They're back: Blog Tool Reviews

Blog Tool Reviews

One set of posts I want to bring back to the mix are my Blog Tool Reviews.  These posts detailed the different tools and services I commonly use on Folaji, and served to document helpful hints and tips for those out there who were looking to create their own blog or site.

The series, which originally started on this site, was moved to a new site a while back.  I was hoping to use this new site to post Software Development and IT posts, but quickly found out that I did not have the time to run two sites at once.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed writing these posts, which is why I will be bringing them back into the Folaji fold.

This dog will be replying to your emails (when she feels like it, of course...)

Ask Koji

A new series of articles I’m going to be bringing to the site are fan letter responses written from the point of view of my dog: Koji (a 3 year old female Basenji).  This is an idea I’ve been toying with for a while now, and I believe it’ll be fun to see how Koji would react to certain fan written letters.

So if you have any questions or comments you would like to send our way, you can leave a comment on this post or take a moment and write an email to koji@folaji.com.

Equanimity

Obviously one of the new series on the site will be Equanimity: the short story I’ve been preparing for almost the past year.  I expect we’ll see some posts for this story before the end of the month, so keep an eye open for them!

I have a camcorder!

Some Kind of Video Project

I’ve finally taken the plunge and bought a camcorder a couple of weeks ago.  I’ve since been walking around and taking random videos of things, but I’m looking for ideas for videos that I could post online.  As some of you may know, I had a blast making videos with friends while in highschool (take a look at this for an example, though I warn you that its both in French and pleasantly horrible  ), and with my new camera, I hope to start making videos again.

I’m not quite certain what I want to do just yet.  I have a few ideas rolling around in my head (mini web series or mini documentaries for example) but nothing concrete at the moment.   Regardless, once I’ve something ready to show, you can bet I’ll post it here.

In the meantime, if you have some ideas as to what I could do video-wise, feel free to share!

Contest Results

As some of you were aware, there was a contest going on Folaji.com for the past two weeks (if you’re not sure what contest, read about it here).  The contest officially came to a close last night at 11h59 pm, and I’d first like to start by thanking everyone who participated.  The winner, along with the prize, will be announced on none other than Folaji.com’s second birthday, and since the purpose of the contest was for you to guess what this date was, I won’t mention just yet, so as to keep it a surprise.

Rest assured that there is a winner, so keep an eye on the site to find out if you’ve won!

Netheril Updates

Chronicles of Netheril Adventurers have been busy lately, questing in and around Loudwater.  As such, we have two new updates for the D&D adventure:

• A new Weekly Update dated July 17th and prepared by Ingram, which you can read here
• An update to the Chronicles of Netheril NPC page (with new NPC pictures)

Also of note, I’m preparing a tool that will allow updates to the Chronicle of Netheril’s NPC and Quest pages to be much faster.  The tool is still being built, so I can not say much about it just yet, but rest assured more will be divulged as development of the tool approaches completion.

New Short Story

As final news for today, I’m happy to announce that within the coming few weeks, a new short story will be posted on the site.  I’m trying something different with this story, in that I want to have finished writing it before it is published.  So far this has allowed for easier story writing and planning, and will also allow for the story’s five parts to be posted at regular intervals (which is looking like its going to be once per week).

So keep an eye out for this new story, which at current estimates, should be ready sometime in early August!

And that’s all I have to say for today.  Again, thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, and expect some interesting updates in the future.  In the meantime, I have a handful of new Flash Imaginations ready to hit the site, so expect those to show up shortly.

That being said, anybody looking for this week’s Blog Tools Review can find it on FuglyCode.com.  This week I detail a very important anti-spam plugin called Akismet, which you can read here.  Note that, as I stated previously, Blog Tools Reviews will now only be posted on FuglyCode.com, so head on over to the new site every Wednesday at 12pm EST for your weekly dose of blog plugin fun!

Also, after almost a year of hiatus, Rise of the X-Syndicate is back with Chapter 7 – The Fall.  I found this chapter extremely difficult to write, partly because I wasn’t to certain how I wanted to present the conflict in the chapter, and mostly because it truly is a backbone for so much of what’s to come.  With it now published, I feel like I’ve jumped a huge hurdle, and future chapters are all starting to fall into place.

And finally, although I am spending much time on FuglyCode right now, I still have big plans for this site.  I intend to begin adding new content over the next few months, which will allow the site to grow into a much more rounded and interesting site.  I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Talk to y’all later!

I’ve been working on this new site for a couple of weeks now, and noticed that the content of the Blog Tools Review articles was much more suitable for this site than for Folaji.com.  And so I’ve ported the series over, and will continue on publishing Blog Tools Reviews everyweek on FuglyCode.com.

With the launch of the new site, I’ve not yet had the chance to publish Chapter 7 of Rise of the X-Syndicate.  I can say for a fact that it will be posted this week, so keep an eye out for a new Chapter of this World of Warcraft story.

In the meantime, I leave you with a montage of my dog Koji, playing with an 8 week old black lab named Ramsay.  Aren’t they adorable?

I like it because this is probably the first site that I’ve ever created for myself, and after a year and a half online, I find nothing more relaxing than sitting back and looking at my site, which I built the way I wanted to, without the constant input from some external party about advertising revenues and traffic statistics.

Its not that I hate developing sites for other,  I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember, and I don’t see any reason why I would stop.  But there is something liberating about creating a site that is yours and yours alone, a site where you have final say on content, look and feel, and overall organization.

And that’s what Folaji.com is for me: a place I can escape to and be myself, where I can publish ideas, stories, and videos that had once only been a sentence on a piece of paper in an old binder.  A place where others can come and read those stories, discuss them, and share their own if they would like.  (Ok, maybe the Folaji.com community isn’t big enough for that yet, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?)

Alright, so why am I writing all this?  Well, I came to the realization a few days ago that none of this would be possible if not for the array of wonderful free web tools available online.  When you look at this site, you should understand that the look and feel, the blog engine, the different tools showing up on the side bar, were all developed by a large online community of bloggers and developers that offer their products for free.  If it weren’t for these people and their willingness to share their tools with the online community, then Folaji.com would only be a shadow of its current self.

So I decided that, as a thank you for everyone’s efforts, I would take the time over the coming months to review each widget, plugin and tool I use on Folaji.com.  This would be my way of thanking the community for such great work, and for allowing me to create this site, and hopefully will encourage others to do the same.

Of particular interest to DMs is the Creator System; a free tool designed to help create maps and scenarios for RPGs. There’s some other useful DM tools such as Dice Rollers and some useful condition and effects trackers on the Character Sheet page.

There’s tons of other stuff as well; so have fun exploring.

• Players Handbook
• Monster Manual
• Dragon Magazines
• Adventurer’s Vault
• Forgotten Realms Players’ Guide
• Martial Power
• Arcane Power
• Players Handbook 2

Once your character is complete, you can send them to me by email (be sure to zip it first, the character sheet is almost 1MB!).  When I receive your characters, I’ll enter them into the Character Builder so they can be validated.  Entering your chars in the Character Builder will also allow me to print out a reference sheet of your different skills and spells, which I will have out and ready for you at the next DnD session.

The application will allow us to create characters sheets for characters level 1 to 30, and contains feats, equipment, spells, (etc…) from the following Wizards of the Coasts publications:

• Player’s Handbook 
• Dungeon Master’s Guide 
• Monster Manual 
• Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide 
• Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide 
• Adventurer’s Vault 
• Martial Power 
• Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons 
• Manual of the Planes 

Online Magazines 

• Dragon Issues 364–370 
• Dungeon Issues 155–161 

Adventures 

• H1 Keep on the Shadowfell 
• H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth 
• H3 Pyramid of Shadows 
• P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens 
• P2 Demon Queen’s Enclave 
• FR1 Scepter Tower of Spellgard 

Preview Content 

• The Artificer, levels 1–30 (to appear in Eberron Player’s Guide) 
• The Barbarian, levels 1–30 (to appear in Player’s Handbook 2) 
• The Bard, levels 1–10 (to appear in Player’s Handbook 2) 
• The Druid, levels 1–3 (to appear in Player’s Handbook 2) 
• The Invoker, levels 1–3 (to appear in Player’s Handbook 2) 

According to notes on the WotC site, there will be monthly updates to the application which will upload new feats and equipment that are contained in newly published content, making the Character Builder a One-Stop-Shop for all DnD character specialization.