Probably the biggest non-developer feature of Wordpress v2.1 now available for download is autosaving drafts. With all the over ecstatic and pointless uses of AJAX, this is one place where it actually makes good sense.

Just downloaded and upgraded to WP 2.1 from older 2.0.x versions on a few blogs. For those using my TD Word Count plugin, it is fully compatible with WP v2.1 (Update 5:10pm PST: Wordpress 2.1 plugin compatibility list) Good time to mention that I’m working on a different version that supports multiple authors, since that’s the scenario we have on our VTOReality.com group blog. Still not decided if that version will be a fork from the single author version or be supported in the same plugin (keep reading, this is relevant to my comments that follow).

“Major releases coming several times a year”
Put me in the group that views the following announcement skeptically.

Matt indicates a plan to become even more active with Wordpress updates over the next few years:

Based on everything we’ve learned in the past 3 years of doing WordPress, we’ve decided to shift to a more frequent release schedule like Ubuntu, with major releases coming several times a year. So, for the first time in WordPress’ history, I have an answer to when the next version is coming out: April 23rd.

Soon Wordpress will be able to get groceries, take your kids to school, do homework, etc.

All joking aside, I hope they use future major versions to add features that most publishers and readers actually want and need and not shoehorn features that the hardcore 5% are requesting. Bug fixes are a necessary part of software growth, but planned major new versions make me go hmm. Are these feature(s) really necessary? Is the new software adding something that the old version lacked?

Competition for Wordpress
Wordpress biggest competition isn’t Six Apart, it’s themselves. If they add too many features and make the software clumsy and inefficient — and some could argue that it’s that way already with too many database queries (yes, caching helps) — they need to be extremely careful going forward that every major feature has a purpose and place. That the core machine remains lean and mean.

To all publishers and readers of blogs using Wordpress, may the upgrade experience be as uneventful as possible. If something breaks, just blame on it on Ella, the name chosen to symbolize this version (another cheesy software practice).

Congratulations to the Wordpress team on the v2.1 launch.

Wanna Skyndo, anyone? How about some riffpulsing? Whatever you do, don’t touch my Ubox. He sank my Topfish!

Can’t think of a name for your sizzling new web service? Maybe the ultra trendy web name generator will help. I’ll leave out the version number in text since we’re already moving toward version three of the web now (wait for the strikethru), but this generator comes complete with the ability to check the domain availability.

Domain spinners, as they are sometimes called, allow you to enter in keywords and have them spin out related domain name possibilities. These are useful tools for registrars to help customers find good domain names.

This project is firmly tongue-in-cheek by web designer Kira:

Some simple CSS, JavaScript and dynamic HTML went into this project, which I created partly out of amusement at some of the silly Web 2.0 company names I’ve seen.

Good one, Kira. Added to the growing generator list.

Brady Forrest notes that as of December 5, 2006 — yes, two weeks ago — Google has deprecated their SOAP API in favor of their newer AJAX Search API:

The AJAX Search API is great for web applications and users that want to bling their blog, but does not provide the flexibility of the SOAP API. I am surprised that it has not been replaced with a GData API instead. The developer community has been discussing this and do not seem happy with the change.

The deeper I looked into this situation the less dramatic it appears to be, at least for the immediate future. From the AJAX Search API page, the description:

The Google AJAX Search API is designed to allow users to distribute search results to others, primarily through content creation applications like blog posts, message boards, etc.

I originally wrote about how to use the Google SOAP API back on January 12, 2003, nearly six months before this blog was begun and in fact did use their AJAX Search API to enhance the search area of this blog recently. I didn’t use Brady’s more pejorative reference “bling” because in front end situations like the one used here I think the AJAX API currently works better.

However, from a backend perspective for those who only want to get to the data and develop their own frontend, I can understand why developers are concerned why this was done wasn’t more publically explained. The AJAX Search API still has the sometimes open-ended words “coming soon” for activities like styling search results.

Also understand author and developer Paul Bausch’s concerns because this move will practically obsolete the Google Hacks book (published by O’Reilly, BTW) he authored for those who don’t already have a SOAP API key.

Which makes me wonder anyway how many developers who are upset about this don’t already have their own SOAP API key?

The Google SOAP API isn’t something that has caught on with more mainstream developers who seem to prefer the more non-developer friendly REST and AJAX solutions, but this definitely remains a curious move and begs the question about how long before Google totally unplugs the SOAP life support.

Those concerned should remember that the SOAP API has never emerged from beta and reading the warning in my first paragraph nearly four years ago rings eerily true: “Again, at the time of this diary entry it is a beta service, so it’s uncertain if this will be a permanent service.”

This has been the primary reason I’ve not used the SOAP API very much in our own projects. I don’t like putting much time and energy into projects where the critical API element isn’t guaranteed. Too many web pooh point oh services out there are built entirely off of APIs that may or may not be here six months from now. People talk about financial bubbles, but I see a very real potential for an API bubble bursting when/if some/more key companies start trashing their APIs. The threat is always there without something more concrete in place.

And Google showed that they will terminate beta services recently when they said no mas to Google Answers.

Enough pontificating, is the Google SOAP API dead at this point?

Google Product Manager Tom Stocky responds essentially saying not yet (emphasis mine):

Just to clarify, we’re not planning to shut off the SOAP Search API service for people who are already using it. The change is that we’re not accepting new requests for SOAP Search API keys and are no longer actively supporting it so that we can concentrate our efforts on the AJAX Search API.

This makes it sound at this point like a resources concern — perhaps more human than machine — rather than a technology concern.

Brady’s update from Tim O’Reilly has a Microsoft jab:

SOAP has always been a political football shaped by big companies who were seeking to use it to turn web services back into a controllable software stack. (I remember the first web services summit we did, where a Microsoft developer who I won’t name admitted that SOAP was made so complex partly because “we want our tools to read it, not people.”)

The whole SOAP vs. REST API debates remind me a bit of RSS vs ATOM. I try to stay out of platform and language wars like these largely because I’ve seen through history how something supposedly or actually “better” always comes along sooner or later. Waste of time and energy that could be applied to projects instead of politics and principles.

I do understand and agree that the Google AJAX API in its current state isn’t as complete and flexible an answer to the SOAP API, but until they actually shut off the SOAP services and devs who get Google Hacks under their tree this Christmas aside, this isn’t that significant.

Christmas for game developers has arrived early, some nine months since it became official, thirteen since I dreamed about it.

Last night was the official launch of XNA Game Studio Express and I toyed with the idea of visiting the launch party in Redmond but traffic on Monday evenings in that area blows so I passed.

Yes, now it is possible to join the Creators Club on your Xbox 360 and be able to download and create your own games for the Xbox 360. A Creators Club membership will cost you $49 for four months or $99 for an entire year and can now be purchased in the Live Marketplace (see below). The ability to work with the XNA Game Studio Express in two major beta versions has already existed but the ability to actually transfer the games to be playable on the Xbxo 360 wasn’t until last night.

Finding the Creators Club inside your Xbox 360
STEP 1. Navigate to the Live Marketplace and “Games” section.

STEP 2. Go to “Newly Released Downloads”

STEP 3. Scroll to the very bottom and you’ll see “XNA Creators Club”

STEP 4. If you’ve got the extra scratch go with the $99 option, forget the $49 every four months plan (nearly twice the price annually). FYI, both plans auto renew unless cancelled in advance.

STEP 5. After paying by credit card — no, you don’t purchase with Microsoft Points at this time — you’ll see the wonderful announcement below.

Update 4:40am PST: You’ll also need to download the free XNA Game launcher. Be sure to read the deploying a game section at MSDN for more details including getting your connection key.

The Windows side of things
For those who already have been working with the public XNA Game Studio Express betas, make sure you uninstall the prior beta tests. Might also want to peruse the known issues. Also there is a FAQ page that answers questions like how can you share your created games with others.

What about non-developers who want to play?
As of this writing anyway, you’ll still need to approach this like a developer, even if you aren’t one which means you’ll need:

- Visual C# Express installed and running on your Windows connected computer. Be sure to run it at least once before installing and running XNA Game Studio Express
- XNA Game Studio Express downloaded and installed
- a Creator’s Club membership (see above)
- game source must be compiled in Visual C# Express for Xbox 360 in order to transfer to the Xbox 360.

I suspect this process will be somewhat unwieldy for some (most?) non-developer gamers, but Microsoft is rumored — nothing official announced that I’ve seen yet — to be working on an “easier” way of facillitating non-developer gamers. It would be cool if there was some sort of Creators Club download area that developers could share directly with non-developer gamers. Then again maybe this process will encourage more people to get into game development. If that’s the case for somebody reading, see xnadevelopment.com for tutorials including sample source code.

An Xbox 360 game contest will be starting in January 2007 at Dream Build Play and Nathan notes that winners will get their games on the Live Arcade.

The future
At some point next year, a professional version of XNA Game Studio will be released that will allow developers to develop and explore commercial games on the Xbox 360. If they somehow tie this into Adcenter — and I think Microsoft should — that could someday pave the way for non-developers to promote and share in the revenue of indie games. If that comes to fruition it could land a crippling blow to Sony’s nascent online live initiatives. I’m not aware what, if anything, Sony is doing for homebrew development yet. I’m sure they won’t sit on their hands too long. Not if they have any sense (that part can be debated).

Being a huge gaming fan and game developer I’m all over this. Any other readers in the Creators Club? Planning on signing up soon?

The Massive Muliplayer Online scene is getting crowded. From a non-game standpoint there are virtual sites like Second Life and There and for gaming the field is littered with choices.

First Everquest broke through and then Worlds of Warcraft has stolen a lot of their thunder. Somewhere in the process Sony tried to take Star Wars and put it in a MMORPG and then they irritated a lot of Galaxies players by making significant game changes. Seemed like a great idea, but it didn’t turn out very well. It was basically Everquest in a sci-fi setting. Kind of reminded me of the old RPG Gamma World compared to Dungeons & Dragons.

Now comes the idea that Joss Whedon’s Firefly will be turned into a MMORPG on the Multiverse platform (thanks thatedeguy).

Founded by several early Netscape employees, Multiverse hopes to do for virtual worlds what Netscape did for web pages: provide a universal browser that lets users access any world built on the Multiverse platform using the same client software.

Former Netscape employees? Let’s hope this effort is from the original former Netscape employees, like in the nineties when the Netscape browser was decent.

I’m more interested in the Multiverse platform (via multiverse.net, but the site seems to be down as of this writing) than Firefly as a MMORPG, but we’ll see how/if this actually comes to fruition. I’m curious enough to check it out and see if it’s better than Galaxies.

Already, some 7,000 development teams have registered for the Multiverse beta, according to Bridges, and more than 150 are making MMOs and non-game virtual worlds on a full-time basis. The tools are provided for free, with Multiverse taking a cut of revenue only if developers charge for their games, or for virtual items available within their worlds.

Anybody reading heard more about this game framework? Is it any good? I’ve been spending a little time checking out the XNA Game Studio from Microsoft which lets developers create games for Windows and the Xbox 360.

In light of the past Microsoft position on easter eggs (”grounds for termination”), I’m not sure if we’ll see any easter eggs in Internet Explorer 7 to counter Firefox 2.x when you type about:mozilla in the Firefox (works in Flock too) URL bar.

BTW, that Microsoft policy covers Windows, I’m not sure how or even if that covers Internet Explorer. I still think easter eggs are a good idea in most (not all) programs. Why not hide a game in a spreadsheet program? Sure, easter eggs could become exploits if they are done at the wrong time and place in code, but hopefully Microsoft hires people smart enough (they do) that can figure out where not to place easter eggs. I think it’s too severe having a termination policy against them.

Hat tip to Download Squad.

If allowed, what would be a good easter egg for the IE team to put in? How about an animated picture of a bird who’s brain explodes after too many add-ons were implemented? Or a counter of memory use rising dramatically while IE7 remains stable? Suggestions, ideas?

In one of the most bizarre exclamations I’ve read in a long time, ZDnet’s David Berlind attempts to make a case for the short URL service tinyurl.com being the next YouTube. No, really, he’s serious.

Berlind writes:

TinyURL is the next YouTube. In fact. It’s better. It’s a dream come true for the Madison avenue types whose Holy Grail has always been how to serve people with an advertisement at their moment of greatest need.

Yes, he’s talking about the same tinyurl shortening service which in addition to being useful to Berlind and others for shortening long relevant URLs is also a haven for spammers wanting to mask links to sites with illegal activity and worse (malware, anyone?). After I read the article I looked in my comment moderation bin for this blog and what do I see? Yup, you already saw it to lead off this post. Really, that was the very first comment waiting for me to approve. Berlind should get with Matt Mullenweg and see how many of these type comment spams are sullying up the Akismet bins every hour of every day.

My apologies for not masking most of the NSFW keywords in that screenshot, they are there to reinforce my point that this happens frequently with short URL services. All legitimate adult and mainstream affiliate programs have strict rules against spamming. Using a third party service to intentionally mask the URL for spamming purposes is clearly a major TOS violation. These affiliates would have their account banned for this activity. Is TinyURL or any of the competing short URL services working to report these people who use their service for spamming?

An owner’s perspective
Before we get too far, I speak on the subject of short URL services with direct experience. I’ve owned and operated a similar service since 2004 that is actually shorter than tinyurl.com (11 characters) called tdurl.com (9 characters). I didn’t start the service to compete against the other URL shortening services, but primarily to use for myself. I didn’t like the idea of links that could be easily expired at some point in the future and knew the only way to guarantee that short links I used wouldn’t be killed later or perhaps as Berlind hints someday become a second page to an advertisement. So I wrote my own code and deployed my own service intending for myself to be the primary benefactor. The entire codebase which makes up our tdurl.com short service is less than 300 lines in a single PHP file. The click counts for each short URL are kept in a database.

I told a few friends and our radio show audience of my intentions back in 2004. I even offered the code to my hosting company and encouraged them to start their own URL shortening service. IMO, I still believe every company with multiple websites should have their own URL shortening service rather than use any third party service (including mine).

With that in mind hopefully this post isn’t being seen as trying to bash a competing service or disrespect to the tinyurl creator from Minnesota Kevin “Gilby” Gilbertson (although I’m sure some will see it that way). Instead I’d like to point out the inherent problems with running a short URL service that outweigh their usefulness and value for third party use from a short URL owner perspective. I have almost two years of direct experience to draw from and that should be worth something to add to the discussion.

As a quick aside, I thought it was kind of funny how Gilby seemed a bit perplexed by David Berlind’s overexuberance:

ZDNet: Every time that I go to TinyURL, the thing that crosses my mind is this is the next YouTube…
Gilby: You think so?
ZDNet: I think so, I don’t know if you’re worth 1.6 billion dollars, but I think well, this kind of traffic, this kind of utility, this kind of simple idea, lot’s of incredibly useful data coming through that would be useful to advertisers on the Internet…

In a few words, hosting short URLs for others that I don’t know overall has been a miserable experience. Most of the third party activity has been similar to what you see in the screenshot above and/or from individuals trying to mask other affiliate URLs and spam newsgroups, messageboards, email, myspace, blogs, you name it.

Running one of these short URL services — and keeping it clean — requires even more aggressive filtering and monitoring than checking your email box. I lamented these challenges trying to keep these services spammer free back in a post here July called War of the Short URL Worlds. The activity had gotten progressively worse as spammers tried to hide their activities behind the short URL service which culminated in that post. For awhile I was getting daily emails alerting me that my short URL service was being used for spamming. Fortunately with the changes made over the past few months it has improved slightly. I also had to ban uses of other shorten URL services like TinyURL which were being used as multiple level spam redirection. Sound like fun?

In every case we remove the links and in most add custom filtering rules. I’m filtering out many porn, viagra, mortgage and other affiliate programs. Also blocking many country domains outside the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Still, the service can and is be used by spammers. An ongoing battle.

And remember, this comes from somebody who isn’t out actively promoting their short URL service for others to use. Spammers are still finding the service and trying to subvert it for TOS-violating and in some cases illegal activity. I can only imagine how much BS Mr. “Gilby” Gilbertson and others who do actively promote for others to use have to face.

Google doesn’t need the misery
Now why would somebody like Google ever want to buy a short URL service and suddenly become the proxy for spammers? They already receive enough bad karma from owning arguably the world’s worst spog haven with blogspot.com? Instead, they’d be wiser to use their assets to buy a one digit domain and build their own. These short URL services are easy to build and deploy, but require much more work to keep clean of trash. They could then start fresh and build their own anti-spam defense.

Also, and perhaps more importantly, Google has gone on record as saying that they don’t like intrusive advertising. People who use — and have used — URL shortening services didn’t intend, agree or want somebody to slam an ad in front of the target link like [cough, cough] a number of mainstream media sites use. That type of intrusion would no doubt be deemed evil by Google’s standards, eyeballs be damned.

To play devil’s advocate, there was a lot of negativity surrounding YouTube — particularly with copyright violations — and that didn’t stop the big G from closing the deal. But this is different in the sense that there are dozens of short URL services and the thing that separates them is how good they are about filtering (or accepting) the trash.

So then who would be a suitor for an existing URL shortening service? Somebody who doesn’t mind taking the PR hit, perhaps. Somebody who would love to take that database of links and subvert them, just as the comment spammers are using them while you are reading this. What does Gilby think about this?

The answer is in the podcast.

Podcast with Gilby, TinyURL’s creator
I listened to Berlind’s podcast with trepidation, primarily hoping to absorb some amount of logic in why he thinks tinyurl.com and the dozens of copycats (my own service admittedly being one of them) will ever be anything more valuable to non-spammers and companies that are willing to absorb the headaches associated with running this type of service.

Ironically, the podcast starts with “a word from the sponsor.” Then Berlind prefaces with some background stats on TinyURL that listeners learn has been running since January 2002. Over 28 million long URLs have been shortened using TinyURL and the homepage claims to be receiving over 675 million clickthrus a month.

In the podcast we learn, however, that TinyURL doesn’t count clicks of individual long URLs and that number must be an aggregate figure. This is a major feature for alerting the short URL owner that a long URL shortened could be spam and I’m surprised TinyURL doesn’t include this feature yet. Many others, my own service included, does.

Berlind realizes later in the interview that the 675 million clickthrus aren’t actual webpage visits to TinyURL. How did he not realize this is how it works if he had been using this for awhile?

Gilby sounds like a good guy. The type you might go ice fishing with in Minnesota. I graduated from high school in Wisconsin and he seems like the type of friendly Midwestener I went to school with. Gilby created a useful service, but it’s too bad that Berlind doesn’t dig into the dark side of these services. He sort of glosses over the abuse factor, even when mentioned by Gilby, in some sort of misguided effort to support his crazy notion that this could be the next YouTube.

Disappointing interview.

Curiously enough, Gilby is concerned about the service being ruined by advertising, perhaps in the very way that Berlind is thinking. I like web developers like Gilby who are more concerned about keeping the purity of the service than letting it be completely violated by advertising. I’m glad to hear he’s able to make a living from shorter URLs, but I don’t envy his position in any way, shape or form. When he mentioned “abuse” I knew exactly what he was talking about.

I’ve read stuff from David Berlind before and he seems like a pretty smart chap, but I don’t understand where he’s coming from at all on this one. Maybe he’ll be kind enough to ping me or stop by below and explain more fully in a follow-up. Honestly, I’m surprised that CNET/ZDnet doesn’t start their own URL shortening service. They could have cnurl.com or zdurl.com, if those are available. If they happen to have a coveted one or two digit domain with perhaps .us behind it, even better. The whole point is to get the shortest characters possible and the newer the service, the shorter the resulting URL.

In the podcast Berlind tells Gilby multiple times: “I think you are sitting on a gold mine here.”

Spammers joyfully subverting these services most certainly agree. Not sure any suitors with big wallets will agree.

I held out successfully until yesterday upgrading to Firefox 2.x. The reason being that I’ve been satisfied with the existing Firefox setup and extensions — ok, add-ons is what they’re being called now — I’m using and weren’t sure how many were compatible with 2.x. Also, I’ve learned over time and experience that being the first to upgrade can also have unintended consequences. So I cast my fears aside — whether legitimate or not — and installed version 2.0.

I’m probably echoing a long series of boos but this is a very unimpressive full version upgrade. I don’t like what they did with the tabbed browsing at all. Don’t want the close button on each tab and miss the shrinking tabs instead of the annoying arrows on both sides (the Tab Mix Plus add-in does ‘fix’ some of this by allowing reverting to a “traditional” style). One of my most used add-ins (screen capture) doesn’t work. With less add-ins, Firefox 2.x is leaking even more memory than 1.5.8. What a way to encourage people to switch to other browsers or downgrade. Reminds me a bit of what happened with Winamp after 2.x.

I realize there are tools to help me debug what add-ons are leaking and tutorials/tips/tricks for how to reduce Firefox memory leaks but all of this feels like I’m being the perpetual beta tester for every add-on developer and the Firefox team. Come on, developers, debug your stuff better before releasing!

This is a major drawback for Firefox over Opera which doesn’t have anywhere near these amount of memory leak issues (nor the amount of plugins, so that could partly explain it). It’s ridiculous for anyone to have 2GB of RAM and need to restart Firefox almost daily.

Before anybody gets on my case about being an add-on whore and that being my main problem (and that might indeed be a significant part of the problem), I have 15 add-ons currently installed:

Adsense Notifier
Colorzilla
Customize google
Download status bar
Leak Monitor
McAfee Site Advisor
Measure It
Screen Grab (to be uninstalled)
Search Status
Show IP
Signature
Skype Plugin for Firefox
stickis (testing)
StumbleUpon
Tab Mix Plus

If this is extreme compared to what most others are using (in terms of number of add-ons), I’m all ears for how others are better managing so they can stay productive? I could probably axe half these add-ons to get down to what I’m really using on a regular basis, but then there goes the functionality that I’ve enjoyed with Firefox. I’m sure there is some way to have my cake and eat it too, short of me debugging each of the add-ons and digging into the Firefox source code.

Anybody else having major Firefox memory leakage problems? For any Firefox add-ons developers that might be reading what steps are you taking before releasing your plugin to make sure it doesn’t have leakage problems?

Update 6:54pm PST: I see Sterling (link below) thinks all these add-ons are the main culprit too. Alright, I just uninstalled all 15 add-ons listed above and restarted Firefox. It loaded with 39,916k with a single tab open. I opened the minimum number of tabs that I typically work with which is five: two admin-related tabs, a Gmail tab, a reBlog (RSS reader) tab, and a browse tab and let things just sit.

Meanwhile, IE7 has been running in the background for a couple hours with a single tab and is using 28,248k memory. Will check back on this situation later or first thing tomorrow and update. I’m going to establish a baseline memory pattern and then start adding back the add-ons one at a time to establish which one(s) are the memory thieves.

Update 8:44pm PST: Firefox now using 84,124k. It has doubled in memory usage with no add-ons and a default 2.0 installation and an increase in one tab. IE7 with still one tab? 28,328.

11/30/2006 6:08am PST: Overnight with no further user activity on the machine, Firefox now, still with zero add-ons, using memory: 85,352k. As long as I don’t use it, it balances out. While typing this and working for 10 minutes, the load shot up to 94,212k. Also see comments below, I’m not the only one experiencing memory problems with Firefox 2.0.

11/30/2006 7:04am PST: Firefox now up to 108,940. Meanwhile, IE7 still at 28,472. Just for kicks, I decided to load up tabs in IE7 with the same pages and number of tabs that are sitting in Firefox. In fact, I added two additional tabs in IE7 and are using those to browse and work instead of Firefox.

11/30/2006: 8:44am PST: Exactly 12 hours since this browser experiment began. Firefox now at 110,372k has been minimized with the same tabs while I’ve been using IE7 which has shot up to 67,860k. I’m going to reboot the computer now and start fresh and see what happens over the next 12 hours.

Yahoo sure likes to make deals toward the end of the year. Last year there was a flurry of acquisition activity and this year they are starting to heat up in the same department.

Yahoo will index and tag content from seven major newspaper chains and make the news content from 38 states available on the web. Yahoo will also power local events listings, maps and search technology on the local newspapers’ websites. The partnered newspapers will also use Yahoo’s advertising platform to sell and host the targeted local ads on their websites. The ads will largely be powered by Yahoo Local.

I’m not sure who this deal helps more, a print newspaper business moving (begrudgingly?) to the web or Yahoo. And why are they using ads from Yahoo Local and not Yahoo Publisher? We still don’t subscribe to any newspapers, you?

Perhaps just me, but why does this deal — piggybacking on what I wrote Monday on the allegedly leaked internal Yahoo memo — all feel like a part of some throw at the wall and see what sticks scheme?

Yesterday another deal that was announced which makes more sense is Yahoo Answers teaming up with Answers.com to form a definitive Q&A database, which answers.com CEO explains::

“The phenomenon of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ has taken on extraordinary momentum, as evidenced by the meteoric growth of Yahoo! Answers,” explained Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Answers.com. “While our existing content is incredibly rich, relevant and cross-disciplinary, answers drawn from a community Q&A site provide a flip side - the dynamic, interactive voice of the people. User-generated content is a powerful wave on the internet and is a direction that we will continue to actively pursue.”

It’s going to be tough for Microsoft Live QnA or Google Answers to put a dent in that combination.

Another thing Yahoo continues to be doing right is improving their developer relations, products and services. This will always pay dividends in the software world.

Disclaimer: I’m being paid to write this review.

Lux Delux a Game of Universal Domination (20 play demo, $24.95 unlocked game) which the company SillySoft — great name for a game company, by the way — describe as a:

game of strategy and domination inspired by the board game Risk.

How long has it been since you played Risk? For me, it hasn’t been since middle school. Our family plays board games once in awhile and our middle son and I enjoy playing chess. He has this cool Star Wars chess board, but that’s a story for another day. Monopoly is probably the most played board game in our family, we don’t own Risk.

When it comes to strategy games on the computer I really haven’t played that many or often before. Earlier this year I was invited up to Microsoft to beta test Ages of Empire III and that was a thoroughly enjoyable experience (although I never bought the game when it came out) so I was stoked to try out Lux Delux and learn what it was all about.

Lux was originally created November 25, 2002 by Dustin Quasar Sacks in Montreal, Canada and a history page details the game’s origins until present, including the name change to Lux Delux in June 2006 when new features and plugins were made available. An annual tradition each October involves a contest called Luxtoberfest.

Time not on my strategic side
I think one of my main concerns about strategy games in general is time. My time, like many others I’m sure, is in very short supply and any game that requires a significant amount of time, brainpower and concentration is less likely to get into my wallet. I was curious if Lux Delux would be too involving time-wise for someone busy to go beyond the demo and pay $24.95.

Let’s find out.

Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, choose your poison
Upon visiting the Lux Delux website the very first thing I noticed is the game has cross platform support. Windows, Mac or Linux, Sillysoft has you covered. A definite plus for any software, especially games which tend to be a little lacking on our Mac (we’ve been somewhat lazy about finding good games to download and play). Lux Delux is written in Java so if your system isn’t up to date with Java it will get you there.

Single player licensing on multiple computers
I was curious if I paid the twenty-five bones whether or not I could run the game on both Windows and Mac or if I was required to pay for two licenses? It would be nice to see Sillysoft post their licensing terms — or at least a link — somewhere near the download area to make this clear.

As it turns out after a little more digging around the Sillysoft website, this is the very first question answered in the Lux Wiki Q&A:

A license is only good for one player. It is allowed for that player to use their registration on different computers (desktop and laptop for example). If 2 different players want to play each other then they will need 2 different accounts.

Note: I only reviewed the Windows and Mac OS X versions of Lux Delux so if you are a Linux user trying out the game and have a different experiences than what follows please feel free to leave a comment below with details.

Downloading the v5.5 demo on Windows and Mac OS X
The Windows download is a 20.6MB exe file and on Mac a 9.3 MB dmg. On Windows you know the drill, just click the exe to start the install. On Mac, double click the dmg and then drag the lux.app to your applications folder or where you prefer to store games.

During the Windows install an information windows appears explaining more about the various gameplay options:

You can play the Game Of Universal Domination any way you want. Versus friends on the same computer, against the 10 different computer AI players (from easy to hard), or versus the world in networked games. There’s an active Lux community to be found in network games and the the Sillysoft forums. There are also World Wide Rankings to determine who’s the best.

I definitely wasn’t ready as a first timer to get my butt handed to me in a networked game, so the most appealing option for the first time was playing against a computer AI player on the easiest setting.

Windows demo first startup screen:

Mac OS X demo first startup screen:

Java was up to date on both systems so no extra updating was required on either system. The installation and first run process was flawless.

Instructions and strategy for how to play
Before pressing the “Let me Play” button, I wanted to read up on how to play the game and consulted the Lux Wiki strategy page which linked out to a very detailed beginner’s guide from risk_man. Included in risk_man’s guide are instructions about what continent to choose.

The object of Lux Delux is to conquer the entire world.

Risk_man indicated that it “usually takes 3 or 4 hours to play” based on the number of (human) players. I would soon learn that playing against the computer was much, much faster.

With a plan to take on bots, I also consulted the Lux Wiki Agent Profiles page to learn about the different bots with names like: BotOfDoom, BotOMatic, Reaper, Brainiac, Killbot, Quo, EvilPixie, Boscoe, Shaft, Cluster, Pixie, Cluster, Yakool, Communist, Angry, Stinky, Ravitar and Bort.

Besides playing the game, you can also build your own bots and share with other players.

Plugin manager
The map section has a dropdown that allows you to search through the list of plugins — map, generator, AI — installed or choose from a sortable list of a couple dozen additional free plugins.

Similar to bots, you can also create your own Lux maps.

Enough reading, let’s play
The game starts by players alternating picking which region of the world to populate. ‘Timmy the tutorial box’ provides instructions so new gamers can become familiar with the basic gameplay.

I stayed with the default of six players but you can play with as few as two players by changing the dropdown to ‘no player.’ Once every region in the world is taken you can start adding your army and fortifying your regions. Lux is a turn-based game where some of the time playing is spent waiting for what the other players to react.

A clearly rookie mistake made was trying to spread myself out and dominate too much land too quickly and this caused my rather fast demise. The game was over in under 10 minutes, so it is possible to play against the computer — and lose — fairly quickly. Certainly not anywhere in the realm of 3-4 hours. I noticed when clicking on the “show network games” button that turns are time based with 20 seconds or more to make your moves. This would keep things moving along but it’s easy to see how if all six players took the full 20 seconds that the time could drag on.

After losing the first game, I decided to summon our middle teenager — the gamer in the family — who said he had played Risk before. I watched his strategy which was decidedly different than mine. He started by trying to cover Australia and grow his armies and fortifying only Australia while the other AI bots fought each other. When he had built up the army to over 60 armies he went on the offensive, attacking. Within 15 minutes he beat the computer opponents.

We ratcheted up the difficulty to ‘hard’ and he tried again using a similar strategy. In the beginning alternate region one of the AI bots chose parts of Australia. He was more impatient with the gameplay the second time around and attacked too soon.

I made a screencap video of him playing in action so you could get a sense of the gameplay, graphics and sound. The video quality is subpar, but you can get the basic idea of how things work.

I probably didn’t need to spend time reading the instructions and looking around as it’s fairly self-explanatory once you get into the game. I tried a game on the Mac vs. six computer opponents on ‘medium’ and there were no significant differences noticed on the Mac version vs. Windows.

Fun factor
I found the ‘classic’ game merely average in the fun factor department on the first few plays but it starts to grow on you a little bit with additional games, save for when you capture an entire continent (or area). The pace playing against the computer moves fast enough to sustain interest. The graphics and sound for some maps like the default ‘classic’ map are kind of dull. The alternate Vietnam War map looked good and the Spacestation Lux is nicely done and somewhat fun to play.

Overall, graphically and sound-wise nothing spectacular or stunning when compared to next generation games on the Xbox 360 (I know, gamers are spoiled these days) but since players can make and play their own maps, more extensive eye-candy maps could be created. I’d like to see a game like this in the Xbox Live Arcade someday but since it’s written in Java that probably won’t happen any time soon unless somebody wants to port it into C# via the XLA Game Express. This game would work well as a multi-player Xbox Live game. It’s a nice change of pace from first person shooters like Halo, Gears of War, etc.

Network play
After cutting my teeth on a half dozen games against the computer I decided to check out network play in voyeur ‘guest mode.’ For a little bit the rooms I tried connecting to were full because they “only allowed 1 unregistered nick” or because they didn’t like my alias “TD” which I changed to a different name. Once inside I watched the human players. A chat window is directly below the map.

The chat channel was very IRC-like in nature and a couple players started in on me, asking where I was from? Typical chat experience, the folks were friendly. I explained I was just checking things out. When you enter in the middle of a game you are queued to play the next game. I noticed some things in the menu up above that I hadn’t seen while playing against the computer, although they are there. There is a radio function which allows listening to some preselected channels while playing: BarStar Radio, Groove Salad, Indie Pop Rocks, Mostly Classical, Secret Agent, SmoothJazz, the 80s channel and Vocal trance. What, no podcasts or talk radio?

An autoplay mode exists for bathroom breaks or if you have to eject early from a game in progress, but reading through the wiki on Luxiquette, it’s not cool to leave before a game ends (or before you get beaten, anyway):

You should not start a network game you can not finish. Hex, Assault, and even some Classic Risk games (with six humans, with card pay-outs that never advance past 5,5,5…) can go on a very long time. Know what you are doing and commit (like to a marriage, or a pony-keg).

Support forum
As far as support for Lux goes, there’s an active community forum with some 40,000+ Lux-related posts, so if you get stuck somewhere along the installation or in playing, you won’t be relegated to dropping a support email or trying to find an answer in Google. The Lux-related forums are broken into several different areas:

Lux Talk (39,000+ posts) - a general chat area about the game
Map LAB (2,300+) - help and feedback on creating your own maps
Robot House (900+) - AI ideas and feedback on the SDK
Feature Request (3,600+) - something missing in Lux? Suggest it here
Bug Reports (2,800+) - get out the fly swatter

Summary and grade
Lux Delux is a solid, satisfying computer version of the game Risk with an impressive number of player options, plugins and tweaks. Whether you want to just play against others, the computer and/or develop using the SDK there’s plenty to dig into and be entertained. The Lux Delux website is established, freshly updated and full of information about the game, strategy and some human players you might encounter in the game. There are enough plugins to keep one busy playing around for awhile.

Lux Delux is reasonably priced at $24.95 considering the features and functionality plus unlimited network gameplay. If you enjoy the game Risk, can set aside the time and energy to play and have never heard or seen Lux Delux, there’s no risk diving into this game. I took a few points off for graphics and sound which could be improved, but otherwise this is an outstanding effort by Sillysoft. Grade: A-