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.
2012
1 Feb - Update all rankings (4h). Fixed 'Columbia' to 'Colombia'.
19 Jan - Fixed wiki user permissions and made changes, deleted spam from german wiki database, updated download page for Help files (6h).
18 Jan - Updated all rankings. Added new skins to MSX download. (Computer was broken for 2 weeks, but did some SEO work.) A
2011
22 Dec - Added new article to wiki Media page, updated and indexed 'Newspaper Articles' downloadable word document, added minesweeper.ru guestbook (2003-2011) to downloads, updated wiki Guestbook page. Edit German and Spanish wiki files so search engines do not index all the links for editing and discussion pages etc.
20 Dec - Archived minesweeper.ru (12 hours!). Site will only be posted in archives if Roman allows the site to go offline - his last update was March 2010, so this is a precautionary measure. It is worth opening the site in Google Translate, lots of good info!
19 Dec - Updated all rankings, updated Sub50 wiki page and Famous Cheaters articles.
17 Dec - Wrote Moscow 2011 tournament report, updated tournament rankings and wiki tournament article.
16 Dec - Fixed problem with AR rankings.
10 Dec - Updated all rankings (44 people, 144 files). Pruned users in the Forum (new spambot solved the math question).
9 Dec - Downloaded and renamed videos, to prepare for update.
6 Dec - Fixed problem with AR.
Sorry - Exam time at university, next 3 weeks will be no updates.
13 Nov - Updated all rankings (31 people, 87 videos). Fixed Sub50 list in Wiki, corrected mistake on user controlpanel. Updated country list (South Sudan, and the 26 states of Brazil). Updated country ranking page information. Minor corrections to some scores on world ranking, updated some Wiki articles.
2 Nov - Updated rankings again because of missed scores and some new players. Updated 'Rules' page to include Lucky Game rule. Did some research for Saolei.net and Shen-Jia Zhang. Added Brandon to 'Famous Cheater' article in Wiki. Updated 'News' and 'World Records'.
1 Nov - Updated all rankings.
17 Oct - Sorry for the long wait, started 4th year university. Update most (but not all) of the people from the last month.
23 Sep - Finished Zurich tournament page, added review by Fritz, updated tournament ranking and profile tournament results.
19 Sep - Updates to Sub50 and Trivia wiki articles, wrote most of Zurich 2011 tournament page. Added Kamil PC World article to Media wiki page.
18 Sep - Updated MineHunt wiki article and added 2 more versions to RISC OS page.
17 Sep - Updated all rankings.
8 Sep - Added extensions for meta tags to the Wiki, then added keywords and descriptions to every article (4h). Updated robots.txt file and fixed broken links in archived BOMB site.
28 Aug - 7 Sep- Spent almost every day researching RISC OS minesweeper versions for the Wiki Versions page. Contacted several game authors, and wrote Flag Day and Mine Hunt articles in the Wiki.
27 Aug - Updated all rankings.
23 Aug - Added Java stand-alone minesweeper versions to wiki.
17-22 Aug - Spent more than 35h adding 30 minesweeper versions for the Atari computer to the 'Versions' page on the Wiki. Each one was played and reviewed.
16 Aug - Made many changes to Mined-Out and other Wiki articles, especially the Version page. Tried to find RISC OS versions, contacted some game authors.
13-14 Aug - Added another 6 downloads.
11-12 Aug - Completely re-wrote the download pages. Now includes 35 downloads with details and pictures.
11 Aug - Fixed some "UK" vs "UK, England" ranking problems.
10 Aug - Uploaded missing Custom pictures (2/3rds were missing).
8 Aug - Updated all rankings. Added Wendy to "Famous Cheater" article in Wiki.
7 Aug - Changed worldranking.html and admin control panel to apply 'Lucky' Beginner game rule, also made changes to online tables. NOTE: Need to be careful with historical rankings so Lucky "Historical" games are used instead of "Official" rounded to 1s games on worldranking page before 20110406.
6 Aug - Compacted and repaired database and all archived copies (database went from 240MB to 15MB, and overall 1.5GB of space deleted). Updated "Problem" categories.
5 Aug - Spent 6h changing score categories to simplify the system ("XP Historical" and "Personal" categories merged into "Problem" and "Historical" categories), wrote several players for newer scores.
4 Aug - Updated all rankings.
29 Jul - Changed categories of "Lucky" and "One Click" Beginner games in database, added new "Expire" column to database and replaced "OneClickBeg" and "Personal" categories (incorporated into "3BV Limit" and "Problem" categories). Still need to update ranking code.
26 Jul - Updated more tournament pages, updated Tournament Wiki page, fixed problem with AR Period 13.
25 Jul - Updated all tournament rankings, created UK 2011 page and wrote a tournament review.
23 Jul - Hosted and competed in the UK 2011 tournament in Stirling.
16 Jul - Updated all rankings.
4 Jul - Updated AR, spent 1h fixing mistakes.
25 Jun - Update all rankings.
19 Jun - Put all News stories into Real Time.
10 Jun - Updated all rankings.
27 May - Added pictures and videos to Score History on Profiles, many fixes to names in database.
26 May - Made dozens of updates to Wiki, created 1.5 Click article.
25 May - Bought minesweepergame.com
22 May - Updated rankings from Guestbook scores.
21 May - Updated rankings (from emails). Still need to update from guestbook. Updated Sub50 wiki article. Had exams the last 3 weeks, that is why there were no updates.
21-22 Apr - Updated all rankings. Fixed problems with wrongly listed 3bvs scores.
3 Apr - Update all rankings.
26-27 Mar - Update all rankings. Fixed AR 2008 period 14.
19 Mar - Updated all rankings. Fixed problem with Country ranking code, fixed problem with missing AR players.
18 Mar - Downloaded videos for update, watched and renamed.
1 Mar - Changed entire Facebook Fan Page (gave it unique name, added pictures, rewrote description and pages, changed settings).
21-22 Feb - Updated all rankings. Changed links on custom pages, moved guestbook from folder to guestbook.html, deleted 'custom' folder (these pics and videos are now in members folders), deleted 'history' and 'download' folder (these were temporary and are now in Wiki), deleted '3bvs', 'asianvideos', 'videos' from ranking folder (these files were moved to member folders in 2009). Total deleted: 130MB. Made major changes to all Custom pages.
12-13 Feb - Fixed AR sort code, downloaded entire MS Info website to archive it.
11 Feb - Contacted many sites that link to old metanoodle rankings, Smola agreed to write "Minesweeper 2000" article. Contacted MS.org and obtained some old copies of the clone used on that site.
6-10 Feb - Found over 600 old minesweeper emails that were not in the database. It took 5 days to enter all the missing scores and emails, and 99 missing pics/videos were discovered and added to the site. Made many updates to wiki articles (Media in particular as more examples found).
5 Feb - Updated the rankings, made several forum posts, started Lucky 1s topic and published the LuckyOneSecond article.
4 Feb - Many updates to the Wiki - adding pictures and videos to Famous Cheaters, many new articles in Media, several new pictures for Cartoons. Finished investigating Jason Tran for Cheater article.
2-3 Feb - Added 23 math and science articles about minesweeper to the site (about 10h).
1 Feb - Finished writing Media wiki article.
31 Jan - Wrote most of Media article in wiki, added new math paper to Articles, edited several Wiki articles.
25 Jan - Updated all rankings. Finished fixing duplicate emails.
24 Jan - Added Sydney link to Tournament article and archived it, updated player profiles 700-1000. Deleted all remaining pages on metanoodle.com (my old minesweeper site), added notes from Budapest2007 to profiles.
23 Jan - Updated wiki Trivia page.
21-22 Jan - Added pics to Reader and Recorder wiki articles, updated profiles for players 1 to 700.
20 Jan - Spent 6h changing how emails are stored in the database, eliminating duplicates, fixing mistakes, and comparing emails in my returned folder to mark database emails as active or closed.
18-19 Jan - Added Benson and Justin to Famous Cheaters article.
16-17 Jan - Rewrote and made major changes to IMC wiki article (it was written in 2006). About 10h work due to research time. Added Jason to Famous Cheaters article.
14 Jan - Made changes to Dreamboard article, uploaded larger collection of Dreamboard examples.
13 Jan - Major changes to Admin control panel (to allow automatic updated od AR rolling ranks, Profile modifications).
9 Jan - Updated rankings.
8 Jan - Wrote new Stats page for Active Ranking (8h). This now includes continuous rankings, and many bugs fixed with sorting order.
6-7 Jan - Made many small changes to English/German/Spanish wiki layout.
5 Jan - Finished archiving minesweeper.cc site (done over 2 weeks, about 15h). Installed Spanish Wiki (3h)
3-4 Jan - Made AR automatic (this will save me 45m every period)
2 Jan - Updated rankings.
2010
26-30 Dec - Updated AR25, deleted another 30MB of files, reset names in database into first name and family name columns to enable better sorting and search.
24 DecOrganised MS files on my computer, deleted 200MB of redundant files.
17-21 Dec - Wrote Tournament article for Wiki, made more changes to tournament pages, updated Arbiter article.
15-16 Dec - Fixed 'Tournaments' on profile (added all tournaments, changed layout), corrected many score mistakes and information mistakes on the tournament ranking and results pages.
12 Dec - Updated all rankings, and AR 23 & 24, wrote Munich 2010 review.
2 Dec - Wrote Munich 2010 and Moscow 2010 tournament pages, updated Tournament Ranking, fixed many scores and title mistakes on other tournament pages (5h).
1 Dec - Updated all rankings (5h).
7 Nov - Updated all rankings.
6 Nov - Updated AR.
30 Oct - Added patch to Forum to prevent fake users.
30 Oct - Updated all rankings.
24 Oct - Updated MSX article, put 3BVs ranking in Real Time.
23 Oct - Updated all rankings completely, and AR21.
14 Oct - Updated Active Rankings 18, 19 and 20.
8-9 Oct - Competed in the Munich 2010 tournament.
30 Sep - Updated all rankings (except did not update scores posted in the Guestbook yet).
11-13 Sep - Updated all rankings, updated Active Ranking.
9 Sep - Deleted 2000 fake Forum users, deleted junk mail from all accounts.
18 Aug - 8 Sep - On holiday.
16 Aug - Updated rankings.
15 Aug - Wrote "XBomb" article for Wiki.
13 Aug - Updated rankings, fixed video links on 3bvs ranking, changed World Records list to RT.
4-12 Aug - Started Version page on Wiki, intalled various OS to play and research dozens of old minesweeper games.
3 Aug - Installed a German version of the wiki (3h) and fixed some English articles.
2 Aug - Finished "Strategy" wiki article. This took 5 days to write. Edited and added "First Click" and "How to Chord" articles to the site.
27 July - Updated rankings. Finished huge "Windows Minesweeper" wiki article.
22 July - Wrote 'Moving Window Bug' for the Wiki.
15-21 July - Fulltime research into different versions of Minesweeper and differences (cheats, bugs, sound files, etc).
14 July - Updated rankings.
4-13 July - A serious amount of time spent researching early computer games and the history of Minesweeper. Wrote 'Curt Johnson' and 'Mined-Out' articles for Wiki and started a history of Minesweeper article.
3 July - Rewrote large sections of the Active Ranking wiki article and added graph.
1 July - Archived the Chinese Mine Rank website (Ruan Yi 2003-2004).
30 June - Wrote 'Timer Lag' article for the Wiki.
29 June - Wrote 'Timer Jump' article for the Wiki.
28 June - Wrote 'One Click Bug' article and rewrote Addicts article for the Wiki.
25 June - Wrote Vienna 2007 and Budapest Open 2008 tournament pages.
21 June - Rankings updated.
17-19 June - Spent 20h writing the 6100 word Board Cycle article for the minesweeper wiki.
14-17 June - Spent 25h writing the 6700 word Dreamboard article for the minesweeper wiki.
13 June - Fixed problem with Profile page dates, added picture links to the rankings, found 20 pictures on some dead websites that were missing from the world ranking and added.
7-9 June - Finished archiving Minesweeper Addicts (1380 messages, many polls and files). Project took 20h over the last week.
5-6 June - Updated rankings (87 videos, 29 players).
23 May - Updated rankings (83 videos, 30 players).
21 May - Sorted pictures (1849 of them) into player folders and uploaded (73MB) to the site. In total, 2972 pictures added to the site in the last 2 months. There are now 9373 videos and pictures on the site (285MB).
16-19 May - Counted 3BV and renamed 1845 Expert and Intermediate pictures and added info to database.
14 May - Finished fixing score categories in database (players 3195 to 4065).
12 May - Updated all rankings, deleted 900 fake users from forum.
11 May - Started updating site again.
8 May - Updated AR periods 8 and 9. There were no updates last 2 weeks because of exams.
20 Apr - Updated rankings.
12 Apr - Updated rankings.
10-11 Apr - Spent 2 days changing the categories of scores in the database, so the Country rankings are more accurate.
9 Apr - Spent most of the day looking at paper printouts of old rankings and adding missed scores to the database. Wrote basic code to create historical rankings. Total work ~8h.
5-8 Apr - Changed database and rewrote the world and country rankings and profile pages. Also created a NF world ranking and rewrote the Score List rankings.
3 Apr - Renamed and uploaded 265 Beginner pictures.
3 Apr - Renamed and uploaded 681 Beginner pictures.
2 Apr - Changed all scores in database to Real Time (starting at 0.00). Renamed and uploaded 164 Beginner pictures.
1 Apr - All rankings updated now (3h). Fixed the Active Ranking stats page (3h) so it sorts by averages of submitted (rather than listed) scores.
31 Mar - Partly updated rankings (20 people, 81 videos).
24 Mar - Partly updated rankings.
19 Mar - Deleted 3500 fake users from Forum.
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.