The Blog
A lot of the work at Authoritative Minesweeper isn't obvious...this blog keeps you current on what is happening to the website.
2010
2 Mar - Updated rankings.
22-23 Feb - Created Stats page for the Active Ranking.
21 Feb - Rewrote code and changed tables for Active Ranking pages. Pages load much faster now.
16 Feb - Update all rankings.
Feb - Small fixes to the site, but took a few weeks off
31 Jan - Updated all rankings
15 Jan - Wrote a new 'Rules' page for the world ranking.
14 Jan - Wrote 'MineSaver' Wiki article and archived site.
12 Jan - Archived ms.dotti.at minesweeper site (5h).
10 Jan - Updated rankings
4 to 9 Jan - Put a lot of work into the new Active Ranking. (Emailed players, passwords, AR pages, programming). also started to play minesweeper a lot more.
2009:
29 Dec - Updated rankings
Christmas - No internet, so I renamed 800 Beginner pictures
21 Dec - Added the 'Drinking Game' website to the archive, wrote several Wiki articles (Minesweeper The Movie, Unofficial Minesweeper Page, Minesweeper Tips by Brian Chu). Finished new homepage.
19 Dec - Updated rankings, added more news (world ranking category), uploaded 'Unofficial Minesweeper Site" to the Archive
18 Dec - Finished Minesweeper X wiki article
17 Dec - Updated tournament world ranking, added Moscow 2009 to tournament pages.
14 Dec - After 2 weeks of communication, accepted as an editor for the Minesweeper category for the Open Directory Project.
07 Dec - Finished uploading renamed Arbiter videos. Removed year 2008 guestbook posts, backed up current guestbook. Updated counter now that old site is merged into .info site
05 Dec - Updated rankings.
04 Dec - Updated Sub50 wiki article, tracked down and proved sub50 dates for Reid and Gyula. Collected and starting updating missing scores from Sub50 players on the China ranking.
03 Dec - Updated all scores into database, but waiting until Sunday to upload. Fixed score histories for several players (Dion, Tam, Kamil in particular).
02 Dec - Fixed dates and decimal time for 128 Arbiter videos (before v0.47 the video and history file often had different scores by 0.01s).
23 Nov - Updated rankings (4h). Redirected all pages from old site to correct new site pages (3h).
19 Nov - Archived several websites (Minesweeper Clone, Daniele Gatto).
16 Nov - Added 'Minesweeper Maniac' and Martin Toft Madsen websites to the archive. Downloaded videos in preparation for an update.
12 Nov - Deleted old 'Girls' section of site. (It was created 12Apr08 and never updated or linked, replaced in 2009 by allowing the World Ranking to sort by gender). Backed up the online database as hoping to make many changes before Christmas. Archived Metanoodle.com/minesweeper and added to Dead Websites on ms.info. Also added Dan Cerveny and Charles Yu websites.
5 Nov - Updated all rankings.
25 Oct to 01 Nov - On Holiday.
18 Oct - Updated rankings. Added Arbiter47 icon, uploaded Ronny's 3BV article.
12 Oct - Finished the User Control Panel so players can edit profiles. All profile info that is edited has been removed from the offline database and is now 100% online.
10 Oct - Updated all rankings. Added new columns to Profiles table, fixed some scores on World Records list.
8 Oct - Finished 'Global Mines' wiki article.
1 Oct - Finished 'World Record History' wiki article, edited several others. Created Facebook fanpage for site (still very basic).
30 Sep - Started 'World Record History' article for wiki
27 Sep - Updated site.
20-21 Sep - Started renaming 3000 pictures in preparation for uploading to the site. This project will be done in spare time over the next month or two.
14-16 Sep - Programmed a rough version of a User Control Panel so players can edit their profiles.
13 Sep - Updated rankings.
11-12 Sep - Wrote 'Bestever' article for the Wiki
9-10 Sep - Restored more pages from dead Planet Minesweeper site.
6-8 Sep - Update rankings. Many players sent entire score histories.
2-3 Sep - Archived several more small websites. Spent 6h finding and restoring original Active Ranking pages from beginning until Period 14 of 2005.
1 Sep - Rewrote the Archive pages, fixed errors and uploaded some 'new' sites
31 Aug - Edited and uploaded the BOMB website to the archives
30 Aug - Updated all rankings.
28-29 Aug - Started collecting scores for a 3bv/s world ranking. Helped Fritz start the Sub50 wiki article.
25 Aug - Spent the morning adding more ES examples. Found some missing videos for Dion Tiu 3bv/s world records and found missing picture for Sriram Sridhran's 11.
24 Aug - Wrote main Elmar Syndrome article and started adding examples by looking through old Guestbook posts.
22-23 Aug - Updated the rankings, added new scores to World Records history. Wrote UPK article.
18-20 Aug - Wrote UPK article for the Wiki. Added 'Score History' and 'Notes' the profile pages and made many changes to the online database. About 15h work total.
17 Aug - Spent 7h and updated all rankings. Finished the UK2009 tournament page and article, updated many different pages.
16 Aug - Finished updating scores for the World Ranking only.
14-15 Aug - Started writing a review of the UK2009 tournament.
4 Aug - Updated World Ranking and the Country scores from the last 2 months.
20 Jul - Updated all scores that affected the World Ranking page (did not do Country scores yet).
25 Jun - Moving house so there will be no internet for 2 weeks. Quickly updated any scores that affected the World Ranking, will do Country scores later.
20 Jun - Hosted the 2009 UK Minesweeper tournament. Previous week spent time programming the results page and testing the setup for the tournament.
2 Jun - Updated the ranking.
31 May - Finished Vienna 2008 tournament page.
27 May - Updated the tournament world ranking.
25 May - Worked on tournament pages. Put Budapest 2005/6/7, Vienna 2005/6, Shanghai and Moscow 2007 in the new format, which includes sections for videos, rules, details, more info, pictures, links to reviews and flags.
24 May - Updated ranking. Created a Decimal world ranking and a Girl world ranking. Emailed people and found 28 videos that were missing from the ranking. Spent 2h and changed the profile pages to work on PlayerID instead of some old code that tried to match names.
20 May - Made a new ranking based on the new database, spent 6h comparing differences to old ranking. 32 people were deleted from the World Ranking, 4 were added, and about 120 players had one or more scores changed. Many scores that were not Official had made it on to the ranking and most of them are now removed. Finished adding 'Pro Dates' and categories to scores.
19 May - Added 'effective dates' for remaining players in database not done already. Scanned the database for missed scores. Mailed about 30 players about videos and missing evidence.
18 May - Updated ranking.
16 May - Added 'effective dates' for players 3200 to 4000 in database.
15 May - Added 'effective dates' for players 2900 to 3200 in database.
14 May - Added 'effective dates' for players 2400 to 2900 in database.
10 May - Updated ranking.
03 May - Updated ranking.
30 Apr - Added 'effective dates' for players 2100 to 2400 in database. It takes about 1h for 100 players to be checked.
19 Apr - Updated ranking.
11 Apr - Updated ranking.
08 Apr - Wrote 'Funny Mode' article for the Wiki.
07 Apr - Added scores and players to database from old guestbook (from Brian Chu's website). Same as yesterday for players 1501 to 1800.
06 Apr - Fixed score categories and added 'Pro Date' to players 800 to 1500 in database.
31 Mar - Updated ranking. Added new scores and rewrote the World Records page.
22 Mar - Updated website.
21 Mar - Spent 1h renaming World Record videos and finding some missing records. Another 2h fixing the categories of old Beginner scores.
20 Mar - Spent the morning adding new forums and user permissions to the forum.
15 Mar - Updated website.
06 Mar - Added 'effective dates' for players 375 to 900 in database.
01 Mar - Updated website. Mao Zhang Wen joins as World #65.
24 Feb - Spent two hours testing the tournament program used at Moscow competitions.
23 Feb - Added 347 dates to database from old paper records (from 2000-2002). Several emails with Stirling University to arrange tournament.
22 Feb - Updated ranking.
February - Started adding an 'Effective Date' to all scores in database to allow historical rankings. (Most scores do not have the exact date, so the 'Effective Date' is when they will appear in historical rankings). Calculated the ages of most sub50 players. Added 'Trivia' page to the Wiki. Tried to find a way to use Forum passwords for the entre site, but phpbb3 uses a custom hash that is too complicated.
January - Converted minesweeper database from Access2003 to Access2007. Major changes to tables and forms, new columns added. Rewrote queries. In order to make the ranking more accurate all scores (~14500) labelled into categories. Corrected dozens of small mistakes and solved some outstanding score problems.
Highlights from 2008:
Added country flags to ranking. Finished transferring scores from Planete ranking and forum (that was a LOT of work!). Renamed all videos and checked for NF. Sorted videos into PlayerID folders and uploaded. Linked ranking to videos. Created the forum. Added many new articles to the Wiki. Added links page.