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Changes And Updates
Friday, August 31, 2007
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Today is the last day of August, 2007, and tomorrow morning some changes will be implemented on The Problem Site. There may be a period of an hour or two tomorrow morning (probably around 8:00 AM, EST) when the site's behavior may be erratic, and certain features may not function properly. Once these updates are completed, the following features will be available:
1. The login system for the Problems section of the site will be modified. Members will login using their screen name and password, rather than their email address and password. The reason for this change is simple: members are no longer required to provide an email address in order to create a membership account - this will make it easier for children/students to access various parts of the site.
2. Speaking of the "Problems" section of the site, Graeme will have a new High School Math Problem posted tomorrow, and I will have a new BrainFood Puzzle posted.
3. Two games on the site which have high score lists (Adders! and Trio Match) will be modified so that the high score lists will show scores by members only.
4. Also, when you are logged into the site, the site will track how many of the 2800 Entrapment Puzzles you have completed, and will always show you puzzles you have not yet solved, in roughly ascending level of difficulty.
Once these changes are in effect, if you have ANY problems with the site, please fire off an email to me (dtwitchell@virtu-software.com) or post a comment here!
Thanks,
Douglas Twitchell
TPS AdministratorLabels: brainfood, math, membership, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Getting Ready For School!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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I know, school is finally starting up. Some of the children and teens around here have already started, some are starting tomorrow.
Teachers are updating their classroom websites, and looking for new links to add.
So, I thought I'd help out. I spent quite a bit of time today poking around school/classroom websites from schools all over the country (and a few from around the world!) and noticed that there are several games on the site that get linked over and over and over again. So, to make your life easier, if you want to link to the games that many other teachers are linking to, here are the Top Six most popular educational games on The Problem Site.
For Elementary Classrooms
My Secret Word
One To Ten
Hangman
Side By Side
Adders
Trio Match
If you want to link to all of these on your website, just copy and paste the HTML code from the box below!
For Middle/High School Classrooms
Secret Number Two
Daily Puzzles
One To Ten
Side By Side
The Treasure Hunt
Entrapment
"Entrapment" was a bit of a surprise; this game has only been on the site since mid-spring, and already there are quite a few classroom websites that link to it. I suspect that by the time the school year is over, this geometry game is going to prove to be one of the favorites on the site!
If you want to link to all of these on your website, just copy and paste the HTML code from the box below!
Labels: theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Bookmarking, Part Two
Monday, August 27, 2007
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In my previous post I mentioned that I had to remove the bookmarking link from The Problem Site, because it was causing everything to slow down.
I have done a work-around on that - now the bookmarking icon takes you to the "Page Linking" section of the site, where you can then jump to a bookmarking service.
It's an extra step, I know, but since some of the site's older games require fast loading pages, that takes precedence over bookmarking convenience.
So, give it a try - if you find a game you like, click the bookmarking icon, and then you can either add a link to your own site, or select a bookmarking service!
On a different subject, I'm compiling my list of new puzzles for Brainfood, and that should be back up and running in a couple weeks. Once again, if you have puzzles you'd like to see show up on the site, go ahead and email me!Labels: brainfood, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Bookmarking Service
Sunday, August 19, 2007
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I've gotten a couple comments recently that The Problem Site has been running slow. I spent some time playing with it to see if I could figure out what was going on. This was a great problem solving exercise for me!
Eventually I ended up testing the whole site out on an entirely different web server, and it still was being slow. So I started removing things from the site, to see what would happen...
...and I finally found the culprit...
A few weeks ago I added in the AddThis.com bookmarking service. It's a nice, easy way for people to bookmark the site's pages, but it was causing a horrible slow-down in page loading. As soon as I removed the AddThis.com service, the site went back to normal.
So, I'll be exploring other options to help people bookmark pages they like.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy being back to the regular speed!Labels: theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Getting Ready For School...
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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As many of you know, I've been away from the computer for the last six weeks, as I've been traveling around the state speaking at different camps (Camp Fairhaven, Blueberry Mountain, Camp Berea, and Camp Good News).
Now I'm back...sort of.
I'm taking a little bit of time off, and included in that time off I have gallbladder surgery scheduled for next Tuesday (the 21st).
As I look at all the things I want to do, and all the things I need to do, I'm afraid that some features I wanted to implement on the puzzler sites this fall may need to wait a while.
But the real critical thing is...
I need to get BrainFood Problems written for the coming year, because there's a pile of people chomping at the bit to get new riddles.
People seem to be enjoying the "Word Association" riddles, so I think I'll do those for another semester.
If you would like to help, scan through the previous Brainfood puzzles to get an idea of how the "Word Association" puzzles work, and then if you come up with any of your own, send me an email: dtwitchell@virtu-software.com
Thanks!Labels: brainfood, brainteasers
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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