Fun Home

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is a great memoir. It is so good that I can't help but compare it to two other great graphic novel autobiographies: David B.'s Epileptic and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Like Epileptic, Fun Home focuses not only on the author but also on her relationship to other members of her family. In this case, Bechdel spends large portions of the book exploring her complex relationship with her father. And like Persepolis, Fun Home connects with the historical events of the period in which it's set.

I think Bechdel is a talented artist. Her style is cartoonish, but very detailed. Her lines are very clean and she makes good use of the sparse palette. There isn't any sketchiness to her lines; everything is clean and crisp. That said, I'll admit that her artwork isn't really my cup of tea. However, it does service the story well, and it would be hard to imagine the book reading as well without the pictures.

You should read this book. It takes a while to build up, but like a sweet, ripe summer melon it's totally worth it once you work your way to the center.

.. editlink:: /feeds/7759675509232464806/posts/default/6776266602944672719

Fun Home
========
.. labels:: comics, review, autobiography

Alison Bechdel's *Fun Home* is a great memoir. It is so good that I can't help but compare it to two other great graphic novel autobiographies: David B.'s *Epileptic* and Marjane Satrapi's *Persepolis*. Like *Epileptic*, *Fun Home* focuses not only on the author but also on her relationship to other members of her family. In this case, Bechdel spends large portions of the book exploring her complex relationship with her father. And like *Persepolis*, *Fun Home* connects with the historical events of the period in which it's set.

I think Bechdel is a talented artist. Her style is cartoonish, but very detailed. Her lines are very clean and she makes good use of the sparse palette. There isn't any sketchiness to her lines; everything is clean and crisp. That said, I'll admit that her artwork isn't really my cup of tea. However, it does service the story well, and it would be hard to imagine the book reading as well without the pictures.

You should read this book. It takes a while to build up, but like a sweet, ripe summer melon it's totally worth it once you work your way to the center.

.. _Epileptic: http://www.amazon.com/Epileptic-David-B/dp/0375714685
.. _Persepolis: http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Story-Childhood-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/037571457X
.. _Fun Home: http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Home-Tragicomic-Alison-Bechdel/dp/0618871713

Shortcomings

Adrian Tomine excels at drawing pretty girls. Compared to his earlier work in Summer Blonde, Tomine sacrifices realistic detail for more streamlined, attractive designs. The result is a book that, in terms of artwork, actually reminds me a little of early-period Locas. Like Jaime Hernandez, Tomine shows that he is capable of drawing attractive female characters who don't all look the same.

But the man can do more than just draw. His dialogue is clever and humorous. Unfortunately, his protagonist is just not very likable. I know main characters in indie comics are not necessary going to be larger-than-life, charismatic people with deep backstories. But my tolerance for whininess has its limits. That said, I really enjoyed this story, despite not liking the protagonist. I think that is a credit to the author's writing skills.

My lazy and shallow summary is that Shortcomings contains good art and dialogue, and a not-so-good main character. Just go read this book. Thumbs up, y'all.

.. entry_id:: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7759675509232464806.post-4682706864246865570

Shortcomings
============
.. labels:: comics, review

`Adrian Tomine`_ excels at drawing pretty girls. Compared to his earlier work in `Summer Blonde`_, Tomine sacrifices realistic detail for more streamlined, attractive designs. The result is a book that, in terms of artwork, actually reminds me a little of early-period Locas_. Like `Jaime Hernandez`_, Tomine shows that he is capable of drawing attractive female characters who don't all look the same. 

.. _Adrian Tomine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tomine
.. _Summer Blonde: http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Blonde-Adrian-Tomine/dp/1896597572
.. _Locas: http://www.amazon.com/Locas-Maggie-Hopey-Stories-Rockets/dp/156097611X
.. _Jaime Hernandez: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Hernandez

But the man can do more than just draw. His dialogue is clever and humorous. Unfortunately, his protagonist is just not very likable. I know main characters in indie comics are not necessary going to be larger-than-life, charismatic people with deep backstories. But my tolerance for whininess has its limits. That said, I really enjoyed this story, despite not liking the protagonist. I think that is a credit to the author's writing skills.

My lazy and shallow summary is that Shortcomings_ contains good art and dialogue, and a not-so-good  main character. Just go read this book. Thumbs up, y'all.

.. _Shortcomings: http://www.amazon.com/Shortcomings-Adrian-Tomine/dp/1897299168

Project: Superior

I recently finished reading a comics anthology called Project: Superior. The theme for this particular anthology is superheroes. But the theme is interpreted pretty loosely by the various contributors -- most of the stories would look out of place in a mainstream superhero comic. Apparently, many or most of the contributors are indie comics creators, so that makes sense.

Other than the superhero theme that runs throughout the book, the stories vary wildly. Comedy, drama, irony, and psychedelic weirdness -- you'll find it all here. Some creators opted not to submit stories but rather just full-page art pieces. All the stories are short (one is only two pages), but some stories are broken up into pieces and spread throughout the book.

To be honest, there were some entries that I didn't really like and at first I wasn't sure if I wanted to even finish the book. But I got pretty excited once I hit some of the highlights in this collection. For example, I was blown away by the artistry of these pieces:

• Cover and Endpages by Paul Hornschemeier
• Cosmouse Fights by Nathan Jurevicius
• Helper Power by Tim Biskup (the only poem in the book)
• Dream a Little Dream by Tara McPherson

I felt that these stories were particularly touching or clever:

• Monica Beetle by Bryan Lee O'Malley (also check his excellent Scott Pilgrim series)
• Aw Shit, It's Cycloctopus! by Jeffrey Brown (physics nerds, you will love this)
• The Pollen Predicament by J. Chris Campbell
• Plush Boy by J. Ryan and Joe Meno
• Smog Emperor Vs The TV Guy by Zack Soto
• Titanius by Joe Consiglio
• Pretty OK Team by Scott Campbell
• The Superlatives by John Kerschbaum

A few creators managed to achieve a masterful synergy of art and plot:

• Cradle of the Gods by Joel Priddy
• No Prize by Ronnie Del Carmen
• Shock-A-Con by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca (love the pulp art style)
• Thrustman by R. Kikuo Johnson
• Superior by James Jean (How do you create a complex, layered work in just six pages? This is like a miniature masterpiece. Incredible.)
• The Last Stand of Bomb Boy Benton by Paul Rivoche

Unlike the Flight anthology series, the stories featured here are usually not so lighthearted, and in some cases they're gruesomely violent. There is a moderate amount of profanity as well. I would not recommend this book for children (teens are probably OK though).

This book is part of a comics anthology series from Adhouse Books; the other two that I know of are Project: Telstar and Project: Romantic. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read those too, because if they are anywhere near as good as this one, they'll be pretty entertaining.

.. entry_id:: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7759675509232464806.post-8863238719240103145

Project: Superior
=================
.. labels:: review, comics, superhero

I recently finished reading a comics anthology called `Project: Superior`_. The theme for this particular anthology is superheroes. But the theme is interpreted pretty loosely by the various contributors -- most of the stories would look out of place in a mainstream superhero comic. Apparently, many or most of the contributors are indie comics creators, so that makes sense.

.. _`Project: Superior`: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Superior-Various/dp/0972179488

Other than the superhero theme that runs throughout the book, the stories vary wildly. Comedy, drama, irony, and psychedelic weirdness -- you'll find it all here. Some creators opted not to submit stories but rather just full-page art pieces. All the stories are short (one is only two pages), but some stories are broken up into pieces and spread throughout the book. 

To be honest, there were some entries that I didn't really like and at first I wasn't sure if I wanted to even finish the book. But I got pretty excited once I hit some of the highlights in this collection. For example, I was blown away by the artistry of these pieces:

- Cover and Endpages by Paul Hornschemeier
- Cosmouse Fights by Nathan Jurevicius
- Helper Power by Tim Biskup (the only poem in the book)
- Dream a Little Dream by Tara McPherson

I felt that these stories were particularly touching or clever:

- Monica Beetle by Bryan Lee O'Malley (also check his excellent `Scott Pilgrim`_ series)
- Aw Shit, It's Cycloctopus! by Jeffrey Brown (physics nerds, you will love this)
- The Pollen Predicament by J. Chris Campbell 
- Plush Boy by J. Ryan and Joe Meno 
- Smog Emperor Vs The TV Guy by Zack Soto
- Titanius by Joe Consiglio
- Pretty OK Team by Scott Campbell
- The Superlatives by John Kerschbaum

.. _Scott Pilgrim: http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Pilgrim-Vol-Pilgrims-Precious/dp/1932664084

A few creators managed to achieve a masterful synergy of art and plot:

- Cradle of the Gods by Joel Priddy 
- No Prize by Ronnie Del Carmen 
- Shock-A-Con by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca (love the pulp art style)
- Thrustman by R. Kikuo Johnson 
- Superior by James Jean (How do you create a complex, layered work in just six pages? This is like a miniature masterpiece. Incredible.)
- The Last Stand of Bomb Boy Benton by Paul Rivoche

Unlike the Flight_ anthology series, the stories featured here are usually not so lighthearted, and in some cases they're gruesomely violent. There is a moderate amount of profanity as well. I would not recommend this book for children (teens are probably OK though).

.. _Flight: http://www.amazon.com/Flight-One-Kazu-Kibuishi/dp/0345496361

This book is part of a comics anthology series from `Adhouse Books`_; the other two that I know of are `Project: Telstar`_ and `Project: Romantic`_. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read those too, because if they are anywhere near as good as this one, they'll be pretty entertaining.

.. _Adhouse Books: http://adhousebooks.com/
.. _`Project: Telstar`: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Telstar-Spacial-Robotic-Anthology/dp/0972179429
.. _`Project: Romantic`: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Romantic-Various/dp/0977030423

TigerCinema

Tiger Cinema is an online DVD rental service that specializes in Asian movies and TV series. I've been a member since September 2007, and so far I've rented more than 20 DVDs from this service. I thought it was about time I wrote up a review.

Why I Chose Tiger Cinema

Before signing up for TigerCinema, I did a fair amount of research on DVD rental websites that specialize in Asian cinema. But before I get into the comparisons, let me mention that I don't consider outfits like Netflix, Rent Anime, or Anime Takeout to be direct competitors to Tiger Cinema. These websites have a lot to offer, but their catalogs are too limited to represent the broad spectrum that is Asian cinema.

Here's a comparison matrix of the services I researched:

Name	Price (Basic Plan)	# of DVDs out at a time (Basic Plan)
Tiger Cinema	$9.99	1
eHit	$13.95	2
Cinflix	$19.99	4
CinemAsia	$13.99	2

As you can see, Tiger Cinema has the cheapest basic plan out of all these services. However, compared to the other services it doesn't seem to be such a good deal [1], because the other services all let you keep more DVDs at once. So why did I choose it? Well, I'm generally pretty busy, and I didn't think I would have time to watch much more than 4 movies a month. So I figured that as long as I can get about one movie per week, I would get the most value out of the Tiger Cinema basic plan. If I ever found myself with more time on my hands, I would probably try out the other services in the order that I listed them.

Plans

Tiger Cinema, like all other rental services, offers a number of plans that go beyond their basic plan. I won't bore you with the exact details, but the differences basically revolve around how many movies or TV series you can have out at a time. I should mention that the basic plan doesn't allow me to rent TV series at all. They also have a feature called Tiger Stream, which is a Video On Demand service that costs $1.99 and above. I actually think Tiger Stream looks kind of promising, but unfortunately there are not many movies available for streaming so I haven't had an opportunity to try it out. Also, Tiger Stream requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 11, which is not a huge deal but kind of off-putting [2].

Speed

So how fast do the DVDs get to my house? Well, at first it wasn't really one movie per week, but then they apparently got a new warehouse in a better location, and they got noticeably faster. Now they're back to being somewhat slow again, but I'm not sure if it's because they think I'm "locked in" or because of some of the horrible mail-delaying weather we've had this winter. It helps that they have an "Advanced Shipping" feature that lets you request the next DVD to be shipped even if the return of the current DVD hasn't been confirmed.

Diversity of Catalog

Overall, I think Tiger Cinema's selection is pretty good. They don't have many marquee anime titles, but it doesn't matter too much since my main focus is on Chinese action and comedy movies. I have also gotten several Korean movies, and in this area they seem pretty strong. I can't comment on TV shows, since I don't really care about them, and anyway my chosen plan doesn't allow me to rent them.

Browsing Experience

You can browse by movie genre, language, actor, and director. The search feature seems to work fairly well. Movie entries have 5 tabs: movie details, photos, member reviews, members also enjoyed, and write review.

I like the fact that the movie details tab contains a summary of the plot in English. The summaries may be badly translated, but at least they give you a general idea of what the movie's about. Also nice is the photos tab which contains a gallery of stills from the film; this helps you get a feel for the movie's visual style. However, the stills gallery is unavailable for a lot of movie entries. Some entries include a trailer, but this feature is largely useless since the video streams so slowly that it just isn't worth it. The "members also enjoyed" tab is only somewhat useful; it seems that the movies listed here usually don't seem to have much in common with the movie whose page you're viewing.

Overall, I think browsing for movies is a pleasant experience. If any of Tiger Cinema staff is reading this review, here are my recommendations for improvement:

• Load the trailers onto Youtube and then just link to them from each movie page.
• For each movie entry, put a link to its corresponding IMDB page. I often check IMDB because it has more complete cast and director info.

DVD Quality

The DVDs that you get from Tiger Cinema look pretty good. If they are bootlegs, you can't tell. They have menus, special features, and previews like any normal DVDs you can get at Wal-Mart. I have not had any problems with the English subtitles on any of the discs I have received [3]. However, I have noticed that there are some movies in their catalog that do not have English subtitles. In these cases, there is usually a different version of the movie that does have English subtitles [4].

One thing that may annoy some people is that not all discs are going to be Region 1. In fact, a decent number that I received were Region 3. This didn't bother me too much because I just used easily-obtainable DVD ripping software to transfer the video to my hard drive, and then played them from my computer [5]. But I can see how some people would really hate this inconvenience. To be fair, the region code is always clearly displayed in the entry for each movie. You can also see the region code in the queue page by hovering your mouse over the "document icon" next to the name of the movie (assuming you have JavaScript enabled).

Managing Your Queue

Most of the interface is drab but functional; for browsing it's perfectly acceptable. But the interface for managing the queue is annoying. For some reason the default queue interface does not allow you to drag your entries up and down. After you enable dragging, you find that after you drag an entry to a different location, the whole queue has to reload (this takes as much time as the whole page reloading). This makes the interface feel slow and clunky. One possible way to improve the interface would be to have an "Update" button that you click after you've finished dragging the items around the queue.

Another weirdness is the concept of "saved items". These are items that are not in your queue because they're out of stock, not yet released, or otherwise unavailable. But once they do become available, they are supposed to be automatically added to your queue. The problem with the "saved items" section is that almost all of my items there have a status of "unknown", and most of them have had that status for a few months. I can't believe that they really don't know why these items are unavailable; it makes me think that their system isn't working right, or else their catalog is smaller than they lead me to believe.

Summary

Overall, I'm satisfied with Tiger Cinema and plan on staying with them for the time being. However, I'm not so exuberantly happy about it that I won't try out the other online rental services. With the exception of CinemAsia, they all offer free trials, so I figure I don't have anything to lose by signing up and seeing what they have to offer.

[1]	Tiger Cinema stacks up a little better when you pre-pay for a full year (you get two months free). But the other services may have pre-pay discounts that I don't know about, so I don't consider those kinds of things in my comparison.

[2]	I don't like using Internet Explorer unless I absolutely have to.

[3]	Well, sometimes the subtitles are not completely accurate, but usually the main point is preserved. This sort of thing basically happens with subtitles in any foreign language movie.

[4]	Why do they have different versions of the same movie? I think it's usually because the different versions have audio tracks in different languages.

[5]

It generally takes about 20 minutes to rip a DVD to my hard drive. I'm patient enough to consider this a minor hassle. Also, I have everything set up in our living room so I can just hook my laptop to the TV with an S-Video cable. And of course, I delete the video file after I'm done watching the movie.

.. editlink:: /feeds/7759675509232464806/posts/default/6197395119129948706

TigerCinema
===========
.. labels:: dvd rental, movies, review

`Tiger Cinema`_ is an online DVD rental service that specializes in Asian movies and TV series. I've been a member since September 2007, and so far I've rented more than 20 DVDs from this service. I thought it was about time I wrote up a review.

.. _Tiger Cinema: http://tigercinema.com

Why I Chose Tiger Cinema
------------------------
Before signing up for TigerCinema, I did a fair amount of research on DVD rental websites that specialize in Asian cinema. But before I get into the comparisons, let me mention that I don't consider outfits like Netflix_, `Rent Anime`_, or `Anime Takeout`_ to be direct competitors to Tiger Cinema. These websites have a lot to offer, but their catalogs are too limited to represent the broad spectrum that is Asian cinema.

.. _Netflix: http://netflix.com
.. _Rent Anime: http://rentanime.com
.. _Anime Takeout: http://animetakeout.com

Here's a comparison matrix of the services I researched:

.. csv-table::
    :header: "Name", "Price (Basic Plan)", "# of DVDs out at a time (Basic Plan)"
    
    `Tiger Cinema`_, $9.99, 1
    eHit_, $13.95, 2
    Cinflix_, $19.99, 4
    CinemAsia_, $13.99, 2

.. _Cinflix: http://cinflix.com
.. _eHit: http://ehit.com
.. _CinemAsia: http://cinemasia.com

As you can see, Tiger Cinema has the cheapest basic plan out of all these services. However, compared to the other services it doesn't seem to be such a good deal [#]_, because the other services all let you keep more DVDs at once. So why did I choose it? Well, I'm generally pretty busy, and I didn't think I would have time to watch much more than 4 movies a month. So I figured that as long as I can get about one movie per week, I would get the most value out of the Tiger Cinema basic plan. If I ever found myself with more time on my hands, I would probably try out the other services in the order that I listed them.


Plans
-----
Tiger Cinema, like all other rental services, offers a number of plans that go beyond their basic plan. I won't bore you with the exact details, but the differences basically revolve around how many movies or TV series you can have out at a time. I should mention that the basic plan doesn't allow me to rent TV series at all. They also have a feature called `Tiger Stream`_, which is a Video On Demand service that costs $1.99 and above. I actually think Tiger Stream looks kind of promising, but unfortunately there are not many movies available for streaming so I haven't had an opportunity to try it out. Also, Tiger Stream requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 11, which is not a huge deal but kind of off-putting [#]_.

.. _Tiger Stream: http://www.tigercinema.com/action/films~browse_vod/

Speed
-----
So how fast do the DVDs get to my house? Well, at first it wasn't really one movie per week, but then they apparently got a new warehouse in a better location, and they got noticeably faster. Now they're back to being somewhat slow again, but I'm not sure if it's because they think I'm "locked in" or because of some of the horrible mail-delaying weather we've had this winter. It helps that they have an "Advanced Shipping" feature that lets you request the next DVD to be shipped even if the return of the current DVD hasn't been confirmed.

Diversity of Catalog
--------------------
Overall, I think Tiger Cinema's selection is pretty good. They don't have many marquee anime titles, but it doesn't matter too much since my main focus is on Chinese action and comedy movies. I have also gotten several Korean movies, and in this area they seem pretty strong. I can't comment on TV shows, since I don't really care about them, and anyway my chosen plan doesn't allow me to rent them.

Browsing Experience
-------------------
You can browse by movie genre, language, actor, and director. The search feature seems to work fairly well. Movie entries have 5 tabs: movie details, photos, member reviews, members also enjoyed, and write review. 

I like the fact that the movie details tab contains a summary of the plot in English. The summaries may be badly translated, but at least they give you a general idea of what the movie's about. Also nice is the photos tab which contains a gallery of stills from the film; this helps you get a feel for the movie's visual style. However, the stills gallery is unavailable for a lot of movie entries. Some entries include a trailer, but this feature is largely useless since the video streams so slowly that it just isn't worth it. The "members also enjoyed" tab is only somewhat useful; it seems that the movies listed here usually don't seem to have much in common with the movie whose page you're viewing.

Overall, I think browsing for movies is a pleasant experience. If any of Tiger Cinema staff is reading this review, here are my recommendations for improvement: 

- Load the trailers onto Youtube and then just link to them from each movie page.
- For each movie entry, put a link to its corresponding IMDB_ page. I often check IMDB because it has more complete cast and director info.

.. _IMDB: http://imdb.com

DVD Quality
-----------
The DVDs that you get from Tiger Cinema look pretty good. If they are bootlegs, you can't tell. They have menus, special features, and previews like any normal DVDs you can get at Wal-Mart. I have not had any problems with the English subtitles on any of the discs I have received [#]_. However, I have noticed that there are some movies in their catalog that do not have English subtitles. In these cases, there is usually a different version of the movie that does have English subtitles [#]_.

One thing that may annoy some people is that not all discs are going to be Region 1. In fact, a decent number that I received were Region 3. This didn't bother me too much because I just used easily-obtainable DVD ripping software to transfer the video to my hard drive, and then played them from my computer [#]_. But I can see how some people would really hate this inconvenience. To be fair, the region code is always clearly displayed in the entry for each movie. You can also see the region code in the queue page by hovering your mouse over the "document icon" next to the name of the movie (assuming you have JavaScript enabled).

Managing Your Queue
-------------------
Most of the interface is drab but functional; for browsing it's perfectly acceptable. But the interface for managing the queue is annoying. For some reason the default queue interface does not allow you to drag your entries up and down. After you enable dragging, you find that after you drag an entry to a different location, the whole queue has to reload (this takes as much time as the whole page reloading). This makes the interface feel slow and clunky. One possible way to improve the interface would be to have an "Update" button that you click after you've finished dragging the items around the queue.

Another weirdness is the concept of "saved items". These are items that are not in your queue because they're out of stock, not yet released, or otherwise unavailable. But once they do become available, they are supposed to be automatically added to your queue. The problem with the "saved items" section is that almost all of my items there have a status of "unknown", and most of them have had that status for a few months. I can't believe that they really don't know why these items are unavailable; it makes me think that their system isn't working right, or else their catalog is smaller than they lead me to believe.

Summary
-------
Overall, I'm satisfied with Tiger Cinema and plan on staying with them for the time being. However, I'm not so exuberantly happy about it that I won't try out the other online rental services. With the exception of CinemAsia, they all offer free trials, so I figure I don't have anything to lose by signing up and seeing what they have to offer.

.. [#] Tiger Cinema stacks up a little better when you pre-pay for a full year (you get two months free). But the other services may have pre-pay discounts that I don't know about, so I don't consider those kinds of things in my comparison.

.. [#] I don't like using Internet Explorer unless I absolutely have to.

.. [#] Well, sometimes the subtitles are not completely accurate, but usually the main point is preserved. This sort of thing basically happens with subtitles in any foreign language movie.

.. [#] Why do they have different versions of the same movie? I think it's usually because the different versions have audio tracks in different languages.

.. [#] It generally takes about 20 minutes to rip a DVD to my hard drive. I'm patient enough to consider this a minor hassle. Also, I have everything set up in our living room so I can just hook my laptop to the TV with an S-Video cable. And of course, I delete the video file after I'm done watching the movie.

Disabling Adobe Updater

Adober Updater is a Windows application that automatically gets installed on your machine when you install Adobe Acrobat Reader 8. Previous versions of Acrobat Reader have had some sort of updater program, but this one is the most annoying one by far. First of all, unlike its predecessors you can't turn it off from within Acrobat Reader. I looked, but I could not find any way to disable it in Preferences. Second, it has a really nasty bug that causes it to hog all your CPU cycles [1]. Once it gets into a 100% CPU hogging frenzy, you can't even kill it from the Task Manager. You might be able to kill it by logging off, but lately I haven't been successful at doing it that way. The only sure-fire way to kill Adobe Updater is to reboot Windows (ugh).

I tried to delete the executable file itself, but even that didn't work [2]. I found that I could use Sunbelt Personal Firewall to block it from starting up. Unfortunately, the latest version of SPF does not seem to be very stable on my machine. So after SPF crashes, Adobe Updater starts up again if I happen to have Acrobat Reader open.

As you might guess, I hate Adobe Updater. So I was overjoyed to learn the other day that you can easily disable Adobe Updater by using the command-line REG program. Just run the following on the command line and you'll be all set:

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\FeatureLockdown" /v bUpdater /d 0 /t REG_DWORD /f

[1]	I have no idea what triggers this bug, but it happens quite frequently.

[2]	I either deleted the wrong file or else Acrobat Reader recreated it.

.. editlink:: /feeds/7759675509232464806/posts/default/2868237307390519711

Disabling Adobe Updater
=======================
.. labels:: adobe updater, acrobat reader

Adober Updater is a Windows application that automatically gets installed on your machine when you install `Adobe Acrobat Reader 8`_. Previous versions of Acrobat Reader have had some sort of updater program, but this one is the most annoying one by far. First of all, unlike its predecessors you can't turn it off from within Acrobat Reader. I looked, but I could not find any way to disable it in Preferences. Second, it has a really nasty bug that causes it to hog all your CPU cycles [#]_. Once it gets into a 100% CPU hogging frenzy, you can't even kill it from the Task Manager. You might be able to kill it by logging off, but lately I haven't been successful at doing it that way. The only sure-fire way to kill Adobe Updater is to reboot Windows (ugh).

.. _Adobe Acrobat Reader 8: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

I tried to delete the executable file itself, but even that didn't work [#]_. I found that I could use `Sunbelt Personal Firewall`_ to block it from starting up. Unfortunately, the latest version of SPF does not seem to be very stable on my machine. So after SPF crashes, Adobe Updater starts up again if I happen to have Acrobat Reader open. 

.. _Sunbelt Personal Firewall: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Home-Home-Office/Sunbelt-Personal-Firewall/

As you might guess, I *hate* Adobe Updater. So I was overjoyed to learn the other day that you can `easily disable Adobe Updater`_ by using the command-line REG_ program. Just run the following on the command line and you'll be all set::

    REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\FeatureLockdown" /v bUpdater /d 0 /t REG_DWORD /f

.. _easily disable Adobe Updater: http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/deployment/disable-adobe-updater-with-adobe-customization-wizard-8
.. _REG: http://www.computerhope.com/reg.htm

.. [#] I have no idea what triggers this bug, but it happens quite frequently.
.. [#] I either deleted the wrong file or else Acrobat Reader recreated it.

Welcome!

Welcome to my non-programming blog. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about here, but every once in a while I do get some thoughts in my head that don't involve programming. Most likely I'll talk about the books I read, or the movies I see.

Also, I will be practicing my CSS skills on this blog. If the current layout looks like crap, it's probably because I don't know what I'm doing. I developed my Blogger template from scratch, and the kinks haven't been worked out yet. In particular, I know that this page doesn't look right in IE 7.

If you are interested in reading my thoughts on programming, please check out my main blog. As a side note, you may see programming-related posts here, but you should just ignore them. Most likely they are drafts of posts that I plan on publishing to my main blog. I find Blogger's draft preview feature to be lacking, so I plan on just using this blog as a place for viewing my drafts.

.. editlink:: /feeds/7759675509232464806/posts/default/5585797176471810922

Welcome!
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.. labels:: welcome, blogging, css

Welcome to my non-programming blog. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about here, but every once in a while I do get some thoughts in my head that don't involve programming. Most likely I'll talk about the books I read, or the movies I see. 

Also, I will be practicing my CSS skills on this blog. If the current layout looks like crap, it's probably because I don't know what I'm doing. I developed my Blogger template from scratch, and the kinks haven't been worked out yet. In particular, I know that this page doesn't look right in IE 7.

If you are interested in reading my thoughts on programming, please check out my `main blog`_. As a side note, you may see programming-related posts here, but you should just ignore them. Most likely they are drafts of posts that I plan on publishing to my main blog. I find Blogger's draft preview feature to be lacking, so I plan on just using this blog as a place for viewing my drafts.

.. _main blog: http://feihonghsu.blogspot.com