BrainKing.info - the BrainKing game site knowledge base

BrainKing's bug tracking system was improved many times in the past and its current feature set makes the bug fixing process much easier due to the fact that it automatically provides important information, like the page when the problem occurs, user's web browser type and operating system, etc.

However, it is still not sufficient in some special cases, and it would be great if a screenshot of the problem page can be easily captured and attached to the bug as well. And that's the reason why I write about FireShot extension today.

It is a cool and easy to use Firefox add-on which allows you to make a screenshot of the current page by a simple click. But it's not all, of course. You can open the generated image in your favorite image editor and make some changes (write notes etc.), save it to your disk, upload to a web server for free, or email it just after capturing.

The last two options would be the right ones for enhancing a bug report - you can either provide a link to the uploaded screenshot image or email it directly to fencer@brainking.com. But I prefer the first choice.

And there is one more great functionality of this tool - you can capture either a visible part of a web page or the entire page at once, as a one long picture. Just have a look at the BrainKing home page screenshot which I have created a while ago. It is a perfect way to make outstanding presentations of your web site, without a need to capture a part of a page, then scroll down, capture another part, paste them together, capture another part, etc.

One last thing - I think this extension works on Microsoft Windows only, which is a bad news for Mac or Linux users. But hopefully this issue will be addressed in the future.

Where to get it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5648

Or visit the FireShot home page: http://screenshot-program.com/fireshot/

The recent release of Firefox 3.0 release candidate 1 nightly builds caused, as I was told, an inactivity of BrainKing Bookmarks Firefox extension. The reason was obvious - prior to the mentioned release date it was not possible to set the allowed Firefox version to a higher value than 3.0 beta 5. This small issue is fixed now.

And not just fixed. Since the very first version of this extension (created by me) I always thought that it would be great if authors of similar bookmarking add-ons include BrainKing Bookmarks to their portfolio of services. Of course, none of them ever responded to my request, so I have decided to make it my way. The newest version of BrainKing Bookmarks extension (1.2) allows you to save the currently viewed web page not only to your BrainKing profile (Links section) but you can choose twenty three other services of this kind as well, from a pop up menu.

The list of bookmarking services supported by BrainKing Bookmarks (as of 15th May 2008):

BrainKing, Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Ma.gnolia, Google, Yahoo, Mixx, Stumble upon, Tumblr, Twitter, Friend feed, Reddit, Simpy, Truemors, Bloglines, Technorati, Fark, Furl, Blinklist, Spurl, NewsVine, Blogmarks, Wists, Wong

Get it either from addons.mozilla.org or BrainKing.

This improvement is small but useful for team captains who want to be informed about all aspects related to a team match result, especially the particular BKR change. BrainKing already provides this kind of information for individual games and since today it is available for team matches as well.

The outcome is that when a team match (whether it belongs to a team tournament or not) is completed, team captains are sent a system message with the match result. Besides standard values and information (who is the winner, match table, game type, fellowship links etc.), the message also contains previous and next BKR values for both teams, including links to respective BKR graphs. It should help to analyze the team performance, give an instant access to interesting data, and so on.

Regarding this point, I would like to make team BKRs more visible around the site. If someone has a good idea where they should be displayed too, please leave a comment.

Firefox developers announced that release candidate of the long awaited Firefox 3 web browser was made available for testing:

http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/05/10/firefox-3-code-complete/

"Release candidate" means that all features of this version are already implemented and the final cycle is meant for bugfixing only. If someone wants to install this version and try it with BrainKing, it might be interesting to know the results. Actually, I don't expect too many problems because the previous beta 5 seems to be very stable as well.

Get it here: Nightly builds

By the way, does Microsoft hint that Internet Explorer 6 is doomed at last? That would be great news for all serious web developers who prefer to concentrate on a real programming work instead of applying numerous hacks to make their pages work with buggy and non-standard Internet Explorer 6 too.

Read the full story here: Microsoft warns of IE7 lock-in with XP SP3

Actually, it was released five days ago but since I prefer to post no more than one article a day, I have decided to write a few words about it today.

Google made an important upgrade of their language tools and added new languages to translate from and to. And since Czech in included there too (at last), it should be good news for everyone who has been asking me for a good English-Czech translator, most likely because Czech players form the third biggest group on BrainKing, so many people play games with them and a good translating service can significantly improve an in-game conversation.

Besides, the mentioned upgrade of Google language tools now supports 16 languages out of 20 BrainKing localizations. That's a nice step forward to break language barriers.

http://www.google.com/language_tools

I have discovered a really nice and useful web tool today. It is called Host Tracker and its purpose is to make independent and as objective as possible speed tests of a selected web site.

Speaking of a "discovery", it doesn't mean that it is a brand new service, I just wasn't aware of it before. Actually, Host Tracker seems to be active since 2004.

Unlike the Speed Test tool I was writing about before, Host Tracker does not measure your local line speed while accessing a target web site, but takes advantage of many (currently 62) servers located at different countries and displays particular response times. This is what I have measured a minute ago:

http://host-tracker.com/check_res_ajx/972678-0/share/

I think that the most important advantage of Host Tracker is that if you have temporary speed problems with BrainKing game site, you can easily check whether it is a global issue (all 62 servers display similar bad results) or just a local one (the majority of results are less than 1 second). Clicking on the following icon should do the trick:

It is nice to see that BrainKing has its own page on other sites, for instance this one:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/BrainKing

Although that page is not fully up to date (it says that we have 104 games but BrainKing supports 123 game types at this moment), it shows a nice overview of games which can be played on BrainKing and their alternative descriptions are located on the mentioned site as well, even with a link to buy the particular game site, occasionally.

There is one more interesting thing - I have noticed that screenshots of game boards are taken from BrainKing in some cases. Here is an example: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/28128
Actually, it is not a real problem at all, although I don't remember that someone would ask us for a permission to do it. But I am not picky, if someone wants to use a BrainKing game board for informational reasons, he can do it. However, there is one detail which I don't like - the description of a bigger version of the image:

A game of Pah Tum in progress at itsyourturn.com.

It would be really nice if at least the right game site URL is used, if nothing else.

By the way, while looking for new results of BrainKing keyword on Google, I have found this curiosity:

http://www.aboutus.org/NakedLiveShow.com

At the moment of writing this article, that page says that "the website description" is: "BrainKing - spil online skak, dam, reversi, pente og andre populære brætspil og varianter på internettet."

Someone has a strange sense of humor. Or the aboutus.org editors don't moderate the site entries at all. Anyway, there are really no naked live shows on BrainKing at all.

It is a logical outcome that the multi sign-up feature should be implemented for Stairs, when it is already available for tournaments and ponds, and since people usually prefer not to make more clicks than it is absolutely necessary, some clicks could be really saved. This is how it works:

• Go to the Stairs page at BrainKing game site.
• Select a group of public stairs to open a list of available games.
• All stairs which you are eligible to sign up for contain a checkbox next to the game type. Select the ones you are interested in or use the "Select All' checkbox at the page bottom.
• Click the submit button at the end of the game list and BrainKing will do the rest.

And the feature description has been added to the Paid membership / Details page at last.

The message of the day is that the popular feature of signing up for more game types (of the same tournament group) at once has been implemented for Run around the pond game as well. It was requested some time ago and since today it should be working for all members with Brain Rook or higher membership level:

• Go to the Ponds page at BrainKing game site.
• All ponds which you are eligible to sign up for contain a checkbox next to the pond name. Select the ones you are interested in or use the "Select All' checkbox at the page bottom.
• Click the submit button at the end of the pond list and BrainKing will do the rest.

It reminds me that I forgot to add the multiple sign-up feature to the list of advantages of the paid membership. The list will be updated tomorrow, I hope.

First of all - since I have been told that white player starts a game of Italian Checkers, not black, I've made this change to the game model and it also affects all started and already finished games of Italian Checkers. So, if your pieces have suddenly changed the color, it is not a bug. I hope nobody gets too confused.

And now, what is more important - BrainKing starts a cooperation with Frank Berger, the author of professional backgammon software for Windows, Mac and Linux, called BGBlitz. Since today, every BrainKing user, who purchases or renews at least 1 year membership of any level, will get a 20% discount of a Player or Professional version of BGBlitz. The bonus would be displayed at the particular order page as a short description with customized PayPal buttons, so the only think you have to do is to choose the BGBlitz version and click the proper button.

It also means that BrainKing currently offers two bonuses to every 1 year membership purchase - 50% discount of a 300AD.com game and 20% discount of BGBlitz. Take them while they are hot.

A short comparing of different BGBlitz versions.

Let me summarize some BGBlitz features (copied from BGBlitz home page with a permission of Frank Berger):

• Play Backgammon against a world class opponent or play over the network.
• A tutor helps to improve your game.
• Rollout position with optional variance reduction.
• Choose between several themes. See the themes page.
• Train your skill with quiz databases.
• Train your cube handling in match play.
• Replay your games.
• Collect matches in databases.
• Convert from/to different match-formats and to HTML.
• Use the precise endgame database.
• Completely internationalised. Current languages are English, German, Dutch (Roger Troost), Italian and French (Radu-Dan Sabau), Spanish (José Manuel Solis Preisser), Danish (Søren Pingel Daalsgard), Hebrew (Shahar Tal), Swedish (Peter Nevalainen), Turkish (Özgür Albayrak), Catalan (Xavier Blanquer), Chinese (Angelita Li), Polish (Miroslaw Golda), Japanese (Katsutoshi Seki) and Russian (Oleg Timshin). Thanks to all of them.
• And more ...

Well, what should I add? I like to support all interesting projects which have something to do with board games and since backgammon is still the most played game on BrainKing game site, I am sure that BGBlitz would be worth trying for the majority of BrainKing community.

This game has been submitted by Mike Mallette. It has simple but interesting rules and it could be worth trying out.

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Name of the game: Rush

1. The game is played on a standard checkers board (8x8 squares).
2. Each player has 32 checkers (pieces).
3. Every player has a "flag" which can be placed anywhere on the first row.
4. Pieces can move one space in any direction.
5. Only one piece can be moved per turn.
6. The game object:
   1. To capture opponent's flag, or
   2. To have your flag reach opponent's first row.
7. During a turn, the player has three choices:
   1. To pick a piece to move, then pick an adjacent opponent's piece to attack. Both players roll a die and if the attacker wins, the opponent's piece is removed from the board and the attacker's piece is moved to the removed piece position. If the defender wins, the attacker's piece is removed from the board and the defender's piece stays where it is. If both players roll the same number, nothing happens and pieces stay where they are.
   2. To move a piece to an empty square.
   3. To pass the flag to another piece one space in any direction.

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Although BrainKing's chat box is not filled with hundreds of messages every day (actually, at least the Czech room is kind of active), I like this opportunity to have a chat with currently connected people and since the static version of this feature (Chat room page) was created mostly for people with JavaScript-disabled browsers and provided no extra functionality, I have decided to change this status a little.

Starting today, the Chat Room page contains the following improvements:

• Older messages are displayed with date and time. It is useful in less frequent rooms where it is not clear whether the time values refer to the current day or some other day in the past.
• History can be browsed (pagination). If you missed a conversation because it is already pulled down by newest messages, it can be easily found by page links above and below the message list.
• Messages can be searched using a simple search form at the top of the page, and results are returned with the particular context links. It means that if the context link is clicked, the page containing the particular message is displayed and the corresponding conversation can be accessed as well.

But I still like the interactive JavaScript version more. However, I use the static one as a resource of historical data.

I like when people post comments to my articles, mostly because it is a good feeling when someone really reads them, but it is also a good way to share own experiences or opinions with others. For instance, thanks to a comment to my previous entry about ImTranslator tool, I have tried another neat Firefox extension called gTranslate and I think that it could be the right choice for those who need a simple tool which makes just a translation work as quickly as possible.

Furthermore, gTranslate uses Google as a translation service, while ImTranslator takes advantage of PROMT and Altavista, so it might be interesting to try both of them and compare results.

Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/918

And, in order not to make this entry about Firefox extensions only, I have added a small but useful improvement to BrainKing as well. We know that the information section of a game page contains a line with estimated changes of the player's BKR, depending on current BKR values of the player and the opponent, for all possible results of the game - win, loss or draw. However, it might be good to know this information even before a game invitation is sent, just to be sure that it is worth challenging the selected player. And that is what the New Game page shows now (after selecting a game type and just one possible opponent), below the Number of games option, and if you already have a visible BKR in this game type.

Sometimes I receive messages from non-English speaking users and since I don't speak all 20 supported languages, it is not easy to understand what the particular message is about. Bugging other people for a help with the translation is not always the best approach, so the importance of good translator tools becomes significant.

I have discovered this neat Firefox add-on today and found it very helpful and straightforward. The basic usage is really simple:

• Select a text on a web page.
• Right-click on the selection and choose "ImTranslator" option.
• Do whatever you need in the popup window that instantly appears.

That's what the product page says:
"With ImTranslator you can enter multilingual text, check it for correctness, adjust unreadable messages, translate in different languages, look up words, print results and send email."

Actually, Hyperwords can do the translation work too but for some reason I like the ImTranslator window a little more. It's a matter of taste. On the other hand and if I am not wrong, Hyperwords is available in English only and ImTranslator is localized to at least 6 languages, which is always a positive thing. However, what I really like is the virtual keyboard. It is no longer necessary to look for Windows's Character Map which is everything but user friendly - simply choose the target language and start typing with a mouse.

And yes, the link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2257

I would like to announce two small improvements to the system of team tournaments:

• Teams should be displayed with their team BKR values (calculated by results in team matches) instead of average BKRs of particular team players. It is more accurate and reflects real team performance, no matter which team members are currently participating in the tournament. It also means that if a team tournament is created in a recently released game, there is no team with a BKR, but some "mature" games can provide nice results to display - for example this one.


• Team tournaments can be created with all supported types of time control. Prior to this date, it was possible to make a team tournaments with days per move time control only, now it can contains a hours per move value too, and even Fischer's clock option. A positive consequence of this change is that team tournaments can be finished in a much shorter time than before, which used to be a reason of complaints in the past.

And that's really all for today.