There are several tools to keep in mind so you can use during the competition, after all this is a cracking competition.
In some of the clues they have mentioned Marvel and Solomon.
The following page is a decoder of encoded codes (crack the code) done by Captain Marvel.
Notice how it mentions Solomon on the pic 
Feel free to also use a base64 decoder: link
August 15th, 2009 6:53 pm
Someone on Whirlpool made the point that in this clue:
Comic book marvel is followed by modern guilt for giving leather
the phrase “is followed by” sounds like following someone it Twitter.
The twitter feed for Marvel Comics is:
http://twitter.com/marvel
Unfortunately they have over 34,000 followers. If we had been quick on this one we maybe could have found a recent follower that fit the clue, but by now there have probably been hundreds of more followers. Anyone know a way to look up followers by a date? or search for people based on who they are following?
August 15th, 2009 8:43 pm
That would be a lot of work I think gdesigner, even though MS is making us work hard on this, I dont think they would really make us work that hard
August 15th, 2009 8:25 pm
I may have found a connection. If you lookup Modern Guilt on wikipedia you get this page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Guilt
the modern gift for giving leather would be a ninth anniversary. if you look for the 9th section on the page. Linked is an organization based around pop culture called PopMatters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopMatters
coincidentally PopMatters is a follower of marvel comics.
could have something to do with pop culture. let me know what you think
August 15th, 2009 8:43 pm
Heresphilly or maybe the 9th Clue?
August 15th, 2009 8:44 pm
Ah wait, the password for the website is 9 characters, so it could be related to this
August 15th, 2009 8:47 pm
are we sure that its only 9. has anyone proved this yet, because lots of people have proven that its pretty easy to doctor that image from the webpage
August 15th, 2009 8:49 pm
Nope not proven yet
August 16th, 2009 12:50 am
Here’s a tool I’ve knocked up that might prove useful.
If you use a website for solving anagrams such as http://wordsmith.org/anagram/advanced.html
you can end up with thousands of results.
If you use my Excel sheet, it can vastly reduce the number of solutions you have to wade through.
It’s located in my Public Folder on Windows Live Sky Drive at http://cid-9a7a4a5034ec9fb6.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public
Download it from there and you can use it to filter out certain unlikely phrases to cut down the number of results.
You need to produce all anagrams on a website such as that mentioned above. Then click on File and Save As a .txt file.
Open that .txt file and copy all the anagrams (Highlight one then click on Edit…Select All,,,,,Right click and copy).
Now open my Excel sheet and Enable Macros when asked.
Ensure you have Sheet 1 open and right click in cell A1 and click Paste. All your anagrams will now be in column A. Clear the contents of any non-anagram cells that got copied over.
For best results, each anagram should have a leading space and a trailing space. If your anagrams do not, you can click on the “Add Leading Space” and “Add Trailing Space” buttons and the program will automatically add them for you.
Column B on Sheet 1 contains words which, if the anagrams in column A contain any of them, will cause those anagrams not to be copied. You can add or remove words to this column as you wish. These are words which are unlikely to be part of the solution. Several are already included, but you can change them as you wish.
When ready, click on the “Produce Anagrams” button. The program will then copy all the anagrams from Sheet 1 column A to Sheet 2 Column A that do not contain any of the words in Sheet 1 Column B.
When it has finished, click on the Sheet 2 tab at the bottom to view the results.
To reduce the number of results further, clear the contents of Column A on Sheet 2 (Right click the column header and click Clear Contents), click the Sheet 1 tab at the bottom, add further words to ignore in Column B and click the “Produce Anagrams” button again. ALWAYS clear column A on Sheet 2 before producing further results or you will get spurious results at the bottom of the column.
I hope you find this useful.
August 16th, 2009 12:08 pm
Wow thanks for that Wombat
August 16th, 2009 12:42 pm
Well done Wombat. You have been an asset to the competition! Thanks
August 16th, 2009 3:20 pm
You’re very welcome, guys. I can’t win the $10,000 being in the UK, so I don’t mind sharing all I have with everybody.
I’ve just uploaded a new version to my Sky Drive Public folder. Since it requires you to paste data on to Sheet 1, I’ve moved the “unlikely” words to Sheet 2 Column B to avoid them being accidentally overwritten by the paste.
I’ve also added a function that automatically clears Column A on Sheet 2 (the filtered list of anagrams) before producing a new filtered list when you click on the Produce Anagrams button. So no need to do it manually any more.
Enjoy!
August 16th, 2009 11:34 pm
Another, improved version of the spreadsheet is up in my Live Public Folder for download.
It’s the AnagramsTomDickHarry.xls file, as it’s a partially completed exercise to find anagrams for “Tom Dick and Harry”.
Instructions for use are now included on the first sheet. New button added to speed up processing. More unlikely words included (although you may want to remove some of these to fit other anagrams).