tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59058222860588038912010-01-26T11:11:44.088+01:00MindBlizzard blogMy adventures in Second Life with a slight focus on business and innovation, along with the occasional web 2.0 or other Virtual World stuff.VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.comBlogger825125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-61151012729892544922010-01-26T11:08:00.001+01:002010-01-26T11:11:44.335+01:00LotusSphere 2010: RemixWhile I keep working on some notes and editing some pictures on LotusSphere 2010, here's a short under 3 minute recap of the entire event by DJ Steve Porter<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8uy7micFCcA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8uy7micFCcA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-6115101272989254492?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-43056955679199127612010-01-26T10:30:00.004+01:002010-01-26T10:46:48.717+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Connections Next!<div align="justify">The big session we've all been waiting for at LotusSphere 2010 was "Connections Next!" on the upcoming features for Lotus Connections 2.5 and Lotus Connections Next (probably 3.0) presented by IBM's Demo-Queen Suzanne Livingston f.k.a. <a href="http://twitter.com/minassian">Minassian</a>.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">Big news in this session was that Forums will be extended into a standalone service, and not just a subset of communities. However, what I missed in the presentation was the further integration of Quickr into files, or highly desired additions to the files service and the addition of video libraries to Lotus Connections.<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext01.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext01.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext02.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext02.jpg" /></a> </div><div align="justify">Profile Background gets seperate tabs for adding education and stuff like that.</div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext03.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext03.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext04.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext04.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext05.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext05.jpg" /></a></div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">Social Analytics seems to be a keyword for Lotus Connections in 2010. We need metrics! </div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext06.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext06.jpg" /></a> </div><div align="justify">To improve building the social network, Lotus Connections will be extended with recommendations; suggested blogs, communities and people based on your own searches and tags.</div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext07.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext07.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext08.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext08.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext09.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext09.jpg" /></a> </div><div align="justify"><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext10.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext10.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext11.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext11.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext12.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext12.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext13.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext13.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext14.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext14.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext15.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext15.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext16.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext16.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext17.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext17.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=connectionsnext18.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/connectionsnext18.jpg" /></a> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-4305695567919912761?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-14406100597386334992010-01-26T10:07:00.002+01:002010-01-26T10:18:49.855+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Orlando, we have a problem!<div align="justify"><strong><em>"Orlando, we have a problem"</em></strong> was the title of the funniest session I attended during LotusSphere 2010 on monday Januari 18. Two crazy Scotsmen, but crack lotus admins <a href="http://www.pmooney.net/">Paul Mooney</a> and <a href="http://www.billbuchan.com/web.nsf">Bill Buchan</a> did a very inspiring session on how small mistakes can lead to huge catastrophes.<br /></div><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/worstpractices-732116.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/worstpractices-732100.jpg" /></a> <div align="center">(photo <a href="http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/blogging-at-the-irish-lotus-user-group-meeting...">Ed Brill</a>)</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">Paul and Bill discussed 10 worst cases of <em>'fatal errors'</em> that literally crippled entire companies. How can you send all 18,000 employees on holiday in just one click? Well, it happened! Of course, they did not just share the best jokes in sysadmin land to us, they investigated how these errors were made and presented the lessons learned.</div><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">Link to the presentation at <a href="http://www.pmooney.net/dload/ls10/bp108topresent.pdf">Paul Mooney's site</a>.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-1440610059738633499?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-46607148734373738532010-01-18T23:52:00.002+01:002010-01-21T13:48:59.545+01:00LotusSphere 2010: TeamPark the best solution in the market<p align="justify">During the first major keynote with client showcases, one of the case studies was Sogeti's offering of TeamPark which was introduced to the 8,000 + audience by <a href="http://www.sogeti.com/">Sogeti</a> CTO Michiel Boreel.</p><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=sogetionstage1.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/sogetionstage1.jpg" border="0" width=" 450" heigth="338"/></a><br /><p align="justify">As said in a previous blogpost, many companies find it hard to put real KPI's on Corporate Social Networking and Michiel also touched this subject; "<em>there is a chance that your managers see social collaboration as a whole new waste of time</em>" but in this day and age you have to push the limits, especially as a global IT company. The world is changing fast and competition heats up. As a company, you need to be agile and close to the market. You need to keep up to speed in terms of the latest developments. That is the reason why Sogeti chose to implement Lotus Connections 2.5 by the end of 2009: It's the challenge to increase the speed of innovation by engaging the talent of your employees.</p><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=teamparkonstage.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/teamparkonstage.jpg" border="0" width=" 450" heigth="338" /></a><br /><p align="justify">Michiel described the for stages of the TeamPark methodology; Awareness, Strategy, Implementation and Live. In many IT projects we do the strategy and the implementation but we do not do the first and last phase: Awareness and bringing the platform to Live. Especially when it comes to corporate social networking, these stages are essential. Else you would have an empty restaurant. And where do people eat? Not in the empty restaurant, but one across the street where it's busy. Now if your company would be like that, your employees would probably eat out in restaurants like Facebook or LinkedIn.</p><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/socialpuzzle-769754.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 337px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/socialpuzzle-769754.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p align="justify">A social environment breaks down into five areas: Socialness, Organicness, Collective Intelligence, Aliveness and Linkedess (<a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2009/03/corporate-social-networking.html">it needs to be S.O.CI.A.L.</a>)</p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"><em>According to IBM, Sogeti's TeamPark offering currently is <strong>the best in the market</strong> when it comes to implementing social software in companies. If you would like to know more about TeamPark, just leave me a message or contact me on twitter (</em><a href="http://twitter.com/vjburns"><em>@vjburns</em></a><em>), or call your nearest Sogeti Offices off course ;)</em></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-4660714873437373853?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-61521996948577007122010-01-18T23:45:00.002+01:002010-01-21T13:19:12.335+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Social Collaboration delivers Real Business Value<p align="justify">The first big keynote session after the OGS (Opening General Session) was KEY106: Social Collaboration delivers Real Business Value in which Jeff Schick asked:<em> What is your companies collaboration culture? Is it phone? Is it email? </em></p><p align="center"><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=jeffschick.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/jeffschick.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p align="justify"><em>What do you think will get you the best response? Is that dropping an email bomb on your employees or a dynamic search of a live site?</em> Not surprisingly we are still in the proces of justifying corporate social software. We need metrics to convince our managers.</p><p align="justify">A number of partners and clients came on stage to showcase how collaboration has helped their business grow. First of all, Saleem Avan, Head of IT at the United Nations showed us how collaboration helps them to be agile and creative in harsh situations.</p><p align="center"><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=saleemavanUN.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/saleemavanUN.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p align="justify">Other client showcases included Thomas Anger, manager Collaboration Services at Sun Life Financial (<em>and guess what his blog is called: Anger Management. That drew a few laughs</em>), Sogeti CTO Michiel Boreel (<em>which I'll get into later</em>), Travis Hall - Director of Client Engineering at Union Pacific and Eve McLain from ACI which deliver payment processing solutions</p><p align="justify"><a title="Live Blog - KEY106 Social Collaboration Delivers Real Business Value" href="http://blog.collaborationmatters.com/blog/cmblog.nsf/live-blog-" rel="bookmark">KEY106 Social Collaboration Delivers Real Business Value</a> at Collaboration Matters. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-6152199694857700712?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-33366213804255837022010-01-18T23:22:00.001+01:002010-01-21T12:42:47.919+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Poject Vulcan<p align="justify">Well, we had Shatner and the Social Enterprise for starters and now we have Vulcans. Where is this all heading to? </p><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/star-trek-vulcan-732848.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 167px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/star-trek-vulcan-732816.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p align="justify">Project Vulcan was announced by IBM at LotusSphere 2010 as the IBM vision on the Future of Collaboration, and not yet the near future, but Vulcan kicks off a preliminary roadmap towards 2020.</p><p align="justify">The project is not about new IBM products but about making IBM products integrate more seamlessly and expanding their functionality. Key elements in the future development will be social analysis and business analysis. This seems to be a hot topic in Corporate Social Networking as many companies find it hard to put meaningfull metrics to Social Networking: Can it really improve my business?</p><p align="justify">Instead of using mockups IBM was working with real code during the demos and showed us a client interface much like the one we are used to from the Lotus Notes client and a webbased client. For end users there should not be a difference between desktop and webclients anymore and the client should integrate products like Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections, Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Office Sharepoint into one seamless user experience.</p><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/vulcan1-794238.png"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 310px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/vulcan1-794233.png" border="0" /></a><br /><p align="justify">You can tell IBM has been looking very closely at social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIN in continuing their Lotus Connections development of the homepage, which should become a central hub that lets users see and edit information from business applications in a relative context.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-3336621380425583702?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-20965604255486602532010-01-18T20:27:00.005+01:002010-01-19T20:42:26.998+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Starship Social Enterprise<div align="justify">Early monday morning the LotusSphere 2010 Convention officially kicked off in the grand opening session. General Manager of Lotus Software Bob Piccanio did the introduction, then quit the job as he introduced Alistair Rennie as his successor.<br /><br />We weren't expecting any kick ass announcements as Jeff Schick had already given a few sneak previews at the Business Development Day session yesterday, so we were all waiting for the big star to open the ball. This time it was William Shatner, or Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=captainkirk.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/captainkirk.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><p>His performance drew a lot of laughs as he talked about collaboration in the movie industry. For a pretty extensive live blogging coverage of the OGS (Opening General Session) check out the <a href="http://blog.collaborationmatters.com/blog/cmblog.nsf/dx/lotusphere-2010-ogs-live-blog">Collaboration Matters</a> website.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-2096560425548660253?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-37284454059464421562010-01-18T07:26:00.000+01:002010-01-19T18:35:12.484+01:00LotusSphere 2010: The Tweet UpAfter the Business Development Session it was time for the grand welcoming reception, a meet and greet with proper bites and drinks. for folks on Twitter we organized a little tweet up party - fun part was that there was no WiFi available so I couldn't tweet.<br /><br />Anyway, I ran into Doc Brown (who isn't on Twitter)<br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=docbrown.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/docbrown.jpg" border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" /></a><br /><br />and finally met with Luis Benitez (left) and Luis Suarez (right), the first one kind enough to shoot the above and picture.<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view¤t=luis-and-luis.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/luis-and-luis.jpg" border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,IBM,Connections,Orlando,Florida,Walt Disney World"></a><br /><br />I'm still looking for the picture we took in front of the DeLorean! Please let me know where to get it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-3728445405946442156?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-60541398937827818232010-01-18T01:13:00.000+01:002010-01-19T20:27:16.305+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Business Development DayI woke up surprisingly fit this morning and had breakfast with the gang; Goofy, Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Here's me with Minnie.<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=minniemouse.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/minniemouse.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="375" alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" /></a>.<br /><br />I'm not really happy that IBM already programmed a lot of sessions on Sunday, but alas, duty calls. After an informal chat with the Sr. VP of Social Software at IBM, Jeff Schick we went into the first presentation in which Jeff gave a sneak preview of what was to come.<br /><br />Also on stage in the same meeting was John Newton of <a href="http://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco</a>, the unchallenged champion of lightweight open source Content Management Systems announcing integration with Lotus Connections. <div><br /></div><div>First to kick off the <a href="http://www.sogeti.com">Sogeti</a> spotlights this week was our group CIO Didier Coffin who gave a brief overview of our TeamPark project.<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view&current=sogetionstage2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/sogetionstage2.jpg" border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-6054139893782781823?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-67521491431049218272010-01-17T18:06:00.001+01:002010-01-19T18:12:52.746+01:00LotusSphere 2010: Here we comeSaturday Jan 16th I flew into Orlando, FL to attend the IBM LotusSphere 2010 convention, held at the Walt Disney World Dophin & Swan Hotels. A shot from the plane over the US Eastcoast ... or was this still Canada?<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view¤t=eastcoast.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/eastcoast.jpg" border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World"></a><br /><br />After a 10 hour flight we arrived at Orlando airport and got stripsearched... sorry, no pictures ;) and took a cab to the Beach hotel where we arrived at 9 pm local time<br /><br /><a href="http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/?action=view¤t=beachhotel.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p402/jvermij/LotusSphere2010/beachhotel.jpg" border="0" alt="LotusSphere 2010,Orlando,Florida,IBM,Walt Disney World"></a><br /><br />To avoid Jet Lag we stayed up a little and had a beer & burger in the ESPN club.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-6752149143104921827?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-87034189544994331782010-01-15T14:05:00.005+01:002010-01-15T19:25:57.098+01:00Smoking Apples<blockquote><p align="justify">Apple stores don’t have “no smoking” signs. Legally they need them but they “ruin the design of the store”, so for every apple store in the UK they pay £50 a day to keep their windows sign free. Crazy shit.<br /><br />EDIT: I forgot to include the source, it’s a friend who works in the Apple Store in Norwich, The evidence is the fact that they aren’t actually in the windows. </p></blockquote><p><br />Source: <a href="http://blog.lewisking.net/post/318110435/apple-store-madness">Lewis King</a> </p><p>Well you could try a different design of the sign, such as:<br /></p><p align="center"><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/applesmoke-700250.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 286px; HEIGHT: 343px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/applesmoke-700236.jpg" /></a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-8703418954499433178?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-51781497158079010942010-01-15T09:45:00.002+01:002010-01-15T09:50:24.230+01:00Augmented Training with LegoYesterday I saw a neat video on Augmented Reality using Lego at <a href="http://gamesalfresco.com/2010/01/14/training-the-visual-way/">Games Alfresco</a><br /><br /><blockquote><p align="justify">Homo sapiens are visual creatures. We receive 75% of our information through our eyes. Explaining how to do something can be tedious and inefficient. Augmented reality offers a visual medium for explanation. This quick demo on how to assemble a LEGO tower using ARToolKit illustrates how effective this technique can be. If you don’t believe me, give a friend a pile of LEGOs and then try to explain how to create the tower in the video. Time your result and compare it. I’ll guarantee the AR method will win. </p></blockquote><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ogeIszG5ogQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ogeIszG5ogQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-5178149715807901094?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-81512365560003097732009-10-03T21:10:00.004+02:002009-10-03T21:50:46.567+02:00How to cheat the beaters!<div style="text-align: justify;">Somewhere in the Netherlands, there's a group of teenagers having fun on <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/game.html#en">Monopoly City Streets</a>. Something special about this? There are thousands of people having fun out there. There are also thousands of people who don't have fun anymore on Monopoly City Streets. Many have quit playing because all the hours spent on the game were devastated by groups of rampart teenagers like this one.<br /><br />They play in gangs, handling multiple accounts and moving in on serious players. They have fun in destroying other players. It's a group of 4 to 5 players who have multiple accounts:<br /><br />There is:<br /><ol><li> Janneke (accounts Jannek1 to Janneke9)</li><li> WZ (accounts WZ1 to WZ9)</li><li>Alenka (accounts Alenka1 to Alenka9)</li><li> Woody (accounts Woodski, Woodsky6 and Woodyho and probably a few others)</li><li> Bl0ggertje (Account Bl0ggertje -with a zero) and Bloggertje1 to Bloggertje9)</li></ol><br />Mind that last one, the main account is Bl0ggertje with a zero, Bloggertje with an ooh is my account! Everyday at least 20 attacks by these accounts landed on my streets. Of course, I've got another account with which I still am going strong in the game, but I've kept this one off their radar. Today I was doubting. Should I stop with this account or not? It is frustrating to work with this account everyday just to clean up the hazards and build new parks. Sometimes even selling houses just to get another chance card...<br /><br />Well, today is not a good day to die. I sold every street 'Bloggertje' still owned and bought me a nice 3 Million dollar street in the middle of Oklahoma. Armed with 7 Million dollar to build and an autobuild script I set to work, cuz today is Payback Day!<br /><br />I speedbuilt 140 green houses and received a stunning load of chance cards and went back to taking on all of these accounts. Mind you, in Monopoly City Streets a rampant account has an enormous destructive power. With just 10 million dollar to spend I've managed to wreck over a billion worth of streets. Here's some of today's harvest:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/bloggertje-753458.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 336px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/bloggertje-753455.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I really must say, I've refound the joy in the game. The sole purpose of keeping this account alive is to strike back and let them experience what they are doing to others. Anyone in for game?<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-8151236556000309773?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-58370225752793650092009-09-28T08:11:00.003+02:002009-09-28T09:29:55.680+02:00Advanced MCS Strategy: Your Footprint<p style="text-align: justify;">In my previous blogpost I explained why you need to find long streets. But now, what's the best way to build them? Which buildings give you the best return on investment?</p><h1>So, what are the figures?</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">Starting with the smallest building, the <b>Green House</b>, costing you can see it costs only 50K and returns a 50K rent. So that's a 100% return on investment! But what do you get from this building? I set out a small stretch of road, between two <b>Blanco Bastions</b>. Now to select the <b>Green House</b>. As you can see, there are 13 free markers. So for 650K I can get a 650K return in rents.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint05-728535.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint05-728529.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Blanco Bastion</b> costs 1.1M$ and returns a daily rent of 750 K$. However, there are only 3 free markers for building the Bastion. This little stretch could cost 3.3M$ and return a daily 2,25M$ with this type of building.</div><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint04-799273.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint04-799268.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><p style="text-align: justify;">Now sadly, as the prices go up for appartments, the relative income drops severely. Whereas the return with a <b>Blanco Bastion</b> is still at about 70%, the return on a <b>Briquette Tower</b> is only 16.6% as it costs a ludicrous 15M$ to build and gives a return in rent of just 2.2 M$. So what's the best footprint to get?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Cubic Quarters</b> builds at 2M$ and returns 950K$, so nearly 50%. It's footprint allows upto 6 of these to be build on the stretch I set out, so 12M$ returns almost 6M$ in rents.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint03-794887.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint03-794845.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><p style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Spear End Summit</b> tower costs 5,000,000 $ and returns a daily rent of 1,300,000 $. As you can see, there are 7 free markers for building the Spear End. This little stretch could cost 35M$ and return a daily 9,1M$.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint02-791380.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint02-791375.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><p style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Briquette Tower</b> tower costs 15,000,000 $ and returns a daily rent of 2,500,000 $. As you can see, there are 5 free markers for building the Briquette. This little stretch could cost 75M$ and return a daily 12,5M$.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint01-785734.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint01-785725.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><p style="text-align: justify;">So basically I would say that in terms of footprint, probably the <b>Spear End Summit</b> gives you the best value for money, but it will take a lot of money to build a 24 M$ street with only <b>Spear End Summit</b>s. I have started out building my street with <b>Blanco Bastion</b>s and fill up the small spots in between with <b>Spear End Summit</b>s. Seeing the numbers and the footprint, maybe it's smarter to build the <b>Cubic Quarters</b> all over.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint00-706611.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 247px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint00-706575.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><h1>Your Bonus Building Footprint</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">On the Monopoly City Street Headquarters blog there is an interesting <a href="http://monopolyhq.com/2009/09/advanced-tactics-tips/#comments">comment</a> on Strategy, namely the fact that bonus buildings have a different footprint as well:</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint06-796282.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 177px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-footprint06-796277.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-5837022575279365009?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-4453930604702212822009-09-27T21:47:00.007+02:002009-09-28T00:45:16.523+02:00Your Guide to Monopoly City Streets<p style="text-align: justify;">It's that time of year again when the days shorten and the evenings are covered in darkness. Curtains drawn and the lights on. It's weekend and the kids are finishing washing the dishes. Now the table is clear and we get out that famous old square boardgame: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)">Monopoly</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Brothers">Parker Brothers</a>. A sure guarantee for long hours of family entertainment.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At least, that's what it was when I grew up. Especially during the long winternights we spent hours of playing games (when there was no homework to do), so when <a href="http://www.hasbro.com/">Hasbro</a> launched <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/">Monopoly City Streets</a>, its online version of the game September 9, it was perfect timing. It's game on!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, it turned out to be a little more complicated to get that old 'family entertainment' thing into the gameplay. This is what I'll cover in this article. For a basic howto of the game you can check out tons of websites, ranging from this <a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2009/09/monopoly-city-streetwise.html">blog</a> to the respectable <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/09/07/monopoly-google-maps/">Mashable</a>.</p><h1>Monopoly City Streets - first release</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">The online game released by Hasbro was a massively multiplyer online game (mmo) in which the classic boardgame was set up on a worldwide scale using <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a> technology. As a player you could buy every street in the world and earn rent, buy complete cities and turn into a real estate mogul. </p><h1>The burdens of success</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">Monopoly City Streets was a big success from the start. Hasbro and their agency <a href="http://blogs.tribalddb.co.uk/">Tribal DDB</a> must have been overtaken by surprise. They were handling pure gold, and that's where the danger is. Least of their worries would have been that the <a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/it-is-working-but.html">servers strained</a> under the onrush of real estate brokers worldwide. Servers are pretty easily upscaled these days. No, the danger was in cheating.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It didn't take long for Hasbro to <a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/were-back.html">reset</a> the game, which happened on September 17th. There have been a <a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/changes.html">number of adjustments</a> to the game, but those did not solve the cheating problem.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Hasbro has taken hardly any precaution to making the game cheat-proof. The <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/html/terms.en.html">terms and conditions</a> do not specifically mention it is prohibited to creating multiple accounts and their is no email verification on creating an account. More specifically, they have <a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/and-were-back.html">said</a> to allow up to five accounts per pc! The reason for doing so is that they want Monopoly to be a family game, the way it should be. Sadly, that is a little naive. Extremely sad, as cheaters are now ruining the game for tons of sincere monopoly-loving gamers like me. I know several pretty fanatic gamers who can stand a bit of trouble having given up on the game as it is almost impossible to beat the cheaters, <i><b>but I will tell you how</b></i>!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So as it is possible to have multiple accounts, what happens? Tons of frustrated teenagers sit down behinbd their computer and create dozens of accounts and start nagging people by making their streets worthless by destroying bonus buildings and building hazards like prisons, sewers and plants on your streets. One of my accounts was spammed severely by cheaters as well. <b><i>Here's a little naming and shaming:</i></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The bizarre part here is that my account is called <b>bloggertje</b> and that it got spammed by another account called bloggertje. So apparently, it is possible that an account name is registered more than once!</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy09-719838.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 283px;" border="0" alt="" /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">This particular account is now worthless, I don't get any rents on these streets, as it got spammed by bloggertje (<i>and his doubles</i>), janneke (<i>and her doubles</i>), WZ2 (<i>and his doubles</i>) and so on. I have reported the names to Monopoly, but although they promised to take action on the cheaters, no news so far. They are still active.</p><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy03-715505.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 213px;" border="0" alt="" /><p style="text-align: justify;">Fortunately, not everyone is hampered by these multiple accounts. I have three accounts myself (<i>now four, as I started a new one to prove my theory, so still under the 5 per pc rule</i>). I have noted they are regions in which the nasty little critters are more active. I had two accounts in my hometown, Ede, Gelderland, and both were severely attacked by these spammers. I have an account somewhere else, and that hardly got spammed, even if it did grow bigger in the shadows. <b><i>So here's how to beat them</i></b>!</p><h1>How to beat the cheaters!</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">Before the cheaters can target you, you have to be noted. If you're a bit serious and have bought some good streets, there's a good chance that you'll turn up in the local top 10. If you're unlucky like me and tons of other players, you're in an active cheating region and you get attacked pretty bad as they see your name appear on the <i>leaderboard</i>. If you're very good, you'll end up in the National or Worldwide rankings, but that's probably far off.... Although, with my prime playing account I'm just under the national top 10 at 450M$ <b>without </b><b>cheating</b>!</p><h2>Which roads to buy</h2><p style="text-align: justify;">The trick to grow and avoid being noted is to stay below the radar, and here's how you do it. Many of us have the urge to start in our own hometowns, like I did. The Netherlands is crowded with early adapters. A lot of players <i>and </i>cheaters live here, so towns get crowded fast and good streets are hard to find.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Especially in the Netherlands, but probably in the US and UK there are tons of small and cheap streets in the towns, but you have to stay away from streets below 1 Million M$. Streets prices 1M$ and up give you a return of 100% on the investment for the cheap houses. A 50K$ house will bring a 50K$ rent. Cheaper streets will have lower returns.</p><br /><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy04-776322.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 232px;" border="0" alt="" /><p style="text-align: justify;">Just after the reset, it exponentially grew on the other end as well, so a 50K$ house on a 6M$ street would give a rent of say 250K$,<a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/deflation-hits-streets.html"> but that's off now</a>, sadly as it made quite a few good bucks. One of the changes during the reset was the introduction of taxes, which means the more streets you have, the more taxation you'll get. First 5 streets are free, every other gets billed 3% in taxes, meaning if you have over 38 streets you will have no income. </p><h2>The long and winding road</h2><p style="text-align: justify;">So the trick is to find the longest road possible and build as many houses as possible on say just 5 to 10 streets, <b>without being noted! </b>And that's what you see happening with the top Dutch players as well. On the leaderboard below, each of these top players has one or more long streets somewhere in Australia or Canada which are way less populated and have longer distances to cover than in the Netherlands.</p><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy02-760289.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 233px;" border="0" alt="" /><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>NOTE:</b> <i>To find long roads the best chance you'll have is to find one in big, scarcely populated countries, such as Canada, Australia or in Africa. However, please note that quite often only the major roads, Highways and such are up for sale here. Lots of city streets are just not covered by the game in these areas.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And that's still possible! But you have to...</p><h2>Stay below the radar</h2><p style="text-align: justify;">This will take some time, but scroll over the world map to lowly populated areas and look for a good street. As you start with only 3M$ (3 million monopoly dollars) you have to find a street prices just a little over 1M$ to get the best return and still have money to start building the street. There are still pretty good streets out there, just like the one below, which is priced 6M$. If you find one like this and it's still available, keep close tabs on it!</p><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy05-722240.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 232px;" border="0" alt="" /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you zoom out one level you will see 'for sale' signs popping up, scan them to see if any good street is available.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy06-796123.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 232px;" border="0" alt="" /><div><p>The best streets are the hidden ones. Long streets often are much longer than they appear. On the road below, somewhere near Durban, South Africa, you see the Outer Ring Rd, which seems to be uninhabited and not up for sale. </p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy08-748409.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 234px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">A lot of scrolling learns that it is bought by a player, but you don't see the overlay appear on the map and the street popping up in the property list as you hover over the edges of the street. So keep looking and scrolling!</div><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy07-772578.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 235px;" border="0" alt="" /><p style="text-align: justify;">Now, I've done some good business. I found a new street for 1.035 M$ and bought it. Back to the leaderboard you'll see it's empty! Only one other person has registered in this area! I've blanked out his name to protect his and my own privacy off course, but this is a spot to grow. No one will notice you growing on the local leaderboard and it will take some quiet growing to get up on the national leaderboard. Meanwhile, you have time to fortify your long and winding roads with plenty of parks, schools and stadiums to withstand a pretty severe hit later on in the game.</p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy00-798421.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 197px;" border="0" alt="" /><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><h2>Strategic Roads</h2><p style="text-align: justify;">A long road is not only good for building, it is also good for staying below the radar. As I said, it will take some time to find out if it's built or not and harassment comes in a hit and run strategy. But there's even a more suitable road to avoid this, and that's what I call a strategic road.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I can blog this one since I sold it at a good profit a few days ago for 50M$. This road is split up into three segments. The top one appears on the radar, the bottom two stretches fall off the screen if you're in the closest zoom.</p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy01-728149.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 390px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-strategy01-728097.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>There's three ways in which you can find a street like this:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ol><li>Know such a street in your area</li><li>Take hours or days of searching</li><li>Dumb luck</li></ol></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The last one was the case for me when I bought this one. It was a good priced street, at 4M$ so I bought it. When I built the street one by one the pilons were replaced by houses, until there were no pilons left. Somehow, I could still built houses, but I did not see any markers left to build on! It took me several hours to find the third stretch! I had to take three different roads to get there! Now build your bonus buildings on that stretch of land and it will take time for the critters to find it. Hopefully they grow tired and move on to their next victim.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, to help you find a good street, use the tool by <a href="http://mcsclans.blogspot.com/">Monopoly Street Clans</a> and read blogs like <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreetssecrets.com/">Monopoly City Street Secrets</a> or <a href="http://monopolyhq.com/">Monopoly City Street HeadQuarters</a> to get some more hints on strategy. If you find the right street in the right neighbourhood and can stay below the radar long enough to grow strong, this game is perfect. It is a fantastic game to play -<b>as long as it's played fair</b>!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>PS.</b> The world didn't change over the past decade or so. To be honest. When we were playing the board game as kids, we were cheating as well. Who didn't slip 50K notes under te table?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-445393060470221282?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-6661359657183731622009-09-18T08:23:00.005+02:002009-09-18T09:18:14.213+02:00Monopoly City Streets Revamped<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ScrxzFrSwOo/Sq9yAyKYf1I/AAAAAAAAAAc/C1U6216iSls/S1600-R/MCS_Blog_HeaderImage.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 650px; height: 187px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ScrxzFrSwOo/Sq9yAyKYf1I/AAAAAAAAAAc/C1U6216iSls/S1600-R/MCS_Blog_HeaderImage.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Monopoly City Streets has been released early September as a promotional game to support the launch of the new Hasbro Monoploy City Streets edition, but has became such an overwhelming success that performance was bad. After 1.5 weeks of gameplay Hasbro and their UK based digital agency </span><a href="http://blogs.tribalddb.co.uk/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Tribal DDB</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, who created the game have decided to bring the world down for a full reboot on September 17th. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Now <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/">Monopoly City Streets</a> is back up and running with a number of gameplay changes. Here's a list of changes as </span><a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/changes.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">published</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> on the official MCS blog:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 20px; font-size:13px;"><span style="font-size:13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold; "></span></span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size:13px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Streets can only change hands ONCE per day</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />In other words, no street can be bought or sold more than once per day. So, be wise about your street selection.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:13px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Bidding Cap Removed</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />For level 3 players and above, we have removed the bidding cap of M1.5 million on streets. Have fun.</span></span><span style="font-size:13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Addition of "For Sale" signs</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />Having a hard time finding a street to purchase? Now when viewing the zoomed out map, you will see red “for sale” signs that will indicate where streets are available. Click on the sign to visit the neighborhood and buy, buy, buy.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Tax</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />There is only one certainty in MONOPOLY City Streets. Tax. Just like in real life, tax now plays an integral part of the game. The first 5 streets that you own are tax-free. The current tax rate is 3% per street. For example, if you own 15 streets your tax will be 30% of your total rent collected every day. If you own 25 streets your tax will be 60%, etc.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Street Protection</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />Many of you noticed that if there is an offer made on a street, it was protected from hazards and the bulldozer while the street is under negotiation. No longer. Streets will no longer be protected when they are included in negotiations.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Forced Repossession of Streets</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />It pays to play regularly. If, after 2 weeks, there has not been any activity on your account, the bank will automatically repossess ALL your streets. Ouch. So, keep buying, building and negotiating - you never know what chance has in store for you…</span></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">They have really been looking into how to avoid cheating but have not extended the Terms and Conditions, nor have they added email verification.</span></p><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Monopoly City is a family board game. And, by extension, Monopoly City Streets is a family game. We are limited as to the type of information we can collect from younger players (especially internationally) and as such have not added e-mail verification.</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I can undertand this, but am afraid cheaters will not care about family entertainment. After the game being open for just 10 minutes I already saw streets worth over 300 Million, whereas 3M should be the max for day 1. I hope there's just a way to see who's been cheating and who's been playing fair.</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-666135965718373162?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-38238880168000599372009-09-17T23:31:00.004+02:002009-09-17T23:49:51.679+02:00Monopoly Reboot<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">"We're in the process of resetting the game. We're busy behind the scenes making changes and testing. We'll be back soon." (<a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/you-may-have-noticed.html">MCS Blog</a>)</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p>Today is the day that one of the hottest hypes in online gaming is down for a cold reboot. It's been just over a week since Monopoly City Streets first saw it first dawn. Launched on September 9th, Monopoly City Street is a </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p>massively multiplayer online strategy game based on the classic Parker Monopoly Game. The online MCS has started as a mere promotion for the new edition of Monopoly but has become an overnight smash hit on the internet as it puts the classic gameplay onto the real world using Google Maps.</o:p></p><img src="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/monopoly-city.jpg" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px; " border="0" alt="" /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">MCS allows you to buy almost every street in the world (excluding entire North Korea and Israel and the usual backroads) and build appartment blocks to receive rent.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> An overnight success it has been indeed.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"> "At launch, we were blown away by the sheer numbers of people who wanted to try their hand at global real estate domination (1.7 million in day one alone!). We made headlines all over the world and this resulted in even more MONOPOLY fans rushing to be a part of the action." (<a href="http://blog.monopolycitystreets.com/2009/09/you-may-have-noticed.html">MCS Blog</a>)</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p>Success did kill performance though. Monopoly Old Style has probably been played by millions of people all over the world, all those are now flocking to the online game to build their real estate empire, based on their own turf.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p>In one of my previous posts I did look into the possibilities for cheating, as there were a few. We like it fair though, so I'm quite happy that they've decided to bring down the game for a full reboot. Servers are up and ready for good performance and some tweaks have been made to the gameplay. I for one am looking forward to the new MSC coming online very soon. A new round, new chances, and hopefully, less subject to cheating.</o:p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-3823888016800059937?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-75773757050195751662009-09-12T12:02:00.005+02:002009-09-12T12:37:06.220+02:00Monopoly City Streetwise<p style="text-align: justify;">In my <a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2009/09/real-estate-business-booming-again.html">previous blogpost</a> I described the new online Monopoly Game, <a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/">Monopoly City Streets</a>, based on Google Maps. I described my basic first seps and gameplay, and pointed out some possible way to cheat. Now, although that option apparently exists, I will not try to take advantage out of it. But I did create some extra accounts to see what could be different strategies to the gameplay.</p><h1 style="text-align: justify;">Terms and Conditions</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">One of the first things to check was if the Terms and Conditions said anything about creating muliple accounts. Well, strangely enough,<b> </b><a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/html/terms.en.html"><b>they don't</b></a>. So apparently it is allowed to create more than one account.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Okay, a few accounts created and time to dig into strategy and get Streetwise.</p><h1 style="text-align: justify;">First Time around</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">When you're first time around, you'd probably start buying a street near where you live, or would like to live. If the street is available, you'll purchase it and put a nice big appartment on it to get a lot of income from rents. As you build your appartment, you'll see that (especially in long streets) there are a lot of spots to place your appartment.</p><p><img src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-myscore01-707841.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 252px;" border="0" alt="" /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">When that's done, and you're lucky you will receive a chance card to build a stadium or a park to protect your propert. So, I put the park into place. Then you'll probably buy some streets around your first Headquarters, because the game says connecting property is worth more. By following this strategy though, you'll leave your defenses wide open. A lot of construction sites on your property will not be filled, and they're just begging to be spoiled by Prisons, Sewers and Plants to ruin your income.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-ede01-745124.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-ede01-745086.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><p style="text-align: justify;">If you're lucky, you'll have a chance card to raze a building so you can take away the pollution from your neighbourhood. If not, no rents today!</p><h1>Fill her up!</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">A different approach is to buy a pretty neat street and fill her up by building slightly cheaper appartments. That's what I did in this place. I bought a long street and filled it up. In the process I also received a bonus building to protect my property.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-leeuwarden01-777790.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-leeuwarden01-777754.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><h1>Hot Property Sales</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">A street in densely populated areas should get higher renting prices. If you turn to Monopoly City Streets now, you will find that most city centers of large, popular cities have been totally sold out already. Anyway, I did manage to find a few streets up for sale in downtown Amsterdam. The theory here is that people who've invested big time to create a hot property spot here will probably be looking forward to expand. If you manage to get a street in such an area, you will have to wait and see if you'll get offered a good price and sell your property with a huge profit.</p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-amsterdam02-716839.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-amsterdam02-716803.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-amsterdam01-737786.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-amsterdam01-737750.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><h1>A few tips</h1><p style="text-align: justify;">The more expensive an empty street is, the more you will get from rents. For example a <b>Grid Building</b> built on a 1M street brings in 550K per day, whereas the same building on a 150K street only brings in 65K per day.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chance Cards</b> are dealt pretty randomly (sofar I could find a pattern), but the more actions you perform, the more cards you'll get. So if you buy one expensive street and build two expansive appartments, your money is up and you've only performed three actions this turn. If you buy a slightly cheaper street and fill her up with 10 small appartments,, you've done 11 actions and the chances of getting a chance card significantly goes up.</p><div><br /></div><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-7577375705019575166?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-45304090102969204252009-09-12T09:11:00.005+02:002009-09-12T10:04:00.187+02:00Real Estate Business Booming Again<p align="justify">In the last two days we have seen an enormous surge in the Real Estate business with thousands of new appartment blocks, parks and businesses being commisioned and built. It's not that the credit crunch is suddenly over, no it's the birth of <strong><a href="http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/">Monopoly City Streets</a></strong>.</p><p align="justify">Monopoly City Streets is a flash based online game based on the legendary Monopoly board game we all used to play when we were kids, but immensely upscaled. Instead of the board <a href="http://www.hasbro.com/">Hasbro</a> now uses <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a> and you are able to build everywhere we like.</p><p align="justify">It's been two days since the launch of Monopoly City Streets, on 09-09, and I got online yesterday to check it out. Basic gameplay is quite easy: You get a stash of M 3,000,000 and you start clicking away. Buy streets and build houses to earn rent. The more streets you have connected, and the more densely populated the area is, the higher the income you get from rents.</p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 228px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-buystreets01-705404.jpg" /> <p align="justify">I picked out a little old town in the Netherlands to start my real estate empire. I've bought a few streets and a couple of houses to get going and collect my rents. Basically, the game is turn based and gets updated daily. After my first day I was able to triple my networth from 3M to 9M.</p><p align="justify"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 252px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-myscore01-779587.jpg" /></p><p align="justify">As with the board game, you have chance cards; some for good, some for bad. With the chance cards you will be able to build bonus buildings, like sewers and plants that kill rents on a street, or parks and stadiums that will prevent others from placing sewers and plants on your streets.</p><p align="justify"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 255px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/msc-bonusbuilds-758583.jpg" /></p><h1>Cheating</h1><p align="justify">When looking at the world rankings you see that only after a 4 days of gameplay there are people with a networth over 2 billion, so the first question that comes to mind is: How to cheat? You are able to make bids on streets owned by other players. The minimum bid you have to do is the current value of the street, so it's not possible to create multiple accounts and sell good real estate for peanuts... but, the other way around probably does work: Create multiple accounts and offer 3 million M's for a street worth 100K for instance, feeding the main account with tons of money, and I think this is what's happening. It's impossible to go from 3M to 2B in 4 days.</p><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 181px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-highscore01-731126.jpg" /></p><p align="justify">Top accounts are obviously the most obvious candidates to target with sewers and plants. If you receive a bonuscard to build a plant, just build it on the street of a big spender in your region so he won't get income from these streets.</p><div><div><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-highscore02-707335.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-highscore02-707331.jpg" /></a> <h1>Big Cities</h1><p align="justify">If you start building, you obviously want to be a big real estate tycoon at a top location. Forget it. Cities like New York, Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam are already taken. Well, not all streets are sold yet, but it is getting pretty crowded here. Below you'll see an overview of New York and Paris, with a detailed shot of both as well.</p><br /><p><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-newyork01-778298.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-newyork01-778246.jpg" /></a> <div><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-newyork02-751013.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-newyork02-750975.jpg" /></a> <div><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-paris01-726927.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-paris01-726886.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-paris02-778259.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/mcs-paris02-778226.jpg" /></a> <p></p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-4530409010296920425?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-49031207622465767652009-08-26T19:40:00.004+02:002009-08-26T19:52:36.071+02:00Second Life Revamped<p align="justify">It's been a while since I last visited the world of Second Life. At the time I left, recession was kicking in, not only in the real world, but doubly in Second Life. It was not only the credit crunch, no, it was the Gartner Hypecycle kicking in with a bite. </p><p align="justify">Companies were disappointed in the 'marketing' options of Second Life, and it was too early to get a solid business case for immersion. Now, Second Life is gearing up again. They've changed their marketing campaign for Businesses and revamped the website.</p><p align="justify">Now, the revamped website is a pretty neat thing. It's no longer the plain old promotional website, but it has grown into a SLMS, or a Second Life Management System - which I already suggested <a href="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2007/07/kaneva-expedition.html">back in 2007</a>,<br /><br /><object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6265852&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ff0080&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6265852&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ff0080&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object></p><p></p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/6265852">Highlights of the new secondlife.com</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/torley">Torley</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>. <p align="justify">Now the new attitude is promising. Back in 2007 and 2008 Second Life was bustling with Corporate activity, but after some exploration, allmost all companies left to do real 3D business elsewhere, like ABN Amro or Wells Fargo for instance. Second Life was not secure. Second Life management at that time did not really make an effort to support companies in Second Life, but I think now they've seen business drop and some part of 'reality' (i.e. cash) kicked in. There's money to be made from big clients, so I'm curious to see where it goes. Will have to see which companies have arrived since December 2008 and which have left since then top give a quick update on the <a href="http://www.mindblizzard.com/rl-brand-directory.html">Second Life Real Life Company Guide</a>.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-4903120762246576765?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-43118965159355091832009-08-26T16:23:00.003+02:002009-08-26T17:18:52.002+02:00TeamPark and Lotus Connections 2.5<p align="justify">Since early april IBM has been running a managed beta for their next big <a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&appname=iSource&supplier=877&letternum=ENUSZP09-0245&open&cm_mmc=5356-_-n-_-vrm_newsletter-_-10576_125682&cmibm_em=dm:0:14995754">release of Lotus Connections. Version 2.5</a> is officially set to come this friday, the 28th and we've been fidgetting around with this beta version since the beginning. Time to have a quick look at what's new.</p><p align="justify">The biggest changes compared to LC 2.0.1 are the addition of two new services: Files and Wiki's, but there are lots of minor changes as well. I won't go into too much detail on the specs, there are probably dozens of sites who will do so, I'd rather share a glimpse of what we've done with it in our project called TeamPark.</p><p align="justify">In the image below you'll see the main services for Connections: Profiles, Communities, Blogs, Files, Wiki's Bookmarks and Activities. In yellow (the middle part) you'll see the new, cool, microtweeting like functionality of Connections 2.5</p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 237px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/teampark1-724332.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify">One of the big advantages of Connections is that it is people centered and not document centered, like <a href="http://office.microsoft.com/nl-nl/sharepointserver/default.aspx">Microsoft Sharepoint</a>. You can tag about everything, including people so that it becomes very easy to find experts. Obviously, it is very important to stimulate everyone to fill in their profile details, so we added a few things to the default Connections 2.5 implementation. On the left hand side you'll see two widgets below the profile picture (oui, c'est moi). The first is the standard Tagcloud for your profile (which is minimized now) which we use to find expertise and interest. At <a href="http://www.sogeti.com/">Sogeti,</a> we work for different customers all the time so we added a "<strong>MyClients</strong>" widget. We added an extra field to the profile page where we can fill in the Clients we've worked for, and they appear in the bottom left widget <strong>"MyClients"</strong> This way we can easily find who's been working at a specific client to get references.</p><p align="justify">A second Widget we've made is to stimulate everyone to fill in their profile information and is a <strong>Profile % Complete counter</strong>, quite similar to what you'll find on <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>. Currently my profile is 51% complete as you can see in the right column. Basically the widget counts which profile fields have been filled in, and assigns a weight to that. Obviously a profile picture carries more weight than the phone number of my (sadly) non-existent Assistant.</p><p align="justify">So, that's it for a first view of the Sogeti TeamPark platform based on Connections 2.5. More to follow.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-4311896515935509183?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-23710045611077021112009-06-23T00:29:00.003+02:002009-06-23T00:33:52.542+02:00Connections deLIVERs on iPhonePardon the pun there ;) I've been part of the managed beta program for IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 since april this year, and can't tell too much about new features. But once IBM personell blogs about new cool thingies, I'm free to do as well.<br /><br />Up till now, Lotus Connections has had support for RIM's BlackBerry, but the new 2.5 (General availabilty expected for August / September) will also have iPhone support on the mobile end. For a cool demo:<br /><br /><a href="http://shar.es/sDcV">lbenitez . Luis Benitez . Socialize Me: Lotus Connections in the iPhone</a><br /><br />Posted using <a href="http://sharethis.com/">ShareThis</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-2371004561107702111?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-83847759201544227322009-06-18T23:06:00.004+02:002009-06-18T23:39:20.965+02:00The Day the Music Died<div>It's been over two months since I last posted on the MindBlizzard blog and it's been hard to get back online.</div><br /><div></div><div align="justify">Back in december last year my wife and I and the kids were pretty excited as we were expecting a new baby, our 3rd. By the end of january we found out that the child we were expecting would be handicapped, but we did not know the extend of it. This was a few days before we were supposed to go on holiday. After three hectic days of hospital visits and medical examination the question was raised for an abortion.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">We've always been Pro-Life, but that's easy when it's not this close. The baby we were expecting was kicking inside, it was alive. How could we...? Do we have the right...?</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">After a discussion with the doctors we decided to go on holiday, to get away from everything and have time to ourselves, time with our kids and enjoy the sun at the Canary Islands to get some energy to carry on with the medical examinations. It's been a hard week, but in the end it was good. We found our piece. We would let this baby live. He would get his chance to show his will to live.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Over time, the outcome was darkening and on April 18th our son was born, nearly two months early. After just an hour he passed away.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://blog.mindblizzard.com/uploaded_images/joren-765024.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">It's been a hard time, but we've had great support from friends, family, church, colleagues and what have you got. We're managing. </div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">I went back to work, but it takes a lot of energy. Currently I'm in charge of a very exciting project; the worldwide implementation of a Corporate Social Network for Sogeti, based on IBM's Lotus Connections 2.5. The good thing is that I love my job, but right now, it takes up all energy I have, so you'll have to be patient a little longer before you will start seeing blogs at MindBlizzard again.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-8384775920154422732?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-75847568602739378482009-05-01T16:03:00.007+02:002009-06-18T23:54:54.931+02:00Oriental Dispatch: Blue Mars, SyntheHello from ak Yip. At this time, I introduce two consumer-generated-worlds in Japan.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Blue Mars</span><br /><a href="http://www.bluemarsonline.com/">Blue Mars</a> is a beautiful world which uses CryEngine2 to render. Users can generate contents. Especially game-related contents.<br />Beta test will start at June. After that, Blue Mars will launch at September officially.<br /><br />You can subscribe about latest Blue Mars news here.<br /><a href="http://www.bluemarsonline.com/beta_subscribe/">http://www.bluemarsonline.com/beta_subscribe/</a><br /><br /><object height="289" width="476"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5t5IyvBRZPE&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5t5IyvBRZPE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br />via <a href="http://www.4gamer.net/games/044/G004408/20090420022/">「Blue Mars」国内開発者向け説明会を開催,βテストは6月から</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Synthe</span><br />Today new world "Synthe"'s website has launched.<br />"<a href="http://www.synthe-web.jp/">Synthe</a>" has many interesting features.<br /><br />1)<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Built-in avatar design tool</span>.<br />"FBX" fromat(I don't know about this) is supported and it seems to be possible to import 3D models.<br /><br />2)<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Game-builder</span>.<br />Script engine called "KIRIKIRI" is supported. With this, users can create games easily.<br /><br />3)<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">"KERO" currency.</span><br />"Synthe" has own currency called "KERO". Users can earn "KERO" by selling items. "KERO" seems to be possible to exchange to real currency.<br /><br /><div class="kwout" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="http://www.synthe-web.jp/txa.html"><img title=":: Synthe :: 創る×アバター" style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none" height="385" alt="http://www.synthe-web.jp/txa.html" src="http://kwout.com/cutout/b/kf/fz/8pm_bor.jpg" width="450" /></a> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="http://www.synthe-web.jp/txa.html">:: Synthe :: 創る×アバター</a> via <a href="http://kwout.com/quote/bkffz8pm">kwout</a></p></div><br /><br /><br />via <a href="http://www.4gamer.net/games/090/G009084/20090501025/">ホビーストック,汎用スクリプト吉里吉里を内蔵したメタバース「Synthe(シンセ)」のサービスを発表。プレオープンサイトが本日オープン</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-7584756860273937848?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>akYiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05060427461553782603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905822286058803891.post-25660554765201889792009-04-07T20:51:00.002+02:002009-04-07T20:58:56.318+02:00Conenza Corporate Social Networking Pilot<div align="justify"><a href="http://www.conenza.com/"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 246px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 59px" alt="" src="http://profile.ak.facebook.com/object3/1027/51/l33925365674_730.jpg" border="0" />Conenza</a> builds and manages online employee and alumni communities for Global 2000 enterprises. Conenza’s SaaS-based, white label social networking platform includes a growing range of interconnected modules that engage the enterprise and their employees and corporate alumni in relationships that create business development, recruiting, referral, innovation and philanthropic value for both the company and the community members. Today Conenza hosts and manages the official corporate alumni communities for four of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies.<br /></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 250px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 177px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0003/1935/31935v2-max-450x450.jpg" border="0" /><br /><h2>Conenza Launches Corporate Social Networking Pilot Program</h2><blockquote><p align="justify"><em>Enabling Global 2000 companies to quickly and cost-effectively prove the value of a corporate social network</em> </p><p align="justify">SEATTLE, WA, (PRWEB) April 7, 2009 - Conenza, a leading provider of corporate social networking solutions for enterprise employee and alumni communities, today announced the launch of a Corporate Social Networking "Quick Start" Pilot Program. </p><p align="justify">Increasingly, global enterprises are adopting social networking technologies to increase collaboration and improve organizational efficiencies. Workforce communities enable large organizations to bridge geographical and departmental information silos increasing communication and fueling innovation. By breaking down traditional organizational hierarchies, an enterprise community helps a company tap into the knowledge and connections of current and former employees to drive significant business impact. </p></blockquote>Read the full press release <a href="http://www.conenza.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=126">here</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5905822286058803891-2566055476520188979?l=blog.mindblizzard.com' alt='' /></div>VeeJay Burnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16182552746063990512noreply@blogger.com0