Free PSP Vector: Puzzle Piece (CC-BY)

This is a simple puzzle piece vector in PSP7 format that can be used in a variety of creative ways. You can use it in logo art, or other projects. As a vector, you can easily change the colors and it can be enlarged as much as you want, without losing any quality.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY), it is suitable for personal, non-commercial, and commercial use. All you have to do is link back here to give credit.

Here are a few quick examples of use:

 

This work of art is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Download: Puzzle Piece vector

A question to ponder

I picked this question out of a list of 140 Google interview questions and thought I'd post it along with my answer.

Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?

My answer: The queen is executed.

Here is why...

Each woman, including the queen knows this truth: If all the men that they know about die, (assuming the innocence of their own husband) there will be at most only one man left in the village. They also know it is possible that all the men in the village will die, leaving no men at all for any of them.

Each woman in the village is faced with this question: Knowing that at least 98 husbands have cheated (the queen doesn't know about the king's infidelity and the women all assume the innocence of their own husbands), why would the queen announce this unless she wanted all of them to die? Would it be better for the village to kill off so many men or for the women never to tell each other about what their husbands have been doing?

In the end, they come to the conclusion that the only woman that deserves to be alone for the rest of her life is their evil queen. But if they all go and tell her who her husband, the king, has been sleeping with, she will see that they will not tell each other the truth and have instead plotted against her. And after killing the king, in retaliation, there is a strong possibility she may tell them all that their husbands have cheated.

To save their village, they decide not to tell each other and not tell the queen about the king. Instead they tell their husbands what evil plans the queen had in mind for the village. Then angered, knowing their queen is dangerous and unfit to rule, the whole village gets together and kills her. The king, knowing the entire village has just saved his life, doesn’t try to stop them and is forever grateful to the women of the village.

Do you agree with my answer?

Bad Blogger Award: SpywareGuide Blog

I hereby present this Bad Blogger Award to the SpywareGuide blog for their recent article on Twitter spammers, in which they stated that the bird graphics used by the spammers were an attempt to fool Twitter users into thinking they were somehow affiliated with Twitter in some official capacity, and suggesting that anyone using one of these bird graphics is a spammer and should be blocked.

I am not giving them this award for being dead wrong. I understand that everyone makes mistakes. I am giving them this award for refusing to acknowledge or correct misinformation, when they were given every opportunity to do so, after being informed of the mistake.

They published their article on September 17, 2009 and shortly after I left a comment informing them that the bird graphics these spammers are using are just the new default avatars for Twitter accounts, used when the account holder doesn't upload one of their own.

These colorful bird images are the new official replacement for the old creepy looking "brownie face" images. Many people have them and not everyone with these avatars are spammers. Some are just new to Twitter and don't understand how it works yet, or they don't feel a need to upload an image. Some are just lazy and don't want to be bothered with changing anything and personalizing their profiles.

I have friends with these new bird avatars and I can attest to the fact that they are not spammers. They do not deserve to be blocked and treated as if they are. They have done nothing wrong.

And this Mashable article seems to suggest there is also a bug within the Twitter service that could cause people that have uploaded avatars to suddenly have them unexpectedly replaced with one of these new default bird avatars. Twitter is aware of the problem.

I had to jump through hoops to leave a comment, being forced to register, validate my email address, and then leave my comment, which was immediately placed in their moderation queue and still hasn't been posted. Nor have they corrected their article, as of this date.

For a security related site, I find this unacceptable and it does nothing to lend any credibility to their blog. I will not be returning to read another article, never mind commenting on one.

Enjoy your award!

Forget getting more Twitter followers, here's how to keep the ones you have

How to annoy people on Twitter (or at least me).

Don’t do these things and you will be more likely to keep the followers you have and get more followers by being recommended by them.

1. Copy & paste quotes from famous people instead of letting your followers read what you have to say.

2. Send them an automatic DM with a link to your crappy site, a free gift, or some valuable secret info you want to sell for the low price of $49, as your very first communication with them.

3. Send them a DM thanking them for following you when you are the one that just followed them first.

4. RT every link posted by Robert Scoble ASAP. Since we are all following him already, it's not likely we saw it when he posted it 30 seconds ago, right?

5. Tweet links to pages that look like a bad ebay ad, selling some new method of getting millions of twitter followers overnight, how to get your site on the front page of Digg, how to get tons of traffic for your website, or how to make a fortune on Adsense.

6. Do searches and tweet people you are not even following, attempting to sell them a $100 mini flashlight, just because they mentioned a flashlight in one of their tweets.

7. DM people unsolicited links to photos of your hairy scary ass or other equally ugly body parts that you really should keep covered.

8. TWEET IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

9. Tweet the same message 10 times in a row.

10. Make sure at least 1 tweet per hour contains the words "FREE LAPTOP".

11. Tell every Windows user to "just get a Mac"

12. At least 50% of your tweets should be about how great your iPhone is.

13. Have your ENTIRE lifestream feed into twitter from friendfeed, then go on a huge "like" spree with every LOLcat posted there in the last 6 months.

14. Follow and unfollow the same person repeatedly.

15. Publicly welcome every new follower you get.

16. #Make #every #word #in #your #tweets #into #hashtags #and #toss #in #a #few #extra #popular #but #irrelevant #ones #just #for #the #hell #of #it. #Don't #forget #to #finish #by #making #one #up #that #is #complete #nonsense. #ljhgliu

17. Use URL shortening services to make links that point to links already shortened by other shorteners.

18. Beg for retweets.

19. Post many tweets in a row for #followfriday with just a bunch of names and no explanation of why anyone should follow them. Every childless person on twitter should follow that stay-at-home mom that tweets diaper changing and toilet training tips, right?

20. Use a service that auto-tweets spammy paid ads from your account.

Good Faith is Not for Sale

I recently came across an article on the company blog of Backstage Technologies, written by Russ Ovans, their CEO.

Here is what he had to say:

We were recently in negotiations to be acquired. Talks lasted about five minutes, but during that time, the VP of Business Development from the prospective acquirer kept warning us not to divulge any of the ingredients in our "secret sauce", lest the deal fall apart (which it did) and we ended up suing them for stealing all our invaluable intellectual property (which hasn't happened... yet).

Every time he used the phrase (which was often) I found myself becoming more and more amused. What the heck is a secret sauce? I assumed he meant competitive edge, or intellectual property, but being a marketing type, he liked using that buzzword instead. Wikipedia tells me that it means any component of a product that is closely guarded from public disclosure for competitive advantage.

So, what is our secret sauce? Do we even have one? We certainly do, and the primary ingredient is the knowledge regarding how to design and build a social game (and its underlying virtual economy) that is both engaging and monetizes well. That certainly constitutes a fair portion of our secret sauce.

But our special sauce (i.e., our sauce that is not a secret to any of our competitors) is our commitment to customer service. Anyone can steal that, but it takes a huge commitment.

This is what makes certain applications and services a joy to use...that human touch by an approachable team.

Without that, your customers will drop you like a hot potato for the first clone that comes along that provides what you do, AND goes the extra mile by listening to them and being approachable.

That human touch makes the customer feel like they are part of the team. It is one of the reasons why services like Friendfeed and the applications from DonationCoder have been as enjoyable to use as they are.

Excellent customer service creates loyalty. Anyone that has made good customer service the corner stone of their business, no matter what line of business they are in, and is considering selling their company to another, should think about this long and hard before making that decision.

There is one thing you can not sell along with the company, and that is good faith. Your customers gave that to you because you earned it. If you sell out to another company that doesn't take customer service as seriously as you have, your customers will jump ship after the sale, and the company you sold out to will run what you have built into the ground.

It might not happen in a day, week, month, or year, but it will eventually happen. The customers will eventually take back that good faith and give it to someone else that deserves it.

Do you really want to see that happen to something you built, something you made such a commitment to, and put a lot of effort and hard work into? Do you want to end up having seller's regret somewhere down the line, wishing you had found a better buyer that would have done the right thing with what you created, by providing the same level of service that you did?

Money isn't everything.

Before you sell out, make sure your prospective buyer is as serious and committed to customer service as you are. It will benefit you in the long run by allowing you to retain the good faith and loyalty you earned. Your former customers will be more likely to trust you in your next venture and be first in line to be your customers again, if they don't feel like they were somehow cheated in the sale.

Sell out to the wrong company and you will very likely be bad mouthed by the very people that once loved you, and they may never be willing to trust you again.

Adding RSS Feeds for Labels on Blogger

If you take a look at the bottom of this page, you will see that in my Labels section (I called it Categories) that each one has its own feed icon, and that it’s set up to be displayed in multiple columns.

If you would like to know how to have feed icons like mine, with or without multiple columns, I have recently written an easy to follow tutorial to explain how.

What is especially nice about having individual feeds for your labels is that it allows your readers to subscribe just to the content they are interested in most and nothing more.

It also allows each individual author of a multi-author blog to each have their own personal feed, if you tag the posts with the author’s name.

http://appsapps.info/tutorials/rss-labels.html

A brief guide to the Enchanted Island game on Facebook

Enchanted Island is a brand new passive RPG game on Facebook, from the makers of the Growing Gifts application. If you like the cool flowers from Growing Gifts, you now have a chance to play a game where you get to be a wizard that grows magic flowers on the island where all the Growing Gifts flowers come from. At this time, the game is still in beta.

Even if you are not into Growing Gifts, you may still like this game. It's one of those games that at first might seem kind of boring, but quickly becomes addicting. It is also one of the few games on Facebook that won't annoy all your friends with various postings to your news feed, nor will you need to recruit an army to help you advance in the game.

The main thing you will need to play this game is an abundance of patience.

When you click the "Save Growing Gifts" tab on the Growing Gifts application, you are taken away to the island and asked to choose a pot. It doesn't matter which you choose, so just pick the one you like better. Then you give yourself a name and title, like so: ____ the ____. This could be anything you want, but this becomes your user name throughout the game. (I am app the coder)

In the first stage of the game you have to grow all of the plants from the Round seed. You can buy the seeds and the pots needed to do this from the Supply Shop. You can only cast 2 spells every fifteen minutes. Not all of the seeds will grow plants. There are many that are duds. Just keep casting and be patient, and soon enough you will graduate to the next stage of the game.

Once you reach the next stage, Kendral the Herbologist will give you a flower stand to sell your plants from. You can hold a maximum of 3 plants in your stand.

You get a bonus for selling the same kind of plant, multiple times in a row. A man will visit you and make you an offer if you have 3 plants of the same type in your stand. You have an opportunity to haggle for a better price, but there is a possibility he won't make a better offer. The odds of him making a better offer will appear on the popup along with the offer. Even if he doesn't make a better offer and goes away without buying, you can still sell all 3 plants and get the bonus for selling multiples of the same type in a row.

Quests

The game contains a number of quests. Each quest completed adds a badge to your game profile.

One of the first is when 3 shady looking men show up and ask you to help them catch a fairy. If you agree, you will become an enemy of the fairies and they will just make faces and not help you any more unless you complete their quest. They will ask you to help them make Sleeping Potion. To do this, you will have to grow a Drooble Fruit from the Berry seeds that the crow drops at random. Even if you have grown this plant before, you will need to grow it again to complete this quest. Once you have grown that, when the shady men return, you will have an opportunity to call the fairies, who will knock them out with the Sleeping Potion.

It may be possible to complete this quest without agreeing to help catch a fairy. If you don't help the men, you might still be asked by the fairies to help them make Sleeping Potion, that they will use on the men if they return.

Currency

Silver is the regular currency used for most things in the game. You earn silver by selling plants. You can spend your silver on supplies at the Supply Shop. Be sure to take a look in the back where they keep the extra varieties of pots. The more expensive pots increase the price of your plants and help you earn more silver.

Each time you level up, Kendral will give you an allowance of gold.This gold can be used to buy items from the Potion Shop. Another way to get gold is to become a supporter of the game and donating to show your appreciation of the time and work the developers have put into this great game. The more generous you are, the more generous the developers will be with the amount of gold they reward you with. This gold can be used to buy special seeds and potions.

Personally, I wouldn't waste any of my gold on potions and would use all of it to buy special seeds, regardless of whether I was only using the gold earned within the game or if I acquired it by donating to support the game. Patience is a virtue, and the potions only serve to satisfy the whims of the impatient. (more about this later)

One of the special seeds you can buy with gold is the Shell seed. This seed is needed to unlock the quest of the Old Man. When you grow a Sand Castle from the Shell seed, keep it in your plant stand and do not sell it until you have completed the quest. For as long as you keep it, some children will offer to sell you tin cans. If you sell the Sand Castle, the children will stop coming by with cans. You need to grow Lemongrass from the Round seed, in a tin can, for the old man to come down and buy it from you. If you sell the Sand Castle too soon, you may run out of tin cans and will not be able to complete this quest until you grow another Sand Castle, which isn’t very easy and could be quite expensive.

Additionally, it has been announced that the Shell seeds will soon be removed from the Potion Shop for awhile, to make room for a new seed type. So if you want to complete this quest and grow all of the varieties of plants from the Shell seed, I suggest you buy as many as you can with your gold, before they are all gone.

UPDATE 07-31-2009: The Shell seeds are now gone and have been replaced with the Faceted seeds. I have not tried these yet, as I am out of gold until I level up. I am not yet aware of any quests related to these seeds or anything else special about them. As soon as I learn more, I’ll provide another update.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: The Faceted seeds are now also retired and have been replaced with the Spectrals seeds.

In order to grow plants from the Fire seeds, you will need to have a wand powerful enough and Kendral's blessing. Grow three Phoenix Flowers from the Fuzzy seed to get three Phoenix Feathers, and the wand you need will be unlocked. Then all you need is enough silver to buy it.

Once you can grow the Fire seeds, grow three Dragon Tears to get three dragon scales. Those initial three dragon scales are what you need to get the gloves to pick up the embers. Once you have the gloves, all the duds from the Fire seeds become free Ember seeds.

After this you can trade any additional dragon scales and feathers for special pots when the trader guy comes around. Once you have the gloves and special wand, that's the only thing you can do with scales and feathers. These special pots add $5 to the price of every plant.

Once you start growing the Ember seeds, the Black Boronus plant drops a petal, but I haven't quite figured out what that is for yet. I believe it is for making a potion in one of the quests. I have seen "chocolate curls" in some people's profiles, but I have no idea what plant they come from or what they are for, either. Of course I haven't done all the quests yet, and I am only on level 6. So I guess I'll learn what they are for when the time comes.

Potions for the Impatient

There are 3 different types of potions in the game.

Green Dragon potion will refill your energy and allow you to cast 2 more spells without having to wait the fifteen minutes.

Chronos Potion will allow you to cast 2 more spells, but you have to make up the time later. I have found that the game will only allow you to use this potion three times in a row, and then you'll have to wait one hour before you can play the game again.

UPDATE 07-31-2009: While this potion is still part of the game, it is no longer for sale at the Potion Shop.

Luck Potion will increase your odds on growing a plant, and the effects last longer than two spells. It has been said by the developers that the effects are cumulative, but they won't specify if that means that drinking more than one will give you even better luck or if it gives you better luck for a longer time, or both. It won't eliminate duds, but it will increase the odds of growing a plant when you cast a spell.

Do not use the Luck Potion while growing the Fire seeds, once you have the gloves. Because once you do have those gloves, there is no such thing as bad luck with Fire seeds because even duds are a good thing, since they give you Ember seeds. Of course if you are especially patient, you won't have a need for the Luck Potion at all.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: There is now also a Bad Luck potion, since you don't always want to have good luck. (there are times you will wish for bad luck, trust me)

All of these potions (except the Chronos Potion) can be purchased with gold from the Potion Shop, or sometimes you will be offered them at a special price of silver, at various times within the game. If you are not supporting the game by buying gold, I suggest not buying the potions from the Potion Shop and just waiting till the guy comes around selling them and get them with your silver, if you really want them.

When you level up, in addition to getting gold, you also unlock 2 more activities. The first one is a story, given in chapters, when you visit Hop's Haven. You can only read up to the chapter that matches your level. The other is a chance to write your own wizard's story for the The Hall of Legends, one chapter at a time, one for each level. Reading the stories written by other players can be a bit of fun, as there are some that are quite creative and well written. Just like the story at Hop's Haven, you can only read the chapters up to the level that you are, so if you find a good one you will have to keep coming back to read more.

Since this game is still very new, it has not been recognized by Facebook and given a verified status. So if you play this game and enjoy it, become a fan, write a review, and rate it to help it gain verified status.

And if you really love it, consider becoming a supporter and making a donation by buying some gold. It's the only way the game developers (Keith and Eric) will earn anything for their work. The more people that show their appreciation, the more time they can devote to adding more levels, quests, features, and other improvements such as live chat where you can socialize with other players and the developers, too. I have talked to them both and they are really cool guys. Without your support they would be forced to do other things to earn a living and have less time to devote to working on this wonderful game.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: Since I don't really have the time to keep up with making updates about this rapidly ever changing game, if you need any more help than what I have written in this guide, I suggest you take a look at the new wiki or visit the forums, where you will find lots of wonderful friendly people willing to help and answer all of your questions. And if you would just like to socialize with other players, you can always stop by Hop's Haven for a little Island Gossip.