Technology

I like technology, namely things that make my life more fun or easier.  Helping out with a guild has opened me up to a lot of things I wouldn't have tried otherwise.  I'm hosting a website, managing locally-hosted forums, and I'm Google'ing.

 

A long time ago I set up a guild email through Google (gmail).  It was done for two reasons:

 

1. Give me a buffer between my personal email and all the crazies out there.  If you overload the guild's email with stuff, so what?  I stop using it and open another.

 

2. Be more official when recruiting.  I think "ascentraiding" shows we're serious about what we're doing, more so than say "ohbaby2493".

 

With the addition of other Google features, namely reader and calendar, it's now become my one-stop-shop for doing guild business.  WoWLemmings feeds me all the latest LFG posts for the exact server type and class I'm trying to fill.  Can you say "Never scanning the WoW LFG forums again!!"?

 

The application to apply to our guild is delivered via email.  I email them back to set up interviews.  Once I schedule an interview, I slap it in the calendar and it'll show up in guildie's reader.  If you wanted to sit in on that awesomesauce mage applicant's interview, you know exactly when to be online.  Similarly, for those that are reader-challenged, people can check one link to see the calendar in any browser.  The days events are emailed to the guild account every morning so I don't forget what's planned, either.

 

The phpbb3 forums continue to amaze me.  For one I'm shocked I could set them up myself.  No more paying for add removal or having to stick to a very defined forum setup.  The biggest thing was ditching the admin approval for new accounts.  Our original "free" forums were constantly spammed with account creator bots looking to sell us all kinds of shady products.

 

The ease of swapping templates is also great.  Just HAVING templates to choose from without doing all of the manual code editing is awesome.  And they went up pretty fast.