My Personal Advertising Experiment in All Points Bulletin
I’ve been playing All Points Bulletin as of late, and have had a good time doing so. Despite numerous flaws, it has by far the best customization tools I have ever seen. The company that created the game is called Realtime Worlds, which was founded by David Jones, who is most commonly known for creating the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Below is a video on the GameSpot YouTube channel, in which Jones describes some of the customization tools available in the game.
The video does a decent job at giving you a quick overview, but you really have to use the tools to fully understand. You can make stuff that looks like it was made in Photoshop, that’s how advanced the customization options are. Layers, transparency, gradients, masks, custom symbols, all of these modifications/effects are possible in the APB editors.
So, given the flexibility, I decided to make use of the customization tools to design a sleeveless shirt for my character. My goal was to make something close to the Awesome smiley. Here’s what I came up with:
My character is an Enforcer, essentially a cop. Imagine seeing that happy smiley running towards you.
While definitely not perfect, I found it was a decent homage to the smiley, seen below:
I got the image from this Wikipedia page.
I’ll likely work on a better version in the next couple days; however, after making such customizations – I realized something else. I could very easily use my in-game shirt to advertise for my website. APB already contains in-game advertisements, both visual and audio. I never had anything against this, given that they are trying to depict a modern urban environment, which does feature advertisements in real life. The idea of adding my own advertising intrigued me. As a quick test, I tried just stamping my domain on the back of my newly created shirt:
Pretty simple to make, and fairly easy to read – even when the player is running with low texture quality. Still, it brings up some interesting questions. First of all, did Realtime Worlds cover this possibility in the APB license agreement? Second, if my full name is visible in the game, should my behavior change?
To answer the first question, I checked the APB End User License Agreement, and I found what I was looking for. See the bold text below:
Rules of Conduct9.4 You shall not (and you agree to not) generate any User Generated Content, or use the Game in a way, that:9.4.1 infringes the rights of any other person or entity (including, without limitation, their Intellectual Property Rights) (and references to “any other person or entity” shall include RTW);9.4.2 breaches any Applicable Laws;9.4.3 in RTW’s absolute discretion, RTW considers:(a) is defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, harmful, abusive, harassing, hateful, invasive of another’s privacy, sexually explicit, or offensive (whether in relation to race, sex, religion or otherwise) or denigrating to anyone’s reputation or general standing (whether or not actionable);(b) is seeking to promote or encourage illegal activity;(c) is false or misleading to others;(d) is seeking to access another person’s personal information or information relating to another APB Account;(e) is seeking to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of the Game or any servers or networks connected to the Game or another’s computer; or(f) amounts to unwanted or unauthorised advertising or solicitation.(g) is stalking or harassing of another person.
The wording there offers a lot of flexibility for Realtime Worlds. Is my advertising unauthorized, or unwanted? I’m not advertising for a commercial company here, just a personal domain, with a blog. Sure, one day, there may be a commercial component associated to my domain, but that’s not currently the case. Either way, they specifically say it is at their absolute discretion… so it could very well be seen as both unauthorized and unwanted, since it is entirely up to them.
The argument gets more complicated when you consider that APB creations can be manufactured. Once you come up with a design, for example, my Awesome homage shirt, you can sell copies of the shirt for in-game credit, or even credit towards APB playtime. To play APB, you have to buy hours of play, or subscribe to a monthly pay-to-play plan. Selling customizations for playtime credit is therefore an attractive option for people that want to play the game long-term. Now, if you sell something you create, it is forever related to your in-game character name – the person who owns it will always be able to see who manufactured it. This makes it possible for people to behave as fashion designers in game. Yet, in real life, what do we typically see on clothes when they’re part of a particular line? Logos. A reference to the line of clothing you are wearing, the manufacturer. So, if you’re manufacturing clothes in APB, is it wrong to put your domain on there? I’m not sure it is, but, of course, I feel it must be respectfully placed, and very small to not grab too much attention. I’m sure some people would do the opposite, though – so the argument still stands… though Realtime Worlds would ultimately decide.
Advertising also comes with a cost on the privacy side; consider this: my character’s name is actually “MattRefghi”, and his shirt, as you’ve now seen, sports my domain in a very visible fashion. When playing, I feel like I have to be careful with what I do or say, because it is pretty obvious who I am in real life. I was never a guy who was negative with other players, but sometimes I did utilize strategies that weren’t particularly pleasant for my targets. I’ll probably visit some of these strategies in a future post. In APB, like real-life, I must consider my actions before I execute them, because they’re ultimately bound to me. As scary as that might seem to some, I think this is a good thing… people would be forced to behave with a certain amount of class if their online interactions were always bound to their real life identity. In multi-player games, Griefers would likely be greatly reduced, and everyone should have a better time online.
A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that purposely irritates and harasses other players.
I may contact Realtime Worlds for more information – I think it would be interesting to see what they have to say on the matter. In the meantime, however, I’ll keep thinking of amusing customization ideas.
Update: A few days after posting this, here’s what Blizzard Entertainment announced:
The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it.
[...]
The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players — however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.
I like it… but we’ll soon see whether the idea can float, or not.
Two Inexplicably Dangerous Characters
Yesterday, as I was writing an e-mail to one of my employer’s clients, I encountered a strange bug with Excel. The e-mail I was writing included instructions that the client should perform, and one of the steps actually involved creating a CSV file, which would then be opened in Excel. Before sending the e-mail, I decided to step through the instructions myself, and make sure everything worked as I expected. When I reached the CSV step, I found that while I could export it fine – I couldn’t open it in Excel. I’ll guide you through what followed using a really simple example CSV:
ID,NAME
1,KARA
2,GAIUS
3,SAUL
As you can see, the above CSV contents are completely valid. However, when I tried to open it in Excel 2000, I received this error message:
When I tried to press the OK button, Excel just gave up loading the CSV. While I didn’t know what they meant by “SYLK“, I assumed something was wrong with the CSV export. Maybe there was an invalid, invisible character in the file, preventing Excel from parsing it – perhaps making it think it was another format. To test this theory, I used one of my favorite features in Notepad++, one that allows me to see all characters, even those which are normally invisible.
Using the feature, I could tell that there were only carriage returns (CR) and line breaks/feeds (LF), which are perfectly valid for a CSV.
With that possibility ruled out, I decided to try the same CSV in a newer version of Excel – the 2007 edition. When I went to open it, I was unfortunately greeted with the same type of errors:
Despite these errors, through the selection of the appropriate dialog options – I was at least still able to view the CSV within Excel:
At this point, however, I was really intrigued – so I googled the original error message I received in Excel 2000. I found a Microsoft article explaining the behavior, while also offering a workaround. When reading the article, I could barely hold in my laughter:
SYMPTOMSWhen you try to open a text file or a comma-separated variable (CSV) file, you may receive the following error message:SYLK: File format is not valid
CAUSEThis problem occurs when you open a text file or CSV file and the first two characters of the file are the uppercase letters “I” and “D”. For example, the text file may contain the following text:
ID, STATUS123, open456, closed
Note This problem does not occur if the first two letters are lowercase “i” and “d”.
WORKAROUNDTo open your file in Excel, open the file in a text editor, and then insert an apostrophe at the beginning of the first line of text.
How to Insert an ApostropheTo add an apostrophe to the beginning of the first line of text in your file, follow these steps:1. Open the text file in a text editor, such as Notepad. Click before the first character in the first line of text. Press the APOSTROPHE key on your keyboard (‘).2. On the File menu, click Save. Quit the text editor. You can now open the file in Excel.
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323626
I think you need to be a developer to truly appreciate how funny this is. I had to mention this bug to the client, because the likelihood of the ID being the first text in the file was pretty high. Even then, I mentioned they should read the Microsoft article only if they encountered the problem. No way am I going to explain the awkward workaround myself.
So, I confirmed that the bug was still present in Excel 2007. I just hope that Microsoft fired the developer that came up with the SYLK detection logic. Assuming that a file is a particular type based solely on the first two characters (“ID”) is a big risk, especially when those two characters are part of the alphabet, and are also common in IT. I’m guessing there are complexities I don’t see… or at least, I hope so. Either way, their workaround is really unbelievable… they’re actually telling people to add an apostrophe as the first character of the file. I’m aware that Microsoft is a large complicated beast with many different teams involved in releasing bug fixes, but this one is just so ridiculous.
The Road To Nowhere
Due to my choice of profession, I tend to spend a lot of time using computers. Consequently, I work with a lot of applications – that means I see lots of different user interfaces. Some are good, some are bad – but every now and then, I find something in between. Sometimes, it perfectly showcases the developer’s sense of humor.
For example, here’s what the “Go To” dialog looks like in Notepad++. You can access it by pressing CTRL+G.
The dialog features an "I'm going nowhere" button, which closes the dialog.
Not sure that’s the best design for the dialog – but I appreciated the humor. :)
Reducing E-mail Spam by Eliminating Public Listings
I’ve been using Gmail as my e-mail service provider for a few years now, and due to their excellent spam filters, I’ve been able to ignore the continuous stream of junk mail hitting my mailbox every day. Despite their efficiency at identifying and hiding spam e-mails, I remain genuinely concerned about keeping my e-mail address hidden from the public view. E-mails that are publicly available are easy targets for spambots, which are automated programs that scour the Internet for e-mail addresses. Once “harvested”, these addresses are sent junk mail, spam.
by Allan ReyesSometimes, however, it is desirable to have an e-mail address visible to the public – to do so, a special approach should be taken to protect it from spambots. For example, you can use services like reCAPTCHA Mailhide, which challenges viewers with a CAPTCHA before it displays the full e-mail address.
Curious about whether or not my e-mail was “out there”, I decided to look into it. Below, I explain how you would go about checking for public references to your e-mail address, and how future slips could be prevented.
Google Your E-mail Address
Try searching for the e-mail address using Google. Search engines scour the Internet for web pages, rather than just specific elements in the page (like e-mail addresses). They do so through programs called crawlers, sometimes referred to as spiders. If they have indexed a webpage that has your e-mail address mentioned, you’ll be able to find it in the engine’s search results. The important fact here is this: if you can find it using a search engine, you can safely assume that a spambot would be similarly capable. It is therefore important to remove any references to your e-mail address – in doing so, you’ll be making it a little bit harder for spammers to target your address.
To do so, try launching a Google search for your e-mail address, using this format:
“you@youremailprovider.com”
The double-quotes will tell Google to look for that exact string, which will limit the number of false positive search results that are returned. If you get no results with the double quotes, try removing them.
After running the search, if you spot search results that actually have made your e-mail address publicly visible, you’ll need to try and remove them. In my case, when I did this, all the hits were sites that I could log into, and then remove my address. If you’re lucky, it’ll be that simple. Otherwise, you might have to contact the site owner to get it removed.
Question How Websites Use Your E-mail
To avoid getting into potentially complicated situations, it is worthwhile to spend some time determining how websites intend to use your e-mail. An e-mail is almost always requested when registering, but the uses vary. It could, for example, just be used to contact you to activate your account. Or, it could be used for a multitude of things, including as a publicly viewable piece of information. Take the time to check FAQs, site forums, or even contact the site owners if there are doubts – this could prevent an increase in spam received.
Sometimes, however, it isn’t as straight-forward as them displaying your e-mail address- sometimes certain sites will indirectly expose your address. I’ll give you an example… consider Google Profiles. By default, the URL that points to your profile looks something like this:
http://www.google.com/profiles/114973454253911341512
You can, however, choose to have your username appear at the end, like this:
http://www.google.com/profiles/youruseraccount
This is naturally better for search engine optimization, and it also allows you to memorize your profile link – but it introduces a flaw as well. Looking at that URL, I know that the e-mail address “youruseraccount@gmail.com” exists. It has to, that’s how Google accounts work – they are based on an e-mail address, so there is no doubt about what the username portion is. If I know that, then I can deduce that there must be a spambot out there that is smart enough to exploit the same flaw. Even if no spambots are currently exploiting this, I’m pretty sure one eventually will. Thankfully, though, Google has explained the feature very well on the settings page – reducing the likelyhood that someone would enable it unknowingly:
To make it easier for people to find your profile, you can customize your URL with your Google email username. (Note this can make your Google email address publicly discoverable.)
Converting Formatted Text from the Clipboard to Plain Text
Usually when I copy text from web pages, I really don’t want the formatting from the webpage to be kept. I just want to have the text in the simplest format possible, and then I can set my own styles. Unfortunately, this isn’t normally how it works. Typically, when copying from a web page in a browser, it may also copy any tables, images, and styles that are applied to or mixed with the text. This does depend on where you are pasting the text, though. In my case, I use Microsoft Word most of the time. Word supports a lot of web page elements, meaning they will likely appear in the Word document.
Consider the following text:
This is some example text. You’ll notice that numerous styles are applied.
Here are some bullet points:
- One
- Two
- Three
- Three Part 1
- Three Part 2
- Four
If I wanted to copy that text to Microsoft Word, here is what I’d see:
Word is pretty good at keeping the formatting mostly intact; however, sometimes, this isn't desired.
The formatting is mostly intact. What if you didn’t want that? What if you just wanted plain text, and you wanted to choose your own styles from scratch? There is one way to do it from within Word (click the 
button for these options), but I’ll show you how to do it without such a feature. To achieve this, I paste the text into Notepad. Yes, Notepad – the simple text editor provided by Windows. Here’s what the text will look like, once pasted:
Notice how the image is gone, and all the styles are removed? Now you can copy this text instead, and paste it in Word:
No more formatting!
No more styles, bullets, or image. You can now style it exactly as you want, without having to start off with the same formatting as the web page. This isn’t, perfect, though – you may have to make corrections to the plain text copy in Notepad, as the removal of the formatting sometimes leaves the text with improper indentation.
I’ve used this little trick in a few different scenarios. Here’s an example: Sometimes I include a quote from a website in my e-mails. The default format for my e-mails is rich text, but when I include something from another source, I really don’t care about formatting – I’ll set my own formatting to suit my e-mail. If I just copy paste the quote into my e-mail, it will include the formatting – this usually ruins the look of my e-mail. To prevent this, what I do first is use Notepad to destroy the formatting, and then paste the plain-text version into my e-mail.
How to Learn More About the Background Pictures Featured on Bing
When Microsoft announced their new Bing search engine, I was immediately curious about how it compared to Google. I changed Bing to my default search engine, and tried using it daily. Ultimately, I returned to Google, which always seemed to have slightly better search results – in most cases. Despite this fact, I visit Bing it at least once a day - but not to search. I visit it daily specifically to see the new background image they are using. They change this background image every day, and each one is usually impressive. In fact, in most cases, seeing it actually makes me want to find out more about what I’m seeing.
As an example, consider the following screenshot:
Bing's wallpaper for July 5th, 2009.
Great image – the type of image that makes me want to know more. This brings us to the problem, though. Bing doesn’t actually tell you anything about what you’re seeing – other than the copyright information. They do give you more information if you are using the United States version of the site – but I’m Canadian. Not only that, but they don’t have the same images on the United States version of the site. Essentially, this means I’m stuck trying to figure out what the photo is depicting, by myself. I found a pretty simple, albeit manual solution: looking at the source code of the page. The background image filename is actually prefixed with some text, in this case, “CalabriaCoast”:
http://www.bing.com/fd/hpk2/CalabriaCoast_EN-CA1974044658.jpg
Once you have that name, you’re in business – search for that text on the web, and you’ll likely find some informative pages among the top results. Worse case, if you don’t have anything useful on the first few pages, at least you have a lead to work with. In my experience, once you have that name – you have it all. That is, of course, if the picture is of something unique, rather than yesterday’s photo: “Zebras”. If you were interested in where the zebras were, you’d have to guess based on the photo alone.
Now… as for how to actually find that name – I have a pretty quick process. I’ll explain how to do it here – covering the major browsers – but keep in mind, these methods aren’t very elegant – some of them require the use of developer tools. I hope Microsoft eventually makes this easier for regular users… and while they’re at it, people that don’t live in the United States.
How to Find the Bing Background Filename Using Your Browser
Google Chrome 2
Using Google Chrome
1) Right-click the background image.
2) Select “Inspect Element”.
A window appears with the element selected – notice on the right sidebar, you’ll see a URL that is partially cut off. Hover your mouse over this URL, and a tooltip will appear – revealing the whole thing. You can even right-click it, and copy it from there. See the screenshot.
Internet Explorer 8
1) Right-click the background image.
2) Select “Save Background As”.
A window pops up asking you to save the file. Take note of the name it is suggesting, as that is the name of the background image.
Mozilla Firefox 3.5
Using Mozilla Firefox
Using Mozilla Firefox
1) Right-click anywhere on the Bing page.
2) Select “View Page Info”.
3) Click the “Media” tab.
You’ll see the background listed along with other images. See the screenshot.
Safari 4
1) Right-click anywhere on the Bing page, and select “View Source”.
2) Click CTRL+F, and then type in “.jpg” as the search term.
Cycle through the search results – there should only be three. You will find that one of them is actually background image URL.
Visualizing Disk Usage With Treemaps
Have you ever been in a situation where you’re not sure why your hard drive is as full as it is, and you wonder what exactly what is taking up the most space? I’m pretty sure most computer users have encountered this before. What I used to do when I hit this problem was look around for big folders on my drive. This ultimately works, but it takes some searching to find the problematic folders – and you’re likely to miss some stuff.
Determined to find a better approach, I looked around for an application that could help me, and eventually found one called WinDirStat that utilized a method called treemapping to help users visualize their disk usage. I tried it out, and was immediately pleased with how it worked.
Here’s how it looks:
The WinDirStat interface. Click to enlarge.
Each of those colored rectangles actually represents a file on the hard drive. You can hover your mouse over any one of them, and WinDirStat will reveal the name of the file as well as where it is located. It is also possible to quickly determine which types of files are using up the most space, using the “Extension” frame.
Overall, I’ve found that these features are a godsend when trying to free up disk space. I’m hoping future operating systems comes with this type of application built-in, as everyone I know seems to find this an invaluable tool when it comes to cleaning up a hard drive. It could also be useful in online applications that allow you to store data online, like Dropbox, or other similar services.
Where's My Cell Phone?
Last year I decided to get drop my land line, and just get by with a cell phone. All was well, until one day where I wasn’t able to find my cell phone. I somehow managed to lose it in my apartment, and since I no longer had a land line, I couldn’t call my own phone to get it ringing. To locate it, I ended up sending an instant message to a friend on MSN, and he called my phone. That worked well enough, but it required someone else to be around.
The next time I lost my phone, again in my apartment – I couldn’t contact anyone on MSN, so I looked for an alternate solution. I googled around in search of people in similar situations, and I eventually found this site: Where’s My Cell Phone? – you give them your cell phone number, and they call you a few seconds later. Pretty cool – I just hope they aren’t selling our numbers to marketers. Their privacy statement seems to suggest that they do not.