BrainKing.info - the BrainKing game site knowledge base

We have just celebrated the New Year 2007 a while ago, which means that the Christmas Action is over and I would like to thank everyone who supported us by taking advantage of it. The fifth year of BrainKing's existence has started and I am sure it will be at least as successful as the previous one.

By the way, we plan to move some data to the archive database later today and it will cause a short downtime of the site, not longer than 1 hour. It is scheduled to 19:00 p.m. GMT+01:00 and I hope it will be the last downtime of this kind because the process of archiving should be put to automatic for the next year as well.

Wow! Now I am really impressed because the target of 70 Black Rooks has been completed just in 2 days instead of three. It simply means that the great BrainKing community deserves what I have promised and 10 new games (maybe more) will be added during January 2007. Not to mention other features which should not be auto-passed.

All right, we have 1 day left, what to do now? I guess we should just celebrate the New Year and look forward to the pile of new features which will appear on BrainKing soon. And if someone still wants to take advantage of the Christmas Action, BrainKing will automatically add an extra month and other mentioned bonuses to the very last second of this year. Considering our time zone, GMT+01:00, of course.

Actually, I wanted to announce 10 new games in February too if the number of Black Rooks would advance to 75 before the end of this year but I don't think it could be reached.

Or am I wrong?

I am glad to confirm that we need only 2 more Black Rooks to reach the goal which was announced yesterday and it is, I should say, not impossible. I have already started to work on new games anyway although my notebook cannot be called a full featured development environment which I have at home. It's a time of rest, isn't it?

By the way, one of the 10 new games (if the mentioned conditions are met) will be a variant of Yahtzee and it is not unlikely that another one would be a clone of Mastermind.

All right, we have 3 days left to take advantage of the Christmas Action. We have 65 Black Rooks at this moment. And I feel creative and want to do many things when I am back from holidays. So I have an idea.

65 Black Rooks is a great result, no doubt, it's far beyond my former estimations. However, if this number is at least 70 as of 1st January 2007, I will add 10 new games to BrainKing in January 2007. Plain and simple.

And if not, I will add new games too, but probably later. It's just a matter of priorities.

The upcoming end of this year is consuming more and more time that could be spent to write articles for this blog, which means that I don't think I could post anything breathtaking or shocking. However, I never miss an opportunity to remind that BrainKing is an international site and highlight this fact by something new or not mentioned before.

I have found a simple but excellent Firefox extension which is called ToCyrillic and it is very valuable tool if you want to write in non-Latin alphabet but your keyboard does not support the required characters (or you are not sure where to find them). The homepage of the extension contains detailed instructions how to use it, I have already done it many times and I can confirm it works perfectly.

By the way, the current number of Black Rooks is 65 and the year has not ended yet.

Just a quick reminder for those who did not take advantage of it yet - there are still several days left to use the Christmas Action on BrainKing and since this kind of action will not be created anymore, it is at least worth considering. Anyway, even if nobody else reacts to this announcement, I would like to thank to everyone who already did before.

As I have written 2 days ago, there is going to be a change in the BrainKing's system of vacations and public holidays. However, since I am currently out of my office (home) and won't come back before 1st January, it would be too risky to release it now, although the system is tested and seems to be working with no bugs. Shortly, this is to happen:

• 31st December and 1st January are public holidays - no timeouts should occur during these days, not even if the vacation counters don't reset to their initial values after 31st December.
• As of 1st January and later that day (in the evening of our time zone, most likely), the system will be launched and so will be the process of moving some data from year 2006 to the archive database. It will cause a scheduled downtime of, er, 1 hour, but all details will be announced in advance.

Enjoy the rest of the year.

I want to start this entry with a funny (or maybe not so funny at all) situation I have experienced several hours ago. Since my account on one of other game sites (similar to BrainKing) expired, I have decided to re-create it, just to be able to log in occasionally and see what is new there. Well, I have clicked the "register a free account" link, filled "Fencer" and "fencer@brainking.com" values to the proper fields, submitted the form and instantly received this message:

"The email service provider you have chosen is not allowed on this site.

We require players to use their primary email address when registering for this site. No accounts from brainking.com are allowed.

Please try again"

Now, wait a minute. Is that a validation process malfunction or someone is making fun of me? Or are they too scared of BrainKing to allow anybody from our site to register there? By the way, the last sentence is not finished by a full-stop, could you please fix it?

However, the real point of this entry is - please, make sure the e-mail address registered with your BrainKing account is valid and working. Since there are many accounts with invalid e-mail addresses, which make many e-mails sent from BrainKing to bounce and return back as undeliverable, it is possible that some kind of a clean-up would happen in next months and such accounts could be disabled. Our goal is to provide the best service for real users. And since BrainKing never sends any kind of spam messages, there is no reason to register an account with a fictional e-mail address.

Some of you might have noticed that although your opponent should lose a game due to a timeout, BrainKing has added 24 hours to his time left, even if the game uses the Fischer's Clock time control.

The reason is that there is a small bug at the timeout check script, regarding public holidays. Currently, there are 5 public holidays on BrainKing - 24th December, 25th December, 26th December, 31st December and 1st January. However, since BrainKing is an international site and not all nations celebrate Christmas, the former purpose of these holidays has disappeared.

That's why we have decide to cancel all public holidays at once. Starting 1st January 2007, there will be no holidays on BrainKing at all.

Sounds a bit unfair, huh? Luckily, there is a solution. In order to compensate this change, we will simply add 5 vacation days to everyone. There will be 10 vacation days a year for Brain Pawns, 25 for Brain Bishops/Knights, 35 for Brain Rooks/Maharajahs and 45 for Black Rooks. The former public holidays will be set as vacation days by default (because I am sure that not everyone would notice the change and could easily timeout during Christmas by a mistake) but it will be possible to deselect them on the Settings / Calendar page and use them for any other days of the year.

I would like to wish Merry Christmas to every BrainKing user who celebrates this holiday in his/her country and all the best to everyone else. There will be no significant updates or improvements on BrainKing for the rest of this year but I guess nobody would expect them anyway during this relaxation time.

Speaking of security, I have purchased a last minute Christmas gift for me and Liquid (who is a little crazy about a security anywhere ). It is a pair of security tokens and when it is properly configured, it should increase the level of security of BrainKing's resources (database, source code, etc.) even higher than it is. Shortly said, nobody else will be able to access any private data, not even if he knows the password - the combination of hardware and software keys is the best way of protection.

And don't forget that the Christmas Action ends as of 31st December 2006.

Yes, I know it is a little monothematic but since Christmas is very soon (and so is the end of the Christmas Action on BrainKing, in case someone didn't take advantage of it yet ), it wouldn't be wise (and safe) to release too complicated changes now. Everybody needs a rest, including us.

Luckily, BrainKing itself never sleeps and continuously processes all payments, which is positively reflecting the current number of Black Rooks - and I believe that 61 is not the final number. Actually, it is 62.

All right, today's new tooltip type is a team match table which appears if you move your mouse cursor over the team match link below the game board. I guess the tooltip feature needs to recognize the correct width of its window but, anyway, it is working and shows what it is supposed to show.

Some of you might have noticed a short term (about 10 minutes) unexpected funny event, when all smiley images have been displayed on several kinds of pages at once. Luckily, the problem source had something to do with server access rights, not the BrainKing code itself.

This weeks seems to be a week of tooltips, a new one has been added a while ago. You can test it either on the Discussion boards page or on any other page if you have some public boards at your list of favorite ones. There is no extra option at the Settings yet, so this feature is activated by Show message previews at the Message box too, but this detail is going to be improved as well.

The time is always against us, especially when Christmas is soon and we want to catch up with everything at once. Fortunately, it is going to be much better next year, regarding the time which can be spent on BrainKing development. Meanwhile I am glad to do at least small updates, which can be interesting anyway.

If you already use the previously annouced Message Preview tooltip, try to open a tournament game page and move the mouse cursor over the tournament link below the game board.
I know this feature needs to be improved, e.g. display the tooltip above the link (instead of below) when there is not enough space, or not to make it disappeared immediately after move the mouse cursor elsewhere. Everything is at the TODO list.

Yes, this is a short one, although I have planned to make a bigger update tonight but I have just spent several hours trying to install and configure my new web camera. Instead of tracking my face, it has been continuously scanning all light sources in the room. Obviously I am not smart enough to handle the Smart Motion Detection system.

All right, the JavaScript tooltip which appears when you move the mouse cursor over the red number next to the Message box link now works with all kinds of messages - even the system ones, containing a generated content. Which is a good start to use this neat feature at more places of the BrainKing's set of pages. Hopefully, something new could appear tomorrow.

You might have noticed (if you already use the Show message previews at the Message box option) that a small box containing the message subject and body preview appears if you move your mouse cursor over the red number next to the Message box link. Although this feature is not fully finished (it still does not display the generated part of a message - e.g. a tournament link, a game result, etc.), it can work as a nice hint when a new message alert shows up during a sequence of game play and you don't want to break the "move and go to the next one" line going to the Message box directly.

Since the hint (tooltip) features seem to be popular, I plan to add more of them, on different pages of BrainKing.

The end of the year always goes along with an increased number of orders at BrainKing's shopping cart system, mostly due to the Christmas Action and a good opportunity to present a membership to a friend. I fully support that, of course. We plan to make several nice hardware upgrades soon, which will improve the overall site performance (and make it available for more and more features), and any extra income is very helpful.

However, I would like to ask you a small favor - please, place an order only if you really intend to pay for it. Although BrainKing's system automatically cancels unpaid orders which are older than 14 days, the list would definitely look better without fake orders of "I just want to test it" type. I think that any kind of a trade should be a serious thing for all parties. Thank you for understanding.

By the way, the January Action will contain NO free months or any other membership related benefits. Who wants to get a free month or 50% discount of a Black Rook, should do it quickly. The end of this year is near.