BrainKing.info - the BrainKing game site knowledge base

BrainKing contains the Send Invitation page which can be used to invite new people to the site by e-mail. It is a well known fact and this feature has been working since the very beginning of BrainKing. However, when you decide to invite a friend in this way, it might be even better if the friend finds your game invitations on the Main Page just after his account is registered and approved, instead of looking at a page with no extra content.

Today's new feature is exactly addressing this issue. If you click the New Game link at the left column of all BrainKing pages, select a game type and proceed to the next page, you will find a new option Type the e-mail of the person you want to invite to BrainKing to play this game with. The usage of this field is very simple - just write your friend's e-mail address, complete the game parameters on the third - final - page and when the invitation is created, BrainKing stores it to your list of private invitations and sends an e-mail to the provided address, including an optional message. Then, if your friends finds it interesting and registers on BrainKing with the same e-mail address, the site will recognize the corresponding game invitations and places them to his Main Page automatically. Simple and effective, isn't it?

Now, this is interesting. When I have started to write this entry, I have accidentally visited one of the other game sites and got an error message about the database being momentarily down for backup and a polite request for a patience because the database will be down for about an hour.

Wait a minute. An hour?

You know that BrainKing uses a continuous replication system in order to make regular database backups on the fly, without a need to turn off the database server. Since the setup and configuration of this cool feature is not extremely difficult and can be even running on only one machine (no new hardware required), it makes me wonder why some sites still make their users annoyed by daily 60 minutes downtimes. It is a result of insufficient programming experiences or something like "it works, why to change it?". And, of course, all parts of our server system (including the database replication) are free, no expensive software was necessary to purchase. A freeware solution and highly reliable.

Well, it's up the users to make the choice.

Our expansion to the South (from Prague perspective) is successfully going further, although there are some "holes" (we would need Hungarian localization as well to make a solid connection), but it would be a miracle to have everything finished at once. The 19th supported language on BrainKing is Bulgarian and I am sure that AlliumCepa (with a help of Vinkel) is satisfied with his hard work. Well, in order to keep the direction, will the Greek translation be the next one?

Regarding tournaments, there was a request of marking newly created tournaments by a red new!, just like the discussion board posts are. Well, instead of that, I have implemented a more flexible solution - there is a new option Created in last x days on the Tournaments page. When a number of days is selected, the list will show only tournaments which have been created in this time range, which is very useful if one wants to be aware of newly created ones only but does not want to open all of them separately. And since the time of tournament creation was not stored at the database before, it works only with tournaments created today or later.

Why nobody wants to buy me a Lamborghini?

It is obvious that nothing can be a hot bargain forever and the current bonus code system is a good example. Have a look at the red code. When a light bulb appeared for a couple of minutes in the beginning of this month, it caused a frantic hunt for a membership renewal (although many participants didn't face a closing expiration) and after the unique Easter Egg day, it seems to be taken as a perfectly normal thing which should have been here a year ago. I am not complaining. It is just a funny thing to observe.

And we have a small collection of today's improvements too:

• The Game filter on the Main Page contains an "inverse" option to list a complement to the filtered list of started games. For example, if you select backgammon and check the inverse filter checkbox, the result list will contain all games except the backgammon ones. The same rule is applied when you choose an opponent's name.


• The Game filter on the Waiting Games page (or the corresponding Settings page, to be exact) now contains the unrated games option. If it is unchecked, no unrated game invitations will be visible for you on the Waiting Games page. Furthermore, all unrated invitations are shown in the italic font.


• The Notepad is improved by a search box, similar to the one which you can see on the discussion boards. I have added this feature because my Notepad is already too long and it's been very complicated to find a specific note. But it could be useful for others as well.

I wish there would be a simple and common rule of the domain registration process, which would be valid worldwide. The factual situation is that every country defines its own domain policy and some of them make this act a real stress test of our nerves and patience. On the other hand, we want to have everything and it is worth the effort.

Starting today, the Dutch version of BrainKing has its own domain http://BrainKing.nl and all Dutch speaking players are welcome to use it.

There was also a nasty bug which made certain team BKR values incredibly low and definitely not accurate. I hope this issue is resolved at last, so there should be no more strange drops in the BKR graphs and no more frustrations of some team captains. The BKR histories of all teams have been recalculated.

Our expansion to the external markets is not just a casual business, we want to do this job continuously and make BrainKing "The International Game Site", no matter which country is represented by the most registered (or paying) members. The most recent news about this subject is:

• BrainKing.ru domain has been registered and launched. It is a new entry point for Russian speaking users.


• I have added the missing "national" boards to the BrainKing discussion board system and all supported languages (18 at this moment) have their own "main" board, indicated by the language flag. Furthermore, when a new user registers on BrainKing, the system recognized the language he has used during the registration process and automatically adds the main board to his list of favourite boards, so he can be aware of the community which speaks the same language. For example, if you use the Estonian version of BrainKing in the time of your account registration, the board BrainKing.ee will appear at your list of favourite boards (at the right column).

More news (but not related to languages):

• Team tournament tooltips - if you are a paying member, visit a team tournament page (example) and move the mouse cursor over a fellowship name, a table with all team members and their results in this tournament will appear. And I have found a bug source at last, so this feature (along with all other tooltips) works in Opera as well.


• Dice poker - since people have been complaining about the same looking own and opponent's part of the score table, I have added a green background to all cells where the player on turn can make a move. Moreover, if you hover a mouse cursor over the bonus row (in the triple version), a tooltip with the number of points left to get the bonus will appear. It can save some calculator usages.

Well, although the Finnish version of BrainKing has been released yesterday, I have made no blog entry about it because of the Easter Egg event. Never mind, let me do it now. BrainKing officially announces the 18th full localization of the site and we are very glad that the Finnish one is finished at last. Since we already have BrainKing translated to Swedish and Norwegian, we can claim that the Scandinavian peninsula is covered. Please don't blame me if I am wrong. I should visit this great place sometimes.

http://BrainKing.com/fi is the entry point.

All right, the Easter Egg event is over and as I have said, it won't be offered anymore, 24 hours should have been good enough for everyone from all time zones. However, the April Action is still active, so if you spot a light bulb, you can use another bonus from the list.

By the way, my yesterday's note about Easter does not mean that I hate the Christianity (as several people have already accused me for). I just don't like the contemporary conception of this holiday because its commercial impact is kind of annoying. But it's a common problem of almost all holidays which can be turned out as a profit for greedy corporations.

Although I don't like this holiday, we like to give presents to our users, no matter if they celebrate Christian events or not (which gives me an idea to find a Muslim holiday for the next one, etc.). All right, I want to make it short - the whole day is dedicated to the Easter Egg (from 00:00:01 to 23:59:59 of the site time zone - GMT+01:00). If you find the Egg where light bulb used to be, you are eligible to get a special bonus which is valid only today and I seriously doubt it would be active more times in the future.

You might have noticed that the bulb (or egg) tooltip now contains the time range of the bonus validity. It can be useful if you want to use a bonus but you are not sure if you can make it before it is deactivated by the system.

The 18th localization of BrainKing (which one is it?) will be released tomorrow. The plans are flexible.

I am pleased to announce the release of 17th localization of the BrainKing site. The new supported language is Norwegian and the translation job has been done by BsyB (formerly started by frolind). Although some game rules still wait for the full translation, the Norwegian version of BrainKing is ready to invite new users on http://BrainKing.com/no entry point and we hope it is a nice Easter gift from us to our friends in Norway.

There are also several improvements at the Tournaments system which should make the list of tournaments to sign up a little shorter and less (non-started) tournaments would be accidentally deleted by the system.

There will be no more news today, it is a time to have a rest. The Easter Egg is going to appear tomorrow.

Discounts are always popular, especially when they are blinking or flashing or doing other things to attract the possible customer's attention. And when a light bulb appears next to the Paid Membership link more than once a day, it means that I am testing different options of this feature because it is a fun and people have more opportunities to catch the Red Code. On the other hand, if we offer the 100% bonus too often, other types of bonuses could easily become almost useless. That's why 1) the test period is over and the red code should not pop up as frequently as before, 2) more improvements to the system will be done soon, based on the experiences we already have with it.

And something quite different - when a user creates game invitations and then leaves the site, it is not the best gaming experience if someone else accepts one of such invitations and then waits until the game times out. In order to solve this problem, there is a new rule - if the system finds game invitations which are posted by a player who was not logged in for more than 30 days, these invitations will be automatically deleted. This check is performed once a day, which is sufficient enough.

If you plan to renew your membership or become a new paying member, keep watching the Main Page for light bulbs. Nobody guarantees that they would be available when April ends.

I guess I was writing about that during the last summer and it really saved me a lot of time to refer to the already written article instead of answering the same question individually. Which is one of the advantages of writing this blog. However, since the BrainKing design is changed now, the former instructions are not fully valid anymore and the time has come to update them. Okay, if you log in BrainKing and see the pages in other language (for any reason), simply follow these instructions:

• If you use the Castle style, find your language flag at the right column (containing flags of all supported localizations) and click it. The language will be changed and stored to your account settings, ergo becomes persistent for all future BrainKing sessions of yours, no matter which computer you would use to log in.


• If you use another style which does not display the language column, find the Castle | Simple | No fonts row at the page top. This section is available in all styles and always shown in English, regardless your current language. The easiest solution is to switch to the Castle style temporarily and use the previous point, then to switch back to your former style. I think I will make the language column displayable in all styles and optionally turnable off.


• The universal solution is to visit the Settings page and set the language there directly because it works with all styles and always. But it may be a small problem if the page is displayed in a foreign language you don't understand.

And about the new record in March - our stats say that BrainKing.info site (this blog) has reached 71,000 unique visitors during the last month, which is almost the same value as the one of BrainKing.com site. Not a bad result for a mere blog.

It is a really good satisfaction to observe how people place the membership orders when a light bulb indicating the Red Code appears for a couple of minutes. I like to see when new ideas are quickly adopted. And since some misunderstandings and confusions have been experienced too, I would like to answer the most important questions here (before an official (and translated) FAQ is created):

• Question: How do I know if the bonus is active when I place an order?
• Answer: After placing the order, have a look at the top right corner of the order page and you will see the bonus color code and the time left to send the payment (actually, it is the time when we receive your payment what counts, so don't send it with a longer delay). If there is nothing, it means that the bonus was deactivated before you placed your order and you can try it again when it appears for the next time.


• Question: How often are the bonuses activated?
• Answer: Each bonus type is activated at least once a day. The higher bonuses (100%, 75%, 50%) are usually visible for a much shorter time than the lower ones (25%, 1 month).


• Question: I don't understand the rules of this action, where can I find more information?
• Answer: Have a look at the current Server News and read the Bonus Page.

And don't be angry if the Red Code stops flashing a minute before you decide to take advantage of it. The chances are equal for everyone.

I wonder if it is a good idea to introduce something new every month. People never stop to ask questions because some of them don't want to read the instructions, and I never stop to answer them. On the other hand, it is one of the ways to make the BrainKing site better and better, and there are always many things to experiment with.

The April Action is not an exception and although I think the bulb bonus system is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, I have made the following improvements:

• When you hover the mouse cursor over the flashing light bulb on the Main Page (which means that a membership bonus is active), the tooltip which appears now contains a short description of the current color code. It saves some useless clicks because everyone can decide immediately whether the bonus is worth purchasing a year membership or not.


• When you click the bulb, you will be redirected to the Bonus List page which includes a simple form to add the selected membership level to the shopping cart without going back to the main Paid Membership page. The list of membership levels contains only the ones which are eligible for a bonus (1 year or longer periods).


• If the red code (the rarest and the most wanted one) is active, another bulb appears at the left menu column, next to the Paid Membership link, which is visible on all BrainKing pages. The reason is that people have been complaining about the short periods of red codes and a very low chance to get them because they don't monitor the Main Page continuously. And since such events usually don't show up for more than several minutes a day, one extra light bulb is not an obtrusive element.


• If you catch the red code and purchase the Black Rook level, please contact me for a special bonus which would be determined individually.


• Please don't ask how to remove the bulb from the Main Page. For obvious reasons, it is not possible.

The April Action is a little delayed due to other events which had to be addressed first, but it is here at last. As some users have noticed, it has been tested (but not activated) yesterday, which is the reason why several people have seen light bulbs with no further instructions. This is the description and rules (copied from the BrainKing's Server News for archiving purposes and a possible discussion):

The February Action for the first ten subscribers was a nice success but its disadvantage is obvious - the users from different time zones didn't have the same chance to take advantage of it. That's why the current action introduces the system of color codes which are activated randomly and nobody can foretell the time and type of the next bonus activation.

Please read the Bonus List page for more information. When you see a small flashing light bulb on the Main Page, you know a bonus is active and can be used. But don't hesitate for a long time - some bonuses (especially the one which adds 100% to the subscribed period) can be active only for several minutes.

The bonuses can be used only if a purchased membership is for 1 year or longer period and it is not a Brains payment.

An example - if the red code is active, you purchase 2 years of Brain Rook level and we receive your payment in 72 hours after placing the order, you will get 100% bonus and BrainKing will add 4 years of Brain Rook level instead of 2 to your account.

Now I only hope the generator of random codes and periods won't show some strange behavior.

I hope our American friends are not angry with me too much because of the yesterday's blog entry which has been nothing but an April joke. In fact, there is nothing what could make us to modify the site against our will (unless we break some laws) and as long as we pay our server housing fees, nobody can cut off any lines which connect us to the rest of the world. In other words, everything is all right, under full control and there is no need to panic. But I would like to give my thanks to everyone who has kindly offered to be our native English translator.

Okay, today's post is serious as usual, no more jokes until the next 1st April. As I have been notified, the Stairs system was missing one important option - to select if the games belonging to the particular Stairs are rated (counted for BKR) or unrated. It would be logical because the main purpose of the Stairs is to provide an alternative to the BKR charts and since there are players who would like to join Stairs because of this idea, the option to create unrated Stairs becomes mandatory. I have already added this feature today, so if you are the Big Boss of a fellowship and want to create Stairs which would not affect any BKRs of the participants, you can do it now.

I have also made another improvement to the current CSS based design of BrainKing pages. The Date and time, Friends online, Favourite boards and other "right tower" sections are now contained in logical blocks which can be better customized or even turned off at all, if you are a CSS developer and want to create your own BrainKing style without the information you don't need to see. And since not everyone is a developer, I guess I'll make these sections optional on the Settings page as well. Sooner or later.

Oh yes, I have almost forgotten - the April Action will be started tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I finish the code changes).

Being a member of the European Union is a good thing and I don't think I would ever regret it. There are many advantages, like much easier travelling across European countries, the same currency in a lot of states, etc. However, being a part of a bigger community of nations can also produce very strange regulations which must be followed, more or less. Due to a new policy which is applied when a web site makes a business with customers outside EU, BrainKing has been kindly asked to make the following changes to the site as soon as possible:

• All membership prices must be offered in the particular user's local currency, if the user lives in an English speaking country. For example, Americans must see the Paid Membership page in USD, Canadians in CAD, Australians in AUD etc. because nobody is obliged to know what EUR means, especially people who don't live in Europe.


• The flag which represents the English language must not be shown as the British one (Union Jack) if the user does not live in United Kingdom. The reason is that there are people who don't know how the flag of the United Kingdom looks and it leads to serious problems when they want to switch to the English version of the site.


• The English localization of the site must be done by an English native speaker. It might be interesting to find a native English speaker who is fluent in Czech as well or could translate from English to English, in order to make the site acceptable by the officials.

Now I am puzzled. I had a phone call from our ISP who has been informed about the same rules too and if we don't make the mentioned changes within 2 days (and I am not sure if I am aware of all of them!), they are authorized to cut off our overseas line, which would make BrainKing totally inaccessible for anybody who does not live in Europe or Asia.

All right, what to do? The time is always against us and I don't think I could apply all required changes on time. The only solution seems to be to remove the English version of BrainKing from the site, until we win this bureaucracy battle. On the other hand, it can have some positive consequences because people will be forced to learn another language to be able to use BrainKing in the future and we are always glad to make our users more educated.

The bottom line - don't panic! This blog site does not sell any goods or services, so it can remain in English with no limitations.