billythekid's Blogshares blog

Tickers

2008-06-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

I think the new ticker-frame is fantastic! I can open anything I'm watching with a quick click, always have the view to hand without the need to raise/lower other windows. It's brilliant. My only concern is that you can't change the text size in the ticker without changing the whole page, but it's minor!

How do you use your tickers? Here's what I do...

For blogs, I don't do shares play so any blogs in the ticker are simply to give me a scrolling link to the blog in question(saves having to use my (limited to 10) custom links).
For Ideas, I keep the ones I'm building and the ones I'm crashing in the ticker, if a builder is red I can instantly go check it out, if a crasher is green, likewise. Also in there are industries I'm watching for others.

The ticker tool is the most under-rated tool in the game IMO. I'll tell you though, I won't be stopping using it any time soon!

btk

Jazz Ideas

2008-06-16T03:27:00.000-07:00

I've almost finished with phase 1 of the Jazz Industry death. So far I've been pretty much focusing on getting the price down, which I feel has been very successful. It's now hovering around 100K from a starting place of 100Million so result there.

I'm now going to be moving on to phase 2 - penalising it. This involves creating enough ideas in the industry to prevent the price rising (Industries with lots of ideas existing in them are penalized on the drops to make it difficult to raise the price and to better reflect their market share, you'll have seen red "penalized" industries in your portfolios)

This will take a lot longer than it took to kill the price but will yield a better long-term result. It will also mean I don't need to watch the industry so much and if I notice it turning green in my ticker I'll just hit it again!

Stud's Twitter Changed

2008-06-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

I've reinstated the [by xxxxx] addendum to stud's twitter posts to comply with co-operative/team blogs as amended.

No more hiding behind your edits!

More Cheese, anyone?

2008-06-09T04:52:00.000-07:00

Some people have been whining about Jazz to Love/Pain members. I'd just like to reiterate that this is not a Love Pain hit but a billythekid hit. It's funny in this game how people never seem to go to the source of the problem(me being the source, the hit on Jazz being the problem) favouring going behind their back to people who they think hold some control over your game play!

I am doing Jazz on my own. I am the sole re-indexer and I have links in place of my own to ensure that this industry WILL NOT BE PROFITABLE.

Now that that's clear...

Those whining in PM weren't the intended targets of the hit and furthermore were given notice of the hit, after already selling a substantial holding in Jazz! As far as I'm concerned by continuing to hold these ideas and even buying more, they are doing it with their eyes fully open and deserve no leniency. If you don't want to take this hit SELL YOUR IDEAS!!!!!!!

I can't make it any clearer than that can I?

Current price is B$855,188.03 from a starting price of B$97,713,782.00 meaning that the sniped ideas have lost the sniper, so far, B$71,675,359,537,800

Yep, 71 TRILLION Blogdollars!

Ouch!

My Searches

2008-06-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

I've now integrated twitter searches into my search tool. You can find the new version here.

Jazz

2008-06-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

I'm killing Jazz right now, I suggest you sell up if you own them, coz you won't get a better price than NOW!

People need to learn that if they snipe industries I've dropped on purpose in order to fix the industry(make it profitable again) that it will NOT be a good investment for them.

btk

Fun Fun Fun

2008-06-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

Well it was all fun the other night in #thebar IRC channel for the first (of many) Bar Quiz!

Congratulations to Ixx who won the night with 6 correct answers from 23 possible in the fastest finger first showdown.

I'm disappointed I couldn't attend myself as I was really looking forward to it. Ho-hum. I've made an update to my industry search page to now include twitters which has been a long time coming really!

I'm also waiting on Subwolf getting back to me on the Player Market script. I'm thinking it should be any day now.

I've also thrown a new option or two into stud. If you are building an industry and need to find the first(from the bottom) blog with no incoming type !1k #industry e.g. !1k 1234.

Next: If you are building industries and want to follow what blogs to index, try this one. !index playerid industryid e.g. !index 55024 101
What it does is searches the PQ logs for that last two days, matching up what you've thrown in the PQ to what belongs in that industry and uploads a handy list, giving you the url. So now you have an easy-to-click list of links rather than searching through that industry every day! Check out an example.

Speaking of mIRC scripts I've had my scripts blog added back into the game and I've started actually updating it again. If anyone wants anything written for their mIRC please just PM me in the game or IRC and I'll see if I can do it! It's my main hobby so a new project is always welcome!

The Link maker

2008-05-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've changed the box part in the link maker a little so that now a whole industry can be placed on your sidebar with just one link!

Ok, that's not really what's happening but if you check this blog you'll see the link for the jazz industry(very bottom on the left) follow it and pick a blog, you'll see that blog linking into it!

Pretty neat huh.

Ok if you have a scroll mouse go back to this blog and position your mouse over the industry. scroll down with your scroll-wheel and that's how it works.

Of course this blog's stupid theme breaks it!

Sneaky-Peak

2008-05-13T07:30:00.001-07:00

Since the site's currently in maintenance mode I thought I'd give y'all a taster of what's just round the corner for YOU ALL...

Have you guessed what it is yet? I'm waiting on an Admin to sign off on it but the GIC are cool with it. Soon as I'm on at the same time as an admin I'll post!

...you will love this, especially if you have friends in the game!

btk

Industry View Preferences

2008-05-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

If you are having trouble with your industry view preferences and you use Firefox browser, here's how to sort it, as originally posted here.

1. close firefox

make sure it's closed coz if it's not it'll try to over-write your changes when you do close it. (unless you use a decent text editor that warns you of such things)

2. go to start/run and type in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
you should get a window open up with a folder named something like kljerfae.default

3. open that folder

4. look for the cookies.txt file and open it in your favourite text editor

5. You'll need to get this step from the forum post as I can't get a tab character to stick in blogger, even using <pre> tags. Without them it works not, I tested!

6. SAVE THE FILE but don't close your editor just yet

7. open firefox and navigate to your preferences page in BS
check it says heavy
close firefox again
open firefox and navigate to your preferences page in BS
check it still says heavy

if it does then you can probably close your text editor and enjoy the game again.

Happy Hour

2008-05-09T06:16:00.001-07:00

As members of The Bar Corporation know we like to have a Friday "Happy Hour" where we share the love in the form of ideas priced at B$1 each.

In the past we've had some problems with people unsuspectingly buying up all the ideas on offer at once without realising. So I've made an addition to stud in IRC for people to make it as easy as I can for now.

To use it first get the industry number you want to bond, then go into an IRC channel where stud is (#stud #thebar #billythekids-hideout) and type

!happy [number]

eg. !happy 1234

Stud will reply to you in your Private Message window with a link to click and something to paste to the corp.

The line given to the corp is a one-click-straight-to-buy link where they purchase 1 idea at B$1, no confirmation windows to mess it up!

Have a great Friday!

btk

btk's Blogger Search tool.

2008-05-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've thrown a search tool for blogger onto this page. It's been on other sites before I know but this just makes it easier to find I think.

Wher have I been

2008-05-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I updated this! It's not like there's been nothing going on in the game!

Well, I've been watching the Froggie BSEC case with interest and vocalising it in the forum. I just want to say here that I wasn't sticking up for him per sé but I was just wanting to see the evidence in full, which Ken went above and beyond IMO to provide, !props ken!!

Also in the news is my artefact collecting. I'm down to 38(at time of writing). I keep my needed arte list updated for all to see at http://the-kid.org/blogshares/needartes.html and I'm really happy with how it's going. Check out my built artefact transactions from april-ish to see the progress. I'm getting there like Carlos did (well almost)

Carlos has had us all busy in the bar corp writing stuff for the bar blog and keeping the fun times coming with friday night happy hours(more like a Friday night lock-in) and various member competitions. The corp is a real breath of fresh air to the game especially since operation preparation H and all that that entailed. I don't know why UTs aren't allowed in the bar though. It's a cross-corp corporation and as such I feel that they shouldn't be exempted. It's supposed to be a fun place to hang out for everyone surely. All my scripts are available for UT usage as much as anyone else in the game as they aren't corporation focused, they are game focused.

Anyhow, that's me done with UT fairness, the rest of the time they are prime for a kicking! lol

happy gamin'

btk

Stud's twitter

2008-03-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

Stud has his very own twitter page at http://twitter.com/studbot which can be updated by those with enough privileges in IRC (opped/halfopped in a channel stud's in)!

Also watch this space for a possible exciting script release for any mIRC users out there. It's in the hands of the GIC at the moment but signs so far are good. Y'all will love it I'm sure!

btk

http://spcxn.got.net

2008-03-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Temporary address for the game at http://spcxn.got.net

I doubt this'll be of use to anyone but you never know!

btk

Idea-Mania and Love/Pain

2008-03-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

I've gone overnight from needing over 500 ideas to being joint first in the game. One better than that is Eaglehawk who needed around 2000 ideas the other day!

wtg everyone who filled our PM bids especially boo, MissMelville and R U Serious. Without that help we'd still be also rans! This just goes to show what a great corp run by dedicated people can do for each other. We always fill each other's bids where possible but, especially in the case of RUS doing hundreds at once is a tedious chore and one I am only too pleased they took on.

Love Pain are a really nice corp run by really nice people. It's a very positive corp in it's values and doesn't bother too much with all the corp war nonsense. Also Beachtiglet is a great leader in that she lets you have pretty much free reign over how you want to play the game. This means I can do my ideas, shares and bonds while still having the odd dig at the UT corp in my spare time.

More than that though I just want to say thanks to a bunch of good friends.

Cheers.

Scavenger Contest

2008-03-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

This will be my entry to the scavenger hunt once it's complete...

I thought I'd try to get as many original pictures as possible for this contest. I roped Kids-thekid into it too. I made up a Blogshares sign to try to get into the shots to prove their originality. All these pictures were taken on a Nokia 7500 camera phone(except the logged in to BS one - for obvious reasons) Clicking a picture should take you to the full sized image...

Headings in RED are ones I was unable to get myself (so far)

1. A man in a kilt either outdoors or at a workplace.

2. A plane in the process of landing.
This was horrible. We live about 3 minutes from Aberdeen Airport, which incidentally is the busiest heliport in the world. This didn't make it easy to get the picture though.

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Those do have a plane landing in them!! We went round the other side of the airport and stopped under the approach. Kidthekid-1 lay across the dash holding the sign to get us this shot...

3. SubWolf surrounded by women.

Thanks to MMelville for the idea on this one. I thought this was gonna be a total bitch to get but instead one of the easiest shots yet...

Can't see it?

Thanks for a great idea MM!!

4. Dave's mom in combat boots.
Another tough one!

5. Two people knitting towards each other on the same project.

6. Ducks in a waterscape scene. (bonus for most ducks).
There's a pond quite near our house with ducks on it so Kidthekid-4 and I set out, bread in hand, to do this one on our own. This was a mistake. Firstly it's a logistic disaster. I need to take the pic while she holds the sign and at the same time not drown in the pond! Another body would have been good but we went ahead anyhow. The sun wasn't sitting right for a good shot, coupled with the death of child possibility so I thought I'd take a pre-risk test shot...

I was surprised that turned out OK so thought right, time for the kid. This actually created a problem in that when she saw the ducks that was it, Dad was ignored! I spent literally seconds trying to get her to turn round and smile, holding the sign but it wasn't to be, you can still see it's the same sign though...

I suppose I should mention that I counted 18 ducks on the pond, not sure how many I got in the shot though. I don't suppose it'll matter as someone's bound to find a pic with thousands of the wee buggers.

7. Someone surrounded by coffee cups.

This was bound to be easy. Coffee cups have their own shelf in one of our kitchen units so step in Kidthekid-4 again. This was actually the first shot I took for the comp...

8. A pink elephant.

Because of the previous palava with the elephant being yellow this was left longer than I'd hoped. However, a brilliant member of my fanclub soon mentioned she had a serviette with pink elephants on it and stuck it on her flickr page...

No No No, said I. That's no good, it requires "Blogsharification" (you can use that word if you like). Happily my mates are as mad as I am and the end result is, I'm sure you'll agree, fantastic!

9. A woman holding a Newcastle (it's a brand of beer).

10. Larger than life animal sculpture (extra points for ridiculous size / subject).
This is made of coat hangers...

11. Someone asleep at their terminal.

12. An ass with a hat on it.

13. A hot air balloon in flight.

14. A cell phone logged into B$.

Easy thought I. Not so! This was a hellish picture to take. Firstly I had to use my digital camera. Secondly it was a close up. Thirdly the phone kept going to black as I was about to take it. Still after some perseverance I got the shot, note it's actually "logged in" and not just on the site...

15. A wild animal (cannot be at a conventional zoo).

I remembered that our landlords, the Rowett Institute, keep a bunch of strange animals on their land as part of their work. So I took the Kidthekid-3 down and got a couple of him with the Llamas. Ok they aren't in the wild, but they are still wild animals!

Bonus: A flag of your favourite country.

Stud's Command List

2008-03-02T14:05:00.001-08:00

Here is the current list of commands available to users in IRC.

Available studbot Commands ( items in <> are optional )
!help or !stud -=- shows this menu
!botadmin -=- shows a list of bot admin. These people can override settings in the bot when you make a mistake or add you to the email system.
!hug <nick> -=- hugs <nick> (if no nick given hugs you!)
!strip <nick> -=- does a strip for <nick> (if no nick is given strips for you!)
!comp #user -=- relays the current composite place for the given user ID
!total #user -=- relays the current total worth for the given user ID.
!profit #industry percentage% -=- tells how much each bond should be in the industry given to obtain the given percentage profit as well as shows a hyperlink to that bond issue page
!pamper <nick> -=- gives a random "food" to <nick> (or you!) while indulging <nick>(or you!) in some random pampering
!dbf -=- Shows what date it was 6 months ago for blog delistings
!lbf -=- Shows what date it was 3 months ago for blog additions
!uklotto -=- Picks 6 random numbers from 1-49
!uslotto -=- Picks 6 random numbers from 1-50
!boy -=- Sets your nickname as a BOY (studbot admin can over-ride this command if you make a mistake)
!girl -=- Sets your nickname as a GIRL (studbot admin can over-ride this command if you make a mistake)
!8ball question -=- answers the given question.
!int -=- Tells you when corporation interest was last paid.
!tiny www.address.com -=- Shows a tinyurl conversion of the given URL (here www.address.com)
!links top<500>/linkers/industry# <drop> <web> -=- Sends a compiled links list of the top blogs in each given category. (Type !linkshelp for a more detailed explanation)
!email nick message -=- sends an email message to the given nick. The given nick must already have an email address on file with the bot. The user must also be in the allowed list. See bot admin to allow you. Type -=- !email list -=- to see who can be emailed.

and admin commands are...

---Admin Commands (make the studbot do stuff. Use these commands in his PM window)---
say #channel/nick data (makes the studbot say "data" to specified #channel or nick, #channel/nick is required)
for example : say #soap hi everyone or say billythekid hi billy
do #channel/nick data (makes the studbot /me "data" to specified #channel or nick, #channel/nick is required)
for example : do #soap jumps around or do billythekid jumps on billy
join #channel (brings the studbot to the specified channel)
Note - As admin you can also bring the studbot into channels via an invite /invite nick #channel
part #channel <reason> (makes the studbot leave the specified #channel(required) <with optional reason>)
set nick BOY/GIRL (sets the given nick as a BOY or GIRL, used in the !pamper command, nick and BOY or GIRL is required)
girlaction text (adds the given text to the list of possible things girls can have done to them in the !pamper command)
girlfood text (adds the given text to the list of things the bot gives to the girls to enjoy in the !pamper command
boydrink text (adds the given text to the list of possible drinks the boys get in the !pamper command)
boytv text (adds the given text to the list of tv shows the boys get in the !pamper command
setemail nick email@address.com (adds/changes nick's email address used in the !email command to email@address.com)
allow nick (adds nick to the list of people allowed to send emails)
remove nick (removes email privileges from nick)
help (shows this menu)

email

2008-03-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

stud has a new email messaging system installed. This took me two days to make as the integration of mIRC sockets and my webhost's email capabilities makes it less than a marriage made in heaven. However perseverance was the key and I finally got it working thanks to ripping some code from the wonderful people at http://formtoemail.com who provided me with the php code I could just ftp and call from mIRC via sockets. Letting the PHP(mail) plugin do the hard work. My hosting provider (godaddy.com) seem to have some sort of block on connecting directly to their smtp relays. I did raise a support ticket but they only provided me with another smtp relay, unfortunately I could only access that from within the site(i.e from on their machines) if I could do that, I wouldn't need a host!!

Anyhow, the PHP script sends the email directly from within the site. Email addresses are completely hidden from prying eyes. This also has the additional effect of bypassing my daily limit on relays as, well, I'm not relaying, I'm doing it direct.

It works as follows.

You type !email nick message for example,
<billythekid> !email billy where the hell are you?
<stud> billythekid: Mail sent to billy!

It then sends the email to "billy"'s stored email addy within the bot so no channel scrapers can grab the mail addy either. The email I received looked like...

Of course this means that not everyone can receive mail via IRC. Only those who have been manually added to stud's list. So no one need worry about suddenly receiving loads of crap emails from folk. Also only those manually added to a list of senders have the permissions to use it anyhow. At the moment that's only me but it will be open to anyone.

Now, this probably needs a policy statement too. So...

I do not take any responsibility for the content of emails sent via this system other than ones sent by myself. Any user found to be abusing the system will have their privileges and or email addresses removed at the discretion of myself.

I will NOT sell/forward or otherwise use the email addresses submitted for inclusion for any reason. I will simply copy the address and paste it into stud's list. Email addresses will never be public and are never shown to the person doing the emailing. All emails will come from stud@the-kid.org and stud@the-kid.org will not be used for any other(non-IRC) emails. People may use more than one nickname for the same email address (!email billy, !email billythekid, !email btk will all reach me at my email address). I will not add any email address without request. I will not seek authorisation to add any email address. It's entirely voluntary.

This system will be open to everyone in the game on request regardless of corporation etc, as are all stud scripts.

[/policy statement]

Now I hope to expand this in future to perhaps send people information from other parts of stud (links lists for example) but at the moment it's just a quick IRC-to-email script for messaging people who may not be online or for whatever reason you like. One thing to note is that anyone in the channel you are using it on will see the message too and I have no plans to make this a hidden/closed system at the moment. I won't for example make it possible to private message stud with the !email command to hide your messages from others. Stud does have his own channel at #stud if you want some limited privacy(i.e if nobody else is there!) I'm all about transparency!

btk

and as the plane crashed down he thought, "well isn't this nice"...

2008-02-25T03:59:00.000-08:00

...and isn't it Ironic?

Words, Alanis Morisette.

Irony is a great thing isn't it? I personally am loving the irony being displayed by Jin Jirrie in the game. She spent hours telling us in the forum that twitters suck, she only cares about the index, blogfarming is bad for the game then in a U-turn akin to the tories circa early 90s she's adding 2 twitters (and a blog) (1 2 3) into the game and linking amongst them. It's great to watch.

I can see she's trying to make some sort of stand using sarcasm perhaps but the comedy value of it is fantastic.

I hope she keeps this up. It's good to see that the message has finally gotten through to her. Like it or not, this is how the game IS so make the most of it, as she's clearly doing.

This post may sound like I am taking the piss a little but to be honest I think it's exactly what I've been going on about for ages. Embrace change whether you like it or not and use it to work FOR you. Keep it up Jin. Nice to see you using the UT shared brain on your days!

btk

Tinyurl

2008-02-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

Need an URL tinied? step in Stud.

<billythekid> !tiny www.abiglongurltobetiniedpleasestuddyboy/atthisdirectory/thenthispage

in channel (that's all one line) for a nice...

<stud> billythekid: http://tinyurl.com/34dxy6

We're all about easy.

Incidentally as an extension of this the web hosted links are now tinyurled as well.

Share Play

2008-02-12T03:10:00.000-08:00

Well, that was a bit of craziness eh! Can't get too rich I suppose. It was good to see shares play compete with ideas in the cash stakes for a while. I wonder if the current levelling off will be good to, should do.

It was so lucky I was doing those industry hits when the new maths came into play. My blog was briefly the most profitable in the game, with a knock-on effect to all the blogs to which I link. I've ceased those attacks for now to allow some of my friends to get some peace from whiners! I'm now doing a blanket linking to the top 500 blogs in the game daily from my 3 main blogs. (1 2 3)

So that's that!

btk

Studs linker

2008-02-05T04:39:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd better quickly document a slight addition in stud's link harvester feature. Now if you type top instead of an industry number he'll send you a link-list for the top 100 blogs in the game (from http://blogshares.com/top100.php)

!links top

I've also included another option to create a dropdown list rather than a sidebar list. To get a dropdown add the word drop to your list request

!links 1234 drop
!links top drop

the second gives you (today):

Pretty neat huh? That takes up so much less space in your sidebar. See the same exact code on my personal blog. I just dropped it straight into a text widget(very bottom of the sidebar)...

btk

[edit] I've changed the drop-down so that the spiders will see the hyperlinks, not much point in making links if the game can't see them! Unfortunately the names show 2 entries now as well as breaking XHTML compliance(which means it's not going on my own blog anymore either!). PQ is borked atm so will need to wait and see if this works. Clicks should still work in the drop-down though.[/edit]

[edit2] That "fix" does work, I'll need to find out how to make it hidden altogether now, coz that's just ugly! Strangely when it was in my personal blog's sidebar it fitted in nicely without going huge, so perhaps on your own blogs it'll be fine[/edit2]