I originally posted this on Tumblr and it was very popular, so I thought it should be reposted somewhere that won’t disappear and can be more easily searched for. So here it is, with a few edits.
Buy refurbished. And I’m going to show you how, and, in general, how to buy a better computer than you currently have. I’m fairly tech-knowledgeable, but not an expert. But this is how I’ve bought my last three computers for personal use and business (graphics). I’m writing this for people who barely know computers. If you have a techie friend or family member, having them help can do a lot for the stress of buying a new computer.
There are three numbers you want to know from your current computer: drive size, RAM, and processor speed (slightly less important, unless you’re doing gaming or 3d rendering or something else like that)
We’re going to assume you use Windows, because if you use Apple I can’t help, sorry.
Dreamwidth is a bit limited on features, including no built-in way to schedule posts. But there’s a pretty easy work around! That work around involves posting via email.
First you have to set up your Mobile Post Settings, which involves telling it what email addresses to allow and setting a pin. Dreamwidth can then post as you using a special email address, including posting to your communities.
You can tell this was set upa long time ago because it has allowances for free email services that put garbage at the end of the email address and cellphones without full keyboard options. (I’m sure both of those are still around, but they’re much rarer these days).
You can even set journal options like what icons to use, tags, and comments.
So here’s some examples:
To: silvercat17+XXXX@post.dreamwidth.org
From: me@gmail.com
Subject: Scheduled posting
And then write what you want to post
XXXX there is the pin. There are various places you can put it, but I find the in the email address to be the easiest.
To: silvercat17.communityname+XXXX@post.dreamwidth.org
From: me@silvercat17
Subject: What! I can post to communities too?
Yep, any community you have permission to post to, you can post by email.
Obviously, you replace “communityname” with the actual name of the community.
To: silvercat17+XXXX@post.dreamwidth.org
From: me@gmail.com
Subject: Scheduled posting Options!
post-icon: cat silhouette
post-tags: Dreamwidth, cats, whatever
There are bunch of options on Dreamwidth that I never use, like location and music, but you can do those too.
This would make it post with a specific icon (the one next to this) and the tags “Dreamwidth, cats, whatever”
The next part of this is scheduling an email, which is going to depend entirely on your email service. I use gmail and it’s as simple as writing an email and then clicking on the down arrow next to “send” to pull up “scheduled send”.
And that’s how you schedule a post for Dreamwidth.
I found these images to make icons for Rainbow Fic on Dreamwidth and it’s related communities. There’s actually more than I can use. Anyway, I’m sharing them in three sizes – 100px, 200px, and 600px – which should work for wherever you want to use them. (I think it’s Discord that wanted a great big size). Credit to Silvercat17 if you want; I don’t really care. Do whatever you want with them.
This one is a bit gruesome and very whumpy. And it doesn’t have a real ending, but it works. I’m hoping I caught all the typos
Words: 1293 Rating: PG-13
Trigger warnings: torture of a fantasy being, extreme sun exposure, injury, eye damage, skin damage
It was barely dawn and I had just finished shaving when the screaming started. I quickly wiped my razor dry, dropped it in my pack, and hurried to the street. No one else was paying any attention to it as I followed the sound. It stuttered to an end.
I turned to a merchant setting up her stall. “What was that?”
She shrugged. “What? The vampire?”
“Vampire?”
She waved vaguely toward the center of town. “In the convicts square. It’s been there a couple of days now.”
Did you know I have a Patreon? With exactly one patron at the time of writing? I do! And I’d like some more patrons, so I’ve updated the tiers, including TWO tiers for smut. Well, not too smutty, because Patreon won’t let me, but pin-ups of fictional people! Yay!
Work in progress on Charles Woodbury
The non-smutty tiers (named after some of my favorite species of cats, aside from the conlanger tier) will let you see work-in-progress images, read my thoughts about what I’m working on, and vote on what I post next. Higher level tiers get a monthly sketch or even custom art or writing!
It’s been one of my most popular designs and now it’s better than ever!
It was inspired by a tweet by Ursula Vernon and now it’s got a cool background on many products and more stuff, including masks, aprons, and puzzles (and more) Get this design and many more here: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/40084254
I’ve got a new design up on Argent Whiskers, with more to come. It’s a cool design inspired by the carpets of free time spent in arcades, bowling alleys, theaters, and skating rinks. Get it on everything from masks to socks and be covered head to toe in 80s awesomeness.
I’m going to talk about how I use Calibre to organize all my files for tabletop rpgs. If you don’t know, Calibre is a program for organizing ebooks that’s available for PC, Mac, Linux, and even as a portable version. I’m not going to go through everything you can do in it, because it has good documentation and a helpful forum.
It’s great because you can have multiple libraries (I have books, comics, sewing & embroidery patterns, papercraft – those two could be another post – and games). And in each library you can have “virtual libraries” to divide them further, along with saved searches, tagging, and the expected metadata. For my games, I pretty much just use the tags and metadata.
Calibre main menu
I keep my ttrpgs on an external drive so I can work with them from both my laptop and desktop. This works perfectly with Calibre as long as the drive has the same drive letter on all computers. I currently have about 600 files in Calibre with a couple hundred more that I need to go through before putting in there. (There is so much free content out there, folks)
side menu in Calibre, showing Authors, series, formats, Publisher, tags, and saved searches)
My content is split into games (tagged ttrpg, physical game, or system for stuff like Fate or Dungeons and Dragons which has a ton of supplementary content), adventures (mostly dungeons because I love dungeon crawls), and resources (monsters and creatures, tables to randomly pick from, gm-ing tips, and other behind the scene stuff).
Everything gets tagged with where I got it (usually itch.io or drivethrurpg) and a genre if possible. For adventures and resources I just have to tag what it is (dungeon crawl, monsters, NPCs, fantasy, horror, etc) and what system or game it was made for. Games are the easiest to tag, but also get the most tags. Here’s an example:
Dragonhearts cover with the Author and tags.
For games I tag:
genre
Game Jam or similar – like the Bundle for Racial Justice & Equality (2020)
what the gm situation if it’s not the standard gming (gm-optional, gmless, rotating gm)
number of players if it tells me or I can guess (solo, 2 players, etc)
equipment needed (diceless, d6, tokens, index cards, card deck, loads of dice, etc)
themes (collaborative, storytelling, empathy, humor, communication). This is the hardest to tag
info like minimalist, one-page, two-page, supplement, hack, etc
stuff that’s in it like goblins, dragons, crows, rodents, etc. (A game where I can play as a rat is a must-buy)
I also tag stuff as played once I’ve played it, because I have so much that I want to get to.
I only put the main file in Calibre and note in the description that there are multiple files. Character sheets, alternate formats, handouts, gm helpers, and other miscellaneous stuff goes in a folder. Alternative playbooks for things like PbtA games or Troika! get added to Calibre.
I don’t have to have very many folders. Currently I have 40.
Example of some of the folders – side bar shows separate folders for solo games, adventures, and resources, and then folders for specific games. Main area shows the files for Fate Core, including different formats, tutorials, and character sheets.
Aside from that, I get the description from wherever I got the files, add the authors and publisher (often the same name), and a cover if it doesn’t have one. If I’m really good, I mark the date it was published so I know what version I have (sometimes I put the version number in the description too.) I get that from more information drop-down box on itch.io (you may have to hover over the updated section to get the date instead of the number of days ago) or on drivethrurpg, in the right hand side product menu bar.
Here’s a good example of one that’s done (also, an excellent game and I recommend joining its Discord for more resources)
Mausritter with the author, tags, format, publisher, published date, and description shown. This one I actually did make sure the date was correct.
You can see:
this was by Isaac Williams, aka Losing Games.
It takes 3 to 6 players.
It’s fantasy, with mice.
I got it in the Bundle for Racial Justice & Equality on itch.io (although I believe it’s also on drivethrurpg)
It’s an osr (old school renaissance) and SwordDream game.
I’ve played it.
Since it wasn’t tagged otherwise, it needs a gm.
… I didn’t mark the equipment – it basically needs a standard set of 7 rpg dice
It was update in Jun 2020
All in all, it’s pretty easy except for the loads of files I need to do. (I still have 65 folders of stuff to do just from the Bundle for Racial Justice.) Let me know if you have any questions or if you want to see more examples. Also, if you find this helpful, consider buying me a ko-fi
As I said in the first part, Inspiration Pad Pro was designed for RPGs, so it’s very flexible, but limited to keyboard characters (it’s possible to use the HTML entity equivalents, and I did that in the final form of the generator1). I hadn’t made this generator, so this will be more step by step. It should be possible to create generators for parts of speech with different endings, and possibly to derive words from an output (I haven’t done either of those tho.)
The IPA symbol HTML codes can be found here or by looking on each one’s wikipedia page which are linked from the IPA page.
Please note, I’m very much a beginner at this and there are likely to be better ways than I use. Our rules and phonotactics for Maanxmuʃt are:
Way back when I bought a bunch of things to scan and post here. I in fact had put a post category for it. I’m finally getting around to it. I will provide text transcriptions as appropriate.
I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends on Discord, so my dice collection has exploded. (I had some already for random number generation). Between Kickstarters and websites, it’s hard to resist buying MORE.
I’ve got a Redbubble Shop now – Argent Whiskers! Lots of designs, including licensed designs from Ursula Vernon, and you can get them on all sorts of clothes, mugs, stickers, and a lot more. Please check it out!
