I’ve updated the physics section of my website following requests from various people. The update sees full notes for all of module 4 and module 5 of physics A2. I’m using the same layout as ever (originally designed for the Biology notes sometime last year) with images hosted on Flickr and available in a few sizes. The pages are ad supported.
 |
Today I launch a US spelling version of my aluminium aluminum resource. This sees a little flag widget added to the sidebar of the site to flick between the different spellings of the versions.
Why make this change? Well research suggests that this spelling is more popular than the IUPAC standard. And the more people the resource can help… the better. You can check out the classic version here, and the US version here.
I have launched the long awaited revamp of the Aluminium Site which finally removes frames from the design and tries to make it look better on all screen resolutions. It used to look like this:
And now it looks like this:
An improvement I hope. You can check the new site out at http://davyson.com/aluminium.
Want to read on? Check out the Random Essays Blog.
I have just finished the script that is going to put levels 13 - 16 live on Wednesday 28th June at 4 PM BST. This is what the gateway will look like. It has been a tricky job to write this latest set. And as you can see I’ve been helped by numerous people on its way to completion. Splasho contributed an entire level. Probably the best level in the set. Very applaudable. Rob, Ribrob, and Ammar, all played their usual roles telling me when to stop working at an idea, telling me when something was terrible, telling me when more clues were needed and all that. They rarely saw full levels just snippets. Ken and Lina both travelled the full length of the set, with Lina doing an extra level that has now been removed. Ken mocked up an entire new version of one level and helped out with sorting out technical issues with another. Trevor supplied the idea for the last part of the last level, for which I am very grateful. Many thanks to everyone involved.
So if you are a riddler, I hope you enjoy. It is set 4 of the web riddle, and it is coming to you on Wednesday.
I originally said that Ribrob would be writing the whole of set 3. But then that sort of never happened. He may be writing set 5 perhaps jointly with myself. We will have to see. Rest assured set 5 will be out much sooner than you expect.
Note: Set 4 is only open to those that have done set 3, you’ll find the link appearing on the last page of set 3 at said time. If you are new to riddle then it is not too late to start jump right in.
Today I have released some more A2 biology content to complement to Module 4 notes that I currently offer. This time it is Module 5 notes which is the environment section. It is rather timely with the exam in just a few days now. The notes cover all the content that was covered in class in preparation for the module and take up just six sides of A4. I normally like to offer as many formats as is possible but since the notes are just scans there is not much need for alternatives to jpgs. I used the exact same interface that I took from the Module 4 notes and just changed the content because it worked well with Module 4, and of course it saved me a bit of time.
It is likely that this will be the last addition to the A2 section of the site until the exams are all over. Which is now just over a week away. When all is done I do plan to add a lot more items to the site over my long summer off. This will involve the notes for Module 7 along with a load of other new stuff.
Time for a new design on the blog. And this one is rather different. I took the old theme which was a slightly modified commonly distributed theme (Blue Horizon if you want to go get it) and deleted the stylesheet. What resulted was largely what you see in front of you now. I junked the sidebar of course, and deleted more code that I didn’t need, streamlined the comments and changed the way the permalinks worked. The text hovers 20 px from each side of your screen. If you have a widescreen monitor (or just a large screen) this will be substantially wider than other blogs which tend to be fixed width to maintain fancier layouts.
I am all Times New Roman now too. Which is great to complement the rest of me site. This blog is almost ready for blending into the rest of the site. But the final merger will need the next version of the main site to blend with! So what is coming up for this blog. I am going to be posting a full beginners review of Mac OS X Tiger in what will probably be a five or so part story. I am going to reviewing 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google (first post) which I got today through the post. I also have lots of coding bits and bobs mainly in PHP that I have created recently that I want to share.
And that is not to mention more news on Otavo, why Yahoo Mail Beta is teribble, why Odeo fails, why iTunes is better than Windows Media Player, and a huge piece on my classification of web services, into those that improve our lives and those that only serve to help with the mess the internet makes for us.
There are a number of things coming up for this site now. But all of them are coming towards the end of June so you will have to be patient. I am probably going to cut back on the ads I recently added to the education section and upload more content. I am also going to reinstate and update the Hotmail feature, update the dormant web section, make a notes section lifting the code essentially from the riddle forum, publicise the links blog more heavily on the main site, update the PHP zone to include working versions of all my PHP projects and to have the source code from them freely available, post a full review of Mac OS X to this blog, add set 4 to the web riddle, better integrate my pictures into the sidebar, work on the UI for an exam results project (remotely controlled of course), completely recode the website editor to incorporate different levels of authority as well as moving files, PHP transfers etc and finally reorgnise the backend of the site deleting unused content and updating old pages where needed.
Is that it? Nearly. I also want to completely redesign the CSS for the site, and get all pages on one common (and new) stylesheet. This will tie in heavily with the new editor which should be capable (via JavaScript) of adding such themes to the code. So there is a fair bit to come, and I will post more information nearer the time on the dedicated Site Log.
I recently added four further levels top bring the total up on the web riddle to eight. But much more significantly come the end of Google’s Da Vinci Quest the puzzle hungry people over at Google Blogosocoped have started playing the riddle. This is providing me with a lot of feedback about the riddle (just by some of the URLs being tried, emails I am receiving, comments etc) and increasing the riddle’s exposure greatly.
In terms of progress many of the testers were worried that the whole thing was a little too hard. And perhaps it is. But I think it is good that way. The more challenging the more rewarding. Most people do not get past level 1. But many people show no signs of stopping trying. Guessing is not required, but it sometimes is a fun way to let your agression out. The image shows what they are all up against.
Most notably Tony Ruscoe (blog) has managed to complete all eight of the levels. This is absolutely exceptional. The testers (who were supplied with much more guidance) took longer than this. Hats of to him, seriously. He may help write some later levels. In the meantime Ribrob is doing levels 9 to 12, and I am writing he following set (which is almost done).
Happy Riddling!
I have written a bit about web riddles before. They typically consist of a single page. The aim is simple. Get to the next page. And that is it, you use clues that you pick up from around the page to determine the URL of the next page. There are quite a few of these things out there already. Some with 100 and more levels.
I have had great fun playing them, and thought it might be even more fun to make one. The Web Riddle is the result of my effort. It is not 100 levels long. It is new for heavens sake! At the moment there are just four levels. However they are all fairly tough. At the end of the fourth level there is a stop off, with a list of people who made it. If you get there make sure you leave your name so we can see who are the best riddlers.
So far I have tested the riddle on a few friends. None of them made it through completely unaided. So there’s a challenge — you could be the first. As we are still in the early stages if you are interested in designing levels in the future then do get in touch. Also if you think a particular level is too hard, is plain rubbish, or has misleading clues then the same applies. Let me know and I’ll get it changed.
There are a few more levels already in the planning stages so there will be more soon but the main development is expected over the summer. I hope you enjoy The Web Riddle.
