life to rate a valentine. There hadn’t been anyone since . . .

She drove that thought away because it had produced a horrendous fashion disaster, namely a dress sure to make the wrong kind of man — well, at least make certain parts of the wrong kind of man — sit up and take notice.

Which was the last thing she wanted today, when she was finally going to meet the man who had not only saved her daughter’s life, but had somehow also tamed Sylvia’s shrew. That made him a hero in her book not once, but twice.

She rushed to select an outfit and be on her way because Virginia couldn’t wait to meet the man who Sylvia thought of as “nice”. Coming from Sylvia, that adjective was a sure sign of . . .

Trouble, Virginia thought as she swept out the door of her condo to head to her daughter’s South Beach home.