BrainKing.info - the BrainKing game site knowledge base

Today is the day of no serious work, so I've decided to release only four new smileys. More important events are scheduled for tomorrow:

• Yes, October is over, maybe we should announce a new month action. And there will be one. Closely related to the second point.
• A new membership level will be added.
• The automatic activations of new memberships (paid through PayPal) have been successfully tested, so we will implement the same system for membership renewals and Brains soon.

   

Due to recent (and repeated) issues with the database server, we want to perform several optimizations, software upgrades and database maintenance tasks. In order to make the least possible interruption of the services, the short outage of BrainKing sites is scheduled to Tuesday 31st October 2006, 7:00 a.m. GMT+01:00 because it is the time of the lowest traffic, according to our statistics. The whole operation should not exceed 1 hour.

The previously announced list of translators has been improved by the status of all localizations. It is separated to two categories - short entries (common BrainKing lines) and long entries (game rules, help page answers, user agreement, etc.) and shows the percentages of completed translations. Of course, the English one will always display 100% because it is the base for all other localizations.

All right, this feature should make the image handling improvements completed. If you are a Big Boss of a fellowship, you should see a new link change flag at the top of the fellowship page. Its purpose is obvious, just use it if you want to set a new flag for your fellowship, the process is the same as for profile icons and photos.

And since there is nothing else to say to this subject, I write no more lines today.

Administration and maintenance is one of the worst nightmares of a developer. If he has to spend hours tuning the servers to get the optimal performance or answer tons of e-mail from the users, he would have almost no time left for a real work. Fortunatelly, computers can be kind of smart and do the job themselves, if they are programmed for that. That's what I have done this morning.

You might have noticed that the BrainKing site has been down for several hours today. It was caused by a malfunction of the database server, nothing critical, BrainKing has detected the situation and turned off timeouts, no problem. However, when a new user comes to the site and sees no apparent reason why timeouts don't work, he is confused, sends us an e-mail and we must respond.

The BrainKing's Main Page now contains a message box with the timeout status description. When the scheduled time of reenabling is reached (usually 24 hours after the system recovery), BrainKing automatically turns on the timeout checker and removes the message from the Main Page.

By the way, there was a bug in the autosave feature, it didn't save the non-ASCII characters properly. Now it is fixed.

Yes, we have this feature since the very first non-English and non-Czech localization of BrainKing had been released, but it was always visible to the translators only. However, we think it is a valuable information for everyone because the list contains all started translations, not just the 15 finished ones. It means that if you wish to have the site translated to a language which is not supported yet and want to contribute, the first thing to do should be a quick look at the Translators page to find out if the work is already started. Then you can contact the users who are doing the translations and ask if they need any help - or report bugs, typos, etc.

The link can be found at the top of the more about languages page and I will probably add it to some other pages, in order to make it better visible.

By the way, BrainKing is capable to maintain any number of localizations - don't hesitate to offer a cooperation to translate the site to your native language if you really want to.

The BrainRook.com site seems to be popular, the number of visitors is growing every day. I like it because I always wanted to provide a good resource of game related information and it is even better when the information is submitted by game enthusiasts themselves. Just a side note, one of the most frequent phrase which returns BrainRook as a result in search engines is reversi strategies. Would you expect that?

But the purpose of this entry is not to analyze search engine optimization, although it could be a good there of some future ones. There is a small problem with publishing of the submitted articles because they are usually sent to me in a format which cannot be used directly. It leads to delays, long intervals between receiving an article and releasing it on the site, etc. That's why I would recommend to follow these instructions, if you want to have your article published as soon as possible:

• Instead of sending a Microsoft Word file, try to create a simple HTML page (with or without images). It will save many minutes of copy and paste work.


• Create an author account on BrainRook.com (if you already don't have one) and submit a draft of your article directly. You can upload all images you need and insert them to the article body. When you are finished and click Save, the article will be stored but not published yet. Then I will log in and publish the submitted draft.


• Make sure your article is understandable, easy to read, without typos and descriptive enough for an average visitor. Submissions which don't fulfil these conditions are usually rejected.

Of course, it is still possible to send an article in other ways (e-mail, message on BrainKing.com, ...) but it would always take more time and my response to the question "why isn't my article published yet?" will be obvious.

First of all, the image uploading issue should be fixed. I just didn't expect there was something like "image/pjpeg" type, so I have added it to the list of supported types. It should stand for Progressive JPG and I hope there won't be any more problems with that.

Well, I don't think anybody would become as good as a native speaker with this tool, so don't take the entry subject too seriously, but I have found it very useful and interesting. If you use Firefox, try to install the ChinesePera-kun extension, it can be downloaded from this page.
After installing, select Tools / Toggle ChinesePera-kun, open some BrainKing page, switch to Chinese by clicking on the small Chinese flag and move your mouse cursor over a text. You should see something similar to the attached screenshot.

The home page of this extension says a Japanese version is available as well, so when the Japanese localization of BrainKing is released, it can make another neat pair of features.

• March 2003 - Pente, Keryo Pente and Janus Chess were added to the site. I was informed that what other sites call Pro Pente is actually Pente and Pente should be named Small Pente, in order to make it correctly. Confusing? I don't know and I don't care, the only important thing is that the games are supported and playable. About Janus Chess, the funny looking "doggy" picture which was used for the Janus piece had been ripped out of a Janus Chess program, so there is no reason to think that I would create it myself. (actually, I prefer cats) I hope the Janus Chess players weren't too disgusted by it.
  It was also a time of adding the game of Gothic Chess which was removed from the site after two years. The full story with all details will be posted later.


• April 2003 - Oh yes, the BrainKing.info site was created and released. But it was not this current version, we had started with several simple static HTML pages, providing some basic information about BrainKing, its staff, technical background etc. The site was not updated very often, due to its static structure the update process was kind of annoying. I guess this blog system makes the overall experience much more user friendly (and easier to admin, for me).
  The last important event of April 2003 was that I had passed moderating some public discussion boards to other users. The system didn't allow to add more moderators to the same board and there were no other neat features you can currently explore, but it was a good step forward. It would have been virtually impossible for one person (me) to maintain all discussion boards at once. And there are people who like to have a responsibility.

I have got several reports from people who tried to upload a jpg icon or photo to their BrainKing Profile with no success, receiving a short message about a file type not being supported. The strange thing is that when I upload the same image myself, it works. Since there are many possible sources of this small bug, I have added a content type information to the error message, so if it happens to you again, please send me the full message and I guess I will know what is wrong and how to fix it.

Meanwhile, if you have this problem, feel free to send the image to me and I'll upload it myself.

I have also made a simple test, in order to solve the request of people who want to learn how to play a particular game and get more information about strategies, tips, examples etc. The Shogi rules page contains a simple link Shogi: Japan's Game of Strategy just below the table of game statistics. If the page is fully loaded and your browser supports JavaScript, a nice box with basic info about the book should pop up when you hover your mouse button over the link. Since this feature occupies almost no extra space, it could be used on other pages of rules as well (and maybe more pages) to provide additional resources for the selected game. It can be customized in many ways, the only thing we need is a good list of quality books. Feel free to send your tips.

Now, what the "etc." from the entry subject stands for?

It is interesting to observe different reactions from people, regarding this blog site. Although nobody is obliged to read it and all posted information is to provide a knowledge base about the BrainKing site, I occasionally received questions or messages which are kind of repetitive, so it might be a good idea to write the most common anwsers here:

• Why do you write 1-2 entries every day? Are you bored with your life and have nothing better to do instead? Well, I like it. That's all. I don't think that I would be too bored anytime. Information is the most valuable commodity and we want to provide as many good articles as possible. Who doesn't like it, it is only his problem.
• Why do I have to see a new entry excerpt on BrainKing's Main Page? There is no way to remove it once and forever. Yes, that's true. I think it's the easiest way to keep people posted about the new entries which can be very important (sometimes) and not everyone knows how to use RSS feeds. Moreover, the blog notification on the Main Page does not occupy more than 3 lines and a simple click on the close link would remove it until a new one is posted here. It is really not a problem and it will stay as it is.
• Why are the blog entries only in English? Because I and other translators are already too busy localizing the BrainKing site (new texts to translate are added very frequently and so are the new features) and the blog system is not written by me, so it would be too much work to make it behave (speaking of multilinguality) as I wish to. I don't say it will never change.

And I like eBay

I know I should have done it a long time ago, but more important things are always in the task queue with a higher priority. The Finished games tab of Profile pages has been improved by a simple form ban this player from BKR charts for a selected game.

What does it mean? It's been brought to my attention (not only today but several times in the past as well) that certain players try to boost their BKRs (in order to reach the top chart positions) by creating groups where they play many fake games, which are finished after several moves with no logical reason. Since such action is a direct violation of the User Agreement and it is very unfair to other players who want to play honestly, a solution of this problem is finally here.

It means that when an obvious cheater (or a group of cheaters) is detected by me or reported by someone else, he will be banned from the BKR charts immediately and cannot appear there anymore, until he is unbanned (which is not likely). I have applied this action to more than 10 users today.

And why cannot you find the mentioned ban form on Profile pages? Because it is available only for administrators. Naturally.

First of all I would like to thank everyone who reacted to my recent note about IKEA and sent me funny IKEA jokes or their own stories and experiences with this great company.

Now, about the icons and photos on BrainKing. One or two people have complained that their big photos are not showing up, although they were uploaded successfully and approved. The problem is that a big photo cannot be displayed if no small icon (the one which appears on discussion boards etc.) was provided, because there is nothing on the Profile page to hover a mouse cursor over. It means that if you want to have a big picture on your Profile, please make sure you already have a standard icon there as well.

I have also created a simple history of uploaded images. Find a new link image history on your Profile page. The question is, should this history be visible for all users or only for the picture owner?

• January 2003 - part 2 - After a quick look at the News Archive and some personal notes, I've realized that more events than I've posted to the previous entry had happened in that month. I guess the most important one was the addition of Backgammon and its variants because, whether we like it or not, it is a popular game and many people were disappointed that BrainKing was not supporting it. Well, the reason was obvious - unlike chess, reversi, five in line and similar games, backgammon is not played on a square board and every possible combination of pieces on a pip must have its extra image, so it took some time to create all necessary pictures and I am not a graphician at all (hint - who wants to make a better looking backgammon image set for BrainKing and get a special prize? ). Anyway, launching this game was not straightforward because it was a new game for me and I was not aware of all rules (not to mention a doubling cube which was added 2-3 years later!). However, it was finetuned to the final version within a week or two.
  (and auto-pass won't be done)
  Dark Chess, Atomic Chess and Halma were added at the end of the month, along with an option of user defined tournaments. It was also a time of significant performance problems but this issue belongs to the February section.


• February 2003 - The process of fixing the performance problems was kind of difficult because I had started to work for a new employer at the same time, so the BrainKing work was left almost entirely on Liquid. Fortunatelly we had found a solution after several complicated days by changing a database driver (one wouldn't believe what simple details can have such global consequences). I was impressed that even during this difficult time there were people who purchased a 2 years membership.
  We have added prize tournaments and private tournaments in fellowships.

It seems that everything is working with no bugs, so I have added an option of uploading a big photo to your Profile as well. If you are a paying member, you should find a new link change photo at the top of the Profile page, next to the change icon one. Please remember that BrainKing won't accept files which are longer than 100 kilobytes, because it would make no sense to process too huge images.

And I will never buy another piece of a furniture in IKEA. I have spent almost an hour putting a simple armchair together, instead of working on BrainKing. It's a shame that a manual work cannot be done by computers.

• November 2002 - I had been told that something like WebTV exists and is widely used in United States and other countries. Well, it wouldn't be a big problem if this device provided a better screen resolution - due to complaints that some BrainKing pages were "too narrow" to show game boards properly, a row layout was introduced as an alternative to the default column layout. The row layout is an ugly one, it looks awful and I don't recommend to use it unless there is no other option. I hope a new BrainKing design will solve this problem by creating an universal layout for all web browsers at once.


• December 2002 - New games were introduced, although I've lost a record of exact dates of these additions. Maybe the News archive could give some hints. It was also a time of the first site crash, not a big one but BrainKing was down for three days because one of the server's disks had collapsed and there was no other server to replace the damaged one. Due to lack of resources, the whole BrainKing system was very unstable and could easily get jammed anytime. Fortunatelly, it is not a problem now. I wonder when we added the second server, in order to separate the application and database layers ... anyway, we did it.


• January 2003 - I don't think something important or interesting had happened every month but if I can recall a BrainKing event, I would mention it here. The beginning of the year 2003 had been marked with a release of the very first tournament system on BrainKing. I have no idea how it could have been working at all (bugs, bugs, bugs) but it was a good success anyway. Tournaments must be a part of every successful game site, of course. At least the number of paying members had been significantly increasing. People like to compete.
  You might remember that the first tournaments had to be started manually by their creators because BrainKing had no system of regular tasks. It occasionally caused funny situations when a tournament sections contained games with nonexistent opponents or four times more table cells then they should have. The current tournament system is much more sophisticated, although some minor bugs are still waiting for a solution. But minor bugs are never critical.

(to be continued)