How I use Notion with Bug Bounty and Pentesting Books

Abdelrhman Allam (sl4x0)
5 min readOct 28, 2022

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Introduction

Hello Guys!👋 In This Article, I will Explain How I use Notion effectively for Taking Notes, Summarising and Reviewing Books for Bug Bounty, and other Pentesting Notes or Books.

So first of all we will use a notion’s function called “Table” or “Database” and It’s like what u imagine, Columns and Rows and within it, we can make a library.

So without further a do let’s start! 😀

Making Table

Open Notion and make a new page by clicking the “Add a page” Button on the left side.

Name it what you want I just simply will name it “Book Shelf”.

Then choose the Table Option for making our new Database from scratch. If you wrongfully choose any other option like Empty, Don’t worry just hit the Backspace Button and it will show again.

After choosing the Table Option Just click the New Database Option on the right side of your screen, You can add an Icon and Cover Picture by simply putting the image link or by Searching on Unsplash for an interesting one.

The Final Result will be like this:

Name Option

Let’s take it column by column.

  • Name: Will be for you Book’s Name Just fill it up with books you want to read, In the future, you can add any book you want. After Filling it with some book’s name it will be like this:

Statue Option

Let’s add a new column and call it “Statue”, You can simply add it by clicking the Plus sign+” on the right side of the tags columns or just simply click on The tags column and edit its name to Statue and choose the type and choose the type of Select.

After that let’s add some options to it like “Reading”, “In List”, “Finished”, and “Next”. These are different statuses for each book you have. Click on Statue then Edit Property then Add an Option. Add the Options we mentioned before and click Enter. Then we can choose a statue for each book we have, an example result will be like this:

Classification Option

Let’s add a new feature called “Classification” and sure it will be the kind of book we read right now, Click again the Plus sign+” to add a new column and select it to the type of “Multi-Select” and name it Classification or anything you want then add some Options Like “API-Security”, “Bug Bounty”, “Red Teaming” .. etc. Then we can choose a class for each book we have, or multiple classes depending on your book category.

Cover Option

Let’s add a new column called “Cover” and from its name will grep the book cover from the internet and add it here.

Click the Plus sign “+” then select Files and Midea, After that Simply change its name to “Cover” or any name you like. Now go search for the book’s cover from google like “bug bounty Bootcamp cover picture”

You will find some Images choose a good one Open it in a new tab and then right-click and choose copy image address.

Goal and Complete Option

Then Put it in The book Cover Option along with the book name and it will be uploaded, Or you can simply download it and then upload it via the upload Option. Later we can view it nicely.

Let’s continuously add new options called “Goal” and “Complete”

  • Goal: the Number of Book Pages
  • Complete: What I was done reading

Click the Plus sign “+” then select Number once call it Goal and the other one Call it Complete

Formula Option

Let’s make a formula that let us know what percentage we complete reading. Click the Plus Sign Again and Choose Formula and Click edit and Paste this code

(prop("Complete") / prop("Goal") >= 1) ? "✅Finished" : (format(slice("◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼", 0, floor(prop("Complete") / prop("Goal") * 10))) + slice("◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻", 0, ceil(10 - prop("Complete") / prop("Goal") * 10)) + " " + format(round(prop("Complete") / prop("Goal") * 100)) + format(empty(prop("Complete")) ? "0%" : "%"))

Now we can see this Beauty:

Last Edited Time Option

Last But not Least we can add Property Called Date to let us know the last time we modified this book notes “It’s good for revising” Click Plus sign and choose Last edited time and choose any data format you like.

Gallery View

Gallery view is the best way to display databases with visual components, like mood boards, office directories, virtual recipe boxes, and more.

Click the Plus sign beside the Table and Choose Gallery

After that Let’s edit it

Make these Options and the results will be like this:

As we put the Books Cover it will appear here. I will put some Covers. Just hit The Table View Again and Put the link of the cover inside the Cover Column by the method mentioned previously.

We can customize the view to be more elegant.

  • Right Click on the Gallery View
  • Click Edit View
  • Show these Options

The Result will Look Like this:

In the Next Part, I will be showing you how to read a book and take notes effectively. Finally, I hope you learned something and if you struggle with anything don’t hesitate to touch me!

Abdelrhman Allam (@sl4x0) / Twitter

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