Earplane

Problems? Read this.

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:05:00

My home machines broke down, and my mail is still broken. So I haven't been able to give support to users having problems lately. These problems are usually one of the following:

* I can't activate my account:
Please tell me so using the Feedback form, and I will activate your account within a day or two.

* I can't see the tests:
You probably have a problem with your Shockwave setup. Please go here to check...

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/

... and reinstall Shockwave if you have to.

Hope this helps

Top10 list going live!

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:25:16

I've spent some time getting into Ajax technology, and now the Top10 user list is automatically updated every 15th second. This may change if I find out that the load on the server is too heavy, but twice a minute is still cool, because you won't have to hit F5 anymore to see how you're doing

I'm still a newbie when it comes to Ajax and javascript, and I hope things won't blow up on you. Please let me know if there are any problems out there...

Stay tuned!

Spread the word!

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:21:12

You have probably noticed the link buttons that have appeared under the tests in the main page. These buttons will take you to sites where you can give Earplane a vote as a cool site, and if we receive lots of votes our link will be visible for those who go to digg.com to look for cool sites.

The Kudos button goes to a Norwegian site that is similar to Digg, which concentrates on Norwegian sites. If there are similar sites in other languages please drop me a note so I can include a link.

Please drop by the sites to give Earplane a vote, it would be nice to see an activity boost in the stats

Custom Flights

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:20:00

Flights can now be set to any duration, you choose Custom and a new calendar control will pop up. This means that teachers can define flights to last until next week, or you can define a "This Month" session.

Custom flights will not compete with other flight in the same way as the fixed duration flights.

Stay tuned!

Stealth Flights

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 22:10:00

Flights can now be set to "Stealth Mode". This means that only the Pilot can see what's going on pointwise, which may be the preferred mode in classroom test situations, where a student don't want everybody to see how he/she is doing.

Improved layout

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:11:54

I changed the layout of the page to make it work better on 1024*768 screens, which probably concerns most of those who use this page on a laptop.

Is this good? Please comment. Other layout problems? Please comment on that too.

Stay tuned!

Earport plans

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:40:00

The Earport is improving fast, and it's time for a briefing:

The FAQ section has been updated with an Earport section describing Crews and how to join them. Being a crew member you can communicate with other users using private messages, and you can join your fellow members in Flights.

The Crew Pilot can create Flights for the Crew. Flights are timelimited sessions where crew members work together to get a hiscore, but the crew is defined as one unit (if two users do Triads level 1, only the best score counts). At the time being a Flight can last for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or two hours.

Keeping the Flight definition rules strict means that we can have a whole new dimension of competition here, and I hope there are at least some of you who think that sounds cool. Think: A team of 5 users will have to plan who will take what tests on what levels, and the strategy may be all different in a one-hour session than in the pure speed-test of the 15-minute challenge...

Things to come:
1. The Main Gate of the Earport will soon contain a Top10 list of flight records in the different categories.

2. I still haven't begun thinking about other rules like "Only Triads" or "Only levels 5-10"

...and more, but these things will come first.

I'm in need for beta testers! If you'd like to try out the Pilot status for free so that you can have a crew for your friends please contact me. I'm also interested in having teachers trying it out on their classes. Will your students beat mine?

Stay tuned!

Long usernames...

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 16:41:23

OK, let's face it: PowerpuffSpice1997 is a very long username, and it messed up the site layout when he/she is among the Top10 users. And when Johansson rose above 1000 points things looked even worse...

So I had to concatenate usernames in the Top10 block. If you've got a username with more than 12 characters it'll be shortened from now on (but only in the Top10 block).

Other updates? Yes, lots of'em, in the Earport. Please contact me if you'd like to betatest.

Stay tuned!

First Class Status

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:10:56

You may have noticed the new "Extras" block on the right. It will take you to a Donations page, where you are able to make a small donation in support of the continued development of this site. Those who donate will get First Class User status till the end of 2007, and maybe longer.

Making a donation used to be an option here on Earplane some years ago, but I took it away when I changed from phpNuke to Xoops (portal systems) due to a downgrade in functionality here. Now we've reached a point where things are pointing up at a faster pace, and I feel I'd like to be encouraged again...

Earlympics update

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 09:15:53

I noticed that the Earlympics looked all wrong in Firefox and the menu had an ugly white line through it in Internet Explorer, so I rewrote the menus and now they should look OK.

Stay tuned!