John's Mafia Tools: working Link-a-nator alternative

UPDATE: Spockholm has updated Link-a-nator.

Many players are wondering how the heck a few other players are still posting gift links, with the main scripts temporarily down for the count due to the change in how free gifts are accepted. I showed you a new beta version of FBMWAddon earlier. Spockholm has been working on an update, and knowing them, we won't have to wait long.

When I saw Mimi J. posting Spock gift links though, I had to ask how she was doing it, since my Linkanator still wasn't working. She pointed me in the direction of John's Mafia Tools, where a version of Spock's Link-a-nator has already been updated to handle the gifting changes.

I did a quick check to verify that it does work. It appears and posts pretty much exactly the same as the original Link-a-nator.

There are some other script mods and backups to be found, but I haven't poked through them as of yet. Although, I was amused and flattered to see a copy of our Mr. Wizard's One bookmarklet there. I'll have to be sure and show that to Mr. Wizard :0)

Thanks again Mimi for sharing the info!

How Many Casa Grande Reservations Do You Need?

Casa Grande Reservations have been floating around for a few days now, if you knew where to look. As expected, these are the required consumable for the new Secret District in Brazil: Leticia, Colombia. Which is a little silly, as Colombia is a not-so-secret Republic in its own right, and Brazil is one of its neighbors. Leticia is the capital city of its 'department' (i.e., similar to what you may think of as a state or province within a country) Amazonas.

So, last night, the new Secret District landed on our Mafia Wars home page. Exactly how many Casa Grande Reservations will you need? 208, according to the Mafia Wars Wiki. I'm sure this may be affected by the double mastery boosts we can use in Brazil. Credits to the Mafia Wars Wiki. And to my Family member, Omar, for asking the question and finding the answer :0)

Job Name	Required				Total Required
Infiltrate A Political Rally	15	15	15	15	60
Rush The Casa Grande	17	17	17	17	68
Locate The Hidden Stash	20	20	20	20	80
Total	52	52	52	52	208

Casa Grande Reservations are now in Linkanator so that you can post gift links. You can also send them as Free Gifts from the Mafia Wars homepage, or by visiting THIS POST.

Clickable Gift Links in FB Notes (again)

Due to recent changes in Facebook Notes where http links are no longer clickable by default and just appear as regular text. This tip is for all those who are posting their gift links in Note and using Link-a-Nator (v2.12 beta) to generate those links.

Normally, one would copy+paste the links from the second results window, labeled TinyURL Links. Just change to copy+paste from the last results window, labeled Notes Links instead. By making this small change your gift links in a Facebook Note will be clickable once again. This is because the Facebook Note still honours the <a href> html element tag.

You can even use the following template to make any http link clickable in the main body of the FB Note. <a href="http://your.link.here">Name.of.Link.Here</a>

Secret Drop gift link Issue with Link-a-Nator

So there is a recurring issue after 3 days with Secret Drops shortened links when generated using Spockholm's Link-a-Nator. Anyone who is claiming them will be getting Blue Mystery Bags instead of the expected Secret Drop.

As you can see from the screenshot above, from the Link-a-Nator, what should be a Secret Drop is listed as a Blue Mystery Bag in the raw link form. In other words it is not matching and therefore one would get a Blue Mystery Bag.

Pulling the raw link from Gift ID #400 manually, you can see from the screenshot below that this link when shortened will produce a true Secret Drop when clicked.

So until Spockholm can get a fix on this, please be aware that when you are trying to get your daily 5 Secret Drops may get you a Blue Mystery Bag instead (if the link producer used Link-a-Nator) which will go against your daily 200 gift limit. On the bright side, those that know how to manually extract a link or are using MWADDOn will not have this issue and their shorten Secret Drop links will be valid.