October 03, 2013

Weblin Helper Chrome Extension

One of the changes, which Google introduced with Chrome Version 29 made Chrome incompatible with weblin. In other words: no weblins with Chrome 29.

A new Chrome extension in the Google Web Store corrects this. The extension adds weblins back to Chrome.

The extension is not yet included in the weblin installer. It must be installed manually with 2 steps:

1. Add the Chrome extension from here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/weblin-helper/cedamdmlplebpfigaldiimmbdkdcopeb

2. Add these lines to the file "Browsers.sreg" in the weblin program folder (e.g. with Notepad):

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\zweitgeist\Oberser\Browsers\GoogleChrome29]
"Active"=dword:1
"Name"="GoogleChrome 29"
"Description"="GoogleChrome"
"MainClass"="Chrome_"
"MainClassUsage"=dword:2
"MainCaption"="Google Chrome"
"MainCaptionUsage"=dword:3
"TextClass"="Chrome_"
"TextClassUsage"=dword:2

The extension will be included in the weblin installer later.

June 03, 2013

First Weblin with Black Crown

Macr@Soft is the first Weblin with a black crown points level.(http://www.weblin.com/toplins.php):



A black crown means more than 2^16 = 65536 points. You can get up to 100 points each day. But this is very difficult. A "Power-User" may reach about 70 points a day. This means, that Macr@Soft is a power user every other day or that he was online every day since introduction of the weblin points system. Anyway, Macr@Soft is the most active weblin ever.

Congratulations.

October 08, 2012

Weblin Trademark and Logo


The trademark "Weblin" and the Weblin Logo (right) are registered and protected. Name and logo must not be used without explicit permission. 

In general we like any decent activity in the Weblin space. We are supporting people who create tools, clients, communities, and additional services. Especially mobile is an interesting area.

Unfortunately, there are always black sheep, who misuse the Weblin trademark. We had to deal with strange things, which were completely unrelated to Weblin. We must be able to prohibit the use of the Weblin trademark by these people to protect our users. Most users can not differentiate easily between service offers. They see a Weblin logo and assume, that it is a Weblin service or at least endorsed by Weblin. We want to prevent normal people from being mislead.

We have to protect the trade mark. Therefore, name and logo must not be used without permission. Unfortunately, the trademark law requires, that a trademark is actively "defended". Therefore we require, that everyone obtains a permission. We can not let some people use it without permission and require permission from others. That would allow black sheep to argue, that the trademark is not actively used and that may invalidate it over time.

By the way: there are people, who payed for the trademark with their own hard earned money. It is at least not fair to use the brand name without asking.

So, if someone wants to use Weblin name or logo, then he/she should contact the trademark manager and discuss a license.

Contact: 

Lupus Labs UG
Waterloostr. 26
22769 Hamburg
Germany
info@weblin.com

June 28, 2012

Weblin Fun


It is no fun to ban weblins form the toplist. It is no fun to check log files for unfair behavior. It is no fun to reply to complaints. It is no fun to ban accounts because of illegal images. It is no fun to program several hours to fight unfair behavior.

We keep Weblin running in our spare time. Sometimes a server is down. Then someone spends several hours to fix it. Sometimes web browsers change and someone must program to make Firefox and IE and Chrome work with Weblin. Sometimes there are attacks on servers from unknown parties and someone has to fight it. Apart from the fact that running the servers for Weblin costs 150 € each month of our private money.

From your point of view, Weblin is just there. You just start it and the weblin appears on the page. But this is not a given. It is much work. Someone watches and gets up at 2 am to fix it, if necessary.

It would be nice, if you would not add to this work by doing unfair things and uploading indecent images.

January 17, 2012

New SSL Certificate


I just installed a new SSL certificate on www.weblin.com. The old certificate was installed by Zweitgeist for 3 years. It expires January, 20th. I now bought a new certificate valid for 2 more years.

November 12, 2011

Moving to a Bigger Server

Weblin will move to a bigger server. The current server was supposed to be a test. It is working quite well. But for a long term production system, there should be a new system. The main difference is, that the test system was a single server and the new system will be a small cluster of several hosts. We will separate the server roles Web, Database, Messaging. This makes the system more powerful, more fault tolerant, and more scalable.

Most preparations are already done. The transition is supposed to happen on Sunday morning. There will be a downtime for several hours, which you hopefully won't notice because I plan to get up early and be ready when most people go online.

October 12, 2011

First Month in Pictures

It is now one month since relaunch. The number of active Weblins is about 3400. 3400 Weblins have been online at least once in the last month. Each week are about 2000 different Weblins online. At most 10% of all "active" Weblins are concurrently online. This number grows slowly every week. Yesterday (Wednesday) was the highest number since relaunch. There are new registrations all the time and there are also returning Weblins who reactivate old accounts.

Weblins who are concurrently online. The number fluctuates between day and night. We are very much dominated by Europe. The peak is at about 9 pm (UTC+2). But sometimes there are also many Weblins in the Portuguese room on the Weblin home page. I suppose they are from Brasil and make the small bump in the middle of the European night, when it's evening in Brasil.


New registrations and re-activations: they remain constant without any ads or press activity. This will probably grow, whe
n we start telling former Weblin users, that we are back.


The most important indicators for online games. Later Weblin will measured by these numbers. Monthly and weekly unique active users and the number of new users (=Activated). In addition, there is the number of weekly returning users. These are the users who do not just try Weblin, but are still using it a week later. The ration is quite good. A possible explanation is, that primarily former Weblin users create new accounts. They know what to expect and do not just try it out.