Picture yourself driving along and another driver cuts you off without so much as a turn signal or runs a red light. You want to hold that driver accountable. Sound familiar? In New Delhi, known for horrible traffic conditions, people have found a new way to hold these bad drivers accountable using cell phones and social media.
Reporting Traffic Violations With Facebook
A couple minutes ago, the image above joined 3,333 other photos on the Delhi Traffic Police Facebook Page. The image was uploaded to allege a parking violation and along with it, Sanjay Munjal included the following description of the violation pictured:
Dear Traffic Police Commissioner,
Please Challan the owner of this i10 Car DL-8C-N9144 for illegal parking under section 122/177 MVA since this car is blocking the service lane which is used by other residents of Surajmal Vihar, Delhi – 110092 from C-297 to C-306 and C-307 to C-316 for entering and exiting and the said vehicle owner Mr. Satish Kumar lives in D-4, Surajmal Vihar, Delhi – 110092. The attached photograph of the illegally parked car was taken on 05/08/2010 at around 10 am. This vehicle owner is in a permanent habbit to block this service lane in this manner.
Here’s how it works. You’re wandering around New Delhi, heading to or from work, going to the store, whatever. You notice a violation of motorcycle helmet laws, parking, red light running, illegally tinted windows, etc. You quickly pull out your camera phone and snap a photo, which you then upload to the Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page. There, it will likely be reviewed by the Delhi Traffic Police, usually resulting in a ticket.
Nearly an hour ago, a photo of a bus was uploaded to report a violation involving parking in a bike/pedestrian lane. The reported violation was met almost immediately with a response:
The people are speaking out against bad drivers and the police appear to be responding quickly with promises of action.
Is This System A Good Thing?
Any time technology significantly impacts our lives, it brings with it questions about the value it provides versus any possible negative impact. The speed camera debate in Arizona was a shining example of our struggle, as a society, with the pros and cons of our growing use of technology. I saw the value in possibly reducing accidents due to speed, but I felt it was far outweighed by the inability to effectively enforce any of the tickets, not to mention the new dangers of drivers quickly hitting the brakes when they see the photo radar camera. To me, it was smart technology that overlooked an array of concerns (financial, legal, and safety) that made it hardly worthwhile.
In this case, the pros of the New Delhi Facebook system are obvious. First of all, it’s incredibly cost-effective. At most, they need one person, I’m guessing, to monitor the Facebook page, respond to reports, and pass reports on after validating them. Compared to the man power that they’d have to hire to be as effective, this is a drop in the bucket. Second is the elegance and simplicity. We’re in an age where snapping a photo to show proof of a violation is as simple as answering a phone call and the integration of Facebook into all the major smartphone platforms adds to the simplicity. Finally it gives the average man or woman empowerment to do something about the people who break the rules.
Possible problems with this type of system? I can only think of a couple. For starters, you have to be careful when you ask anyone to do something other than driving while behind the wheel. Taking a picture while you drive is doable, but not very safely. Getting a shot that’s not blurry while you’re moving is a difficult challenge and can severely impact your own ability to drive safely. As well, there may be the occasional invalid report and I’ve already seen what appears to be overzealous individuals who seem to enjoy reporting a lot of violations. This excitement to defeat bad drivers may come with casualties. Still, if people remain fair and only report safely (like from the passenger seat or while walking), this system seems like a good bet, to me.
In the time it took to write this, three more photos and a video were uploaded, so it appears to be catching on. What do you think of the idea? Would you support or oppose the same system in your area?
In September, I posted an article about Secrets, Hints, Tips, and Tricks to Succeed in FarmVille on Facebook. Having only played the now amazingly popular Facebook farming game for less than two weeks, I had already gathered lots of helpful tips. I’ve been asked so many times for more tips that I thought it was time for Part 2.
Get More Eggs And Other Special Items
Even if you’ve never used Twitter before, I’m sure you’re aware of what it is by now. Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, you should grab a Twitter client because it’s very useful in helping you snatch up those coveted lost animals and chicken eggs. Chicken eggs go especially fast because they hatch to reveal gold, brown, black, and white chickens as well as other cool stuff like hot tubs, pink flamingos, or even fuel. The problem is that people grab lost animals and eggs so fast you almost have to be on Facebook all day for a chance at one. I have to work all day, but I have a secret weapon. I use a program called TweetDeck for my Twitter accounts, but I also added Facebook, and that includes all those freebies that go by. I keep it minimized while I work or browse the web and when updates are found, it pops up a little notification with a preview. If I see an egg, I just click on it and it opens in a new tab in FireFox while I continue to work. More often than not, if eggs are made available by one of my FarmVille friends, I’ll get one, and I barely have to be on Facebook at all during the day.
This works almost as well with another program called Seesmic, which I use at home. As you can see in the image above, I have Seesmic in single-column mode, just showing Facebook. This way, it takes up a small portion of the screen, leaving the rest for what I’m working on. You may notice that while I was starting this very article, I snagged an egg and some free coins.
Get More Out Of Your Chicken Coops
Generally, you’ll wait a day for a chicken to lay an egg. This means you’ll wait about a day for a coop to be ready to harvest. You can, however, speed up the process. Drop in a chicken that is already ready to harvest. Make sure the coop is then ready to harvest. Now drop in 19 more chickens that are not ready to harvest and then harvest the coop. Empty your coop and do it again and again. It’s a lot of work, but your friends will love all the eggs produced.
Get Multiple Chicken Coops
So many FarmVille players have been asking, “How do I get multiple chicken coops in FarmVille?” and the answer is pretty simple, actually. First, if you have a chicken coop, move all your chickens out of it and then sell it. Now, with no coops on your farm, take advantage of one of the tools mentioned above to snatch up eggs. You’ll get a chicken coop every time because FarmVille doesn’t see one on your farm. Don’t hit OK on the page that gives you the coop. Just keep collecting them until your gift box is full. I got 14 of them before I decided to stop (not enough room on my farm). When you’ve decided you have enough coops, just start placing them on your farm from the gift box and filling them with chickens to hatch eggs.
Level Up Faster
Sometimes the only thing holding you back from the next crop in the marketplace is your Level. Often, I would harvest my whole farm of crops and be wishing I could buy the next crop, but not having the XP to level up and not wanting to wait a day for the next harvest to get those needed XP. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait. I noticed all the XP floating around for sale in the marketplace.
While you can’t just buy XP, you can buy items that give you a lot of XP. Take a look at the image above. My favorite is the windmill, because it gives me 1,000 XP and takes up hardly any room on my farm. It’s not cheap, but if you don’t want to wait, this is a good way to level up past your friends while they wonder how you did it.
Make More Money
Now that I’ve just told you a sure-fire way to blow through a lot of your coins, I’m sure you’d love to find out how to get more of those coins back faster. The fastest way to get coins is typically by just farming the more expensive crops. Pay attention to the harvest times and plant according to your ability to later harvest before anything withers. Remember, every crop that withers is just money (and time) down the drain, so don’t plant strawberries (4 hours) and then go out all night.
You can also make more money with gifts. The more friends you have that play FarmVille, the more gifts you end up with. I get easily 100 gifts a day and have no room for all of them, but I certainly won’t turn them down. Now that FarmVille has the “Sell All” feature in your gift box, you can just pick the items you want and put them on your farm and then just “Sell All” the rest. A lot of times, it’s an easy 6,000+ coins per day.
Finally, celebrate the achievements of friends and use TweetDeck or Seesmic to celebrate every achievement. You’ll get 50 to 500 coins each time and that adds up. The achievements of others often leave me with an extra 10,000 or so coins a day.
Get The Real Deal
You may have noticed a lot of pictures of eggs or gifts popping up on your wall, in friends’ updates, or with your regular FarmVille gift request notifications. Unfortunately, many of these are worthless in as much as they can’t be used in the game at all. While they may be fun to pass back and forth, they won’t contribute to your FarmVille play at all. Personally, I ignore all of them.
Take A Break Once In A While
Hi. My name is Joe and I’m an addict. No, really. This game is a lot of fun, but you can get burned out on it if you play too much. Once in a while, plant a three+ day crop and then just don’t log in for a couple days. And even more important to note is the opportunities for a break that are all but forced on you. Like many fast-growing games, FarmVille has its bugs. When you see people complaining that it wiped out their friends or you try to get the game to come up and it won’t, just find something else to do for a while. When you come back, you’ll be far less frustrated than others and will have more fun.
Experiment
FarmVille is software and software is prone to glitches. The methods to get multiple coops or generate eggs faster are based on glitches that someone found through experimentation. Drag a cow to a neighbor’s farm. Pet your horse every day for a week. Just try doing something in a different way and see if something new happens. If you find out a new tip, be sure to come back and post it here.
Please help your FarmVille neighbors by letting them know about this post with the Facebook share button below. It only takes a second.
UPDATE: When you’re done reading this article, check out the second FarmVille tips and tricks article.
12 days ago, I happened to look over someone’s shoulder when they had FarmVille open. Before then, I had brushed it off as another lame community game I didn’t have time for. It was at that time that I actually saw the game being played and decided to give it a shot. Over the last 12 days, I’ve been so successful at the game that I felt I just had to share some of what helped me rocket past many of my Facebook friends in the game. Grab a notepad or fire up the printer, because I have some great tips and tricks to help you do as well as I am in FarmVille. Just to prove my point, here’s a screen shot of my farm from just minutes ago. Not bad for 12 days.
Get some friends
Yeah yeah. You have a lot of friends. But are they playing FarmVille? Some things (like acquiring more land) require certain amounts of friends. Make sure you engage some of your friends to be your FarmVille neighbors. If, like me, you don’t want to spam people who hate all the online games, just watch your friends feed for those participating and add them. You can also go to the My Neighbors tab in the game to see all your friends who are playing and invite them to be your neighbor.
Be a helpful neighbor
While you may be competing with your friends to some extent, you can also help them out and help yourself in the process. Visit the My Neighbors tab often and watch for it to say someone could use some help. Click the link and help your neighbor. Then visit the My Neighbors tab again after each time to see if another neighbor needs help. Often you can help several in a row. Not only can you earn ribbons (see below), but you can also rack up some quick coins and XP (experience points). This is a great way to grow quickly in the beginning levels. It’s also a nice way to get those last five XP and level up while waiting for your crops to grow.
Earn some ribbons
Remember all those ribbons you earned as a kid for athletic events and science fairs? It’s time to strive for those colorful marks of achievement once again. FarmVille gives you ribbons for everything from farming a certain number of trees to taking in enough stray animals. When you earn a ribbon, you get coins, XP, and even gifts. This is another way to help yourself level up.
Celebrate achievements of friends Every achievement comes with the opportunity to brag about it as a Facebook update. Sometimes, you can click a friend’s FarmVille update to celebrate with them. When you do, you get coins just for being a pal!
Visit daily
Even when you don’t have time to play or you know your crops won’t be ready yet, drop in the game for a second. Frequent visits earn random amounts of coins for logging into the game and who doesn’t want some free coins?
Choose your crops wisely
Different crops yield different amounts of coins, and typically, the further you advance in the game, the better the crops. However, you shouldn’t just plant the newest crop in your arsenal every time. Take a look at your schedule and your ability to time your growth around your schedule (see below). For example, on a holiday weekend with more free time to play, it’s better to plant blueberries 24 times in a 4 day period (4 hour growth x 96 coins and 1 XP) rather than watermelon once (4 day growth x 348 coins and 2 XP). At that rate, planting 10 squares of watermelon would get you 3,480 coins and 30 XP (20 for planting and 10 for plowing once) and planting 10 squares of blueberries would get you 23,040 coins and 480 XP (240 for planting and 240 for plowing). Of course, the blueberry planting will be a lot more work, but just look at the rewards for all that hard work. 23,040 coins and 480 XP is far better than 3,480 coins and 30 XP any day.
Time your crop growth
Where do I get all the free time to play? The truth is that I don’t really play all that much. I plan my copy growth around my free time. For example, I’ll have time to plant before bed and again right before work. For that reason, it’s ideal to plant something with 8 hours growth time tonight, so I’ll plant tomatoes for 173 coins per square. In the morning, I’ll plant rice because I won’t have time to play until tomorrow night and rice grows in 12 hours. And don’t forget the in between times. While I’m writing this, my Raspberries are growing. With a 2 hour growth time, I’m getting a whole crop growth extra before my tomatoes. This planning becomes easier as you progress in the game and have more crops available, but it can be started pretty early and has been pivotal in my farm’s growth.
Don’t let them wither!
Crops wither in the same period of time that they take to grow, so once your 4 hour strawberries are ready for harvest, they will begin to wither and will be useless in 4 more hours. This shouldn’t be a big problem if you time your crops as mentioned above, but it’s important to remember any time you plant something.
Give gifts to friends
In FarmVille, you can buy stuff for yourself, but you can also give out up to 20 gifts every day. So every day, I make sure to shower my FarmVille neighbors with nice things. The more you give, the more you get. Most of my trees and animals came as gifts and much of that was in response to gifts I had given. I also make sure to give to the top 20 neighbors. I do this not only because they can give better gifts back, but also because they’re more likely to be neighbors that are still actively playing.
Is easier really better
I’ve seen you eyeballing those tractors. They’ll making your plowing, harvesting, and planting four times faster, which is also four times easier, but is it better? One thing seldom realized until it’s too late is that those tools require fuel and that fuel requires money. No, not the fairly abundant coins, but the dollar bill money. The dollar bills take a lot longer to earn, and if you use a harvester or tractor, you’ll blow through dollar bills quickly.
We can’t have nice things
Oh you CAN have nice things in FarmVille. The game is full of neat stuff to buy. There’s two reasons I don’t buy much of it, though. First, it takes up precious crop space. The more space I have to plow and grow, the faster I can earn coins and XP to level up. Second, they eat up your money. I like to build my farm up first and I’ll throw in some fun stuff later when I have more space and coins than I can manage.
Won’t you be my neighbor You know you could us at least one more neighbor and you already know I give gifts and help clear weeds and scare away crows.. So why not add me. Just visit my profile on Facebook and add me. Then use the instructions above to add me as a FarmVille neighbor. I am no longer playing FarmVille after having reached the maximum level.
So how about the rest of you… Any hot tips or lessons you’ve learned to help you get ahead? Share them below and don’t forget to share this article on Facebook.
Updates:
It’s now been about a month of playing and I’ve made it to level 30. I’d probably be a couple more levels further if it weren’t for just being busy at home and at work. In any case, I wanted to celebrate (and thank everyone for making this article pretty popular) by adding a few photos and a few more tips:
Trap your farmer
This tip came from my buddy, Lowell, and has really helped to drop my farming time. When you harvest, plow, or plant seeds, your little farmer guy (or girl) will try to do each one by hand if you don’t have the equipment and fuel to do them four at a time. In this case, you want to trap your farmer in a fenced off area. He (or she) will be unable to move and the farming will happen without your farmer, much faster. Your farmer will be free again the moment you leave the page.
Layer trees, animals, and buildings
Have you gotten a bunch of trees close together and then found that you couldn’t see one behind another? If you have two rows of trees next to each other, put taller ones in the back. You’ll often still be unable to see when they’re ready to harvest, but at least you can see them to get to them with the mouse. Run your mouse cursor over trees slowly. When it changes to the harvest icon, that tree is ready.
The same goes for animals and buildings. Put the bigger buildings behind other stuff so they don’t obscure your other items. With animals, put them in rows with the bigger ones in the back. Recently, FarmVille allowed animals to roam around freely if you choose, but it creates a big mess. If you line them up neatly like I have mine above, they’re a lot easier to manage.
Seize unique opportunities
Have you seen the hot air balloon? There’s one in my images above. How about the very recently added spooky dead tree for Halloween? FarmVille marks special occasions by giving us these little treats. Generally, they’re cheap to buy and sell for little or no coins, but they’re also not available for long. When you see one, snatch it up because you may not get another chance.
There are also certain things that you can obtain only by watching your friend feed. So far, we’ve seen stray black sheep, ugly ducklings, and brown cows. If you see one in your friend feed, click on it to try and give it a home, but hurry up because they go fast. The ugly ducklings turn into swans! This is also where it helps to have lots of FarmVill neighbors. I have a ton after this article was first posted and because of it, I was given over 50 elephants in the 2 days they were available to gift. I’m now getting about 50 gifts a day. What I can’t use I sell.
Buy XP (and dollars)
You can’t really buy XP or dollar bills, but you can buy your way to them. For XP, buy large ticket items to get just enough XP to level up. If you need just 78 more XP to get to the next level but just finished all your plowing, you can just buy a tool shed to gain 80 XP and level up. If you do this before you plant, you can open up a new seeds option to plant for more money. It’s a little thing, but every little bit helps you move up faster.
As for the dollar bills, you get those when you level up. The technique above helps you level up faster and earn more of these scarce dollar bills. Hold on to them tightly and don’t waste them on junk at the start like I did. You’ll want to save up 25 to purchase the second level fuel refill. On a large farm, that should be enough to harvest, plow, and seed about half your farm.
