It struck me as I was playing with the interface and weeding notes out of some neglected notebooks, just how handy this program could be for gamers if you can have a laptop or an iPhone/iPod Touch at the table.  And I promptly set about revitalizing my RPG (Role Playing Game) notebook.  I’m currently playing in 4 different campaigns that are being run in several different systems, but it’s mostly the classic Dungeongs & Dragons.  Here are a few of the things that I’ve set up that will hopefully help me out at the table:

1. Character Progression
   For a couple of the campaigns, I’ve got the future progression of my character planned out with regard to which feats, skills, powers, etc. they will be taking.  I had this all set up previously in Evernote, but since I originally planned it all out, Evernote went and added tables¹.  As I was re-organizing my haphazardly spaced text into a properly formatted table.
2. Character Notes
   Since I have a terribly short memory, I have a hard time remembering all the little details I come with about my character’s backstory and their goals and motivations.  After reading an article over at Gnome Stew on how to Cover Your Character Sheet I started creating one page character summaries about my characters.  Since I can’t draw character sketches and don’t have the time to find appropriate images online² or appropriate figures/miniatures, I try to make the text & layout match the personality of the character.  I find it’s a great way to connect.  But, sometimes, with all the paper already at the table, it can get a little unwieldy.  But, with Evernote, I can have a note with the same information in it, and my iPod Touch takes up a lot less room.  I can also refer to that while I’m in the process of creating my cover sheet³
3. Campaign Notes
   Depending on how evil forthcoming your Game Master is, you may, or may not need to keep notes about different clues that arise during your adventure.  Or, perhaps you run a character that likes to collect things and write it down somewhere.  Our group often likes to jot down hilariously appropriate in-character quotes that someone says at the table.  But, add to that my horribly messy writing, tendency to spill things, and (lately) my penchant for trying out different character sheet templates, and it’s easy to see how these little notes can become indecipherable or get lost entirely.  So, I can keep them digitally now.  The other benefit of this is that if you keep your character sheet at the host’s house, you still have access to the list of clues and information between sessions so you can still work on figuring out what to do between sessions.
4. Rules
   Since some of our campaigns have adopted a few house rules, this is a great place for characters to keep track of the changes to the game mechanic that the campaign is using.  I also tend to get incredibly confused about the way areas of effect work in DnD 4th edition.  So now I have a note with the rule wording.  This way, I’m not going to be) interrupting people on the turn before mine, asking for the book or asking them how it works, when I’m trying to figure out which power to use and where to place it.⁴
5. Images
   For one of the campaigns I’m in, the Game Master created some digital maps for us to look at and emailed them to us along with some other background information.  So, I clipped them in to Evernote.  We’ve got access to at least one of the maps at the game sessions, but the table is tiny and we have anywhere from four to six people around it, so space is at a premium.  This way, if I want to look at it between turns, it’s easy for me to flip open my iPod Touch and check it out, without causing two or three other people to have to twist, turn, move books, etc.  If you had an iPhone, you could also snap pictures of the battle map at the end of the night, hand drawn symbols, etc.

The nice thing is that since you can tag each note, I can put them all in one central notebook, and then just call up the relevant ones by searching for the tag of the campaign/character that they refer to.  I can see them whenever I have access to a computer with an internet connection.  The only potential downside is that I might get distracted by other iPod Touch apps while I check things during the game.  But, since that sometimes happens anyway, I don’t think it’ll be too big of a deal.

Got any other ideas on how to use Evernote for gamers?  As a player, what tools do you use to get organized for your campaigns?

1. Yes, I’ll have to eat some crow about that, since my previous post said they didn’t have tables
2. sort of the same way I don’t have time to find good pictures for my blog either
3. since sometimes it can take a while for me to be inspired and/or have enough time for it
4. Instead I can interrupt them about entirely different things :D

Related posts:

1. 3 Tips for Creating an Interesting Character

1. I hardly use my desktop anymore.  Ever since my husband and I got our laptops, it’s mostly what we use.  I’d say about 90% of what I do is browser based and while I do like to play with new programs and applications, I hardly have time for it anymore.
2. It isn’t like we don’t have a bunch of computers here already.  I mean, when we host LAN parties we can set up for about 7 people already.  We’re only 2 people, so it isn’t like there’s a big possibility that I’d suddenly need to use a computer and not have one available.
3. We’d actually be re-purposing the computer as a media centre² downstairs that will be built into an old-fashioned radio.  Cool, hunh!  That has to be enough geek points to balance out my loss of points for voluntarily giving up current useful technology.  Right?  Right?

I’ve got to sit down and think about it a bit more.  We’ve got to make sure that my current desktop would be able to handle the programs and such.  We may need to upgrade a component or two just so we can have the right types of ports for the set-up that we want.³  But it’s still going to be much cheaper than purchasing everything new, especially since we’d also have to buy an operating system for any new computer we get.  I also need to sit down and see what programs and things are on my computer now that I’d want to install on my laptop and then copy any important data over or back it up somehow.

I’ll try to remember to update when the decision has been made.  Feel free to put your own 2 cents worth in the comments!

1. because I’d definitely be on the bleeding edge if money were no object
2. there’s even talk of having our entire collection of Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: TNG, and Star Trek: DSN digitally encoded so we could randomly play any episode we want
3. Note that when I say ‘we,’ it’s mostly Benevolance who’s doing all the hard work of figuring stuff out and changing things.  My contribution is mostly the big ‘ok’ on the project itself and the donation of my computer.  I will also follow instructions when it comes to actually doing the work to change things around.

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1. Almost frustrated, but not quite
2. LOVE all the train rides here.  Time to relax.  Time to think.  Time to write (though mostly just personal journal writing)
3. I’ll totally suffer through the trip to the Japanese stationery store – LOL
4. Yes, I’ve been trying to keep up with my google reader while on vacation even though I know I should just be relaxing.  It’s one of the hazards of being a geek and bringing a computer along with us.
5. I can’t handle theory alone for tech stuff, I need to actually get my hands dirty in a purposeful play setting to learn stuff, which is actually why I started blogging in the first place

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A few quick caveats about this info . . .

1. I’m not a professional blogger or computer person.

2. This information may be out of date by the time you are reading it.¹ I’ve learned timeliness is very important when it comes to certain things like security and plug-in updates and such.

1. Username. Ok, after you’ve gone in and setup the WordPress dashboard, you need to create another identity with administrative privileges and a unique username.  Believe it or not, ‘admin’ isn’t very unique and it happens to be the first username a hacker will try when they want to hack your site.  After you’ve got another user set up, go and delete the original admin account.  If the idea of deleting that admin account makes you a little uneasy, there’s a simple plug-in that will allow you to just change the username of that account instead of creating a second one.
2. Delete the ‘install.php’ file. Otherwise someone can simply type it into the address bar and erase your blog bringing it back to a clean slate state.
3. Passwords. Strong ones are important mmmmkay?  If you need something a little more memorable than the randomly generated gobbledy-gook that WordPress gives you when you start, then I’d suggest you check out this lifehacker article on how to choose and remember great passwords.  And this goes for more than just your standard sign-in for your blog.  You should also have a secure password for your FTP access when you’re transferring files around and for your host control panel.
4. Upgrade early & backup often. When new versions of WordPress or plug-ins become available, you really do need to upgrade as soon as possible.  When upgrades come out it’s often because someone has noticed an area that could be exploited and they’ve fixed it.  Also, it’s important to be backing up your actual content so if something does happen, you can restore it.
5. SFTP. Unless you’ve got a host that’s doing all the setup for you, make sure you are using a Secure FTP client to transfer the files across the internet.  I think this may have been how my blog was compromised.
6. Restrict access to certain folders. Ok, so you’ve got a really tough password in order to sign in, but maybe you’re still a little paranoid.  You can actually set up a password prompt to pop up before you even get to the password prompt screen.²  This involves tinkering with the files on your host so you’ll need access to your Control Panel.  In mine, one of the options is to select a folder and password protect it.  So, for the wp-admin folder, I set up a separate password.  This article about hardening WordPress also goes into some htaccess changes you can make to protect important folders.
7. Database table prefix.  This is kind of like an advanced version of changing your username from the default ‘admin.’  Most people leave the table prefix for their WordPress table as the default ‘wp_’.  If you’re setting up a new blog, try to pick something a little less obvious. If you’ve already set up your database, I believe that one of the plug-ins I mention below will actually go through and change it if you’re brave enough to let it do its thing³.
8. Security Plugins.  There are 2 that I will recommend here.  First is the WP Security Scan plugin.  This plugin will do a scan of your WordPress blog and suggest ways to make it more secure.  It looks for a few of the things I’ve mentioned above plus a few other things.  The second is Secure WordPress plugin.  One of the things that I like about this one is that it does things like adding an index file to your plugin directory so that people can’t navigate to your plugin index and see what you have installed, which they might use to compromise your site.

1. Hopefully at least a few people read this right after I’ve posted and it’s still relevant, but for those stumbling in later, you’ve been warned. Also, a small part of my brain that I think is kinda crazy thinks that I might be able to go back and revise this post periodically to keep it up to date. That’s the crazy part of my brain, so I’m not making any promises that it’ll actually happen. If it does, look for a revision date somewhere at the top/bottom of the article.
2. I actually get prompted for a username and password 3 times now before I can get in to my blog
3. see the second part of #4 above

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Blue WordPress Logo

Last Saturday I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the second annual WordCamp Fraser Valley (wcfv) event! The day was full of meeting new people and learning a lot from the great lineup of presenters that they had speaking at the event. In fact, by the end of it, I think I was one of just many people whose brains were running over with ideas and things to try. Here is a brief overview of what hasn’t fallen out of my head (yet) and how I plan on applying it to my own blog.

The first speaker was Raul Pacheco, blogger at Hummingbird604.  It was a great way for me to start since I just love the natural energy and enthusiasm that he exudes!  His session focussed on how to maximize reader experience.  He highlighted some of his favourite plugins which I will be gradually checking out and adding to the blog as time passes.  I’m already using one comment plugin (though not the particular one that he recommended) and will definitely be checking out the flickr and twitter plugins that he mentioned along with a few others.  Already added to the site is a comment form so that people who want to get in touch with me can do so easily.

Next up was Glenda Hyatt, the left thumb blogger.  After I read a bit about her on the wcfv site, I was really looking forward to her presentation about blogging and accessibility.  I think this isssue is so important that I’ve put all the tasks that her presentation generated to the very top of my to-do list right along with blog security.  A few of the things involve getting into the code of my blog to tweak the theme a bit, so I’m not quite ready to go live with all of the changes, but I’m trying to remember to do better linking and include good alt text for my images.  She had A LOT of great tips that were very well presented.  If you’ve got a blog, you should go and check out her e-book, “How POUR is Your Blog? Tips for Increasing Your Blog Accessibility”.  The advice she gives for increasing accessibility will make you a better blogger overall.

When we got in to the intermediate speaking track, Dave Zille gave a very good presentation about using the custom fields feature that comes with WordPress.  I have to admit, until I read the topic of his presentation, I had never even noticed them sitting at the bottom of the post screen in the dashboard.  And during the talk, I didn’t really see how this could be applicable to my blog since the examples he gave weren’t really relevant to my blogging style.  That was, until I remembered that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is fast approaching and it might be fun way to blog and add in things like my word count or general sanity level (if I can manage to stay sane enough to put a few blog posts up throughout the month).  Dave’s presentation slides and a video demo can be found on his blog too.

One of my favourite speakers at last year’s wcfv event was Kulpreet Singh.  Last year, Kulpreet talked about blog security (which maybe I didn’t listen to as closely as I thought I did).  This year, Kulpreet presented on mastering and tweaking the dashboard of the WordPress.org interface.  Thanks to one little plug-in (Admin Drop Down menu by Ozh) I find the dashboard to be about 10 times better than it was before.  That alone was worth it!  But I’ve got another list of plugins to customize and tweak things as well.

Most of the Development track was way above my geek level and made me feel as though my brain was melting.  With one notable acception.  It involved the presentation by John Biehler (whose blog you can find here) and the acronyms WAMP, MAMP, and LAMP.  Don’t understand what those mean?  Neither did I before Saturday.  And the short-version explanation is that it lets you install WordPress.org on your local machine.  Which means I can play with it and try new things and break it over and over again BEFORE I do any of that online.  I was so excited about this possibility that I downloaded the little program on my laptop while I was listening to the presentation.  I’ve already got it set up and that is where I’m testing all the other goodies that got added to my to-do list from wcfv.

Like I said up top, these were just the things that DIDN’T fall out of my head.  There were also presentations by Rebecca Bolwitt, who is best known for her blog Miss604; Lorraine Murphy, also known as Raincoaster on her blog and elsewhere; Jeff Kee was there from Sonika Studios Inc.; and George Plumley from SeeHowTwo.com.  Plus, there was a twitter track at the end of the day.  But, that’s for a whole other post.

My blog’s to-do list has quadrupled in size from this one day of presentations.  So readers, where do you go to get new ideas and things to try on your blog?  Got any other great blogging tips for me?  How long is your blog’s to-do list?  Let me hear about it in the comments!

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It came to my attention some time ago that my blog had been hacked.  Readers were getting warning messages as was I when navigating to certain pages on my blog.*1 If wishing and worrying could have fixed it, I would have been back online in no time.  However, that really isn’t how it goes.  Long-story short . . . since I have no clue how to find or delete malicious code, and since I didn’t know when it happened*2 I couldn’t be sure which of my database backups would have the same malicious code in it.  So, I decided that the easiest thing for me to do was to start over again with a clean slate and I just deleted the whole thing.

I just know that some of you are reading this and are gasping at the thought of deleting all those posts.  But, I have to say . . . it wasn’t that hard.  I hadn’t been running this blog for too long yet, so there were only a few months of posts and nothing that really stood out as super-wonderful.  I wasn’t really sad to see it go because I know I can still produce even better content than I had before.  It’s a another new start (and hopefully my last for a while).  Besides . . . it kind of fits in with one of my favourite sayings “go big or go home.”*3

Please feel assured that I did learn some things in the process and I’m doing everything I can to make sure this is a safe site to visit.  First of all, I’m rolling things out slowly.  Instead of going crazy with a whole bunch of plugins, I’ve only installed a few that I’m certain are really worth it.  As time progresses, I’m sure I’ll install some more, but I’m starting with just the basics.  I’ve also done a lot more to beef up the security of my site to prevent it from being hacked again and am going to be paying a lot more attention to the security side of things on my blog from now on.  I’d like this to be a safe, fun*4 and geeky place to hang out.

Anyone else have a blog or website hacked before?  How did you handle it?  Got any good tips/links for me?

*1 From what I can see, no one actually had their computers infected or any other negative thing happen.  But, it still really pisses me off that it could have.

*2 nor can I read or understand my server logs to get an idea of when it happened

*3 I also can’t help but think of the advice that Vezzini always gave to Inigo “go back to the beginning.”  So here I am at the beginning again.

*4 I’m going to try to make it a more visually pleasing experience with pictures and things as well (like the wordle in this post).

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