Diary of a Network Geek

That’s pronounced like the peanut butter brand, by the way.

Here’s a fun, free way to get into the holiday spirit; make an animated Christmas tree graphic!
Giphy is a site that collects animated GIFs.  It’s an interesting site, but I honestly am not sure how they make money.  In any case, last year at Christmas, they shared this generator that lets you make and share your own, customized animated GIF of a Christmas tree.
Okay, it’s corny, but it’s still fun and…
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Theoretically, if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this month, you should be just about done with your novel.

I’m going to assume this is true and that you’ll want to publish your novel, eventually and that, in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, you’ll want to do it on your own terms.  So, in that spirit, I’m offering you some resources to self-publish your book.

First, here’s a link to CNET’s article Self-Publishing a Book: 25 Things you need to know by David Carnoy.  It’s…
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So, it’s a little early to think that anyone writing a NaNoWriMo novel is done, but I think maybe people could use a break.

Hopefully, you all haven’t given up yet and are still writing.  But, I know it’s a hard slog, so I thought maybe taking a break to think about a cover for your future novel might help keep you inspired enough to make it the rest of the way.  So, I’ll start by sharing a tutorial from Thomas…
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First of all, there are no rules.

No, seriously, this is fiction we’re talking about here, so the rules are what you make them.  At this point, pretty much every “rule” you can think of when it comes to writing fiction has been broken.  For instance, when I was more dedicated to the craft (ie. fresh out of high school), I read a book titled Mister Johnson, which was written in the present tense.  Generally, that’s a “no no” in fiction,…
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Last year, I shared these tools to help people participating in NaNoWriMo and, since it’s that time of year again, I’m going to share them again.

Maybe one year, I’ll be able to get myself together again and give this a try.  Maybe this coming year, I’ll have all my regular posts queued up and ready to go and have a story idea and all the research done and have been practicing my writing and…  Well, maybe.  In any case, until…
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I won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but if you are, here are some tools that might help those of you who are.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which is, according to their website, “… a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.”  If you’ve never heard of it, and would like…
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I don’t have much for you this week.

Seriously, it’s been a long, tiring week and I’m kind of burned out, but I have to work part of the weekend, too, so I’m afraid this week isn’t great.   Basically, I’ve just got one thing, but at least it’s free.
If you like to read, especially magazines, and don’t mind reading online or via an app, then check out Issuu, the free digital publishing platform.  Yes, it’s basically a news stand in digital…
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Or, at least, all robocallers.

So, lately, I’ve been digging through my files, finding links I saved ages ago to share with you, my few loyal blog readers, and I’m the first to admit that it’s been a mixed bag.  Some have been fun.  Some have been lame.  But, this one actually solves a problem for you.

Do you get automated calls?  Maybe you signed up for a catalog ages ago, or maybe you thought that timeshare in Miami was going to…
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Traditionally, I’ve tried to give you free stuff on Friday.
This week is no different.

But, I’ll be honest, it’s been a crazy week with budget planning and strategic planning for the next five years at work, so I haven’t really prepared anything special.  And, that means I’ll be digging into my collection of strange links for two totally random freebies for you to enjoy!

First, since I always fool around with designing websites, or at least talk about it a lot, I…
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I feel like I’ve been slacking lately, so this week, I’ve got a free game for you.

Well, at least it’s a free alpha version of the game, which is still in development.
But, they do say that they plan on making it free when it’s finally complete.  The game is called, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, Wings of Saint Nazaire.  It’s a pretty retro space shooter inspired by X-Wing and Wing Commander.  You can see some animated…
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