New Chessboard Puzzle Hint

I got up this morning, worked out, put away the dishes, cleaned the letterbox, fed the cat, took out the trash, showered, got my lunch ready and now I'm bored.  Well, I guess you could say I was bored before, which is why a lot of that stuff got done in the first place.  

I've really got nothing specific to talk about right now except I that I type this waiting for my kid's school to open this morning after a two-hour-delay.  We had a very slight dusting last night.  The roads are bone dry.  Don't get me started.

So I went through the puzzles on the Secret Puzzle Page this morning and I was shocked to discover that I couldn't remember the encoding mechanism I used when I first posted this one over four years ago:

I eventually recalled it but, wow, I really need to write these down or something.  Here are all the hints in ROT-13 format to prevent spoilers:

Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): N pvepyr, ru?
Hint 2 (Posted 01/07/11): Gur svefg yrggre vf 'G'.
Hint 3[Posted 02/05/13]: Guvf fubhyq or rnfl nf pnxr.
Hint 4 (Posted 02/06/15): Rnfl nf cvr, V zrna.

All of the puzzles (and hints and links to the projects associated with the puzzles) can be found in the link in the sidebar on non-mobile devices and at the top of this page on mobile ones.

Think you have an answer?  Post a comment or send me an email.  Good Luck!