Although our current home page (BrainKing) is much more detailed than the former one "white background and some short text", it still looks too static to be worth visiting for other than a login purpose. I would like to make it a little different for every single visit. For example:

• Instead of showing static images of sample game boards, we can embed previews of live games, thanks to the new board sizing system, so it won't be a problem to shrink it to fit the tower width. Games can be picked randomly or the most recent ones or games between top players etc.


• It might be interesting to show live previews of all important parts of the site - tournament tables, stairs, team matches, public photo albums, discussion boards.

Any other ideas?

Actually, BrainKing's home page will be the only page that would keep the current castle design (with towers, flying dragon etc.), so it might be really nice to make it a little more attractive. And I like to collect original ideas.

Emails are not reliable. There is too many spam these days, some sources claim that it is about 96% of all sent emails.

To address this problem, we prepared the following improvements for BrainKing 3.0:

• All interaction and communication between BrainKing users and administrators will be done through BrainKing pages.


• Regarding the previous point, the mailbox info@brainking.com will be no longer monitored and probably replaced by something like noreply@brainking.com to indicate that nobody would read a reply to a system generated email (account creation confirm, etc.). Such emails would contain instructions how to contact us properly.


• Contact Us page will use a ticket reporting system instead of sending emails, mostly because there are still many people who do not read the description "we speak English and Czech only". A ticket system (similar to Bug Tracker) should ensure that your request would not be filtered out by an anti-spam email filter and if you use a language we do not speak, it should be easy to assign a volunteer translator who can provide us a translation.


• Additionally, a secret question/answer function could be added to the password recovery feature, in order to eliminate the need to send password recovery emails that could be actually sent from a phishing site. Furthermore, it is not a rare situation when such an email, even properly sent by BrainKing, never reaches the user's mailbox because of anti-spam filtering.

As a result, the only emails generated by BrainKing should be the ones confirming that you created your BrainKing account successfully. When people know that any other emails are probably scam, there is a good chance to increase security of their BrainKing accounts.

As Facebook users have probably noticed, Facebook uses a fixed width layout - no matter how big your web browser window is or what screen resolution you use, the Facebook "active" area always has the same width and is displayed at the center of the window.

BrainKing, on the other hand, uses a flexible width viewport for its inner space. The "towers" (left and right column) are always positioned at the very left and right edge of the browser window, and the main area (inner space) width is automatically adjusted to fill the remaining space.

Fixed layout:
1) Advantages - the page width is always the same, so it is very easy to find the right position and size for any elements you want to place. It is not necessary to optimize the content of "boxes" to fit all possible settings of user web browsers.
2) Disadvantages - if your web browser window width is too small, it won't be capable of displaying the whole page and you would be forced to use the horizontal scrollbar to see the right part of the page. If it is too wide, the page will occupy just the central part and there would be bad looking (and unused) margins. People might be frustrated that they cannot enlarge the active area to put more information there.

Flexible layout:
1) Advantages - the browser window space is always fully used and if you want to show more text without scrolling down the page, it is easy to enlarge the window and get more space.
2) Disadvantages - it requires a more complex system to size and position elements that should be customizable (resize, move, collapse etc.). It might be more difficult for programmers who want to contribute their own applications, regarding their visual design.

Any opinions?

In fact, I always preferred a flexible layout because a narrow content looked terrible on my 30'' monitor when the browser window is maximized, but I agree that I am probably not a typical user of the web. In my opinion, a good compromise - horizontally extendable inner space with fixed width columns - would be the best solution.

First of all, I would like to explain that this article was formerly posted to BrainKing page on Facebook. However, since Facebook does not provide any working protection against abuse and spam, the page was closed and I decided to repost my ideas here. At least, BrainKing.info is under my control.

The article follows:

This is one of the most important planned features for BrainKing 3.0.

As you know, the only current way to make a group of BrainKing users is to create a fellowship and invite paying members to join. However, there are some drawbacks:

• The original purpose of fellowships was to create game teams for team matches and tournaments. It is not a good approach to form a new fellowship only for discussions and pollute the fellowship list with gameless creations.


• It is not possible to invite non-paying members.


• Fellowships are limited to 4 discussion boards only. I have been already asked to increase this number but since the main purpose of fellowships is to play games, such solution would not be preferred.


• Many people join all fellowships they are invited to because they just want to be connected with other people who join all possible fellowships. When everyone is a member of everything, the very purpose of a fellowship membership is pointless.

Our goal is to create a Facebook-like system of user developed pages and groups, featuring discussion boards, photo albums, a smart notification system etc. It would also solve the problem of asking me for new public discussion boards - if there is a topic you would like to discuss with friends or anyone else, just create a page and invite them. Simple and effective.

Our long term goal is to change BrainKing's former business plan (to be a game server and nothing else) and make it closer to the social network idea. I know that there are some hard core players who do not like this idea but I am sure that they would profit on it as well - the more registered users we have, the better is a chance that new game opponents appear for everyone, even for those who just want to play games and nothing else.

Just a side note, I am glad to confirm that BrainKing's December action was successfully and automatically started by BrainKing itself and many people have already caught their bonuses (most of them are lucky enough to get the 100% (red) one).

• Vacation
  • Problem: The vacation system is too complicated. It utilizes weekend days that can be changed occasionally and it allows people to set or clear vacation days in their calendar. We observed that these features produce too many different situations which usually lead to a confusion and sudden loss of games by timeout.
  • Solution: In order to make the days off as simple as possible, it will be no longer possible to change weekend days - they will be fixed to Saturday and Sunday for everyone. Furthermore, the calendar will be removed completely (or reserved for another purpose) and BrainKing will use vacation days only if it is necessary - i.e. if the particular user's games should timeout. In other words, the automatic vacation will be the only way to spend vacation days and it would be enabled for all players of all membership levels.

When the new version of BrainKing is ready, the vacation system will be properly introduced with a good description and examples of typical situations. I am sure that people will get used to it because it is really simple, transparent and, what is the most important, does not allow any kind of cheating.

In fact, the announced December (or Christmas) Action will be started in 3 and half hours, so if I write "it starts tomorrow", it should be true for the most of BrainKing users. And since I already received some questions and even speculations about a background or very meaning of the action, let me post a short clarification (although I am sure that the majority of BrainKing community does not need it at all ):

• As I described, the action allows every BrainKing user to get a nice bonus (up to 100%) to the subscribed period of Brain Rook membership level. The bonus value is determined by the particular color code and the code must be active at the time of order placement, otherwise it is not used. Each color code image (at the Main Page) contains a tooltip (when a mouse cursor is hovered over it) with the exact time range of the code validity.


• In order to activate the bonus, your order must be completed (i.e. payment received by us) by the end of this year - 2009, according to GMT+01:00 time zone. The particular order page (accessible through your Profile page) always shows the time left value.


• The action was created because people wanted us to and we like to do something good for them. All speculations about raking up as much money as possible (and at all costs) are ridiculous because BrainKing does not live on membership fees at all - in fact, we have several ways of income that allow us to run the site without any problems, no matter how many users upgrade to a paid membership level. This is our official statement.


• If nothing goes wrong, the action should be automatically started by BrainKing shortly after midnight (GMT+01:00). If it does not, please do not panic. In such case, it will be started manually and any possible bugs should be fixed as soon as possible.

And if you have any ideas how to improve the action or make a better one in the future, please do not hesitate to add your comment.

This is a follow-up of the first part.

• Links
  • Problem: Too many menu items (left column) and too many links to favorite boards or fellowships (right column) significantly increase total size of all BrainKing pages.
  • Solution: 1) All left column menu items will be removed. 2) All right column links will be removed as well. 3) A new pull-down menu system will be placed at the page top and made always visible, even when the page content is scrolled down. Likewise, a new pull-up link system will be placed at the page bottom, containing favorite boards, fellowships and similar elements that do not have to be always displayed but only on a user's demand (click).


• Friends
  • Problem: Clicking a friend's name only leads to their profile pages and more clicks must be done to invoke a particular action (game invitation, personal message, tournament invitation, ...). Furthermore, a plain textual list does not look nice.
  • Solution: Instead of showing a list of friends at a fixed position, a box containing a two column table with friend names and icons will be displayed at the left column, by default. Like all column boxes of this type, it will be possible to drag and drop it to another place (at the same or the opposite side column), turn it off completely or change settings - max number of displayed friends, list of actions to pop up when a friend's icon is clicked, etc.


• Messages and notification
  • Problem: All types of messages are sent to the user's inbox, no matter if they come from another person or are system generated. As a consequence, it creates a big mess at the user's message box page, especially when they do not log in BrainKing for a couple of weeks.
  • Solution: Only personal messages will be sent to message boxes, just like it works now. All other notifications (game finished, tournament won, tournament started, opinion poll closed, ...) will be stored at a specific part of the bottom pull-up system and separated by their types. A similar functionality can be found on Facebook and I think that it is a very good and convenient approach.

To be continued, if I think up more details.

I thought that PayPal could not surprise me anymore and I was wrong. As I described at the PayPal policy - you are guilty until proven innocent - is not acceptable by BrainKing any longer article, that hypocritical company (or should I say bunch of bureaucrats?) blocked by account for a couple of ridiculous reasons and put me to an unpleasant situation to find a new way to accept membership payments quickly, without a chance to do anything about it. Fortunately, the solution had been found and we do not need PayPal anymore. However, their email robots keep us amused even 6 months later.

This is what I received yesterday:

Your account has been limited for more than 180 days. It will continue to be limited but you now have the ability to withdraw funds.

Ha ha. That's cute, isn't it? In other words, if your account is "limited" (and it is PayPal and only PayPal who decides about it, so it can happen anytime to anybody), you will not get access to your funds for 6 months and after that, PayPal kindly allows you to withdraw them (after they collect the interest from a bank). Well, even thieves and cheaters must live on something, huh? Luckily, I had cleared by PayPal account a long time ago, so now my balance is just 2.55 Euro, but the web is full of complaints from people who could not get to amounts of ten thousands or even more. Right, what else could one expect from a company which is not a bank, thus not regulated by any authority?

I would like to add that even now, after 6 months, they still do not allow me to close my account or at least delete my credit card numbers. Their slogan says "The safer, easier way to get paid" and it is nothing but an enormous lie.

From time to time, people ask me why BrainKing's Bug Tracker contains so many reports that are never marked "resolved", "not a bug", "duplicate" or any other status which sends a message "yes, we are doing something about it".

Well, the answer is simple. Bug reports are not addressed because, according to the brand new structure of BrainKing 3.0, their sources will simply disappear when the new version of BrainKing is released, therefore it would be kind of waste of time to solve them for the current version, especially when none of them can be called "a deadly critical issue". In fact, it is one of the positive aspects of a complete site rewrite - when it is finished, the whole Bug Tracker can be cleaned and ready for fresh reports only.

I know that it can look like a cheesy avoidance of problem solving but, from a long term perspective, it is the most effective solution for everyone. Why? In order to fix some reported issues, the very core of BrainKing would have to be modified and such operation is always risky - partial improvement of the site fundamentals usually creates more problems than it solves. Nobody wants to compromise the site stability, right?

It does not mean that bug reports would be useless, of course. The more issues are filed, the better the new BrainKing can be, because they highlight the problematic parts of the code and it is easier to make them error proof from the scratch now. Please, do not hesitate to post bug reports. Just don't be insulted if you don't get any response. There is always a good reason for it.

One of the key aspects of BrainKing 3.0 (not released yet) is make its pages as simple as possible, which is a direct opposite to our former approach - to concentrate as many information on a single page as it can keep. There is a couple of very good reasons for this decision:

• Speed
  • Problem: The more elements (text, images, tables, ...) a page contains, the longer the total load time is. It is usually not a big problem for people with a fast connection to our site but everybody knows that the internet is not, uh, a homogeneous entity and it can easily happen that a page, which was displayed in a wink of an eye yesterday, can take 10 seconds to render today.
  • Solution: Extremely long tables with 5000 started games will not be used anymore. All elements of this kind will be, by default, limited to, say, max 20 rows and providing a "show more" link to display a longer list only on a user demand.


• Settings
  • Problem: Users require improvements and new features, we implement them and since not everyone is happy with new functionality that suddenly appears at BrainKing pages, we create options to turn them on/off or change some parameters. Then another feature requests emerge, we implement them, etc. etc. The outcome is a long and complicated Settings page with tens of switches which an average user might never modify and if so, he can be easily confused and change something wrong.
  • Solution: Only the most fundamental options will be displayed at the Settings page and their count should not exceed 10. There will be an Expert Options tab to enable access to all possible switches if someone wants to experiment with them, of course.


• Sorting
  • Problem: BrainKing contains a couple of tables that can be sorted by any column if a user click at the particular column header. Although it may look like an useful feature, it is, in fact, a source of several issues. Many users clicks the headers incidentally and then do not know how to reset the original sorting. It is very difficult (on even impossible in some cases) to optimize database tables to return requested rows sorted by all possible columns and it usually leads to a slowdown of the whole database server, which negatively impacts all BrainKing users. Last but not least, our statistics say that only a minority of users actually changes sorting rules for the mentioned tables.
  • Solution: Customizable sorting will be removed at all, except short lists (like country names) where the performance is not the issue. Instead, a system of customizable filters will be applied. For instance, in a list of user's started games, click "Chess" to show only Chess games, click "Fencer" to show only games with this person, etc. It will be simpler, more effective and much faster for everyone.

To be continued (it is a good practice to split long texts to more short entries, otherwise nobody would read them ).

Although it is not December yet, many people already asked me if BrainKing plans to make a membership action (usually called Christmas Special) this year too. The answer is YES and, regarding the fact that many new users registered on BrainKing since the last action of this kind taken place, I would like repost its full description:

----------

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.

This action will be started on 1st December 2009 and should be active to the end of this year. Furthermore, we have added a nice improvement - you don't have to send a payment in 72 hours to validate the bonus (like before), it must be received to the end of this year - 31st December 2009, 23:59:59 GMT+01:00. The reason is that we would like to make this opportunity available to all users, including those who use a wire transfer or other slower methods to pay.

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Right, it's still the same. But why to change something what simply works and is popular?

I think that I had mentioned a development of the upcoming version of BrainKing at some time in Summer and since former plans and vision was changed at least 10 times, I guess it is a good idea to present the current status, in order to make people prepared for it. There are many things that will look a little (or completely) different and so will be the very core of the system and site.

First of all, I would like to say something about the time schedule. The estimated time to rewrite the whole site and add all planned features (or at least the most important ones) is about 2 months. Of course, it means 2 months of 24 hours work every single day, which is far from reality. Furthermore, when unexpected events occur, and usually more than one at the same time, the release date is always postponed.

In other words, nobody can say when exactly BrainKing 3.0 could be finished and completely tested. Anyway, more than 60% of work is already done and I am more than happy with the outcome.

All right, the changes and improvements follow:

• Visual change
  After a long consideration we had decided to turn back to a simple style of pages with a minimum of distracting graphics. There are several reasons for that:
  • Our statistics says that more than 70% of active users already switched to Simple style, so the Castle style community actually is a minor one.
  • The upcoming version of BrainKing will support customizable boxes with various content and our tests show that it is very inconvenient to squash them to "castle towers" with a fixed width.
  • It is too time consuming to keep three official styles of BrainKing pages and test every new feature with them. It would be almost impossible to maintain the flexibility of new pages under current conditions.
  • The Castle style contains a nasty blank space at the page top (between side tower roofs) and it would not be used at all because the chat box is to be changed as well.
  As a good compromise, BrainKing's home page will keep the Castle style, just like it is now. It is a different situation because the home page mostly contains general information about the site and user specific data should not appear there at all.


• New system of game models
  As some users probably remember, BrainKing was formerly created with Chess (and some variants) only and all other games were subsequently added, usually as extensions of the basic Chess model with more or less modifications (as you can imagine, in case of e.g. Backgammon there were really many modifications). It is clear that Chess model does not correspond with many other game types and it is the main reason why all games need to be completely rewritten, especially now, when we support 128 of them. It should result in a better stability and no more illegal moves, not even if someone tries to hack the system.


• More privacy, less public content
  Public content is always a potential source of problems because it usually becomes a target of spammers or notorious complainers which does not add too good publicity to the site, not to mention the time moderators must spend to fight bad content. Ergo, public discussion boards will be replaced by a new system that would be focused on groups of friends, event comment threads and a rewritten module of problem reports or "I am lost, please help me" inquiries.


• More automatic processes
  Thanks to the previous point, it will be possible to change many functions and processes (which are currently operated manually by administrators) to automatic server-driven ones. For example:
  • New account registration: Since there will be no places to post public spam to, it would be perfectly safe to replace the manual approve system by an automatic one with a confirmation code sent to email address. Simply register and play, just like old times.
  • Tournament prizes: The existing system does not work too conveniently - prizes can be only specified in the tournament description and when more winners share the same final position, it is not clear how to distribute them. BrainKing 3.0 will contain a brand new functionality of prizes to make the process completely automatic and understandable to all.


• Lightweight version (for cell phones, WebTV etc.)
  New BrainKing will use a lot of JavaScript dynamic features to make the site look a little more modern. And although all contemporary browsers should handle it properly, it is likely that non-computer devices (WebTV, cell phones etc.) will not be capable of it. Therefore, the simplest possible version of BrainKing pages would be created along with the normal one and users of the mentioned clients should be automatically redirected there.

This is just a short version and definitely does not cover everything, mostly because some things may still change. However, it should, hopefully, answer questions that I am occasionally asked and give everyone a chance to add a comment with own suggestions. Of course, everything is guaranteed to be considered, not implemented.

It's been a long time, huh?

Since I am continuously (well, actually with kind of rest periods, longer or shorter) working on redesigning and rewriting the BrainKing game site, which should result in a version 3.0 when it is finished, there was almost nothing to post here. However, I have decided to share some design ideas and important changes/improvements of functionality soon, so people would get the picture of our new approach. More details later. Soon.

Anyway, there is still one hot information to announce. Since I received a couple of questions from BrainKing users who wanted to pay for a membership with MasterCard, using AlertPay payment gateway, and got a response "sorry, this merchant does not accept MasterCard payments", I started to investigate this strange issue. After logging to my AlertPay account, everything was clear - AlertPay simply applied new security rules to all account holders who want to accept credit card payments through their websites. After filling a simple form, regarding our site description etc., I have just received an approval, so everything should be OK at the moment. This is the full statement:

"You may accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments through your website. However, your payments may be placed on hold for a limited time. We place some credit card payments on “hold” to ensure the security of the transaction and to decrease the chances of fraudulent payments made through our service. After this period, you will have full access to your funds."

So, if you decide to use your card to purchase a BrainKing membership and your transaction is not processed instantly, please be patient and don't hesitate to contact me with any further questions.

Back to work.

I would like to announce two interesting events. One of them is closely related to BrainKing and the latter one should help one of our partners with promoting their own action:

1) Many BrainKing users probably noticed the recent short unscheduled downtime of our game site. In fact, it took no more than one hour and was caused by a broken optical cable that connects BrainKing servers with the rest of the world. Since the site was not accessible for a really short time and proper actions were taken almost instantly, there were no negative consequences, everything is all right now, etc. However, I am sure that many people would feel better if they can be informed as soon as possible if something like that happens again. And that is why I have created a BrainKing group on Facebook.
No matter what you think about Facebook, the indisprovable truth is that this social network connects more than 200 million users, so it really is one of the best places to contact a big group of people at once, and to deliver a simple message as quickly as possible. The address of BrainKing group is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=102006504268#/group.php?gid=102006504268 and if you want to stay tuned, please do not hesitate to visit this page and join. It is also the recommended place to discuss features and improvements of the upcoming major update of BrainKing game site itself - code name BrainKing 3.0.

2) Rake in Grass, the game developing company, offers a PROMO action - a giveaway of one of their game Larva Mortus (http://larvamortus.rakeingrass.com) in case you follow their Twitter account http://twitter.com/rakeingrass. There is no catch - this time you are even not obliged to purchase a BrainKing membership to get a free game. Just follow these simple instructions and collect the prize. Since all Rake in Grass guys are very good friends of mine, I can guarantee the legitimacy of the promotion and recommend it to everyone.

And back to the source code.

Nothing has changed since yesterday (what a surprise!). Let me continue. My PayPal account page now shows the following line:

Your account access is limited. Learn how to remove this limitation.

Well, I like to learn new things, so let's see what these freaks want me to do now. The first step seems to be quite simple because it just requires to select Yes as a response to the Have you removed all items from your website that violate our Acceptable Use Policy? question and enter all BrainKing domains to the What website URL(s) did you remove the items(s) from? field. I think it is not necessary to add that it would be hardly helpful to do it because, as I have explained yesterday, if we remove all such "items" from BrainKing, there would be nothing left to sell, therefore no reason to keep the PayPal account active.

The second step is much more interesting and I post its full content here because I don't see any other way to express my disgust. PayPal wants me to sign the following affidavit:

"I have read and agree to the terms of use specified in the Acceptable Use Policy section of the User Agreement for PayPal Service.

I understand and agree that I am responsible for making sure that the transactions I enter into using PayPal are legal and do not violate the terms of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy.

I understand that my previous activities have been deemed by PayPal to violate the Acceptable Use Policy and I agree that if I do again violate the terms of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy, my account access may be limited or my account may be closed without advance notice, regardless of whether the violation takes place through eBay or another online marketplace, through my own website, or through any other forum.

I also pledge that my current usage of PayPal is legal under the terms of the User Agreement and that I will not use PayPal in the future to accept payment for goods or services that are illegal or are prohibited as described by the Acceptable Use Policy or the Restricted Activities Section of the PayPal User Agreement."

In other words, they want me to plead guilty and if I do so, they might lift the account limitation. And that's what I call The Extortion in its clearest form. I feel really sorry for merchants who made their business dependent on accepting PayPal payments because they can easily go bankrupt every day without a warning. It is not just my private opinion - even Wikipedia describes how PayPal treats its customers. See Criticism paragraph at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal page and see also Criticism of eBay document. It should be a mandatory reading for everyone who thinks of starting a business with these thieves and frauds.

Please, feel free to add comments with your own PayPal/eBay horror stories, I will be very glad to read them.