Cover art “Moccus” by Stanley Morrison

My First Published Story

Who would have thought anyone’s first-ever short story submission would end up becoming their first published work? I’ve been working on the novel Evil Looks Good for years, and something that I ran off as a fun side project ends up in the limelight.

You can read more about how I took some time off from the novel Evil Looks Good to write a short story called Big Game, and my surprise when it was selected to be published in the anthology, The Blackness Within.

About the Book The Blackness Within Compilation

Apex Publications is proud to announce the release of Stoker Award-nominated editor Gill Ainsworth’s latest anthology, The Blackness Within: Stories of the Pagan God Moccus.

From Africa to Australasia, from Europe to the US, take a terrifying journey led by world-renowned and up-and-coming authors of horror. See how Moccus, the Celtic God of fecundity, brings His barbaric brutality to the twenty-first century.

From: http://www.apexbookcompany.com/the-blackness-within-stories-of-the-pagan-god-moccus/

About the Story Big Game

Big Game is a modern dark fiction story combining corporate espionage, an eerie secluded cabin in the Canada wilderness, the hunting trip of a lifetime, and the Biggest Game of all.

You can read more about my story Big Game at this link.

What does it all mean?

Well, what this means is that I am now officially and forevermore a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!

Now, it’s time to work on the “bestseller” title prefix…

Ordering The Blackness Within:

You can order the paperback of The Blackness Within on Amazon, and the Kindle version is here, last time I checked.

Check out the official Big Game page here on conradzero.com for all the latest info about the story.

The “B” Word

This article is part 1 in a series on author branding.

If you read many books or blog posts about how to succeed as an author, you’ll eventually run into what Randy Ingermanson calls “The B Word” in his Advanced Fiction Writing Newsletter.

That word is Branding, something formerly associated with pressing red-hot metal against cattle’s hindquarters, but branding has evolved into a marketing tool now associated with large companies like Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola and such.  Branding doesn’t just apply to companies anymore. Products and even individuals can have brands too.

You don’t really have full control over your brand, but you do have influence. There are tons of books and websites out there that can help you discover and establish your own brand. But it isn’t rocket science. This series of blog posts will outline aspects, benefits and tactics of branding that you can use to improve your career as an author.

What Is A Brand?

Brand has been defined in many ways:

• “The perceived emotional corporate image as a whole“
• “…what your company stands for and what it is known for“
• “The identity of a specific product, service, or business.“
• “How we market ourselves to others.“
• The “promise” your product/company/self makes to the customer

Seriously. Why not just leave the title off, then his name wouldn't be so squished?

In essence, brand is how people label you, an important trait for authors to have. Authors already have the built-in labels provided by Genre, but Brand is much more than just where your books can be found in the library.  Randy Ingermanson calls it “The set of expectations the reader has when they see your name on the cover.”

Stephen King is a brand. You have a good idea what you’re getting when you buy a book that says Stephen King on the cover. Many people will buy a book simply because it has Stephen King’s name on the cover. Publishers know this. On the cover of the book, The Dark Half, Stephen King’s name is actually larger than the title of the book!

Authors who break their established branding can get into trouble with their audience. For example, Anne Rice readers were dismayed by her drastic changes in stance on fan fiction and religion.

Brand Or Be Branded

Many indie authors evolve into a brand, just letting their brand happen over time. This is like trying to grow a garden by simply not mowing your yard. And it’s going to look awfully similar to everyone else who did the same thing. Your brand shouldn’t just reflect you and your writing, it should highlight what is special about you and your writing. It shouldn’t just place you within a genre, it should make you stand out within it. There’s plenty of room for you next to Stephen King in the Horror genre, but if your brand looks, feels and smells exactly like Stephen King… why would people buy your book when they can get Stephen King, a brand they already know and trust?

It isn’t hard to come up with a unique brand that fits your writing style. You might do this if you are planning to self-publish, or if you think it might be an attractive selling point for a publisher. All other things being equal, an author with a clear brand in place might be more attractive to a publisher than an author who simply lets their brand grow wild.

Publishers know how important author branding is, and if they sign an author, they will create a brand for them if they don’t already have one. Some publishers are a brand themselves. For example, the Dummies series of books by Wiley are a brand, and authors who write for them all get assimilated into that brand. They all have the same characteristics, cover, layout, etc.

Publishers brand authors according to a market niche where their books are likely to sell best. They can also brand authors INTO a market, whether their writing fits or not. I call this False Branding.

False Branding

An example of false branding. Warning: Contents are not remotely as cool as you think.

Letting the market (or the publisher) push you into a brand can make your sales skyrocket. It can also make your sales tank. More than one Horror or Urban Fantasy author has been pushed into the Paranormal Romance genre because it’s the latest Red Hot Genre. More than one entrepreneur has tried to come across as a professional [fill in the blank] to cash in on the Next Big Thing. But what if that brand is not really representative of their work?

Readers aren’t stupid. Just because you wrote a book on a subject doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about. Just because two werewolves fuck in your story doesn’t make your novel a Paranormal Romance. Try it and reviewers will slay you, your book, and your future sales. Your author brand needs to accurately reflect your work.

Take Molly Hatchet for example. One look at a Molly Hatchet album cover and you think you’re getting some kind of Epic, Apocalyptic, Doom Metal, but listen to it, and you get a watered down version of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Completely false branding. (More accurately, a false image. I’ll explain the image portion of brand later in this series.)

There’s plenty of authors out there who could be known as The Molly Hatchet of Authors, by releasing books with cover art, cover copy, endorsements and blurbs that make a promise to readers that the writing can’t back up. Like the wise man said in Sucker Punch, “Don’t ever write a check with your mouth that you can’t cash with your ass.”

You, Branded

So how to you take your own brand by the horns and define a workable brand for yourself?

• Learn about branding- Learn what you can and cannot control. Read about branding and . See below for links to the rest of this series on author branding to learn more.
• Analyze the branding of other authors – Research other authors, both in your genre and not, and see how they are using the different aspects of branding.  What works? What doesn’t? What are they doing well? How are they doing it? What are they lacking?
• Research the market – Look at what others are doing in aggregate within your genre. What parts of the branding are expected for your genre and what parts are assumed? Are you seeing a lot of copycat branding? Is there a place for you to fit into the genre, yet stand out from the crowd?
• Research yourself – Put on your publishers glasses or your audience glasses and examine yourself from their point of view. Look at your writing, graphics, website, blog posts, social media, comments, and photos and see where your brand is right now.
• Decide on your own author brand – How do YOU want to be perceived as an author? Who is your audience and what do they want in an author? What makes YOU and your writing different from other authors?
• Adjust your brand accordingly – Emphasize the aspects of branding that fit the brand you want to portray and minimize or cut whatever does not fit the brand you want.

The Author Brand Series

This is the first in a series of blog posts about the different elements of author branding. In the rest of the series, I’ll give examples of how myself and others use them, and how you can use them to create a brand for yourself as an author.

1. An Introduction To Author Branding
2. Image
3. Genre
4. Quality, Cost, Speed and Consistency
5. Content, Keywords and Tone
6. The Company You Keep

I’ve decided to take part in WordCount’s Blogathon 2011:

The WordCount Blogathon is an annual event that brings together professional writers and anyone else with a blog for the purpose of improving what they do by posting to their respective blogs every day during the month of May.

http://michellerafter.com/the-2011-wordcount-blogathon/

My goals for the blogathon are meager. I was already considering trying to post here more often, and this is a timely opportunity to motivate myself. Plus, it has the added advantages of community-building and SEO. The real challenge is going to be coming up with useful and/or entertaining things to blog about each and every day for the next month.

Looking back over the last seven years of posts here at conradzero.com I noticed a shift away from short, entertaining posts to longer, more informative ones. (Actually, the short posts have been outsourced to twitter and facebook.) For this blogathon, I’m going to try releasing more moderate-sized posts, or perhaps break large posts into a series, while trying to keep the same proportion of entertainment/information. Infotainment? Regardless, I’ll do my best to remain a source of useful information and inspiration for other authors, especially those writing dark fiction.

Today is the last day to sign up, and you have until 11PM Pacific time. Best of luck to all the Blogathon participants!

Update: List of all WordCount Blogathon 2011 participants can be found here.

Yours Darkly,

Take some Ninjas. Add some Aliens. Plot? We don’t need no stinkin’ plot! THEY FIGHT! That’s the plot.

Some wire stunts, fake blood, lots of body parts, a dash of tentacle porn, and you get Alien vs Ninja:

6UHP3YWE6EY3

One more step towards SkyNet taking over the world?

Not exactly.

When the creators of the IPV4 protocol got together and decided to assign every internet-connected device a unique number, they figured 4.2 BILLION numbers would be plenty. They never thought we would hook microwaves, mobile devices and pets up to the interwebs.

Because we’re all such IP hogs, the existing system is predicted to run out of numbers sometime in 2011. Thankfully,  someone more clever than you or I decided to tack a few more numbers onto the existing schema:

While IPv4 allows 32 bits for an Internet Protocol address, and can therefore support 2³² (4,294,967,296) addresses, IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses, so the new address space supports 2¹²⁸ (approximately 340 undecillion or 3.4×1038
) addresses

From https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/IPv6

I’ve never heard of an undecillion before, but it sounds like we have enough IP numbers that we can start putting RFID tags on EVERYTHING. Imagine never losing anything again? Where did all your black socks go? Just look them up on Google Maps!

Can. Not. Wait.

The only thing that disturbs me is that anyone smart enough to improve this system should be able to count from 4 to 5 without much trouble. What the hell happened to IPV5?

Test your IPV6 compatibility

If you’re the kind of person who worries about large-scale changes, there is a handy online test to check your compatibility to the new system:

Go here to test IPV6 and see if you’re ready for the change.

Click the image to go to Malwarebytes.org

True, there’s nothing exciting about computer security programs, but you don’t use them because they’re exciting. You use them to PREVENT exciting. Losing your manuscripts to malware (short for ‘malicious software’) is very exciting, and it’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid by loading programs like Malwarebytes AntiMalware.

I know, the name is awful. But the program is FREE for personal use, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Malwarebytes (along with an antivirus scan) is my standard “PC Tune-up” if someone complains that their computer is Slow or exhibiting strange behavior.

What is Malware?

You might say, “But Zero, I have an awesome antivirus program! Why do I need anything else?” It’s important to understand that AntiVirus programs protect against Viruses. Malware is a larger category.

You can read the full definition of Malware on wikipedia.org. Note that Malware includes rootkits, trojan horses, worms, backdoors, and specific kinds of viruses intended to allow others to gain access to your computer. Your antivirus program isn’t looking for all these things. Some antivirus programs (McAfee, Symantec, etc.) add malware detection as an option, but MalwareBytes is still a good ‘second opinion’ for any existing security software.

How to Use Malwarebytes AntiMalware

Using Malwarebytes AntiMalware is simple.

1 – Download/install

Go to malwarebytes.org. Download the free version, and install.

2 – Update the program.

Use the “update” button, and repeat updates until you get the message that you have the latest version. Some version updates require a complete uninstall/reinstall of the program and a reboot of the computer.

Malwarebytes gets new updates often, sometimes several times a day, so if you have to re-run the scan, make sure to check for updates again.

3 – Run a full scan of the local drives.

This could take some time, especially if you have larger/multiple drives or a slower system. If you are in a hurry, close down everything else running on the system and raise the priority level of the scan using Task Manager.

The first time Malwarebytes runs it always finds something. Don’t be disturbed if you see cookies, or Potentially Unwanted Settings listed.

4 – Remove All Selected.

If you like, browse through the list of malware found during the scan. This info is saved in the Log section for future reference, so there’s no need to write it down.

Click the “Remove All Selected” button. This will delete/uninstall the listed malware programs and settings.

5 – Repeat as Necessary

This is important: If AntiMalware found anything odd, especially anything like a trojan horse, malware, rootkit or anything fishy, repeat this process from step 2 -  “update the program” and keep repeating steps 2-5 until the scan comes back clean.

Repeat scanning until you see this message.

Problems?

There are several problems you can run into:

• Malwarebytes AntiMalware won’t install, run or update
• It shuts down and completely disappears during a scan
• The same malware keeps showing up over and over in scans, despite being ‘removed’.

In these cases, you probably need to start your computer in Safe Mode with Networking and repeat the steps. If you don’t know how to do that, call your techy-friend. You know the one. Or call me, I have reasonable rates – you just have to come to one of my book signings, act like a deranged stalker fan, and buy at least one of my books while raving about how great it’s going to be. Not that you weren’t going to do that anyway.

Or you can check Malwarebytes awesome support forums. Check to see if someone else had a problem like yours, and what they did to solve it. Or post your issue and it won’t take long for someone to reply with steps to take to resolve your problem.

Extra Credit

If you like Malwarebytes AntiMalware, please consider purchasing the paid version from their online store. The paid version acts more like an anti-virus application. It starts up with your operating system and runs in the system tray, actively monitoring for malware, and actively updating itself in the background so you are always up to date with the latest protection. The free version only launches/updates/runs manually.

Paying for Malwarebytes AntiMalware not only supports a high-quality application, it also gives Malwarebytes programmers money so they can buy my latest novel. So you’re really helping us both out.

The Great Software For Great Authors Series

As both an I.T. guy and a writer, I get exposed to many different computer programs that are useful not only to computer users, but authors in particular.  So I created the Great Software for Great Authors series, where I discuss software that can help authors in their quest to be more organized, efficient and successful.

So here’s the disclaimer. I’ve used all the software listed in this series, and found it useful enough to give it a hearty recommendation for my fellow authors, as well as the Conrad Zero Ubercool Seal of Approval. I’m not related in any way to the software companies I endorse, and they have not paid me for my recommendation. There may be affiliate links in this blog post and website which provide a token fee to me if people buy the software after clicking through from my links, but this is my recommendation only and not an advertisement.

I love to hear from other authors. If you agree/disagree with my opinion or have an alternative recommendations, please post them in the comments section.

Seriously, would *you* write a bad review about these girls?

Can Hot Chick Fight Scenes Triumph Over An Abysmally Dark, Female-Unfriendly Plot?

Full Disclosure: I liked the movie Sucker Punch before I saw it in the theater. Here’s the invitation I sent to my friends to catch the release last weekend:

Sucker Punch is out, and if you don’t want to see it then you are gay. And I don’t mean “gay” as a derogatory term, I mean gay as in homosexual. And even then, you should still want to see it.

The preview for Sucker Punch was completely accurate. So if you saw it, you should have a good idea of what you’re getting into: hot chicks in skimpy outfits and glittery make-up kicking ass against dragons, monsters, robots, and steampunk nazi stormtroopers.

Sells itself, eh?

Needed: Fanboy Fan Reviews

Unfortunately, the opening weekend of Sucker Punch turned into open season on writer/director/producer Zach Snyder. Making fun of Sucker Punch turned into a pissing-contest-media-frenzy that I haven’t seen since Gigli was released. Steven Rea from the Philadelphia Inquirer called Sucker Punch “hands-down the most nightmarishly awful film of the year.” Ty Burr at the Boston Globe called it “Inception for dummies.” Steven Zeitchik at the LA Times highlighted the bad reviews, which he suggested were reaching ”critical mass.”

Funny thing was, many of the reviewers spent so much time sensationalizing the violence and writing clever derogatory remarks that they forgot to actually review the movie. Many reviews I read dismissed anything good about the film by attaching the words “teen” or “fanboy.”

Guess what? Teens and fanboys go to see movies too. Lots of them, in fact. So do fangirls, so maybe it’s time we dropped the gender and just called them what they are: fans. To say that fans will like the movie isn’t much of a review, is it? In fact, for a reviewer to say that fans will like the movie and that they don’t like it tells us more about the movie reviewers than the movie they were supposed to be reviewing.

I ignored them and saw Sucker Punch anyway. Truth is, the film wasn’t actually as bad as the professionals insisted it was. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t movie-of-the-year by any stretch of the imagination, but users are currently rating it 6.8 on imdb.com and 6.6 on metacritic which doesn’t sound “nightmarishly awful” to me. It was also the #2 film over the weekend (coming in just behind Diary of a Wimpy Kid) pulling in 19 million dollars.

So in my continuing quest for un-professionalism, I’m going to give you a real movie review. Unlike the professionals, I’m going to tell you what actually punches and what actually sucks about Sucker Punch.

What Punches about Sucker Punch

Epicness

As far as hot chicks in skimpy outfits and glittery make-up kicking ass against dragons, monsters, robots, and steampunk nazi stormtroopers goes, Sucker Punch delivers. The movie was written, directed and produced by Zach Snyder, who also directed Watchmen and the ab-laden bloodfest/masterpiece 300. All the good things about the movie 300 are here in Sucker Punch, just replace Washboard-Spartan-Abs with Glittery-Lolita-Eyes.

The costumes, lighting, and special effects were all well done. Like 300, Sucker Punch has a preposterous number of over-the-top fight scenes, but they were so grand, so epic, and so well choreographed/filmed/edited that I didn’t get bored watching them. Sucker Punch’s biggest asset is that Zach Snyder knows how to move the camera through a scene. What to show and how to show it. What to leave out and how to leave it out. His taste in music isn’t bad either.

And seriously, when have you EVER seen a dragon dog-fighting a WWII bomber in a castle courtyard filled with orcs?

Flesh and Blood = Makeup To Cover A Bad Plot

Under the hood, Sucker Punch might actually be more complicated remake of 300 – a series of epic, flesh-revealing fight scenes barely held together by a hint of a plot that simply won’t stand up to any analysis. Not that this is a bad thing, because there’s nothing worse than epic action scenes crowded out by an overbearing (and bad) plot or contrived dialog. Zach Snyder tries to cover his ailing plot with a thick layer of flesh, blood and CG.

Despite a weak plot, Sucker Punch has some clever plot devices. The opening montage sets the audience up with a lot of story in a very short period of time, and all without using a word of dialog. The same technique was used at the start of Watchmen. The feeling is more akin to a music video than a movie. Also, the multiple levels of reality layering Baby Doll’s world (similar to the recent movie Inception) were refreshing and well filmed, complete with color and costume changes to help the audience process how far down we’ve gone into Baby Doll’s abstract fantasy/reality.

Non-Hollywood Ending

I won’t ruin the ending here, but I can say that the twist at the ending of Sucker Punch was a surprise. It actually takes the standard Hollywood formula ending, and gives it the finger. This alone would give movie reviewers enough reason to hate it.

Zack Snyder deserves kudos for having the balls to try this ending, although there were lots of ways this movie could have ended that would have been more satisfying.

What Sucks About Sucker Punch

When Cool becomes Too Kewl

When movies try too hard to be cool, they generally aren’t. Sucker Punch isn’t as pretentious as a Quentin Tarantino film, but it does try really hard to be kewl, which is it’s biggest failing, and no doubt causes reviewers to drop the derogatory version of the word “fanboy.” Much of the pretentiousness in Sucker Punch comes not from bad acting, but a script full of contrived situations that boggle the mind without a hint of an explanation in sight. Who the hell is the Wise Man helping out Baby Doll, and why? Where did Baby Doll’s multiple layers of reality come from? How did so many smoking-hot and non-psychotic chicks end up in an insane asylum together?

And “Baby Doll”? Seriously? The protagonist’s name is “Baby Doll”? Wow. Objectify much?

When Dark becomes Too Dark

Many reviewers called Sucker Punch on its high volume of violence against women, and I have to agree. Good stories need conflict, so it’s common to set up a bad situation for our protagonist to overcome, but Sucker Punch goes too far. There were very few moments that women weren’t being attacked, controlled (by men) or forced to do things against their will (by men).

Speaking of which, did we have to have so many near-rape scenes? And girls being forced to dance and prostitute themselves? Like things weren’t bad enough for them? Despite a PG-13 rating (???) and NO sex scenes or nudity, Sucker Punch still managed to go too far. Parts of the movie are hard to watch, especially the opening montage. And shooting innocent girls in the head just to scare the other girls into submission isn’t funny, or cool, or a necessary part of any movie.

Resolutionlessness

Some wrongs are so bad, they just can’t be righted. Sometimes the story is pushed to such a dark place, there’s no ending that will gratify the audience. Such is the case in Sucker Punch. Did Zach Snyder realize this? Is this why he opted for the anti-Hollywood ending? Did Baby Doll realize this? Is this why she chose the way she did at the end of the movie?

I’m torn about the ending myself. While I’m pleased and impressed that the movie didn’t cop out with some kind of Happily-Ever-After ending, pieces of the story were left hanging. For example, Baby Doll’s evil stepfather never got his due. And there were other ways Baby Doll’s character arc could have resolved that would have been gratifying without resorting to a Disney ending.

And the voice-over at the very end of the movie is just plain silly. People in the audience laughed out loud. Read for yourself:

Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us. And at the same time, things that will never die. Who teaches us whats real, and how to laugh at lies. Who decides why we live, and what we’ll die to defend. Who trains us, and who holds the key to set us free. It’s you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!

From imdb.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/quotes?qt=qt1458130

Executive Summary Review

The flashy fight scenes and revealing outfits in Sucker Punch will amaze in a good way, and the violence against women will amaze in a bad way. Whether you’ll like Sucker Punch (or any movie for that matter) depends on whether the positives outweigh the negatives for you.

If you are able to see the (lame) plot as a device to connect (awesome) fight scenes together, you might forgive Zach Snyder and enjoy the show. If not, then the movie simply won’t be able to raise itself out of its own darkness, and you’ll write it off as a “fanboy’s wet dream” like the professional reviewers did. The ending won’t be the cherry on top, (unless you are sick of Hollywood Happy Endings) although it might just be the nail in Sucker Punch’s coffin for you.

Overall, I liked Sucker Punch more than I liked Season of the Witch, and Faster, two movies that weren’t bad at all. I agree that the situations were a bit childish, and the plot was beyond contrived. But with a little eye-rolling and properly placed restroom breaks, you’ll get more than your fair share of hot chicks in skimpy outfits and glittery make-up kicking ass against dragons, monsters, robots, and steampunk nazi stormtroopers, which is exactly what the trailer of the movie promised. It’s also where Zach Snyder shines. Perhaps someday he’ll realize he should hire a real writer, or switch to making music videos.

Keep your online accounts safe with an uber-secure password that’s easy to remember

You’ve heard me go on and on about how magical it is to have all your stuff up in the great cloud computer in the sky. Evernote. Gmail. SugarSync. Delicious. But if you’re user account has a password like “Jesus” or “Admin” or your kid’s name, you’re asking for someone to access your account. And the kind of person who would try to access your account is the kind of person who is not going to do good things with it.

The good news is that I have a simple method for creating a password that is really easy to remember and really hard to crack. Follow these three simple steps to create your own uber-password that you won’t ever forget.

Step One – Acronym from Song Lyrics

The key to a good password is to use an acronym of a series of words you know and will never forget. Lyrics to your favorite song work great. They are easy to remember, and easy to find if you forget them. Use an older song, one that you’ve heard years ago but still remember, not the latest Justin Bieber fluff that you’ll forget in three weeks. This is important too, use one that you know the melody for. If you can sing or think the melody as you type in the song lyrics, then it’s even easier to remember.

An eight character password is the minimum I would recommend, but we can add some extra characters in step two, so anything six words or longer should work fine.

Simply make a direct acronym out of the lyrics. Here’s an example:

Every Day Is A Winding Road becomes – ediawr

For just a little more work, we’ll get an even better password. Just change the lyrics to suit yourself. Making it personal or funny will help you remember it. For example, the Talking Heads lyrics “I’ve Got A Girlfriend That’s Better Than That” becomes “I’ve Got A Password That’s Better Than That” and the acronym becomes:

I‘ve Got A Password That’s Better Than That = igaptbtt

Remember, sing out the melody as you type the acronym. This will help you to remember it.

Step Two – Add Numbers and Punctuation

Adding numbers, upper/lower case characters and punctuation to your password make it much much more secure. One way to do this is with the hacker-speak language L337.

L337

L337 is a cipher created by replacing letters with characters, symbols or punctuation that resemble the original letters. For Example, “L337″ itself converts to “LEET” (as in elite) A mirror image of the 3′s become E’s and it isn’t hard to imagine the 7 as a leaning T with one side trimmed off. A’s become 4′s, G’s become 9′s etc… Once you get used to it, you can read L337 text just like it was normal text, but it looks like gibberish to outsiders.

You can convert just a couple of the characters to numbers/punctuation or search “L337 translators” on the net and you’ll find plenty. I found one here: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet and here’s what I got when I entered the acronyms from step one:

• ediawr becomes 3Ð14wr
• igaptbtt becomes 194p7b77

Personally, I’d skip the foreign characters, because you’ll have to figure out how to type them in, and some websites might not accept them in a password. Also, you’ll want to get some punctuation in there, so depending on your acronym, a direct translation to L337 might not work for you.

DIY

Taking a tip from our L337 friends, let’s hand-pick a couple characters in the acronym to convert. Change some characters to upper/lower case.  and/or simply add punctuation somewhere in the password:

• ediawr becomes Edi@wr!! (Here changed the “a” to an @, capitalized the first letter and added two exclamation points to the end so the password is now 8 characters long)
• igaptbtt becomes  i6&ptbTT# (I changed the G to a 6, changed the A to an &, last two letters are upper-case, and I added a # to the end.)

There are some websites that won’t let you start passwords with a punctuation character, but make sure you get at least one punctuation mark in there someplace. It really makes the password much more secure.

Step Three – Customize for Each Service

Even our easy password Edi@wr!! is pretty good, but we’re not quite done yet.

Sadly, you cannot use a single password for all your logins. Well, you can, but you shouldn’t. One rogue sysadmin with lots of time on his hands and some free hacking tools could still crack your password and try it out on other sites. Or if someone saw you enter your password, or it somehow leaked, you’d have to go change every password for every site you use. Ick. It’s far better to use a unique password for every different site/service you use.

Calm down, I know you’re saying, “But Zero! I just made up the bestest password ev-ar! I can’t make up a new one for every site I visit! I’ll never remember them all….”

Fear not. With just a slight modification, your awesome password will become unique for every site. Simply add a letter or two that references the site or service you are logging into:

• Edi@wr!! becomes Edi@wr!!d when we log into delicious. Note I added a “d” to end of the password for delicious.com
• Use Edi@wr!!g for logging into G-mail.
• Use Edi@wr!!w for logging onto your computer at work. I added “w” for work, but you could use the first letter of the company name.
• i6&ptbTT! from step two becomes e-i6&ptbTT! for e-mail. Notice I added “e-” to the start of the password.
  

Welcome to the Uber-Password

You now have a method for creating uber-passwords that are unique for each site you visit, really really difficult to crack, and really really easy for you to remember.

Disclaimer: DO NOT use the passwords I created in this blog post. Hopefully, I don’t have to tell you why. Make up your own, and then share them in the comments below.

Just kidding. Really. Don’t share your passwords in the comments below. Credit card numbers, sure, but not your passwords.

Electronic Arts and Visceral Release New Chapter of Horror Sci-Fi Adventure

You start Dead Space 2 wearing a straitjacket. You couldn’t wield a weapon if you had one. Wanna live? Then mash the RUN key and run for your f**ing life, while hideous monsters called necromorphs chase you down, each of them eager to take your body apart in high definition. Good luck.

Dead Space 2 adds to the list of Electronic Arts (EA) Games I’ve raved about (namely Mass Effect and Dragon Age) that make EA the MGM of Video Games. These are more than just video games, they make you feel like the lead character in a movie. The level of detail in every aspect of the gameplay is sick. In a good way.

I just completed the game, and the folks at Visceral should be proud. They really did their homework. Check out this article from Wired that covers their disturbing analysis of anatomy. The writers spin an intriguing story, and the game designers know the tricks of pacing and timing. The musical score would give Howard Shore goosebumps, and I was pleased to hear Russian Circles contributing some audio kick-ass to the soundtrack. Dead Space 2 has an engaging plot, puzzles, environments, characters, conflicts and complications that distract you from the horror, and then… Well, let’s just hope you have a change of underwear handy.

Those familiar with shooters like Doom 3 are in for a surprise. There’s no pause button here. Browse through your inventory for too long, and your body parts are likely to become inventory for something else. Ammo and weapons are scarce, so you can’t just shoot at everything that moves. You eventually inherit a plasma cutter that’s about as dangerous as large Swingline Stapler. You’ll scavenge for clips to reload it, and you better make every shot count. No spray-and-pray here, Choirboy.

No more gentle deaths, either. No more, “Oh I’m floating up into the sky, looking down at my body! How peaceful! Is there a tunnel?” Trust me, watching yourself get pummeled, crushed, dismembered, skewered, decapitated by necromorphs or chopped in half by an airlock is not for the squeamish. One screwup, and you’ll get a lesson in internal anatomy: yours.

And just see if you can make it through a mini-game of running a drill press into your own eye. You need a steady hand for this one. In fact, you probably won’t get it right the first time, and even if you get it right and “win” it still looks painful.

Instead of downplaying the gruesomeness of the game, EA and Visceral Games embrace the horror. Check out www.yourmomhatesthis.com to see Moms’ reactions to this game. Marketing Genius.

More of the Same?

I won’t lie, Dead Space 2 is simply an extended version of the original Dead Space with a multiplayer option and some general improvements. You play the same character, Issac Clarke, and your story picks up several months after the end of events in Dead Space 1. I recognized plenty of graphics textures and sounds from the original game, as well as many of the monsters and weapons. Health monitor, stasis, suits, stores, benches, power nodes, upgrades and more are all straight out of the first game.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The original game was top-notch, and 2 is as good if not better. It’s safe to say that if Dead Space didn’t put you in the loony bin, you need Dead Space 2.

So What’s New?

Multi-horror… er, I mean Multi-player

Dead Space 2 adds in the ability to play with/against others online. I dig the occasional multi-player mayhem, but I certainly did not buy Dead Space 2 to play with/against others. The multiplayer option of Dead Space 2 seems like an afterthought to compete with L4D2 or cave in to fanboy demands, very similar to the way F.E.A.R. handled it.

I’d gladly trade in the multiplayer component of Dead Space 2 for pretty much anything else. More content in the single-player version, or a reduced price. Maybe they could sell the multiplayer component as a separate add-on for people who actually want it?

Zero G x 360

Dead Space 1 had a short section of Zero Gravity, but all you could do was jump straight across the room. In Dead Space 2, you have micro-thrusters built into your suit, so you can maneuver around in zero gravity. The controls are intuitive and you can press “Z” to reorient yourself to the floor. Zero G is unsettling all by its self, but when you add in 3-D 0-G puzzles, traps, necromorphs and a fricking countdown timer that shows how much air you have left before you DIE… well, the results are uberharrowing.

No time for posing, gotta go decapitate some necromorphs.

Story 2.0

The story from Dead Space 1 continues in the single-player version of Dead Space 2. You wake up in an insane asylum long after the events on board the USG Ishimura, and you have no memory what’s happened since then. The military wants you dead for reasons unknown. Religious zealots want you alive for reasons to horrible to mention. There really isn’t anyone to trust, not even yourself, since your exposure to the artifact has left you with hallucination scenes of your dead girlfriend that are possibly the most frightening part of the game.

Oh, and let’s not forget the necromorphs. Lots and lots of necromorphs, who want everything dead. Including you.

Especially you.

Weapons of Gross Destruction

There’s your old friends the line gun and plasma cutter, the assault rifle (my primary weapon), and the force rifle and flamethrower which are made for swarms of necromorphettes.  But one of the new kids on the block is the Javelin gun, which pins bad guys right to the wall. Gotta love that rag-doll physics engine. Use the line gun to sever creatures legs to slow them down, or their arms to limit their attacks, or their heads to limit their lifespan.

Ah yes, and you stomp on corpses to loot them, crushing them into bloody bits. Genius.  And the sound is spot on. [Editor's Note: How do you know this?]

In fact, anything you can pick up is a weapon: chairs, magazines, plants, debris… What the hell are all these long, metal spikes laying around for? Heh. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any more disgusting, use your telekinesis power to pick up and hurl body parts as weapons.

Breadcrumbs 2.0

Never thought I’d be comfortable playing an RPG without a map, but the stellar ‘breadcrumbs’ feature from Dead Space made me a believer. Just press a button, and a line on the floor shows you which way to go. No more getting lost or turned around. No more pulling up maps that take you out of the game.

In Dead Space 2, the breadcrumbs feature gets an upgrade. Now you can also use it to find the nearest store, game save location or upgrades bench.

Opportunities for Improvement

Weapons Improvement Matrix

I like the idea of using power nodes to upgrade your equipment, but whoever thought up the weapons improvement matrix should be shot with their own line gun. Power nodes aren’t handed out like Pez, you gotta work for them. Plugging power nodes into a matrix where they don’t actually increase weapon stats is a poor return-on-investment. While you can reallocate your power nodes, it’s still frustrating to have to pick some arbitrary upgrade path just to improve the features you want. Please. Either one upgrade per power node, or make them cheaper/more available.

EA Download Manager = Way Too Little, Way Too Late

Dead Space 2 comes bundled with an optional utility called “EA Download Manager”. Beware. This is simply a poor knockoff of Steam, a utility created by Valve that was released over a year ago and is Far Far Superior:

• Steam works with almost all game companies. EA Download Manager connects you to the EA store, which only sells EA Games. You can actually buy Dead Space 2 through Steam, but you can’t buy Blade Kitten through EA Download Manager. Nyah.
• Steam software keeps your installation media and keys in the cloud, and keeps your game software updated in the background. EA Download Manager only updates EA Games. Supposedly. It didn’t show Dead Space 2 after I installed it, even though that’s the game it came bundled with. WTF?
• Steam offers in-game voice chat and a picture uploader.
• Steam offers social networking. You can find your friends and see what they’re playing, and the lobby feature lets you gang up and hang out ‘backstage’ to make sure everything is working before launching into the game.
• Steam tracks stats and achievements.
• Steam did it first, and does it better.

Business 101 – if you want people to switch to your product, you have to offer something the existing competition DOES NOT OFFER. No one wants to run two gaming clients in the background, and no one’s going to ditch all their existing Steam friends, achievements, and purchased games just so they can run your limited knockoff.

The only thing EA Download Manager might be useful for is updating your EA game software. But shouldn’t this ability should be left built into the game? Don’t separate a necessary component from the game, connect it to your online store and call it a fucking feature.

Usability vs Piracy

The video game industry is still struggling to strike a balance between PC game accessibility and protection against piracy. Obviously, the game makers can’t just leave the game unlocked, but they also can’t have you calling in to their office with a note signed by your mother each time you want to play. Dead Space 2 hits you up for e-mail, username and password each time you start up. Yes, even to play the single-player version. Annoying, but you can cancel past that if you just want to play the single-player version.

Sadly, if that’s what it takes to make the game companies comfortable releasing games to the PC market, then I won’t bitch too loudly about it. Of course, these copy protection schemes doesn’t stop people from breaking the games and dropping them on torrents. Yes, I could probably get Dead Space 2 for free, but I don’t want game companies to drop the PC market for the console market. Notice that Red Dead Redemption is NOT available for PC, which is a shame. The way I see it, my money goes to a good cause, and is also a vote to keep game companies interested in the PC market.

Executive Summary: UberHorror + UberAdventure = UberAwesome

Dead Space 2 is a disgustingly gruesomely horrific masterpiece sure to give you paranoia, high blood pressure, a nervous tic, seizures, a heart attack, and (if you survive all that) post-traumatic stress disorder. In other words, bloody awesome fun, and worthy of the Conrad Zero UberCool Seal of Approval.

Backup your Bestsellers and Synchronize your Screenplays Automagically

If you’re a writer, then I’ll bet your stomach ties in a knot every time you hear of a hard-drive failure or a virus that corrupts data. You put lots of time into writing that epic saga, and you know how much work you stand to lose if it’s lost forever and you are forced to start over.

You know you have to back up your data.

If you use multiple computers to access your writing files, the problem gets bigger. No one knows when the Muse may give chase, and you may find yourself using several different computers (Home, Work, Laptop, Mobile, Etc…) even on the same day. You need the current version of your manuscript accessible, no matter where you are, and no matter which computer you’re on. You could lose hours of work because you started working on (or saved over) the wrong version of your novel-in-progress. I know, because I’ve done it. It’s no fun comparing two Word documents side by side, trying to figure out which one has the most current edits.

Sometimes a backup isn’t good enough. You need something that keeps files both backed up, and up to date on all your computers.

You need your data synchronized.

Automatic for the Authors

The key is automation. If you automate the process of backup/sync, then you don’t have to think about it anymore. I don’t have room in my brain for all the massive plots and deep characters I try to write about, much less file-backup routines.  Thankfully, there are many softwares and services available to work in the background and keep things backed up automagically.

For years, I’ve used Microsoft’s amazingly underrated Mesh technology to keep my data backed up and synced across multiple computers. However, in spring of 2011, Microsoft Mesh will no longer support the Windows XP operating system, so I no longer support Microsoft Mesh. If all your computers are running Windows Vista or newer you should check it out.

If you only need a backup solution, you might check with your internet service provider. Some ISP’s offer free online backup utilities. (I know Qwest offers 2 GB of free online storage for their customers.) This might be all you need, especially if you only use one computer. Pro users looking for data security and encryption should check out Carbonite. But these are just backup solutions. If you need to sync files between multiple computers, there’s a better way. In fact, there’s several better ways, but I’m going to tell you about the two most popular.

SugarSync vs Dropbox

There are many companies out there providing online file backup/storage/sharing services: Mozy.com, Box.net, Amazon’s S3, and even bizarre products like Pogoplug abound, but the two big names currently tossed around online regarding file sync are SugarSync and Dropbox. Dropbox is getting rave reviews, but I tested them both extensively and found that SugarSync was better in many ways.

Website Info

Trying to find info about Dropbox on the Dropbox website was not only frustrating, but actually impossible. The Dropbox.com website is nothing but a funnel, with all paths leading eventually to a useless video that tells you what Dropbox does. I already know what it does, that’s why I went there. I wanted to know about file size limits, bandwidth limits, versioning, supported platforms and more, but all I could find was that condescending video.

Do you know where I finally found info on Dropbox? On SugarSync.com! Click on the product comparison chart to see SugarSync vs. all their competition, including Dropbox.

FREE Storage Space

The pricing and storage limits of Dropbox and SugarSync shift around more than the time changes in a Jagged Spiral song, but they both offer a limited amount of FREE storage, and I know that FREE should be well within most author’s budgets. Currently, SugarSync offers 5GB for free, vs Dropbox’s 2GB. For many authors, this might be more than enough. But if you need more space and have a couple bucks a month to spare,  you get more space for less money on SugarSync.

Pricing

Here’s how the pricing stacks up as of Feb 2011:

Sugarsync:

• 5GB = Free
• 30GB = $4.99 / mo or $49.99 /year
• 60GB = $9.99 /mo or $99.99 /year
• 100GB = $14.99 /mo or $149.99 /year
• 250GB = $24.99 /mo or  $249.99 /year

Dropbox:

• 2GB = Free
• 50GB = $9.99 /mo
• 100GB = $19.99 /mo

This storage and pricing will probably change in the next thirty seconds, but the price per GB of storage will only decrease over time as hard drive space becomes less expensive.

File Selection

Screenshot of SugarSync in action. Note the little green check marks that let my know my files are synced.

Another difference between the two programs is that SugarSync will let you add any folder from your computer to the sync, while Dropbox has one and only one folder for sync. SugarSync’s interface for adding folders to your sync is clunky, but I prefer it over the One-Sync-Folder-To-Rule-Them-All mentality of Dropbox.

SugarSync adds a context menu to Windows Right-Click, but it’s close to worthless. Both programs put an icon in the system tray, so you can get at the programs that way, but I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait for a better interface that really integrates into the operating system.

Once these programs are set, they both work the same way. The status of any file or folder is shown by an overlay on the corresponding icon.

Online Access

Once your files are synced up to SugarSync or Dropbox, you can access them through the internet, via the respective websites. Just login and you can browse through your files, download, upload, delete and manage your filesharing with others.

File Sharing

Both SugarSync and Dropbox let you share your data from the online storage with others.

Both Dropbox and SugarSync allow you to share folders, and folders can only be shared with other users, meaning the person you share a folder with has to create a Dropbox/SugarSync account to view the files in the folder.

SugarSync users can choose whether the share-ees can read-only or if they can modify the files within the folder. This allows for fully collaborative projects, which works great for authors who want to share manuscripts with co-authors, editors, agents, or pre-readers.

SugarSync also allows you to share a single file from your online storage out to the world. Dropbox does not have this ability. Sharing a single file in SugarSync creates a link that you can distribute via e-mail or posting to the web with their handy “Post to Facebook” and “Post to Twitter” buttons. Then others can download the file using that link. The people you share with can only download the file, and the link remains active until you disable it.

Versioning

SugarSync retains the last five versions of all your files, meaning the last 4 changed versions of that file are kept on SugarSync’s website. So if you deleted all that backstory in a drunken rage and saved the changes… guess what? You can still get your old file back!

Dropbox stores versions differently. They save unlimited versions of your file, no matter how many changes you make, but versions are deleted after they become thirty days old. So if you don’t change your file for thirty days, all the revisions are gone. Dropbox offers a “Pack Rat” service which keeps ALL revisions of your files. The Pack Rat service can only be added to a paid account, and it isn’t clear from their lame website if there is an extra charge for this.

Depending on what kind of work you do, you might prefer Dropbox’s versioning system over SugarSync. As a writer, I think SugarSync uses a better method of storing versions. If a file got wrecked last time you saved it, you won’t find out until the next time you open it. But that could be months later. In that case, SugarSync would save your ass, but Dropbox would not, unless you added their optional “pack rat” service.

Support

I tested the support for Dropbox and SugarSync by approaching each with the same simple question:

“Does file versioning use up my storage space? For example, if I have a 1 MB file that has 4 revisions, do those 4 revisions use up 4 MB of my storage?“

SugarSync: Checking their website help, I couldn’t find the answer. Handy e-mail and chat buttons at the top of the page got me through to a tech support chat session easily. The chat window showed 2 customers ahead of me and an estimated wait time of 8 minutes. I waited 14 minutes until an agent came online. The agent was quick to answer my question – versioning does NOT use up storage space.

Dropbox: I took the same question to Dropbox’s help site, and quickly found the answer – versions and deleted items do not count against your storage capacity. Pretending I did not find the answer, I looked for a way to contact a tech support agent. It wasn’t easy, but I did find a form to submit my question. I received a polite and accurate reply two hours later, which verified the info I found. Dropbox also does not count saved file versions against your storage.

The Upshot

The online storage wars are still playing out. Storage space keeps increasing and prices keep decreasing, which means this post might be out of date by the time you read it.  But this is a war where the consumers win.

My recommendation should be obvious – SugarSync has more space for less money with way more features.  The only two reasons you might want to go with Dropbox is that it supports the Linux operating system (SugarSync doesn’t) and Dropbox’s “Pack Rat” feature might interest some authors who want to keep every change they ever made.

But there’s no reason you can’t load both on your computer and get 7GB of free storage space! Try them both and see which service works best for you.  You’re crazy not to take advantage of at least one of them. Get your writings synced up to the cloud, and ditch that sick feeling in your stomach when you hear about hard drive failures and laptop theft.

The Great Software For Great Authors Series

As both an I.T. guy and a writer, I get exposed to many different computer programs that are useful not only to computer users, but authors in particular.  So I created the Great Software for Great Authors series, where I discuss software that can help authors in their quest to be more organized, efficient and successful.

So here’s the disclaimer. I’ve used all the software listed in this series, and found it useful enough to give it a hearty recommendation for my fellow authors, as well as the Conrad Zero Ubercool Seal of Approval. I’m not related in any way to the software companies I endorse, and they have not paid me for my recommendation. There may be affiliate links in this blog post and website which provide a token fee to me if people buy the software after clicking through from my links, but this is my recommendation only and not an advertisement.

I love to hear from other authors. If you agree/disagree with my opinion or have an alternative recommendations, please post them in the comments section.