i like the new site design and reorg.

Steve for president, Yay !!!!

Hi,

I'm happy to read this is going to be re-written :) as long as we have the ability to run in windowed or fullscreen mode, i'll be happy :D
We didn't have this flexibility in other sims like Fly or Flight Unlimited (or with hw accell off) and it was a shame.

And of course, I get it wrong. This stuff will appear on the main Microsoft Communities page as it is not hosted by blogs.msdn.com.

Verizon doesn't use SIM cards. At least my Verizon phone doesn't. (Samsung i600)

Hmmm, so how do I get to use a new phone with Verizon's network if they don't sell it?

By nine days! Tee-hee.

Damn - you got me beat. Great to hear from you after so many years. More in email.

Hey - congratulations!

I still think intraVnews Rocks! It integrates with Outlook and I can use all the flagging features...
But, most importantly, Sauce Reader, does not expand a link but only shows the link and I have to click on it to see the whole post. That is too much work.

Actually the 'poop man' comes once a week. The fact that we avoid many 'no its your turn' and 'you wanted the dogs you pick up the poop' arguments is worth every penny. Oh and his phone number is 1-800-303-POOP which never fails to amuse me.

Me and my wife went to Cougar Mountain a few months back. Although it is a small zoo, it was really nice.

And of course, considering we're bird freaks, we really enjoyed seeing all the parrots there. Wonder of Molu the Moluccan is stil there (huge salmon colored parrot).

Alton Brown has a blog too, though they seem to have forgotten to ad an RSS feed.

http://www.altonbrown.com/pages/rants.html

yup

Will be great to see the videos. Flightsim is great especially with a bit of tweaking. Thanks to some great local developers we have local mesh, scenery and aircraft for New Zealand, even a 7E7!
Http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2004/06/air_new_zealand_1.html
Seems like Scoble has a whole new appreciation of clouds!
-Robin

Can you list other FS2004 team members who blog too?

The only other person (that I know of) that blogs is Sebby.

Cheers,
Steve

hello steve
We were worried when we saw the head line and we were glad to hear that you all ok and was not hurt. never ming the car as long as you are out of danger and i think you handled the incident very well without neglecting neither the car nor julian. We really appreciated the prompt action by Nabila . Uncle Manoon just read the news and he was reassured that everything is safe yr side.
Take care. from nishal ,shyama and uncle manoon.

Steve, glad to hear you and your family is safe.

Well at least you were insured. What really sucks about this is the fact you cant sue her company for personal injuries. LOL, as an lawyer the first word of wisdom I have for friends in auto accidents is get to an chiropractor before coming me.

This video is a very pleasant insideview! It's really nice to see you guys that build the world many of us are flying in every day.
Keep up the good work - I really guess my spare time woudn't be complete without a daily shot hop through the Flightsim world ... ;-)
Greeting from Germany (EDVK)
Bye Volker

Hey Steve, just caught the video mentioned on Flightsim.com. Many thanks to you and the team, its great to see inside the hallowed halls and the enthusiasm you all show for our hobby. You are all actually human!!!!!

All the best from the UK. (EGBO)

Hi Steve,

Great video !
It's nice to see all you guys talk about something you abviously like !

Keep up the awesome work !
Matt

I totally agree. Can't understand why someone who can't make a speech without a teleprompter or do a debate without a mic for someone to feed him answers deserves to run a country (and of course this is just the tip of the iceberg).

My guess is that he "bought" himself a vicrory in a similar way to how he got elected in the first place. Oh well, at least i'm only 2-3 hours from the Canadian border :)

I've got one here in France too, it's called C500 and works like a charm :-)

You should definitely try to code some stuff on it with the smartphone SDK and the compact framework, it's really nice to have your own programs on your phone :-)
Also, it's really fun to place breakpoint in VS on a program running over bluetooth ! hehe

Happy Landings,
Matt

Just making sure comments are still working...

Get over it. You guys are conspiracy loons and total elitists. You want to know why Kerry lost? It's because he's a politician to his core. He wanted play both sides of all the issues and I'm not talking about I voted for it before I voted against it. On all sorts of issues he wanted to take both sides. The american people clearly saw what a shiftless character he is.

Let me ask you this, who's Theo Van Gogh? And why the glaring silence on the left about what happened to him. This is why you loons lost, b/c you're not even willing to admit when evil deeds occur b/c it might actually prove Bush right! Oh Horror!

If our children "are paying" for what Bush does, then I guess the millions and millions of people who died b/c of the Nazi's are paying for what Neville Chamberlain refused to do.
How about some comments on the UN Sham known as the Food for Oil Program. How about the millions of dollars that were diverted to Russia, France, Germany and China. Could it be that the real reason they didn't want to get rid of Saddam was b/c he was doing a nice job of lining their pockets with cold hard cash?

If you want to bash Bush, fine it's your right. But back it up w/ facts and not this nonsensical tripe. Please go to Canada, Sebastian. If think America is such a bad place then leave. if you truly have that little faith in the American government and people then go somewhere else.

Indeed I do know about Theo Van Gogh. How come nothing about it made the right-wing media either? Just a deafening silence in the US. In order to hear any kind of balanced news, you've got to look elsewhere.

By "our children paying", I mean the massive, crippling deficit that Bush is building up. Check out Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist's comments here.

Your comments seem to be all geared towards Bush's expansionist military takeover of another country. What has Bush done for the stability and future prospect of this country.

I don't believe either Sebastien or I are saying America is a bad place. I love this country. I just happen to think it is being run by a moron at worst, a puppet at best.

Anyhow, if you love your America so much, how come you're living in New Zealand (or at least using an NZ address). Pay and oppourtunities better there?

Oh! the name calling, the running away , the conspiracy (�it�s not fair�, �everybody�s cheating�)�.

Time to shed the diapers and put on some big boy pants!!!!

Hear! Hear! Grownup!
CCCCCan't we a a a a all jjjjjust get along.
Hahahah
Stop the sore loser syndrome. It's not very becoming of any of you.

Great label! Thanks for speaking for me in such a unique way.

I too find 3 to be a cool name, but then I named a company 7 (www.seven.com). Names (and commercials)are cooler in Europe because the U.S. is bogged down in conservatism and political correctness. This leads U.S. corporations to negatively deconstruct(focus groups) every idea before its homogenized release. To help counter this trend, we have written and posted a free 56 page naming guide pdf, which is free to all here:
http://www.igorinternational.com/process/naming-guide-product-company-names.php

Good to see a fellow borg servant. I saw your link on Scoble...

Anyway, I just ordered an mpx220 today for similar reasons. I looked at the Audiovox but I liked the mpx220 better except for the mpx220's larger screen.

Hopefully, some industrious code geek makes uses the sdk to make a nice .net blog client for one of the common apis. :-)

Nice podcast :)
Love the music !

You are right about aviation, there's nothing like bouncing around in the sky !

Happy Landings,
Matt

Well done Steve, VERY professional first podcast.

Keep up the great work, I'll been coming back for more:)

Great to hear a fellow exPat in USA, with lots of simular interests as myself, podcasting, blogs, playing guitar home recording..

I moved to the States back in 97 too!... living in Savannah, GA...

Cheers mate!

Scotty
(A Geordie in America)

hey steve,

well done indeed

... and some fine music...

Yeah, we approved it.

I don't know if this will get through, since you seem to require Typekey, but in case it passes through, I wonder if you are really deaf, or did I misunderstood it in your channel 9 video? Because you didn't appear to be deaf in that video, or there is something else going on that I didn't understand.

Thanks

Nope, I'm not deaf. What gave you that impression?

Cheers, Steve.

Nice podcast again :-)

I really liked the XP part, we're trying to do this in a school project i work in (a game hehe). We will do something similar to the cards, little tasks no more than a week long. I hope this will work ok. Great idea about the wall thing btw, i will suggest this idea to the team !

Happy Landings,
Matt

Hey steve. What tracker did you use on the site, and i love the new site design. very clean.

PHPBT is the tracker. You can find information on it here.

Hi Steve, the Channel 9 interview gave me that impression. Either I misunderstood it, or something else, but in the video I heard you saying "I'm deaf". It was at the begining.

Thanks for the reply.

Ahh - I think what you heard was Robert asking "Now you're a dev?", and I reply "I'm a dev." Listening to it, "dev" does sound a bit like "deaf".

Thanks :)

Thanks for the link! It's always neat to Google yourself when dying of boredom at work. Did you hear the album?

Yup - I listened to it - good stuff. I included "Mulberry And Mott" in the podcast.

That's real good news !
I've been getting a lot of comment/referer spam over the last few weeks as well...

We got rid of the comment spam problem on our blog a little more than a week ago. A regexp matching some terms was added and it cut short all spam attempts hehe :)
Next step would have been some kind of text-in-image thing that we see on some websites, but i think this won't be necessary now !

Wow, thanks! That's really kind of you, and I do appreciate it. I'm doing February Album Writing Month, too, which will hopefully be geared towards a more electric-based sound (read: electric guitar, NOT electronic music) with bass and such.

Take care.

Yep had a lovely time at Scoble's 40th b-day and met some lovely people. I'm still thinking about the pate cooor it was very good (Thanks Maryam for pointing it out to me). My clothes still smell of cheese though. Did anyone try the Stilton with apricot ?

Are they making a real CD or just doing a CD-R duplication run? If it's the case, i've used Mixonic in the past (www.mixonic.com). They are located in San Francisco and had a turnaround of about 5 days for my wedding favor CDs. Also, it seems that their prices are better.

The CDs are being replicated, i.e. a real CD.

bozos

Congratulations!

Torsten
Halmstad
Sweden

Do you remember Logo? It was popular in my school in the early 80's. I think that's a great one for a kid.

Thanks for these kind words. We posted Ch. 1, closed our eyes and waited. It was nice to open them and find this comment.

Very interesting dialogue. You guys had my attention the whole time, even w/ my A.D.D.! I particularly like the sound of the beer bottles opening during your dialogue and think that it should be made more often and prominant.

P.S. I dig your new head-wear! I surmise the flames are caused by your neurons colliding with each other. I'm going to bring marshmallows next time I come to your house!

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. Yes I thought about Logo, but didn't remember too much about it other than it was mainly used to drive turtle graphics. I believe it was also a very imperative language. I need to go check it out ;-)

I was worth the wait. This album is spectacular, I love every track on it.

You'll get the $50 when I get home ;-)

hehe ! This reminds me of everytime i change something in my computer :-) There's alway something going wrong to the way to the *perfect* configuration you wanted in the first place :)

funny

time for a beercast!

"And do new cool stuff. (censored - was another four letter word). Breaks previous rules ;-)"

Could you clarify what you're talking about in this sentence and with references to "movies?"

And do new cool s**t: This comment was by the co-presenter, with laughs from Peter. Basically it means: by all means "do the right thing" regarding the need to drive new genres, new ideas, new compelling gameplay. But cool new stuff is good too! New cool visuals, audio, etc...

Movies:

"The Movies" is an in-development title by Lionhead where you are the owner of a movie studio. It's a kind of Sims/God game where you hire and train actors, directors, tech people, script writers and then make a movie! You cast the people and direct them. At the end of the day, you get a video of the final movie.

It is very, very cool - and it's amazing how good the final movies are.

I believe this title is going to sell boat loads of copies.

(coughs)

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000025.html

Consider me corrected!

Just a test of some comment system changes.

Hi Steve,

Are you planning on doing any more podcasts ?

Yup - see my blog entry from last Monday. I've been incredibly busy and regretting the fact that I've haven't done one in a while. I want to get back on my 1-2 week schedule...

Do you use Skype on your podcast? (I am just about to listen to one)
If you do how do you go about recording it?
I record my interviews with it and have come up with a ingenious way using 2 headsets.
So my kit is just a laptop 2 headsets (one bluetooth) and Cool Edit Pro

Ian

Hey Steve,

Enjoyed your last podcast, especially the song by the trashmonkeys, interesting name.

I'm a programmer but I program boring database apps I would love to hear a podcast about what it takes to program a computer game these days.

Cheers,

Charlie Barker
Uk, Surrey

Funny you should mention that. I installed Skype on the machine a couple of days ago and this evening tried to get it working.

Here's my problem: The 1820 is an awesome audio card/breakout box - it has many inputs/outputs and great UI for routing them, etc...

I even do this: In order to record iTunes stuff whilst recording, in the 1820 I route Windows Wave out to a channel strip in the mixer, this gets routed to an ASIO output which is picked up by Cubase as another input. Great stuff.

But! I can't get the mike input to route to the Windows Recording device, so Skype can't see it. As my machine has onboard audio that is currently disabled, I think I'm just going to use that as for a mike input purely for skype. That way I can record my voice to cubase directly through the 1820 via Mike 1 as normal, output from Skype gets to Cubase the same way iTunes does and my voice to Skype goes through the 2nd Mike (which I won't actually be recording).

Does that make any sense? ;-)

Wow - that's a large topic! I'll give it some thought.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Happy birthday i guess ;-)

March 24 is my birthday too !! :D

happy b-day buddy!

happy b-day to yooouuuuu...

Happy Birthday......

So I got it all working.

I just enabled the motherboard audio and connected SPDIF out from the E-MU 1820 to the SPDIF in of the motherboard audio.

Then in the 1820 mixer I routed a new send from the mike to the SPDIF out and hey presto the mike is available to skype.

I need to diagram this ;-)

Ian, we should do a podcast...

Just talk about the interesting stuff ;)

Steve, thanks for confirming what I suspected about this book. Fascinating story and a great read... BUT, suspicious because of the note on the Copyright page about the book being "a work of fiction." The shout-out to the FS team is good, though.

Great read, as I say, but I have to confess to a pet peeve.... I think the Starship, virtual or real, has a yoke not "yolk." Unless the author found a way to reassign the FS controls to a chicken embryo...

Cheers.

That is a sweet app, they should sell it to flikr

hey steve
we wish you a happy belated birthday
we gonna celebrate it together soon
love Nishal $ Shyama UK

Holy crap - you had to build a new wall for your TV? I wanna see it! Congrats on your new in-home entertainment theatre! Say hello to your luvrely wife for me.

- K

In the end they didn't need to redo the wall - the studs behind the wall were good enough. There's some (in progress) construction pictures over here on flickr.

And yes, you'll have to come round for a movie night!

Love the show, we must sort out a time to podcast :)
For your new TV are you going to use Media Center?

Liked the music too

Ian

I'm a DirecTV guy, so unfortunately Media Center is not an option for me. I'm currently running with an HD Tivo. I'd love to use Media Center though - I wish you could get a DirecTV card for it...

I would expect to see things like DirecTV in future MCE version, maybe in the Longhorn version.
I don't know much about DirecTV is it HD?

Yup, I get HBO, Showtime, Universal, ESPN, and a bunch of other channels in HD. The local networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, etc...) I get via an OTA antenna. DirecTV have just launched a bunch of other satellites to provide all the local stuff in HD also.

But basically, I would love to use an MCE instead of Tivo to provide all the DirecTV goodness...

I seen a good one in Dublin. no photos though: 4 tires for the price of 5 and get one free!

i remember you talking about this... very cool... small world indeed...

I have two!

when is that band site gonna be up?

As soon as I have a spare half hour... Or someone wants to do it for me ;-)

i love your work i read what the dog and cat were writing on the computer i hope you don't mind!!!!!!

Sounds great. I wish I could have been there :)

Sounds great. Hope you talked about the Windows Media Center Show hosted by The Podcast Network :)

What about Fujitsu ST502x (http://www.lifebook.com.au/products/view_product.php?id=30&prod_categ=2)
Poor boy, in europe there is an ST5022 with fingerprint and stuff but i can't find an english data sheet. Sorry.

That looks pretty sweet, but it's still 1024x768 and a bit underpowered...

I like my M205 a helluva lot, so count that as a couch for Toshiba.

Another vote for the M200/205 from Toshiba. I manage a school full of them (about 300 as of now) and they meet most of your requirements. Especially small. The M4 is the next gen as far as Proc and GPU but they went to larger form factor.

Another vote for M205 from Toshiba. Had mine for a while, and I do everything on it. From programming - light gaming, it's great. I love it. Once you go to the Tablet PC design, you won't want to go back.

Yet another vote for Toshiba's m205. I love, love, love mine.

I'm a full-time student and entrepreneur, and I use it to manage my life.

Seriously. Go snag yourself a Toshiba.

I want a Tablet PC that will be able to run Longhorn to the fullest! But I read there will actually be a To-Go experience in Longhorn for Tablets and Laptops.

I have an M200 with 1.3gb memory and the fastest CPU they equipped it with at the time (6 months ago, and I don't remember which one it is). The 1400x1150 screen is great. And the 1.3 Gb memory. And the 9600rpm HDD. I use it daily with Visual Studio 2003, a few VirtualPC set-ups (including WXP/VS.NET2005 and the Longhorn preview). It's a very powerful machine. The Tecra should be even better, now that it finally ships with 1400x1150 resolution too - be sure to get as much memory as possible (2.3 GB I think) and the fastest HDD, and you should be home safe. Drawbacks: The Toshiba software (almost all of it) is unstable (read: crappy), the Toshiba Bluetooth stack s*cks (use Widcomm instead) and it is quite noisy. The M200 doesn't have builtin DVD, but I believe the Tecra does.

Thanks all. I think I'm gonna hold out to see what the Tecra M4 is like and then give them all a once over.

What about the Fujitsu Lifebook T4010D? Small, lightweight, tablet/notebook convertable, and a powerhouse. Available w/ a 7200 rpm drive as well.

I was all set to buy myself one until I heard about IBM, and now I have to wait until I see theirs, dangit. (Long-time fondness for Thinkpads.)

The HP tc4200 looks nice too - like an ultraportable notebook that does Tablet too...

i like the look on j's face in the background... "quit yer cameraphone messing around dad and gimme the beans!!!"

Big mistake, not only did he devour my precious can of British baked beans but he then spent the whole night farting. We shall be restricting the intake of beans in this family until the summer months when we can leave the windows opened.

If you want display resolution greater than 1024x768, then you have 3 choices:

Toshiba Portege M200
Toshiba Tecra M4
Fujitsu Lifebook T4010

If you want 128MB graphics for Longhorn testing, then look at the M4. It's a little bigger than the other 2, which are 12" but it has the graphics memory. Hope that helps.

cats are not that mean

Hi Steve...Enjoying your audio blog. Just to mention another graphical newspaper site to the one you mentioned. http://www.newsstand.com

They have been going for a few years I believe. I think they require you to download proprietary software to run their stuff. They seem to have access to a heck of a lot of papers though!
Best,
Paul

Hey. Great podcast. 01:00am in the morning now. Must sleep. :)

Thanks. Go vote for me then at podcastalley.com ;-)

Great show as normal.
Don't rub it in about meeting Mick!
When are we going to Skype?

Ian

I really enjoyed it. Sorry if i rattled on throughout, i must get my blog back up now after that and start doing some podcasts. I found myself having a hard time concentrating on other things afterwards. :) - thanks for hooking up. :)

I enjoyed that, we must do it again.
Its nice not to have to edit it as I do for my shows :)

Hi Steve,

Can I pimp your music on my podcast with the CC license? My podcast is not a commercial venture just a hobby.

Link to my podcast:
http://www.dualbotic.com/Default.asp?DisplayPage=KiteboardPodcast.asp

Cheers,

Charlie

Heh. Thanks =)

Hugh

Sure! Go ahead.

Downloading it now, on the 3g card on a laptop in a caravan overlooking the sea. Works great so far, although skype is a bit of a strain on it.

http://r3wind.picostation.com (gprs camera pics)

Sounds good,just listened on my way in to work.
It was good fun,and nice not to have to edit the show
We must do it again!

Ian

What the hell is that? I can figure out the beans part, but what kind of crzy concoction have you come up with?

It's just beans on toast with cheese on top...

Sorry to hear that Steve, its nice that your son could meet her
It must be hard being so far away as well

Ian

Steve,
Condolences from a fellow Brit, I live in Oklahoma and am in the UK right now for my Uncles funeral. Tough times.
Dave

What a shame the grill and patio set arrive in time for the real seattle summer that begun this morning :-)

Of course all us Apple fans were sniggering amongst ourselves when it was discovered that most of the Xbox360 developement, and the current demos, are being run on Apple G5s. Tee hee.
;)

Worked for me - she married me too!

Depends which part of america you go too :)

That's all i'm saying :)

Have to admit it's not sleek but my siemens nixdorf amilo a1630 64bit laptop is the nuts. It's a little slow on xp but now the 64bit of windows is out i intend to upgrade to that. I was going to put on suse9.3 as i heard that it detected my onboard wifi but i'm too scared. :)

Does fly thou, and it means i can play counterstrike source with the onboard radeon 9700 pro. ;)

Only cost me a grand. So much cheaper over there i expect.

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/products/mobile/notebooks/amilo_a.html

Wow, i'm loving this. May it continue on a monthly affair.

It looks like it will be. Check out http://www.britcaster.com

It is cool. So I set up an elevator pitch tag as well. People can tag their pitches to me with "hornikpitch". I look forward to hearing what people are working on.

Only in the arctic circle, when men have been drinking LOTS of Chilli vodka

HI Steve, thanks for the plug(s)!
Beautifully selected segment of my show ;)

neil...

I did offer a tip but could not get it past your denial software.

Lol. "looking after the kid" - you make it sound like he's rented.

But, please, katana. Dont give up! - i love it. Just because itunes does this and that does'nt mean there is not room for others. There is always room for applications regardless of how big the company is.

Check out fireant if you wanna see how something small can become massive. Fireant is going to be massive. Btw, starting my podcast this weekend.

Will not be in clarity like yours (just do not have the time to get things setup right now) but i have to start somewhere. :)

Keep it up steve, wish i was going to gnomedex!

Nah - I'm not giving up on Katana at all - like you it just does too much too well for me. Plus if it doesn't, I can just change it ;-)

Talking of Katana - how about those icons... *grin*

Ah yes. I will try and get around to it. At the moment with the new releases of games i'm a bit snowed under but i will try to get something together for you shortly.

do they have ice cubes in them???

You suggest that ID3 tag should include a snippet which goes to RSS ITEM.

What about including complete RSS Item element in the id3 tag? This way you can build RSS channel from MP3 files, extracting Item elements from them.

sjl is not a namespace. sjl is a namespace prefix and it requires a namespace name.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/

notbrainsurgery: Actually, I'm not suggesting any ID3 tags. I'm suggesting that the feed item in the xml feed for the podcast point to the shownotes rss file. Mind you, other than "what ID3 tag would you use?" that's a nice idea.

Randy: Yup - you got me. I need to be more careful with terminology when writing about anything that looks like a spec ;-)

Steve, thanks for trying to help me out. I finally got an answer...

here's what Wikipedia had to say about the matter:

Quote:
Some establishments, often bars, pubs or nightclubs, fill their urinals with ice cubes during peak hours. As the ice melts it serves to slowly flush the urinal, and also cools the urine to prevent smells from rising during use. The ice may also provide entertainment to patrons as they urinate.

Hi, l am with you on this I think OPML is a good way. what we need is some way of automating the show notes I find that very time consuming

The use of the anchor portion of the URL doesn't change the RSS specification. Addition of the two attributes to the enclosure element does.

I think the enclosure element should be used to reference the shownotes metadata (whether it be RSS or OPML or whatever), too. So, an entry will have one enclosure element that points to the audio URL, and another one that points to the shownotes metadata URL.

I don't get the "subtle" difference that makes introducing new elements in a namespace "the right solution" -- could you explain a bit more?

I guess my bias is to keep related information together. Information that's specifically relevant to an element should be an attribute of the element, not a new element in a namespace.

It's also why I'm not a big fan of OPML, because of its use of the text attribute on the outline element, instead of making the outline text the node value. I think Eric Meyer's S5 is a better example of how markup should be structured for outlines.

Thanks for responding,

-- Dossy

By the way, your TypeKey sign-in link (or something else) is broken. Clicking on it sends me to a page that tells me:

"The validation failed."

Perhaps this is because I've already signed in via TypeKey to someone else's blog in this browser session and there's some cookie nonsense going on. Go TypeKey. *sigh*

On the namespace thing. If the client of the file parses the file as per the rss spec, it will get everything it needs, the elements it's expecting to see are there and the semantics of the elements have not changed.

Now, if you want to add new information - like the creator via Dublin Core's <dc:creator> you can do that. If the client understands that namespace it gets new information, but the core specification has not changed.

Regarding the anchor on the url - in order to parse that, the client needs to expect it and know how to decode it. By putting this in the url attribute of the enclosure element you've broken clients, because AFAIK that's not how the enclosure element is defined - are anchors on media files defined anywhere?

As for the typekey thing - yeah. I don't even use it. It must go...

Cheers,
Steve

Yea, but what about OPML as a way to get shownotes into a player and use a timestamp ideal within the OPML to allow quick "goto" functionality?

http://lance.heathville.com/archives/opml_and_podcasting.html

OPML or any shownote functionality is not going to make it into the players until there is a standard, adopted format/process. Once a method is settled upon, the player manufacturers will follow.

First step is the podcatching clients and desktop media players. After that comes the portable clients. Remember, it's easier for the desktop clients to gain functionality than a fixed function client.

"Someone listening to the podcast via a Media Center would have shownotes/images/links appear on the television."

Exactly what I have done for Media Center.
I have setup a Media Center addin for the Podcast Network so you can read the show notes on Media Center. (it's a free download at http://iandixon.co.uk/rss/tpn.zip)

I also will have a full RSS reader and podcast listener for Media Center launching in a couple of weeks

With the proposal, the images, text, etc... would change as the show progressed...

I could see you in the last 2 pics. Couldn't find you in the first two.

"Hear from flight attendants and pilots as they tell what goes on behind the galley curtain (and behind the cockpit door)"

heh heh... sounds randy...

Ouch! Well I was reading yesterday that Adam Curry pays around USD300 a day in bandwidth charges.

Whats your bandwidth limit and how much (just out of interest) does it cost you?

It's my own physical server at a hosting provider, with a 225 GB limit per month. I expect that today's traffic isn't indicative of the future, but I expect the spike to stay high for the next few days.

I expect the spike is due to a) Current people who listen to podcasts trying iTunes 4.9 out and b) The fact that (AFAIK) iTunes downloads all the podcasts in the feed.

We'll see what tomorrow brings...

You want to run a game server host. I have 10mb a sec package and can move nearly 3.5 terabytes a month currently. :) - it's not cheap. :)

Another legal use for p2p? RIAA must be pissed.

I was feeling saucy. :)

You should have seen the stuff I deleted. Something about the bigco's jaw-droppingly ugly entrances into RSS brought out the obscenities.

Interesting. When I access the iTunes library from my TiVo over TiVo Desktop, there's a new playlist called "podcasts" that contains the new podcasts. However, the new Podcasts source group doesn't seem to be addressable as a playlist with AppleScript. You can, though, manually drag podcast files from the Podcasts source group into a regular dumb playlist.

Yup - agree you can do the drag/drop thing, but it kind of misses the point about podcasting - the automation. I can't organize them automatically via smart playlists (or any other form of automation) like I can with music.

I'm sure this'll be addressed at some point.

Yeah, I was a little bothered by the smart playlist thing myself. Here's a workaround: on the iPod, create a smart playlist called 'BMW ..whatever' and only include tracks with the genre specifed as 'Podcast'.

Matt, I tried that - that's what I do for podcasts coming in from an external aggregator. But the smart playlist appears to be ignoring podcasts downloaded by iTunes itself, even though they are marked with a genre of 'Podcast'.

There is an easy hack to get your iTunes 4.9 Podcasts to show up in your smart playlist.

This hack comes from the iTunes Tips Wiki. "After selecting all the podcasts in iTunes (click the purple podcast link, press ctrl-a in windows or Apple-a in Mac) create a new playlist from the selection (File->Create playlist from Selection). Once this playlist is created, downloaded podcasts show up in your smart playlists, even after removing this tempory playlist. My assumption is that iTunes is failing to index downloaded podcasts." The only catch to this is that not all Podcasts downloaded from iTunes have the genre set to "podcast", so they might not feed into the smart playlist.

Hope this helps.

We need to start sharing podcasts via BitTorrent!

I am trying to subscribe to your show on iTunes but all i find is the Brit Pack #2 how can i subscribe on iTunes? Yes i have the latest 4.9. Please reply.

P.S your show is great as i have heard it before.

In iTunes, click the subscribe button next to my podcast, then once subscribed, go to the Podcasts section (below "Library") and you should see my show in the right pane.

Next, you'll see a triangle next to the left of the show title. Click on that and it'll expand a listing of all the shows. Download the one's you want, any new ones should show up automatically...

Let me know if this helps!

wowow looks really great, I really like the picture. I am just about to understand how the whole podcasting process works, because I am looking forward to establish a educational podcasting for the management school.
So just about to buy some equipment like this type of mic: http://www.shure.com/photos/bigones/sm2.jpg what do u think, or I should better use the one that u use,. and also thinking of buying this audio: http://www.multima.no/upload/images/150x150/M-Audio%20Audiosport%20Quattro.jpg which will help me to use four mics at the same time. Anyway I really like the way u setup your podacsting..

My best wishes for you and yours Steve. I'm glad that they all seem to be OK.

The terrorists sure are clever. What smart people to hurt and kill men, women, and even CHILDREN in the recent London bomb blasts. Now, world citizens will surely say, �Okay, we give up, come control our lives with your ideologies.� Right? The problem with the leadership at al-Qaeda is that they haven�t figured out that people have no love for killers. Their point of view will only attract the very young and impressionable or the very old and desperate. They miss the largest demographic- law abiding citizens who want peace. If it�s the masses a group wants to affect, do something absolutely worthwhile and positive with the resources. Win hearts. The world may be talking about al-Qaeda , but it�s not in love with it and the goods it�s selling. Without winning hearts, the change al-Qaeda hopes for will always be shallow.

agreed... wil rocks... and the thought of him, or anyone for that matter, strolling around vegas in a "shrodinger's cat is dead" t-shirt makes me laugh...

Michelin tyres, you meant ?

If you Brits keep putting Marmite on toasts for breakfast, all the athletes are going to commute over the Channel every morning :D

Xavier.
Guess where I'm from.

Michelin tyres, you meant ?

If you Brits keep putting Marmite on toasts for breakfast, all the athletes are going to commute over the Channel every morning :D

Xavier.
Guess where I'm from.

very nice...evryone loved that one

Try using that together Ableton Live 4.0 which is much more fun and intuitive than Reason. Well, once you learn it..

I like how all the hardware in the trailer is Apple hardware ;)

I want to encourage you to continue working on the OPML idea. You are correct in that there may not be tools around at the moment but putting standards and best practices into place now can pave the way and hopefully things will be a little easier for others when the tools become available. That time of experimenting and seeing what works and what doesn't work is really important and it sounds like you have a very good idea regarding what's possible and how people might want to enjoy the experience of podcasting. In addition, it fits with the idea of device independence.

I've been using Reason for a couple of years now and it's a great creative tool. The only gripe is the lack of support for audio files other than through one of the samplers. I actually found the more traditional rack style lok and feel much more intuitive than some of the 'highly evolved' interfaces I came across while looking for a music app. Reason is the dog's.

Just set a hardware button to TAB and you're laughing. I'd not considered Reason on a Tablet but prompted by Warner's link to this post (see above) I've really learnt to apprecaite Reason in a new light.

That sounds quite interesting. Any chance to get some of it online later? And a link from your blog to it then :-)

ditto ac's comment.

Thank you,
JackD

Most of the presentations are up on http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx. Unfortunately my slides were product heavy in content and not sanitised for mass (i.e. online) distribution.

Sorry folks...

hi ... if i would see your presentation at Meltdown ? you can release presentation for download?

I think's it 's to do with shutter synch. My brother's a photographer and he tries to explain it to me but as you say it's physics. Essentially I think most camers sync the flash with the shutter opening, but for night shots you want the flash synched with the shutter closing; the aperture opens long enough to allow some background to appear, then you get 'fill-in' flash. Another problem is if you taking a photograph of people at night, they ALWAYS move when the flash goes off, and usually you have a second or so more of the shutter being open. Third problem is that it is v. hard to keep camera steady for that amount of time; my bro uses a tripod (or a wall) even for night-time 'snaps'.

Willie

The dynamic range of the human eye is quite incredible. My high school physics teacher claimed there is experimental evidence that proves the human eye is capable of detecting a few tens of photons. Current consumer electronic light detectors come nowhere near as close.

The best you can do for night photography right now is to get a solid tripod, switch the flash off and capture a image using a long exposure. The resulting picture can be very close to what the human eye sees. Anything moving in the scene will of course appear to be blurred, which may or may not be desirable.

I like your podcast. I'm a Brit abroad too, except I'm in Hong Kong. I got my shiny new podcast as well. Take care

I am going changne my way of doing the date after the intro music on my shows
Thanks Steve

Did you ascertain what the display's native resolution was? LCDs tend to be hardwired to one resolution, and do a pixel-fudging "stretch to fit" if you set a lower resolution.

XP has 2 font-prettying methods, as well as None. I find None gives the crispest, most readable fonts, though at the expense of some pixel jaggies. The others deliberately blur the font edges so as to hide the pixel effect, using two different algos.

Hi,

i find this link.... is it real screenshot?!?

http://grandtheftauto.filefront.com/potd/39906

Wimp. I sat through two c-sections (one emergency, one planned) and didn't feel a thing. Well, apart from when Jenny nearly squeezed my hand to death...

Congratulations Steve. I can�t think of a better way to spend a sabbatical. All my best wishes to you and yours.

Best wishes to you and the new arrival and to the wife. Hope it all goes well and we get to see nice photos on flickr. :)

Take care.

awwwww. You made me cry. I can't wait to meet Jasmine too :)

Fascinating.

The black and white picture was probably hi- jacked with a DIY colour kit in the early 1950's.

There was a product on sale which was water coloured based where you could "paint by numbers style" and change a b/w photograph to a coloured one. Certainly no where near full colour but better than black an white.

Congratulations!

Congrats Steve!

I can't wait to meet the newest kid on the block! My mommy and daddy say, "Congratulations Laceys!"

Hey Steve and Nabila.........congratulations on the arrival of Jasmine!

If in fact the photo is dated "during" war time vs. not too many years earlier, it may be that this is an early photo using Kodachrome. The first modern ('integrated tri-pack') color film, Kodachrome, was introduced in 1935 based on three colored emulsions. Most modern color films, except Kodachrome, are based on technology developed for Agfacolor (as 'Agfacolor Neue') in 1936. (In this newer technology the colour-couplers are already within the emulsion layers, rather than having to be carefully diffused in during development.)

Of the 2 basic colour systems, one being Additive, and the other being subtractive. It is likely to be that of the later. Subtractive uses colors Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, which are subtracted from white light. Several print methods were devised using this technique during the 1930s (see eg Coe, ref 1), for printing from 'separation negatives'. Kodachrome was the first commercially-available 'integrated tri-pack' film of this type.



note: some of this comment was "borrowed" from the wiki.

Congratulations! This is great news. I'm glad everything went well and very happy to hear you're all well. Give my love to the family - tell Nibs she's done a good job ;-) All the best. Soon, sooner, soonest...

Yeah, it looks hand coloured. It was very fashionable but now is considered a bit of an obscure art form. Visit http://www.bkpix.com for a good overview. You can find a ton of products for sale, on Amazon, for starting to hand colour yourself and there are classes that run at Seattle Community Col. if you're super interested ;-) Although, photoshop and layering makes it way easier.

Congrats Steve. Enjoy the new family member!

Totally agree there steve, after running a business online for a few years the most important thing to me is customer service. At the end of the day if you cannot deliver what you say you can then you will be found out very quickly. I think it's good, too many companies have made money out of people of what they say they can deliver to what they actually can. It also build loyality by actually proving what you say. I love it myself the fact that i can prove my worth virtually. :)

Just a test

Yes indeed a little philosphical - I thought the mother was the one full of hormones :-)

Hello,

I agree on the FPS point.
One thing that I note is that they have great skies, well sky boxes, that most often represent a couple of ambiances like day and night, maybe sunset, with no transition.
If you look at the sky today, it looks way different from what it looked like yesterday at the same time. There's so much different aspects of the sky, I wonder if one will ever be able to simulate it fully one day :)

Posted my r�sum� on careers website btw, don't hope much, but who knows ;-)

Happy Landings and keep up the great work !
Matt

Hi Steve,

Between you and Mike G. you two gents are setting a wonderful new precedent. You are actually letting us see something we once thought was impossible. I hope in the future you guys continue to let us have a glimpse into the wonderful world of FS development at MS. It is refreshing and truely exciting to hear from you and Mike. All the best to the entire FS team!

Cheers,
Jason

I guess that's something until you consider that in Sweden there was mainstream 100/100 Mbit 3-4 years ago (your xMB is wrong since that would imply 2.4 Gbit) but after a year they dropped it to 10/10 Mbit. 24/1 has been around here for around half year in the bigger cities and longer in other countries so this isn't news.

Easy to get these wrong. What I meant to say that isn't the MB for Megabytes not bits. And I meant 0.24 Gbit not 2.4 :-)

Well, considering that I used to live in the UK (where this is a new consumer bandwidth high), and that I now live in the US (where these kinds of consumer bandwidths don't exist), this certainly is news to me.

Regarding the numbers, bandwidth AFAIK is always measured in Megabit. MB can be either megabyte or megabit - hence consumer confusion. I wish people *would* use MByte and MBit when talking about bandwidth.

OMG - ordering this when i get my mac address!!! Good news! We are currently expecting to enable your exchange in Oct-2005

W00T

Hi Steve

From past corrospondence between us I know how much you do for our hobby.

Thanx for u're commitment

Cheers

Jaco Smit

I would hope that the default aircraft textures and virtual cockpits are looked at. 3rd party add-ons appear to have an edge over MS in this department. We all eagerly await the next release.

oh, how sad.

Love to do one again some time - once i've got my setup working nice. I've got the decent mic and box and sweepers - nothing holding me back really.

It's more to do with me in the process of moving houses (well trying to sell mine) - be nice to give you an update actually now my holidays etc are out of the way. Suppose after i've posted a few podcasts i'll do a joint one again.

Pretty darn good for a one man effort and a computer. And the singings not bad either.

Shouldn't you be changing nappies though :-)

I like it. However, it seems confused. Like i'm in spain one minute, then it comes across bluesy. Maybe once it has a smooth velvety voice in there (we can't have multiple talents, you do good as a dad and a coder mate!) - there is a section when there is loads of words crammed in too. Just seems awkward there.

But, this aint a diss. I've listened to it about 5 times now and each time it's growing on me - so maybe it was just a first impression. I suppose it's because i know you for something else. It's like me suddenly becoming a man of the cloth!

But yeah fairplay. :)

never too early for a tipple

Lol Steve. But hey, do you? - hehe. j/k

that is great. ha! Before I read your post I was afraid you were going to say you got your haircut. I am glad to see you didn't! :)

Because people reading the economist smoke pot?

hey Steve, i read your blog about Omnidisc, and i'm having the same trouble! they scammed our money two monthes ago and refuse to send our disc, they won't answer e-mail's or phone messages,i even called the ownwers wife and he still won't talk with us. what happened in your case did you get your product? if so how did you make them fork it over? if there are any suggestions you have that might help us please let me know
thanx Billy Badd
and the High Tech Mafia( thats my band!)
email me at (wblair@kvcc.edu

Great to see that you are helping out in some way.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the plug for the Cal Classic web site. :)

And thanks for helping to make MS more accessible and helpful to us folks who are always interested in more info about the sim.

And we too are eagerly awaiting that day when you can tell us all the neat features!

Thanks,

rock star!!!

That's weird i was about to mention that in my podcast after reading a review, tbh it's a good solution instead of carrying around all the gear and you pretty much record there and then without having to setup all the bits.

Only thing i noticed from this review below that i did'nt like was that it recorded in mono.

http://www.macintouch.com/samsonc01u.html

Super Post!! I'll share it with everyone that I know who is looking for info on 'how to' podcast. Again Nice Work!!

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Yes, it's overkill, but it's certainly interesting to read and helpful for those looking at various audio setups. Thanks!

For anyone interested there's also a good 'how to podcast' video up on http://www.systm.org. As an advanced setup it also shows Leo Laporte's (from TWIT [This Week In Tech]) setup.

Terrific stuff. Will link to it at the Loomia site. If you cover the next step and talk about where to list the podcast, be sure to include us in the list (www.loomia.com).

I'm glad that people find this interesting!

Ken: I also missed out the RSS production bit as well as where to list - I plan to get to those in a future post.

I have that mic, and it works well for me. Still getting use to it though, and still learnign gain and EQ settings and stuff in Garageband... neat stuff.

Nicely done!!! I love the photos and the audio samples. I also like that you showed your advanced setup as opposed to just introducing the basic elements, because as a newbie that will be investing in this, I want to know what exactly I am missing without the advanced equipment. I now know what the next steps are if I want to invest further. Thanks for helping us non-techies understand!!

Steve,
Nice post and screenshots. This very helpful for people that are going through the podcast recording learning curve. I have written about this post in my Audio Podcast Software Blog at: http://blog.podblaze.com/blog/96077

Rodney Rumford www.podblaze.com

-FYI-- The above link for the 'how to podcast' video recommended by Mark is wrong . .

Rodney: That link requires authorization to view...

I WANT THAT!!!!

As my kids used to say when they were four years old and saw a toy commercial: "I WANT THAT!!!!"

Sara: Here's the direct link to systm.org's episode 4: Podcasting...
http://revision3.com/systm/podcasting/media

The link should have been: http://www.systm.org
(the previous link had a period at the end of the link that might not work in all browsers - my Firefox 1.0.7 and IE6 autocorrected it though)

Sorry 'bout that.

Ha! Thanks Steve, a man of your word. As I said on Jason's blog, thanks from the community for blogging... you guys rock :)

Nick.

Try using htaccess at your old site to redirect transparently to your new xml file.

Works fine for the old dvguys.com feed (podcasst) now at digitalproductionbuzz.com.

Cheers

Did you mean to comment on Scoble's post?

No problem, Steve. It really is a great service! Great work! :)

Steve Lacey??????????????--Podcast Podium ???? http://www.hopesome.com

Steve, is there a chance that you can include note taking facilities in it? Something like Netvibes.

Nice service by the way.

Tejas, Yup - that's also on my todo list.

Great stuff. Looking forward to using it.

:-(

Time to get out the porridge and open all hours DVDs....

ronny barker
My thoughts go to the family, friends and admirers of Ronny Barker. He seems to have been entertaining me since I was little - young!
He seemed to have the ability to tread easily between music hall innuendo and sublime pathos- most notably in Porridge - and back, stopping off at anything in between. The thrifty, cunning but often helplessly prurient shopkeeper, the old lag, he was perhaps one of the earliest exponents of the Stoppardian conceit of smoothly and eloquently making a bold statement, often with moralistic fervour, and then following it with an equally forthright denial or reversal of the previous statement. Later episodes of Friends and Will and Grace seem to survive almost solely on this device.
A true gentleman, scholar, wit, actor, writer and producer whose like we shall see little of again. I think I'll watch the Porridge episode where Mr. Barraclough quells a riot. It's goodnight from me.... Cheers Ronny x x x
posted by jono at 9:49 PM

God told me to comment on your blog.....

It ain't so.

Yo,hello, hi, etc.

I thought it was stunning when I bought my first Digital Music Products, Inc. CD of a group called Flim & the BB's (excellent, highly dynamic modern jazzy instrumentals originally assembled to test 3M's radical new "all digital" recording process some time in the late '70's or very early '80')who, to me at least, exemplify hip; and they published under the "Music as Software" name. It got me to thinking the same thing; entertainment has begun to come down to who can create the best algorithms! I wondered if maybe I ought to have become a mathematician rather than a musician! Paul

Some years ago, a TV evangelist told his congregation, live and on broadcast, that God had sent him a vision of how to solve the financial problems of his ministry. He claimed God had told him they should send him (the evangelist) "as much of the burden as they could bear" but they would be rewarded 10 times over in heaven. I don't remember for sure, but it was either one who got convicted for soliciting or one who said lately that the US ought to have two different leaders, in Central and South America, assassinated. This "God told me" stuff sounds dangerous.

God told me, "Don't read or listen to the BBC"!

Oh darn... Just as I have started to get really, really good with both Max and GMax... ;)

Hopefully, we won't get "orphaned" in the process...

Bill Leaming
3d Modeler & C Programmer
Eaglesoft Development Group

I beleived that same definition was used (maybe by the same author?) in "Difficult Questions About Videogames", which if you haven't read it, is a great read. It's also FREE (you pay for shipping). Go here:
http://www.publicbeta.org/dqav/

(oops, just checked that link and looks like it's no longer available? Anyhow, if you can't find it, I have a copy I can loan you).

Steve, I love Memeflow. I need a favicon! Perhaps you could have users submit then you pick your fav favicon! Just an idea, would occupy a smaller to-do =)

Jacob: That sounds like a great idea! Anyone up for it?

I am very much looking forward to read-only access for MemeFlow. Would it be possible to keep certain tags private while allowing read only access to others?

hey man,

I have a question: do you know anything about playing a midi keyboard through a laptop at gigs? I have Reason 2.5 software and I want to use it badly, but I'm not quite sure how to set it up. any ideas?

thanks,
ari

It should work perfectly. I have a midiman keyboard that is USB powered and presents itself to the OS as a midi device.

This means that it would work fine performing live using Reason (or any other software that utilizes a midi keyboard).

Just look for a keyboard that you like with a USB interface.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers,
Steve

I'm thinking about the private thing... Currently the paradigm is all about being open. Once you promise that a certain thing will be private, you run the risk of making it indirectly public through stats, rankings, etc..

An light online application that streams content from a server has one big and obvious advantage:

To run the latest release, you just have to hit F5.

Thought, I think you are right in that (at leat for the next 10 years) desktops apps will stay more efficient.

Anyway, before any change to happen, users will need to change their minds... and it can take a while.

Hi Steve,

I would be please to do the English to French translation for you.

To make it easier for you and the future translators, you could prepare a document with all the sentences you might want to be translated (including error messages, alerts, help file, etc ...)

Cheers,

Xavier.

Cool! Thanks Xavier. I'll put that at the top of my todo list.

Thanks for making this available Steve. Unfotunately though I can't get it working in Typepad - I'm getting this error message -

"TypePad has encountered an error. The requested page could not be found or the requested action could not be completed."

Well I've submitted a trouble ticket so hopefully I've have an answer soon.

And here's the answer I got back -

"Not all tags from Movable Type will work within TypePad the same way. The way that the MTDate tag is used here does not appear to be compatible with TypePad, which is why you're getting an error."

No advice on how to get around it either:(

And I'm not much of a code so I'm stumped :(

Errk. I can't see what typepad would have an error with, it's a standard MT3.2 tag. Unfortunately I can't find any typepad specific tag documentation on their site...

Well now I'm more confused that error. I asked them to suggest how I might get around the problem and they could only point me to this documentation -

http://help.typepad.com/tags/

But if you click on the page for the Calendar Tag Index from there you will see that $MTDate is used in the example code though NOT specified in the tag list below. Huh? Is it obvious yet that I'm no programmer? ;-)

Aha! Eureka! The penny drops! Duh!

So it wasn't the Date tag which was incorrect but the date format. I replace your formatting Steve with this -

$MTDate format="%B %Y"$

Not that I really understand it but at least its working now and producing valid (I assume) OPML which I can open in Dave Winer's OPML Editor.

Thank you again for showing us how - this is brilliant!

-Jim.

Sorry for being a comment hog Steve but I just have to add a warning for anyone who's thinking of doing this for TypePad that there still appears to be a slight problem.

Running your (Steve's) OPML file through KBCafe's OPML Surfer works fine but running mine through it just produces raw OPML, so apparently there's some kind of problems still with the formatting? :(

Having said that, my OPML does import fine in Dave Winer's OPML editor and it displays perfectly in Taskable so perhaps the OPML surfer is just a little too unforgiving? Hmmm....

James: It might be because you don't have an encoding set. Perhaps typepad doesn't support the MTPublishCharset tag?

If so, just manually put encoding="utf8" in the first line...

Does that help?

That was it Steve, problem solved! Thank you very much once again.

8 ;)

uh...9. But i have seen the movies of 5 others...does that count?

Hello Steve,
I suggest to change the line
<outline text="<$MTCategoryLabel$>">
to
<outline text="<$MTCategoryLabel encode_xml="1" $>">

In this way labels like "You & Me" (please note the &) will be correctly encoded in the feed.

Steve, any idea how I could output a separate OPML file for each category? I know it might sound silly, initially, to do so as the whole point of an OPML file is the hierarchy. However, what I'd like to do is transclude/include in a "Football" hierarchy only the posts categorised under "Football" by a *group* of different bloggers.

I tried -

<MTCategories category="Football">

and

<MTEntries category="Football">

but neither of them worked. The latter has worked for me previously when creating separate RSS and WAP feeds on a per category basis so I'm a little confused.... once again ;-)

James. The MTEntries idea should work. You'll probably need to remove the outer MTCategories tag though.

Simone: Yup, that's a good idea.

My first thought - what is AMERICAN rugby ???

heh heh... he said "erect"...

still suffering from "little man's" complex, I see.

I apologize for my most insensitive comment. I have been reprimanded. God told me to say it.

Well thanks, Steve!

I need to come here more often, my good friend Phil (r3wind) is a firm fan, and I see why. :D

I kind of figured the front page would get you
some traffic lol.

I for one am really glad to see the team
participate "out of the closet" so to speak.

Denny

Ps: LOVE the hat.

And yet again, the world get's smaller. :)

Sorry to hear that. Some people really suck! Wonder how they'd like it if we lit up their truck w/ some pretty colored paints. Too bad we were not still there, I would've helped you chase them down and make 'em eat their damn balls...uh, paint balls that is. Anyway, thanks for the evening. dw1

Hey Steve! I remember you too. :-)

It is indeed a blast. The next public event is the last weekend in April. But if you and a few friends wanted to have a "private party" I would be glad to put one on for you before then. I would supply the guns, ammo, targets, and ear and eye protection. You just need to handle the transportation, food, lodging etc. It would be an experience you will never forget. Bring the kids (probably should be a minimum of five or six years old) and they will have stories to tell which will make their classmates envious for years.

See also Boomershoot!

Thank you!

Thanks for the explanation Steve!!! Much appreciated :-)

This may be alright in theory. I've been a programmer for over 40 years and a pragmatist.

I created an FS Navigator flightplan flying at 240 knots at 3000ft over photographic scenery for the UK with custom autogen. With fps set to unlimited, the average fps was recorded at 50+ and blurring lasted a few seconds at most. Repeating the flightplan with fps locked at 15, blurring occurred within a few minutes and lasted minutes.

Any comments Steve?

George

Sorry, I should have mentioned my setup. It's a 3.02GHz Xeon with 1Gb memory, two SCSI drives and an FX6800 Ultra 256Mb graphics card.

George

Interesting and helpful article Steve. Now we know why. I find capping fps at 30 works well on my system. [with the exception of a few payware aircraft that use too many textures.]

P4 3.4 2GB, 6800 Ultra 256mb

Hi George - yes there is another issue at play here.

The terrain system will only complete one terrain tile per frame. What this means that if your system is powerfull enough so that the fiber system is not starved of CPU cycles, and is therefore able to keep up with the production load, then the faster the framerate, the more tiles become available per second.

This can also manifest itself as a windowed versus fullscreen issue.

If "unlimited" works for you, then windowed should be better as it is not locked to the refresh rate of the monitor, therefore more frames and quicker throughput for the terrain tiles, whereas in fullscreen mode the system will be locked to the refresh rate of the monitor (or whatever you set in the display settings) and exhibit potentially lower terrain production throughtput.

Does that make sense?

As with all things, unlimited may work for some people, and not for others, because due to their settings for weather, AI, etc... the fiber system might be busy doing other things other than just terrain work.

Overall, the general recommendation is still not to use unlimited, but if it works for you, go for it.

Thanks Steve. That is the one thing I didn't mention, as I run a dual monitor system, I always run in windowed mode.

So when I limit the frame rate to a lowly 15fps it will only process 15 tiles per second? No wonder it results in blurred textures.

In the above test I had 50 AI aircraft in the vicinity with a single layer of cloud and visiblity of 30 miles.

George

Steve, great blog, and very interesting topic.

I've been of the mind that the two solutions (minimum acceptable FPS and unlimiting) solve two different problems. This has been validated by you, IMO.

First, those who are asking the sim to render too much detail, or render it too quickly, benefit most from setting a fixed minimally acceptable FPS.

Second, those who need to overcome a hardware bottleneck (such as low video memory or GDI resources) benefit from most from unlocking the FPS - by analogy, "forcing" the polygons to get rendered.

My question is this - Is it possible to define a specific type of scenery detail that would lead to the blurries of one type or another? What I am really asking is do highly detailed LWM/VTP polygons or lines with many vertices use more memory or resources irrespective of texture? Or, do highly vertexed polygons/lines just take more CPU cycles for the sim to render?

Thanks again!

Best,
Scott Gridley

I have many colleagues who have very different performace results between windowed and full-screen mode, and I have never really understood why ... until now. Excellent post, Steve.

Owen

Steve

First of all, can I say many thanks for posting this vital information, and for following up George's comments above with such a detailed reply. As the creator of VFR Photographic Scenery for England & Wales way back in 2002 (which as a self-confessed Englishman you will hopefully be aware of), this is a topic which has naturally occupied a lot of my time and attention over the past few years, and it has been frustrating to have been unable to deliver the "definitive guide to the blurries" which I rather naively promised in the early days of my investigations.

Your description of the main terrain rendering loop, the fiber based co-operative multitasking system, and the single tile per frame limitation all make perfect sense, and fill in so many vital details that myself and some of my fellow scenery developers have been pondering all this time. I cannot tell you how welcome your post is!

However, I am still having a problem reconciling some aspects of how a such as VFR Photographic Scenery (i.e. a custom terrain texture scenery covering the complete landscape) performs in practice compared to what might be predicted.  Rather than clog up your blog with lengthy comments, perhaps I can refer you to this current discussion on the Visual Flight forums:

http://www.visualflight.co.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4659#25746

I hope none of the above discussion comes across negatively in any way
- it certainly isn't intended to. The information you've given in this post
is fantastically useful and much appreciated. I'm just wondering if
perhaps there isn't some additional detail or clarification which might be
useful in explaining
some of what I'm seeing, and that I may finally be able to deliver that elusive
"definitive guide" after all. :-)

Thanks once again

John

Visual Flight

http://www.visualflight.net

Hi Steve

Great blog.

re: the Blurries
I fully understand/accept what you're saying for a moving viewpoint,
can you please explain what's happening in the following situation -

Whilst sat as an observer at an airport watching AI,
(without moving, or changing view mode, orientation/zoom or anything else),
why a building who's texture is initially pin-sharp
would then become blurred,
taking maybe 1 min plus to reinstate itself to sharpness again ?

i.e.
Why, having been sharp, would it become blurred at all ?

Is this a case of video memory starvation ?

ATB
Paul

Hi Steve

Mean't to add a couple of qualifiers & questions.

Could you please give a definitive on the following related points -

This particular airport scenery is quite complex, a bit of a frame hog and is compiled as a single bgl.
i.e. a large planar surface with lots of widely separated, complex and many textured protrusions.

The viewpoint quoted previously is only looking at a very small sector/percentage of this airport area.
(It's also a startup situation, so haven't been panning round the whole area previously.)

Would the rendering engine handle the visuals better
if the scenery was split into multiple bgls ?
i.e.
the planar ground surface as one bgl
each building being compiled in its own independent bgl
each building having its own texture.bmps, (rather than many shared across many).

ATB
Paul

Scott - Anything that increases the complexity of what the terrain engine has to do in order to generate a terrain tile is going to impact the time it takes to generate the tile.

I.e. the simpler the better. A lot of vector data can be simplified without losing visual quality, though it can be hard (colinear lines, etc...). But if all that optimization is already being done at author time, then it obviously really comes down to a visual quality versus load time balance on the part of the creator.

Hope this helps!

- Steve

Paul - the first issue you mention, that of a texture becoming blury and popping back in a second later indeed sounds like video memory starvation.

When video memory is full, we must still have a texture for everything in video memory so we will drop the top level mips of textures until everything fits. After a short while, unused textures will age out of the cache and more video memory will become available, allowing us to reinstate the requested (i.e. top level) mip.

As for your second set of questions, multiple bgl files make no difference, but putting as much as possible on as few textures as possible does.

Fewer textures mean less work, less overhead in internal structures, and less video memory fragmentation. It also allows us to draw more in a single call rather than having to change state and draw in multiple calls.

- Steve

John - I'll be checking out your site, but I'll probably be posting a response back here to keep all the good information in one place ;-)

Btw, thanks everyone for your great comments so far!

- Steve

Hi Steve
Cheers for your reply.

What your saying is understandable in a changing state.
This is steady state viewing over a long period, when the blurring suddenly occurs.

Could it be a non-mipped AI A/C passing through the field of view that causes the blurring ?

re BGLs
I understand the fewer textures position.

I must admit I'm surprised at the single very complex bgl,
being an equivalent performer to several simple bgls, (especially when the majority are not in view).
I guess this is whole environment modelling related.

Many thanks for your time.
Paul

Paul - Regarding AI non-mipped AI traffic. Absolutely this could be an issue. We've seen multiple cases where aircraft are non-mipped (and non-LOD'd for that matter) causing issues.

Steve - I spotted a couple of places in my forum post where edits had left it not making a lot of sense - not too helpful in the circumstances. I've just corrected the errors, so if you you've already read it and wondered what I was on about, please feel free to revisit if necessary - John

That was so good that I set it as my wallpaper! Now I'll never get anything done.

John - After some consultation, I believe this will explain what you're seeing.

In FS9, lower resolution (but geographically larger) tiles of photographic scenery take a disproportionately long time to build compared with the higher resolution (but geographically smaller) tiles. When you cross a lower resolution tile boundary, requests for new low resolution tiles block the texture production queue and delay processing of the higher resolution tiles as, in FS9, the tiles are produced serially (first in, first out).

This goes back to the "give the fiber system more time" issue.

Using "unlimited" may work for you in most cases, but you're now hitting a trade off when sometimes, the fiber system may need a lot more time to do it's work. By starving it when the terrain system needs to build those large low resolution tiles, the processing of the high resolution tiles gets delayed until finally they're processed and they all pop in.

Theoretically speaking, pushing out the LOD radius may help on high performance systems, but I've not tested this directly to find out.

- Steve

Steve

Many thanks for your continued feedback. I'm sure everyone appreciates the time you're putting into this.

"In FS9, lower resolution (but geographically larger) tiles of photographic scenery take a disproportionately long time to build compared with the higher resolution (but geographically smaller) tiles."

I'm a little confused about the distinction you're making between "lower resolution (but geographically larger) tiles of photographic scenery" and "higher resolution (but geographically smaller) tiles". The only tiles involved in rendering the photographic scenery as far as I'm aware are standard custom terrain textures (if that's not a contradiction in terms!), i.e 256x256 mip-mapped DXT1 bitmaps - the same as are used in all similar photo/satellite sceneries covering large areas. I'd appreciate it if you could clarify this so I can put the rest of what you're saying into context.

"Theoretically speaking, pushing out the LOD radius may help on high performance systems...".

Pushing out the LOD radius (by which I assume you mean TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS) is the standard recommendation from all developers of this type of scenery and similar, and in fact is something we identified during beta testing of the photo scenery with FS2002. A tool on the VFR Photographic Scenery CDs allowed this to be tweaked by non-technical users, and a later tool, FSConfig, is available for download from the Visual Flight web site for anyone interested who has not yet tried this tweak.

Apart from that, I don't think there's any combination of factors which hasn't been tested, and although many people can achieve satisfactory, blurry free performance even at high flying speeds, there's always a feeling that getting the balance right hangs on a knife edge. Getting more of an idea what's actually going on will allow us to identify the important elements of the setup, and hopefully give better advice, allowing a much wider range of users to achieve a satisfactory set up. Any additional information you can provide will be most welcome.

Thanks again

John

John,

I *think* I understand what you're asking here in the first part. It's possible I've misunderstood you, so if I have, please excuse.

Terrain textures in FS9 are built from 256 X 256 textures that at their highest resolution (4.8 meters per pixel)represent a 1km X 1km section of the earth.

Those textures are built in what is basically a ring around the highest resolution section.

The textures in the distance are rendered by taking lower resolution versions of the high res 1km textures and munging them into a single 256 X 256 pixel image-- like 4 128 X 128 textures are combined in one 256 X 256 texture to create a 4km X 4km area.

This ring contains ever more 1km X 1km textures at lower and lower resolutions until we stop compositing them and draw the "mega" texture instead.

Hope that helps,

Jason

Wow Steve -- if you like that "one". . .we're never gonna see you when you get to choose from almost 60 illusions here! :-)

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html

I don't believe it... no green dot? that is cool.

Precisely. Thanks Jason for making that clear. When I talk about tiles, I've been talking about the output from the terrain engine. A single output tile may be comprised of many source input tiles.

So the generation of a low resolution tile you see in the distance, still 256x256 but covering a large geographical area, may require the reading and processing of many source high resolution tiles.

hi guys,

to sharpen a photoscenery fast depends a lot of the cpu, if you have a single core one or dual core.

i tested on 2 pcs the same fs9 configuration. on my left hand with intel p4 3.0 gig (overclocked 3.4 gig) and on right hand an amd fx57.

the intel was much more better in sharpening against the amd. when i deactivated hyperthreading in the p4 i had the same bad sharpening as with the amd.

so i think, fs9 needs always 100% for its own. in single core fs9 must share the cpu power with system processes and other processes. this are mostly just 1 or 2 or 3 percent. but these percents will fs9 have for sharpening fast according my tests.

in dual core fs9 have always 100% in the first core and all other processes are running on the second core. so in this configuration photosceneries become much mor faster sharp against single core.

i tested this for a long time and everyone who has a p4 can test this too with photoscenery with and without hyperthreading.

i have wrote a lot of my tests and this phenomen in german forums but will not do this again in english hehe.

regards
dieter

Jason and Steve

Many thanks for the clarification and further explanation. Yes, I understand that perfectly now. I'm going to have a play with this new-found knowledge, though I think there are still possibly some anachronisms to explore.

John

One problem that annoys a lot of FS9 users is 'the stutters' where FS pauses for a split second, usually during turns either in flight or on the ground.
Is this related to the 'blurries' you mentioned or somethings else Steve?

BTW Delighted to see MS is encouraging the FS team to start 'blogging', I am sure it gives the FS addicts a better understanding of the complexities of FS.

That's a tough decision Steve. Having a Canon EOS300D I'd have to say I'm biased towards Canon. Looking at the reviews I'd say the Canon is the slightly better camera. The Canon has a CMOS sensor too. Whether the price difference is worth it I do not know. I know what you mean with superceded models. 2 Weeks after I bought the 300D its successor was previewed in the magazines. As I say - a tough decision.

Thanks very much for offering, Steve.

A few months ago, we were discussing the various image formats and which were preferable - please see

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=123&topic_id=27692&mesg_id=27692&listing_type=search

Would you be able to clear this matter up for us? Much obliged to you.

Best regards.

Luis

Hi Steve,

I have the Eos350D (it has some mental other name over your side). Dude, that camera even makes photo's I take look good.

I also have the Cannon Ixus, another great camera...

Hope that helps :)

You want the Canon. but you might want to look at the Eos 5d. The full frame cmos sensor is the deal maker for me.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/canoneos5d/

The bad part is that it will not accept the EF-S lenses, and the burst is slower.

Hi Steve,



as Robert and Nick I'm also biased towards Canon SLRs nevertheless I think all current SLRs will deliver quite appealing pics (if you are not one of those curious guys who find their satisfaction at taking photos just to zoom them all up to the size of an average warehouse wall, so they can find every iota of distortion *g*).



One rather important point when buying a SLR is: You commit yourself (read: your money) to a particular manufacturer's system. Lenses, flashes, accu packs, filters, you-name-it. And all that investment in a particular system will make the switch-over to an other manufacturer's system a real pain in the wallet.



And there's (IMHO) one of the advantages of buying a SLR from one of the "big 2" (Canon and Nikon). You 'll find almost every add-on you can imagine in all price ranges between 30$ and 30,000$ from Canon, a huge bunch of third-parties or a vast second-hand market, so that the urge to switch the system will most probably not arise.



I've seen quite a few people who went through the pain and switched from Olympus, Minolta or other manufacturers to Canon or Nikon as their demands rose, just to have access to the wider range of accessories. Personally I've never regretted my choice for the Canon EOS System (except when looking at my bank account *gg*).



On the other side and to be honest: I've yet to see a photographer whose photos got instantly better when he upgraded to a more expensive SLR. ;-)

It's a bit like software development: You won't improve the code you write just by buying a nicer keyboard. But the comfort and thus the fun can increase significantly when you get a tool that fits.



Two Tips to end this rather lengthy comment:



Tip #1) The lens is at least as important as the camera body. An slightly older digital SLR body (eg. 10D) combined with a good lens will be the better bang for the buck compared to investing all your budget into the camera body and buying a mediocre lens from what is left.



Tip #2) If you get the chance: try both cameras and buy the one which fits and feels better. That will be the one which helps you to take the "better" pictures.



So I'm looking forward to see some of your photos in your blog some day ...taken with the Canon or "the other one" ;-))

What do you guys think of the Nikon D200?

Thanks for the comments so far, I've pretty much discounted the Olympus now...

Nikon have a reputation for ruggedness and reliabilty as do Canon of course... but Nikon more so. Last year I intended to buy the Nikon D100 but the sales assistants in various shops all steered me to the Canon, making me aware of the benefits of sticking with a Canon system and pointing out that I'd get more value for my dollar, with the deals going at that time. [I moved to Canon after using Pentax for 27 years. Most of my Pentax gear was either worn out or very obsolete so it was easy to make the change and start over with a new system.]

As Marc says once you have commited yourself to a system stick with the one manufacturer. It also depends on your budget and what you are going to use the camera for.

BTW to confuse you even further, on paper, the Canon EOS 5D looks very nice too :) [Though I notice it does not use EF-S lenses] Whether it suits you price wise I don't know?

Anyway take your time and check out everything you can possibly think of.

Looking forward to seeing some of your photos too.

Canon all the way. I own the 20D and have also owned the 10D in the past. I shoot about 500 images per month with the 20D.

Reasons:

Better glass...canon has an incredible range of lenses for SLR Lineup. The L series are difficult to beat in terms of overall performance. (expensive however)

Speed...very fast Camera, perhaps only beaten by the Canon D1 series (more than twice the price). If you like taking pictures of airplanes, it's a good fit.

CMOS sensor...good image quality, nice neutral tones. Also LOW noise...800ISO images are very clean, 1600 quite usable.

Cool factor...it's a Canon. Look at the photog bullpens at sporting events..almost all are using big white lenses...CANON!

I'm obviously a little biased towards Canon, but I've used Canon Cameras for 35 years. They never disappoint.

The new 5D is making waves as well...full frame sensor (12MP)...users are saying it's very "film like" and perhaps the best Digital SLR so far.

For Reference, I have 20D images at www.pbase.com/mucker. Good luck.

Craig

Add me to the Cannon side.

My next D-SLR will likly be the 20d or the EOS 5d. With the 5d you get the full frame CMOS. With the 20d you get a faster Burst and the ablity to use EF-S lenses.

We, Flight Simulator tweakers of the world :), would like to see some "official" info/explanation/comments about the following keys from FS9.CFG configuration file:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT, TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA, TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA, TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS, TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS and TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS

- P.S.: if possible, include some info about their valid ranges. I mean minimun and maximun values which FS actually considers.

Thanks a lot!
and keep blogging!

Hi Steve
OK, graphical question: There is an ongoing debate about the FPS setting, should it be locked or not. I always use the "excuse" that the average human brain recognises on 23 frames per second, there are always guys that claim that they can see the difference between 30 and 40 fps...

What is your ideas regarding this in light of the "Blurries" blog?

I ended up with an enthusiast level camera, casio ex-P700 and hope to add a DSLR to my bag in the future.

I found the consistent reviews at http://www.steves-digicams.com/
most helpful while I was shopping for a new camera.

After reading through the reviews and learning some of the functions/menus about the cameras I was considering it made hands-on testing that much better since I didn't have to rely on the salesman's knowledge or lack there of.

It won't matter if the camera you buy has the greatest optics in the world if the controls are counter-intuitive, the image on the lcd isn't clear to you or the electronic viewfinder doesn't have enough eye relief for your glasses because then it'll get left at home or in the bag as shooting with it won't be enjoyable.

Get your hands on the cameras and find one that fits your shooting modes.
Good luck!

Steve, are you involved at all with the airports in FS? I was wondering if you had any thoughts on AFCAD and user customization of the airports. I'm hoping the next version of FS will make it easier for us to do more airport editing. As it is now, AFCAD has not been updated in a while and it seems that if the author of AFCAD chooses not to continue with it then we're stuck.

Emerson - Does this article on the FS Insider site help?

- Steve

Dave, Luis, Jaco - Nice topics!

I'd thought about doing a post about "The Stutters", so I'll bump that one up the list. The others are good too.

Gary - I'll pass that one onto another team member.

- Steve

Hello Steve,

Thanx for all these technical posts hehe.
One thing that I'd like to know is about the shaders in FS2OO4. I've seen in a diagnostic tool that FS uses some shaders and I was wondering where they were used in the game.
Also, about the terrain, is the whole terrain a huge vertex buffer or is it a bunch of separated buffers ?
One last, in an airplane or third party scenery, are the 3D objects rendered sorted by materials or in the way they appear in the bgl/mdl ?

Happy Landings,
Matthieu Laban

Hi Steve, and thanks for the supporting this discussion venue. This issue may be addressed in an upcoming release but why do a ground texture block pop in, and looks very good, only to pop-out almost immediately? I assume that this is to gain some graphic throughput which is reasonable. However, the field of view has not changed (I'm not panning). Shouldn't textures 'lock' once they resolve, pop-in or IOW, look their best? In this scenario, they would only degrade when they go off the scene.

One other frustrating, and possibly related visual peculiarity is the flickering horizon and cloud fog edges when they touch mountain-sides ect. I can only imagine what kind of programming tricks will be needed to fix these issues :)

JJAllen

Jim Allen:

I address the "flickering" (at least what it is) in a blog post from a couple of days ago:

Hope that helps,

Hi all,

Continued over here in a new post. Most of you might not like it ;-)

- Steve

Good decision; it looks to be an amazing camera. I hope you enjoy it -- I know I'll enjoy mine. ;-)

Pleased to see you made a decision anyway. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it. Please keep us posted.

Thanks for the PS find. I have version 5 and it works just like you said. I have done a lot of trial-and-error rotating. ;-(
RESam

TerraCycle is a very cool company. I went to school with the co-founders. Anyone who is interested in environmental issues or organics should definitely surf on over to their website, www.terracycle.net

And every bit as useful, it's now my home page at home and work, I can't do much without it now!!

Good stuff Steve!!

Ha! I was right. My 2-year olds are obsessed with the moon lately, and in looking at it tonight, my wife asked what was under it. I guessed mars because of the red tint and by how bright it was.

Full moon coming up November 16, so says the celestial calendar.

Maybe because of this:

'Recently the Florida State University department of Criminology released a study indicating that people who employed self protection strategies reduced their likelihood of injury when compared to nonresistance.'

and

'Various kinds of forceful victim protective behavior, such as threatening the offender with a gun or other weapon, show the strongest negative coefficients, though none are significant. A conservative interpretation would be that armed and other forceful resistance does not appear to increase the victim�s risk of injury.'

You can google the quotes for various sources.

Regards

Being female, I don't need to worry about feelings of phallic inadequacy even though I carry a gun sometimes.

I carry a spare tire in my car and I have a fire extinguisher at home. I don't know if I'll ever need either one, but sometime in my life I just might. A gun is similar. If you don't have one when you need one, you're really screwed--just like with a fire extinguisher.

I've needed a gun twice in my life already and had one both times. My gun, at least one of those times, saved my life and/or my "sacred honor." I didn't have to shoot anyone, although someone shot at me, but their fear of my gun was enough to end a possible abduction.

So, if I carry a gun in your child's daycare, I'm not doing it to feel big. I'm doing it to remain prepared. Bad people can come to day care centers just like they've come to churches, homes, and everywhere else. While I don't think I'll use a gun, you never know when you might need one.

I recently discovered that the most recent version of Microsoft Digital Image Suite Editor has a similar feature, for those who are too cheap to buy Photo$hop. From the Format menu, select "Straighten picture". It even has an autocrop option once the picture is straightened!

All I read is "gun" :-) - can we trust that y'all will integrate CFS style multiplayer-action in the next FS? Purrty-please?

"Maybe I�m wrong, but that amendment was written to enable the citizens of this country to protect itself against a dictatorial government. To protect itself against the very thing it was leaving behind."



- While I believe that to be true, I, as well as millions of other Americans believe that it also gives us the right to bear arms as necessary in the name of securing our free States and Nation, as well as our freedom as an individual. Free of murder, rape, terrorism, robbery, hate-crimes, etc. Other than you, who else is there to protect your children? Your neighbor, your local politicians, your local policeman, ???



I, as well as many, believe that the second ammendment contains two distinct and entirely self-sufficient statements....rolled into 1 if you will.


1)A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, shall not be infringed.


2)Being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.



I am not attempting to "rewrite" anything here....I am simply allowing other's to see in another light what the author's may have intended.



as you were....

I've managed to save up roughly $76646 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?

I carry a sidearm wherever I'm allowed by law for three reasons:

1) To protect my family and myself (I've had multiple death threats in my short existence in this world).

2) To protect myself and others from over zealous people and governments.

3) My gentalia is big and I'm not a small guy either however I've been injured in the performance of duties of defending this nation. This leaves me with a serious weakness and should a fist be able to stop a situation I might not be up to the task. However, with my Springfield XD .357 Sig or Beretta 92FS Vertec I'll be able to stop any wild animal or person from doing what I don't want them to do to my family or myself.

I mention number two because I've had two people personally approach me and ask what kind of weapon would be appropriate for home/self defense in light of Hurricane Katrina. That's just personally, I can't even count the number of e-mails I've received regarding this same subject.

Thanks everyone for their comments so far. I apologize for the genitalia quip, I didn't mean to be insulting.

Anyhow, I had lunch with Joe and we had a great discussion about the topic...

Even has retractible gear, amazing. But it's not ugly enough to be a fair replica of the real thing :)

Because the state will not protect your children in that daycare. If you think that it is safe because only children are there, the people of Beslan and Dunblane would disagree.

The state has no duty to protect you or your children individually. None. The police have an obligation to pursue the criminal after you are dead, which I am sure will be amusing in whatever afterlife there is, but it still ruins your dinner plans for that weekend.

If the state has no obligation to protect me and mine, then I will handle it myself.

WOOT!

DAMN!!! That's cool.
Check these out too...
http://www.michel-concorde.de/milh001.htm - this guy know what he is doing...

http://www.largemodelassociation.com/davie_mathews_c17.htm

I have more pics. I'll upload them later! You guys sounded fantastic!

These are your best posts -- for me anyway. The digital camera post will be interesting.

Flying Golden Silver by Madam and Mr.Lyons as I type.

Early conclusion: Not too shabby. Really, not too shabby. Translation: Good stuff.

Ric.

Steve,

You said: "We upload textures to the hardware once per frame and limit the amount of data we�ll transfer based on the performance characteristics of the machine."

By the way, one big concern is the 3D clouds, which stress a lot the video hardware probably becase the big amount of texture processing they demand. I reduced their size to 256x256 and converted them to DXT3. This gave me a 30% increase in performance on my Radeon X800XT-PE, in cloudy weather (several layers). The next step will be upgrade to a 512MB video card in order to get more FPS in cloudy weather ("3D clouds" only).

If I upgrade my CPU to a faster one, and upgrade my video card from 256MB to a 512MB model, will FS take advantage of the extra video memory, or there is a limit, hard-coded into the software (FS2004), regarding texture loading to video memory?

-Emerson

Hi there Aces-team,
I have an idea, what if you use multple computers, to run flightsim, I mean if you are feeling, that your computer is strugling, you can add another computer to share the work, say off- load the weather to next computer, and then if its still not fast enough you can add another one for example to off-load the scenery-engine. Do you get the picture? all this incorporated in fs, using a
gigabit-(LAN-Switch). But the beauty with this system, would be that you only buy a second computer If you feel you need it, flightsim would work just as fs9 works today, but having the otion to offload to other computers, would revolutionize flightsim.. Hopefully this is a great sugestion for the new Flightsimulator.
Also thanks for exchanging tips and trics with the community!
:-)

PS don't mind all the typos, i was writing this in a hurry.

Emerson - The issue with clouds is not that of the size of the textures, but rather the fill rate needed to render them and the geometry transform needed (in FS9, cloud sprite transform is handled by the CPU).

The cloud textures themselves live on very few texture sheets and are reused heavilly. The needed textures are also downloaded when you load the flight, so don't have much of a being on stuttering.

The reason you're seeing a performance boost by making them smaller is probably due to caching issues on the GPU. The hardware has a small texture cache on it (similar to the CPU's L1 cache), and if it can hit that cache consistently, performance will go up. As your cloud textures are smaller, it is likely that the vast number of texture reads needed to render the clouds are hitting that cache more often.

I doubt a video card with more memory will help the cloud performance - but the fact that it is a probably a more performant card will probably help all by itself...

As to limits, no, we place no limits on the video memory we use - we use it until we run out, and scale accordingly. The more memory the better.

- Steve

Rune - ahhh, distributed computing. I agree, it would be cool, but a big architectural shift for the codebase, to be sure!

It'd be interesting to have all the components in the system completely encapsulated and able to be "remoted", but then issues of synchonization and prediction start to rear their ugly heads.

Sort of a multiplayer problem on steroids!

Let me see if I can sneak that feature in past our PM. Hmmm, maybe not this rev...

- Steve

wow i love ur site, whos the dude in the hat? im only here cuz im bored, u have managed 2 entertain me for like all of 10 seconds, thanks

Ugh. I only got 6 and a half (Couldn't force myself through Cryptonomicon - though I loved the even-bigger-enemy-of-trees Baroque Cycle trilogy)

A paltry 6. Maybe that's not a bad thing...

Hey, Steve
Thanks for answering,
I have a couple of other features to ask for, new modelling of reversers on jets in fs. Instead of using the F2-key as always, you now have to unlock them first. You use F2-key, to unlock them, then the plus/minus-keys, or your yoke/joystick to controll the revers-thrust, then again, close the reversers with the F2-key, you can see what I mean in Flight Unlimited 3 on the Beechjet 400A.
Also would it be possible to have a better startup-seqence for jets/turbines, Include hydraulics, pressurisation, apu, those vital things to make a jet or turbine start. Please don't use the mixture axis to start a jet, because then the engines-rpm, will rise rapidly, that does not seem realistic, it would be realistic for a piston-engine, but not for a jet.. :-) And Last thing, Don't forget the sounds!! in this simmulator, listen to how il-sturmovick has made sounds, also modell-airplanes do this, there are different sounds in-front of a airplane compared as to when you are behind the propeller or turbines, add sounds to turbulence, and when you bank the aircraft fast(rumble sounds) and add gear-rumble /flaps/speedbrake-rumble and make it more scary to fly, it seems to easy to fly straight through a thunderstorm with with no problems afterwards, in reallife you would avoid this as much as possible. If possible you could modell better turbulence.. But please don't forget about sound, they are vital in the imersion feeling.. - - - - - - - - - - - -

OK thanks for listening. Please include these features! :-) I'm sure you super-talented guys can pull this off ;-)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Best Regards Rune

While we're on the subject of distributed computing, I would love to have the ability to display other gauge windows using a second computer (GPS, radio stack, overhead panel, throttoe quadrant, ect.). If you exclude exterior views, would this be doable? I've tried doing this using dual monitors on one PC but that hits framerates hard. My rig is a P4 1.5 gig, 1 gig RAM, Nvidia 6800GT.

17.

Nein! No distributed processing for you! (What, you thought I didn't read your blog comments?)

Steve

Once again thanks for expounding on a subject which has been of much interest to Flight Simulator users for some time.

The limit may be wrong, or boosted too high by users aiming to mitigate The Blurries.

Would I be correct in thinking you're referring to TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT here? If that's the case, would you be able to give us a little more information on what the units are and how to come up with a good setting, or should we be sticking to the default?

John

I�m going to guess that by judging by your picture, you�re not in the coveted 16-23 male demographic anyway � so the fact you didn�t �get it� is perfectly fine! :-)

Hehe, I forgot that I'm now an old geezer ;-)

Rune - I'll pass on those ideas. FYI, you should send them to tell_fs@microsoft.com. We really do read it, and it goes directly to quite a few people on the team.

- Steve

John - By default, the texture manager will upload a maximum number of texture's per frame. This is measured in bytes, and the default is the equivalent of three 256x256 textures with mips.

The 'three' comes from a configuration variable you may not be familar with. This is TextureMaxLoad in the DISPLAY section. The default is three.

This value is multiplied by the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT configuration variable and divided by the target framerate only in the case where you have a target framerate set. With 'unlimited', the variable will have no effect. So, you can see that the value is a multiplier, rather than having any specific units.

I agree that this is not ideal, and we're working on it. But this information should hopefully give you more info to tweak to your heart's content ;-)

- Steve

Hi Steve,

i have a question for you... if i fly with fs9 in full screen mode there s a chance of view main window (FS98MAIN) in full screen in one monitor and another window with another view in second monitor but in windowed mode.....???
i had create a fs9 module that manage HWND of FS98CHILD and move resize and close it but it doesnt work for my propose of one view in full screen and one view in windowed mode... i also try to send alt+enter windows message but nothing to do...

do you help me.... or answer at my first question???

thanks Fabio

Steve

It's probably worth clarifying that your aren't referring to TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD in the GRAPHICS section. This appears to determine the maximum loaded resolution of textures such as aircraft textures and is normally set via the Global Max Texture Size slider in FS Display Settings, Hardware.

As far as I can see, you're referring to an entirely different parameter, TextureMaxLoad, which doesn't exist in the default FS9.CFG file, so would have to be added manually (to the DISPLAY section) if anyone wanted to change the default.

Can I ask a couple of things about this:

1. Is TextureMaxLoad specified in bytes or as the number of 256x256 textures with mips. In other words, is the default TextureMaxLoad=3 or is it TextureMaxLoad=131286 (where 131286 = 3 x 43,762 bytes)?
2. Which variable are you saying has no effect with 'unlimited',  TextureMaxLoad or TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT?

One minor detail (presumably) which has always puzzled me is whether there is any significance to the trailing zeros in parameters such as TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000 etc. Do they mean anything, or could they just as well be dropped, e.g. TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.0 ?

John

John - correct, this is a parameter that is not written by default.

1 - Number of 256x256 textures with mips. The default is 3.
2 - TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT.

The trailing zeros should have no effect.

- Steve

Oh I hate you....

I got 'the phone call' Sunday evening at 5pm 'Sorry Sir we don't have enough 360s delivered for you to pick on up on Tuesday'. B****** F****** W******. Still maybe I will do something useful this week instead.

You can come round and look at my 360 if you like ;-)

Steve

Thanks for the clarification. Can I test your patience with a few more questions?

1. Do the texture loading settings you're describing above apply to aircraft/building textures, or terrain textures, or both?
2. What role does LOD_TARGET_FPS (in the GRAPHICS section of FS9.CFG) play?
3. Are there any other settings which influence the way the textures are loaded?

Thanks again for all your help with this.

John

But is your's scratching your game discs? Looks like I'll have to try out our return mechanism - bleh :(

You'd think this wouldn't be such a problem after PS2 had the same problem, as did the original xbox albeit to a much lesser extent.

Oh, and I'm having trouble getting my typekey to validate here for some reason.

Joe - Nope, I've had no problems...

John -

1. They apply to everything.
2. LOD_TARGET_ADJUST is the framerate that the model system attempts to attain by scaling the LODs used when rendering. It really shouldn't affect the blurries or stuttering.
3. That's about it...

- Steve.

Hi Steve!
I have a question for you about limiting frame rate in FS2004. Why, if I limit the fps, I get much more blurries than if I don't limit fps? I have a Ati 9700pro with 128Mb of video RAM.
Best Regards,

Maurizio

Excuse me Steve, I have read a same topic like my own in "blurries" section.

Best Regards,

Maurizio

Nice PRS Steve!

Hi All!
Actually I have a 128Mb video card.
I assume that if I have a 512Mb Video Card I can maximize the TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS parameter in fs9.cfg in order to obtain more sharpen textures in photo sceneries. Can PCI-Express interface optimize the speed of the process that load high definition textures into the simulator?

About Dieter tests: do you think really that P4 HT can speed up the loading of high definition textures? I don't think so.

Best Regards,

Maurizio

Hi Steve!

I'm asking if the hard-disk performances weights to the speed of updating photo scenery textures. It is so?

Best Regards and very compliments!

Maurizio

Maurizio - Yes, hard disk performance will definitely help. It will make the textures available to the system faster, but any processing is still going to be dependant on the amount of time available to process it, and the thoughput of the system as described above.

- Steve

The clarification of these tweaks, and the new areas for tweaking that you've offered are really, really good. Suddenly, what I see in my simulator when I change fs9.cfg makes sense.

Do you have any other "new" variables that we might not know about in fs9.cfg? I'd be really excited if we could tweak the atc or ai in some other ways (for instance - the time-to-disappear value of ai aircraft).

Either way, thanks for a really great insight into FS... It's fantastic to have the MS team openly engaging with us finally!

Cheers,

Bryn @ YBCS

W

T

F

!

I agree with your points. I also want to include that in order to build a successful console, you need to have not only the hardware but the SOFTWARE. I did a lot of research in both the hardware and software development on both consoles. Xbox 360 does take the lead. The PS3 is a NEW platform to develop on, i.e. different from the PS2. The Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360 are virtually the same platform. It's just that the 360 has better hardware and extra features. Software development for the PS3 will take longer because of the learning curve to develop games on it. Where as the 360, it's not much different from the original xbox. I don't work for Xbox either or Microsoft either.

Wow those are awesome. I can see little Kenzie with one of these ;)

Hey if they do curious george next then you guys will be able to "spank" the monkey!



(though I see you guys are not the only spank band http://www.spankband.com/)

Ow. No fun. I did that last year leaping over a baby gate on day 1 of a 9 day ski trip. Went all black and blue the same way.

Luckily, ski boots are like a cast that you remove in the evening before consuming plenty of alcohol (medicinal purposes, of course), so it worked out ok.

Best of luck on the recovery!

And remember - you are allowed painkillers...

Plenty of ice, and keep it raised above the level of your hip, and the swelling should soon go down.

Thanks all. Swelling is going down now, but man is the bruising ugly. Kinda freaky seeing the pooled blood turning the areas around the toe colourful...

Well....you could apply some Leeches for the brusing.

If that dosen't appeal to you you can always fall
back on the medicinal alky suggestion.

Sounds as if you wacked it good and proper..thats
what you get for not working seven days a week.

Get well soon

Denny

Following Tom's advice, I took the painkillers and feel much better. Steve's foot looks much better too.

Nabila

I think the structure is rather simple just how you said it but I would change the colour mix for more readable one.

was it under warranty? are they charging you for the new one? or sending you refurbished one?

Bob -

Not sure if it was still under warranty - I've had it for a while, but they didn't ask.

They aren't charging me for a new one - not sure if it's refurbished...

- Steve.

That's awesome Steve. Congratulations!

That's a good one :)
noblepoker

Thanks for the link!

Worked with the Harmony 880 tech staff for over two hours trying to set up to no avail. Their staff was trying to be helpful but even they admit that the 880 is overwelmingly difficult to set up for many users. The problem is due to firewalls & pop up blockers. Their staff messed up my computer so bad that it took another hour to get it back on line properly! The 880 went back in the box and returned. Sounded like a great idea!

Great post!

I haven't owned an airplane for ten years, but I highly recommend the experience! I decided for sole ownership because it was better than getting yucky rental planes, because of the freedom. And freedom also meant no partners, which end up saving not that much money. However, I have heard of some excellent flying clubs that provide diverse types at significant savings, that sounds attractive.

The story was excellent. I think we fly for the stories as much as anything, sometimes!

word

Sounds like something Hilter or Stalin would do...

(ya I'm not posting my real name, don't need the hate mail lol)

hey i think i got an xbox 360 but its wrapped so could somebody give me the measurements of the box please?

At first i was like, omg even more controls on us in the uk but tbh this has been happening in the uk for years, the whole cctv systems have been drafted in large scale in secret - first they got us used to them and then they just added one here and there in the knowledge that we would not complain as long and people thought it was fighting crime.

You have to remember steve that england is not just england anymore, with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees adding to our already fragile health infrastruture alone. Why do you think most people with the means to do so are moving out of the uk! :)

Did you hear about the unit that they want to bring in a few years time that you actually have to pay for the journey you make on our motorways. Think it was on the register website.

Dont get me started on the uk. We will be here all night!

Yes Steve, we are buggered.

The freedoms of society are best served by a rigorous defense of the freedoms of the individual.

Steve, the US isn't too far behind. WA state is about to embark on an extensive tolling network. Transponders will be available to speed up the process of entering the tolled facilities. This technology will allow "the man" to track motorists on the freeways. Currently the plan is to have this technology optional but car manufacturers are planning to install these transponders in all new vehicles within the next 5 to 8 years. (some already do)

As part of the tolling enforcement strategy, the state will be installing several cameras with license plate recognition software.

On top of that, as I'm sure you know, the state has a very extensive CCTV camera network on the freeways (the cities seattle, bellevue, redmond, lynnwood, etc all do as well). It's not a giant leap for these systems to be upgarded to support AVI (automatic vehicle identification).

Does this mean Flight Sim 200x will be able to have "live road traffic" (link to data like the weather system) so Brit's can do "traffic reports" from their FS Cessna?

Seriously I read the U.K. mag CAR; In the Sept '05 issue they drove a route with using the proposed "per mile charging system" comparing the cost to the current fuel tax. A 70 mile trip would cost �21 vs todays �5. I think that tax income is the real goal for this sort of system...

Karen, it will be very interesting to see how accepting of that technology the people of Washington state will be.

Merry Christmas Steve, You better post some pictures of Julian's face when he first saw the presents :) See you later.

- K

Ahhh, now I know who wrote this: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=11234 - LOL.

Regards

Paul

so where are the pictures?

They're over on my flickr site...

Take a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon if you can, worth it. You'll find Vegas looks just like it does in Flight Sim - see my comparison photo gallery (comment URL links there)

Nice to see the word "envisaged". When I lived in the USA they tried to correct me with "envisioned", I corrected them with "bullshit"!

wow.. I love my new camera, but I'm still super envious of yours.

Press demo of next version of FS too ? !

Hi,

Yes, Jeff Bryant was the original author. You can view the original post a the Beech Aero Club website.

Is it possible that you guys could make a COMBAT add-on for the FS series? We are really missing it bad...

Thanks

Hmm... sounds a bit like the SNL cowbell skit.

Oh well, drag.

I played briefly with some guys in portland filling in for their guitar player (and doing very poorly at that). Turns out his wife had left him.... for another woman! That'll put one in a foul mood I guess.

Anyhoo. hope they come around. Cheers.

Good luck in 2006 Steve, just found your podcast - am moving to Seattle with family in April. Seems a great place to live............funny enough my 12 yr old son has ambitions to become a game developer and loves the fact that Seattle is home to much of the energy behind this.

Good luck.............

Alex - Give us a shout when you get here...

Jesus Christ!! What the hell is 'crissakes'? Is that some sort of English breakfast cake?

Hello Steve,

Great to hear you are getting the full Vegas experience! I believe that I too would have done what you did in the same situation - I can think of many other instances where $50 would get you much less entertainment. At least now you have a bit of experience under your belt for the next time. I wouldn't give up - it seems you just had a streak of luck going that just didn't quite make it this time. You have to always look at it as what you'll do "next time" - it's never good to live in the "what if?" mentality! :-)

Best regards,

Owen

FSX is unreal!

Vista is so-so (ya right, unreal)

FSX is unreal!
Hopefully the fibers will process faster (no blurries)

Vista is so-so (ya right, unreal)

Hi Steve

Finally it is out in the open. FSX is finally announced. Now the 5 or 6 month (anticipation) wait is ahead of us.

When will we know more?
- More intellegent AI and ATC?
- FMC in the Jet Liners?
- Rubber means grip!!!
- I see birds on the screenshots!
- The enviroment looks stunning, great job!

Cheers

Jaco Smit

I think you mean "off suit"

Hi Steve,

Very sorry to hear of your sudden illness - hopefully you'll be able to get that past you quick and enjoy the show for the remaining days, at least until you leave there. Yes, I caught the live webcast - it was quite nice, though I don't know what to think of flying in FS by using an Xbox 360 controller! That makes one think it is a game - it's a sim!!! :-)

Best regards,

Owen

Steve,

I agree to a point, but a language serves as the vehicle for getting the lay of the land vis-a-vis programming. What I like about C# is that we can play with a Java-like language that allows direct memory management. Joel can be really negative sometimes.

Hi Steve,

Initial reactions...

The graphics engine looks very improved! The water looks amazing. Also glad to see some more models.

However, the screenshots left me with something to be desired. If FSX watermarks weren't on it I would've thought some of the shots were from FS9 with many of today's addon's installed. I also noticed that the front gear is missing on the 747 shot. What I'm trying to say is that these shots almost looked a tad premature.

Most of all, I'm waiting to see how much stuff from FS9/FS8 will work in FS10, especially my beloved AI traffic! I'l also like to see how XML scenery design has evolved, as right now I still prefer to use SCASM for some things.

Just my 2 cents...

Cheers,

Dan

Dan,
If FSX's only improvements were that it looked like FS9 with addons, then I'd say it was still a good deal. As one who hasn't yet invested in replacement textures like BEV and things like UT:USA, I'm VERY excited of what FSX will ship with, right out of the box. Now imagine what it will be like when the 3rd party developers get their hands on it. The developer of BEV has already said that he's considering stopping development on the rest of the FS9 BEV releases, and starting on FSX, since, based on some inside info that he wouldn't expand on, he expects FSX to make the current iteration of BEV obsolete right out of the box.

Change is coming, whether people want it to or not. People bemoaned that FS9 was just a prettied up FS2002, after the first FS9 screenshots were released. Not suprising seeing that the same thing is playing out now.

We have been having a discussion about this in the FSX forum at SOH and appreciate the explaination. The community is awaiting any news about FSX and looking forward to the release later this year.

Thanks for sharing with us!

Canelo_Kid
http://www.sim-outhouse.com

Very good comments J.C. - I do see your points but I still think MS should've waited a bit until we see something a bit more substantail. I was hoping for an initial "wow" factor. Anyways, I was given a link to a thread on AVSIM comparing the two and I must say FS10 is quite improved!

Anyways, I just remembered something I forgot to say last night. I noticed that FSPLANET got some exclusive shots (including one with traffic!). Persoanlly, I really don't like the idea of giving exclusive files to a site that has been know for taking freeware work and hosting it without the author's permission.

Well, they got the "wow" from me, many people on simulation forums are claiming that those screenshots show just an upgraded FS9... I don�t know, maybe MS shipped a different FS here in Spain because my FS9 doesn�t have those astonishing graphics.

Seriously, the graphics are great, far beyond FS9. If all the game is going to be upgraded to the same level this FS could surpass my dreams. I�m really looking forward for news, can�t wait to hear about new features, new screenshots, etc, they make me dream!

Hat�s off and keep up the good work

Well, they got the "wow" from me, many people on simulation forums are claiming that those screenshots show just an upgraded FS9... I don�t know, maybe MS shipped a different FS here in Spain because my FS9 doesn�t have those astonishing graphics.

Seriously, the graphics are great, far beyond FS9. If all the game is going to be upgraded to the same level this FS could surpass my dreams. I�m really looking forward for news, can�t wait to hear about new features, new screenshots, etc, they make me dream!

Hat�s off and keep up the good work

It's not called "Lost Wages" for nothin', Steve. Get well, and the new sim looks great.

A car with a waterfall, eh? Was Xzibit nearby, perhaps? :P

Thanks Greg!

[sarcasm]
I, for one, will be very dissatisfied if there's not a flapping fish tail flailing out the side of the pelican's pouch! Surely you guys can understand the fundamental importance of realism in a sim of this type. After these many years I hope the team has finally come to understand that this product will never quite hit the mark until it satisfies ALL MY needs!
[/sarcasm]

Doug :)

YEESSSS.....YOU KNOW WHAT???? ONE QUESTION ...DID YOU DO ANYTHING WITH FLIGHT MODEL ??? THIS IS REALISM NOT YOUR`S BIRDS ....WHAT FOR BIRDS WITHOUT INTERACTION WITH PLANES..(ANY BIRDSSTRIKE?? NOT ).TDRAGGER TOLD THAT THIS IS ONLY EYE CANDY...

Well said Steve !

I don't care about the gauge update thing that every x-plane fan talks about... That's not going to decide whether I'll buy the new version or not, I love your product, whatever you put in it, I know it's going to rock !

(Loved the first shaders I saw Steve, nice job on the window reflection effect on the windshield of the cessna!)

Keep it up !
Matthieu

Hi ,

Steve and all dev team working hard for me you and all simm.... and i agree with post of Steve that "Search Realism and immersion" and if i can give you my opinion Realism and immersion there was there is and there will... and bird and other things (ex sea waves ) add more and more and more realism and immersion... REMEMBER that are small things that make this product better than other (X-WHAT?!?)

Bye Ciao

Fabio

Hey Steve, I'm pretty much embarrassed when I read about half the posts on Avsim and Flightsim.com. I can't understand why so many people are so quick to shred the developers of their favourite sim / hobby / (and in some cases) life?!! It just irritates the heck out of me. It's so obvious to the rest of us how hard you guys are working. Each rendition of FS has brought so much to all of us and I speak for all the nay-saying whiners too!
By the way if you ever want to grab a pint in Freemont, let me know! I live in Ballard and stem from the isles of UK (and am not - in the words of Tom Allensworth - 'limp wristed' - which is cool if I was!)

Keep up the excellent work, I'm really excited about FSX...

Shane

Hi Steve,

I wondered how you guys would handle the fact that a vocal 1% of the community was not considering the big picture, IMHO. Despite the overwhelmingly positive comments, I too would be irked by being judged and dismissed based on a tiny fraction of the product nearly a year before release. I think you can be assured that the vast majority of folks will appreciate the level of immersion FSX will bring.

And I appreciate the team engaging with the community as you are, and risking the inevitable pot-shots. Thank you.

Jon

You know what? I do like birds in the sim, and eye candy stuff!! I would love to find deers, cows, etc. I can�t understand why those things would be a bad idea, really, there are a lot of people in the forums pretending to be guardians of the sim purity, but give them a great sim with FS 1.0 graphics and no one would buy it. Bunch of hypocrites

Steve, I really appreciate the way you are interacting with the community, for me the best feature of FS X is how the developers speak openly about the sim, please don�t take seriously certain people.

When I viewed the interviews of Mike and Chris on Gamespot and saw the splashing in the background video [fish/dolphins/birds?] my thoughts at the time were it would be cool to make some pelicans.... well you've beaten me to the punch LOL... cool.

All these little details add greatly to immersion whioh adds greatly to game/simulation experience. In that sense it's time well spent.

I think some FS users don't understand that FS has to appeal to a broad audience and that not everyone wants to fly a Boeing 737 or 777 [though I do occasionally enjoy the challenge]. Many people like flying low and slow; helicopters, bush flying, vintage etc.

I'm looking forward to exploring Amazonia in FSX in the Grumman or Beaver. Virtual toucans?

Great stuff guys! Looking forward to the new shaders too ;)

Steve,

Shane, Jon, and Jorge have got it right. Instead of looking at your hard work and saying "Damn, thats cool...I've seen that in a sim before." people want to bash and flame. Its unbelievable.

I can only speak for myself, though I'm positive that I'm part of the (mostly) silent majority when I say: great job! I love the look and feel of FSX, and I love the new "open door" policy that you and the team have adopted.

I only hope that the immaturity of the vocal minority doesn't prevent you guys from continuing to interact with the community.

Thanks for sharing with us, Steve. Keep up the excellent work!

Nick

Steve, I share Nicks sentiments as well, please don't let the small minority of whiners get to you. A more dynamic, immersive world is the one thing I was hoping for in the next version and it looks like I won't be dissapointed. Thanks for all the hard work and for sharing info like this, it's appreciated!

BTW any chance for flamingos? ;-)

Michael

Good morning Steve,

(well, to me it is, you're still happily dreaming of anything-but-FS I would hope).

Read your post and you know what? It is taken from my heart ! I have often wondered what you guys must feel with so many (vocal) people falling over anything you do, instead of being in awe of what has been achieved in the past 20 years. AND with every new itteration of FS,for that matter.

I am glad to see you feel exactly the same as I do.... and countless happy simmers with me.

As you will no doubt know, there are a few distinct type of FS buyers (oh yeah, they ALL buy it!!!! ):

1. the vast majority of average PC owners who buythis game becasue it is a nice box, is about aircraft, is from MS and looks to be interesting. You NEVER hear about them, and I wonder how many of those boxes are gathering dust on a shelf.

2. a large group of fanatics who are with YOU all the way, using FS on a daily basis, crowding forums, making freeware, making commercial add-ons.... and most of the time too busy enjoying the product than to bash anybody.

3. a small but extremely vocal group of people with many chips on their shoulders, leaving no stone unturned of criticizing 'anything FS' (that includes you, MS, me and just about every other developer in the Universe). You find this specimen on specific forums and they seem to have more time for complaining than for simming.

4. the largest group: people who have never heard of Flight Simulator, or heard of it but haveno idea if it is for them or not.

Now.... personally.... as a commercial publisher, BUT also as an FS and aviation enthusiast, I focus on group 1 and 4.... 'we' need to get them IN ON IT !!
And I respect group 3 to no end... these are like-minded people.

I try VERY hard to IGNORE group 3, but must admit I am not always 100% successful..... . It is a bit like sitting in an economy seat, transatlantic flight, with a kid behind you who kicks your too-small and already-upright seat with 10 second intervals. You humor him from Amsterdam till Greenland, then he falls asleep when the icebergs come into sight...... but when he starts kicking agin over Goose Bay... something might snap !! ;-)

Now.... as to your Pelicans !!! Allow me to rant: I WANT MOOSE AND CARIBOU !!! Who cares about birds !!!! :-))))))

Seriously...... keep up the good work and please, keep up the good humor. It is what kept ME going for 53 years... and a few to come. Nothing beats it ! ;-)

Warm regards from Europe,
Francois

Thanks all!

Maybe I came off sounding a bit down or something - that wasn't my intent. I just needed to vent a little at the "I need to say something controversial just to be heard" crowd.

Maybe that's why I don't work in PR :-)

Oh and Francois, I'll ping Jason about the Moose and Caribou in the morning...

Cheers.

Steve;

I think the birds,fish,and animals are a great
idea.

But I must confess my main question is, have you
as yet any models of the "Mustang Ranch" or the
"Cherry Patch" in Nevada. These would be of great
intrest to lots of simmers if some of the local
fauna could be seen whilst sunbathing in the buff.
LOL. Not to mention thier historical significance.

I might explain to the unenlightned that both
places are brothels. It seems that Nevada is the
only place here in the states that legally permits activities of such a recreational nature.

So instead of Pelicans....welll you know.[grin]

Denny aka deltanovember

I appreciate any new effort being placed into MSFS as I enjoy it immensely as a part of my life and have done so since the 80s. The visual realism is a part of the suspension of disbelief and is almost a defacto requirement if the product is to remain competitive and viable.

While I know the slim margin of "expert" simmers (those of us who are spending 100s and 1000s of $ per year on enhancements) would never sustain this product I also know that this crowd drives and inspires new innovations in subsequent versions. Therefore, while there is a kind way to express the sentiment, it is not unreasonable to hope for improvement in technical areas that only have meaning to the tiniest fraction of users. Whereas the casual user loads the sim up a few times, checks out the "WOW" and perhaps TRIES to learn to fly, the "hard core" are using the product to the nth degree ( I am certain this is also the case with MS Office).

Steve, who on the team is closest to the flight modeling and such? Might we also hear from them?

J-

Steve,

I've been out of bands for 9 years now and miss it from time to time (thank God for the DAW/Home recording "revolution"). However, when I read stories like this, sometimes I don't think I'm missing much.

Happy trails...

Hey Steve,

Your comments are very well-said - I agree that the FS community is quick to tear things to shreds!

I'm also going to take back my comments about how FSX looks like FS9 with addons after seeing many more of the shots on the various FS sites. I'm really excited about this new version!

Dan

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I love the idea of animals roaming around and the otther new dynamic elements that are going to be featured in FSX.

I love the idea of animals roaming around and the otther new dynamic elements that are going to be featured in FSX.

Ha! Classic... I started that video with my wife looking over from the other side of the room.

I heard a "hummmmmmm...., so true" whispered...

I am extremely excited to see that the visual environment seems to have undergone a much-needed overhaul in Flight Simulator.

I cannot wait to install it on my computer, but I do stress that from the looks of it, the virtual cockpit of the default Bell JetRanger looks like it is the same one from Flight Simulator '04. Please, if you could, update it. It is grossly inaccurate in terms of the chin bubbles and instrument panel's overall shape.

Oh, and for us who like to make water landings in helicopters, please include a default Bell JetRanger package with floats! It is an oft-missed feature. Same goes for the standard, how about a wire-strike kit?

Anywho.. I digress. You guys keep breaking the mold otherwise. Keep up the good work!

I do agree that poker is fun. Unlike other games, I am more comfortable with the payout and the betting scheme. Likely, I will try and improve my skills. Las week, I saw a big time tournament and it really rocked. Thanks for this post and may you have fruitful poker career ahead of you.

Hi

Why is it then that in the morning i put milk on my cereal and it alledgedly maes me feel more alert? Carbs in the cereal verses the sleepy cow juice!

Thanks for blogging about FeedDemon 2.0, Steve! FeedDemon stores its attention data in the same OPML file that contains your subscriptions.

Neil is British??? Man, if I'd known that I would have thought twice about having him on the show! When are YOU coming on the show Steve? Isn't it about time? Email me and let's set up a time.

hey top
me been looking for a good one aswell
will check out (:

Cam - I'd love to! Will drop you an email.

Now THIS could definitely work....... looks great for those 747's and 777's..... bit too complicated for us ol' bush pilots though .

Mike thinks the Xbox controller works well to fly a 777 with..... I think the main problem with that is, that in future each and every passenger will be handed one on long flights. Which then bags the question: who's in control here !!!!???

Francois

Oh, goody, brilliant idea! I bought my Pumpy DDR pad in Korea a few years ago and I can see it has a new life ahead when combined with the still-unannounced but much anticipated FSX MP3 module.

This looks like a great feature, but for the life of me I can't get the thumbnails to appear when I view my Flickr atom feed in FeedDemon 2.0 Beta 1.

I installed into a different folder to where 1.6 was installed, so I only have the four default styles - is this something to do with it?

LOL! Now, that's taking things *too* far, Steve! Did you say it's free?? hmmmm...

Owen

Steve,

I am currently using Thunderbird 1.5 for my mail, news, and RSS. How do these other programs differ from Thunderbird and what is better and what is worse about them when comapred to Thunderbird?

I, too, am always on the lookout for a better RSS feed. After all, I get double RSS postings (or more) for several of the MSFS Dev Team blogs.

Thanks,

Chris
(to email me, just remove ".example" from my email address--Thanks spammers for making me resort to these tricks)

David - I subscribe to the RSS feeds rather than the atom feeds. That might be it.

Chris - It's really because the app is geared towards syndicated content rather than email style content. Give it a go and see for yourself ;-)

btw, I don't publish the email address...

SLI in this context stands for `Scalable Link Interface'. http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_faq.html

That sounds like a marketing name change to me...

I used to love my old Voodoo 2's.....

I bought an SLI system, knowing it wouldn't give me a boost in SLI mode, but because it provided an easy way in non-SLI mode to run 4 monitors from 1 computer with 3D views on each monitor. Was there a cheaper way to do so?

PS I love having you guys eavesdrop on AVSIM threads! Thanks for all the time you invest in the Blogs.

Steve,

By making the statement "Of course, we may do some interesting things that make it hard for SLI to work effectively, but hey, we shipped first. Hehe." are you implying that there are things that can be done with FSX code to make it more compatible with SLI? I don't really have a dog in this fight and don't fully understand all the details anyway, but when I read your post the question seemed obvious to me :)

Thanks!

Doug

Doug, I wouldn't read too much into Steve's comment. There are just some things about FS that prevent it from being a good candidate for SLI performance. Is tere something we could do? Sure: turn into a fixed, level-based game.

Gotcha Mike... appreciate the clarification!

When I first read about the animals bit it raised a lot of questions in me...NOT 'why are they wasting time on that' but wow!

'will you be able to hear them'? (from a glider)
'will they react to the noise of my plane'? (NOT a glider ;-) )
'will birds follow their RW migration routes'?
etc.

In other words: spend all the time you want on the creature feature...

Best,
Martijn

Steve, I agree with all the other posters, its great to see animals in FSX.. Its also great there are traffic on the roads. But are you guys going to develop trains in FSX? Maybe you can reuse some of the models from that other project ?

Jeff.

Thanks for posting this, Steve. I ran into the very same problem while debugging Flight Sim this afternoon, and your blog entry probably saved me a bunch of time. (I happened to Google for "SetFocus doesn't" and found your page as the first result.)

Good luck for you new projects Steve and thank you for all you did for us !

Matt

All the best at the new start up and thanks for all the work. But are you really sure about this???

Hi Steve,

having started my own company (at 52 years of age, wouldn't ya know !!??) last July, after having spent 20 years with one company, I can only share your excitement and cheer you on !

AND wish you LOTS of luck, success and above all SATISFACTION in wjatever you will do !

Kind regards,
Francois

Steve

Best of luck with your future endeavours, whatever they may be.

The irony of this is that without your success in convincing the Flight Simulator team of the benefits of blogging, we probably wouldn't have known that you'd left.

Anyway, best wishes. Will stay tuned in here, as I'm sure will many others.

John

Best wishes, Steve - thanks for all that you have done for the MS FS franchise!!

Best,

Owen

Steve,
I never write on the internet but this is one of the few times I will break that rule. I just wanted to say thank you for all the work and effort you put into my favorite hobby. Also, thanks for getting this blogging thing started with the MSFT. We now have new insights into the sim like never before. Best of luck at whatever you plan to do...

Marc

Steve,

If its in your heart then go do it :)

Never met you, but read a lot of your bloggs and even watched that video shot around the FS development studio. I remember thinking "How do you cope working with them goddam Americans"

Now your going, what secrets can you share on FSX? heheh.

All the best for the future

Ian

Aw........Steve steve steve.
I was kinda happy that a fellow brit was in charge of my favourite pastime. But.. having followed the same path to the US and changing venues myself a couple of times...I understand totally and ... well lets leave it at that, stiff upper lip what? lol.

Best wishes ol man, eat a madras for me and a pint of Boddintons, or Theakston or..whatever...

Searcher http://qst101.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all your work on fsim,it inspired me to get a PPL and I still love fsim more as virtual gas in england is a hell of a lot cheaper,looking forward to FSX and your future blogs even though it will not be insider! or is this a cover!!! Lol

Best wishes with your new endeavour Steve. Thanks for your contribution to FS and also the insights you have provided in your blog. I don't what your new venture is but hope it still involves 3D and computer games.

I'll continue to follow your endeavours via your blog.

cheers

Rob

all the best steve!

we never met but have worked in the same 'field' for years...

and yes, i know how 'starting up' is exciting!



best wishes!

Thank you for all you have done to make Microsoft Flight Simulator what it is today and what it will become in the future. You have a gift and we are fortunate that you shared it with the world! Good luck in whatever you do going forward...God Speed...

Wow - Thanks all!

love ya

You think Radio Daddy is cool? Then you haven't heard anything yet! Try www.theworldwideradioweb.com and see what you think! They are the ORIGINAL group of Voice Over Pros who RD wishes they could be! They are just back under a new name and taking advantage of the world wide radio web!

Free Voice Overs, Voice Over Talent, and More at www.theworldwideradioweb.com!

I'm going to drop a funny bomb here.

I am the person who wrote the inflammatory comment cited in this blog.

It was a piece of sarcasm, a bit of poking at the ultra realist crowd at that site.

They know me there, and they know what I was doing.

They also know what I've said many times - the beauty of FS is that they've always made it downscaleable - I've yet to see a version that couldn't be made to run great AND with a decent experience...

The same cannot be said for many, many game/sim titles...

Mr. Steve - I'm sorry that you caught my words out of context. While to SOME degree I guess it could be said I'm aligned with that "purist crowd" I've never thought FS or it's team were in any way bad.

Why do I bother to say this? Because I'd sure hate to be even one piece of discouragement to the people who build FS. Simple as that.

A clearing house for random bits of outsourcing a new company might need. It seems that most of the pointers to the services Scoble mentions would be part of the rolodex that partially drives the why/which VC you partner with. Maybe there are some things that currently aren't being leveraged (user communities) - but it seems like most should be.

But then again, I'm a n0ob as well.

One thing I can almost certainly bet on - these VC's likely don't want teams of their own employees doing most of this stuff.

I can certainly agree, though, that it seems the nature of the game has shifted from providing capital for atoms to providing contacts and relationships.

Steve,

You might swing by BFI and drop a sticky note on Paul's plane, if it's not in DTW right now. LOL

You might want to know that it looks good in Opera, too (apart from a few glitches around the borders where the background 'shines' through). That's another 'base' covered, I think.

Btw, I like the new design - nice colors and clear layout.

All the best for your startup.

So, will I get performance increase in FS9 if I get a second 6600GT and put them on SLI mode? I remember having read that I would get none. I am talking about single monitor, of course...

As both an angel investor (see my blog entry "On Being an Angel" http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2006/01/on_being_an_ang.html ) and a game developer (founder of Skotos http://www.skotos.net ) I have some perspectives the differences between a developer/publisher model and how ventures are funded.

The key to the developer/publisher model was that the developers at some point could walk away. Not dissimilar to a movie production, once the project was complete minimal support was required, and most of the team members to move on to another game (or movie).

However, in recent years most people believe that the developer/publisher model is breaking down. Some of this has to do with the cost of development rising, but a lot has to do with the ongoing support costs of things like online gaming, co-branded products, add-ons, sequels, cross-platform releases, etc.

Where the developer/publisher model has probably failed the most in the game industry is in the MMPORPG area, where the ongoing support team costs almost as much on a monthly basis as it did while the game was being developed.

To compare this to Web 2.0, when the technology does require a lot of support, a developer/publisher model might work. However, Web 2.0 is evolving every day. New releases of IE, Mozilla, new techniques, new systems to integrate with, etc. This means that the team really can't walk away and do another project, they have to stay around and keep the project rolling.

Hi Christopher - thanks for commenting - I actually subscribe to your rss feed so have already read your post :-)

Anyhow, yes, the MMO space is comparable to Web 2.0, although MMOs are comparably few and far between and are normally generated by the publishers in the first place with the IP owned and generated by them. The development, if not developed internally, is generally work for hire and appears to follow the traditional game publisher/developer model.

As far as tech startups that are not exclusively in the Web-only space - i.e. they are developing client-based software, the potential for non "own a large piece of the company" funding seems very lacking. Admittedly, this sounds a bit like wanting your cake and eating it too, but it seems like there is an opening here for a similar publisher/developer model.

Also, assuming even the Web 2.0 product is successfull, could it not move into a grow/revise/update/support phase whilst (assuming intellectual bandwidth and fiscal resources are available) the company grows and invests in more opportunities? I.e. team becomes teams.

It seems like acquisition/ipo is expected as soon as success with product one occurs.

I'm not saying this is bad and is indeed the desirable outcome from an investor's and most founder's standpoint. I'm just wondering if there is another path well trodden that I'm missing.

Of course, there's always self-funding :-)

Cheers!

Hi Steve

Good luck with your future ventures. It was nice to have "a contact" on the inside at MS Flight Sim. From all the known & unknown people flying virtually around the world, thanx for a your work at Flight Sim, I really can't wait to rush into my local computer shop and buy my copy of FSX. And from all gamers worldwide, thanx for your contribution to DirectX.

I'll keep reading your blog...

Cheers from South Africa

Jaco Smit

A long time ago (1988?), when I was briefly an executive producer at Broderbund, I tried to get them to take a more venture development oriented approach. At the time they either had internally developed products (PrintShop, Carmen Sandiego), or developer submitted products (Prince of Persia). They were just starting to experimenting with more hands off distribution where they didn't do marketing but did do distribution (Sim City, Myst).

I tried to persuade them that they should take an equity interest in the later, as otherwise the successes would go independent. And that is exactly what happened -- who today thinks of Broderbund when you think of Myst or Sim City?

(a side note: I was actually at the meeting where they decided not to pick up Sim City as it "wasn't a game". I was totally hooked on the beta, but wasn't able to persuade them otherwise.)

Interesting. Almost no publishers take an equity interest these days AFAIK. The key issue is control of IP, whether it's via the deal struck or outright acquisition.

Sim City is a case in point, with EA owning Maxis. Mind you, a case could be made that the actual IP involved is Will Wright's creative mind...

Hey Steve. I am sure that you are doing the right thing. Remember, now you have an entire community behind you ;)

To paraphrase Mel Brooks:

"its very quiet when your dead. When your alive you should concentrate on making as much noise as you can. Run around, scream, jump up and down like a chicken, let people know you are there..."

We need to hear you screaming in the future...screaming at the success of the new venture, or at the problems you encounter...either way...you are here to make as MUCH noise as possible because you can...

Good luck Steve...Ive opened two bottles of Boddingtons, sad for you I have to drink them both, but the offer was there.

Blackpool Gary in Florida with best wishes for you.

Steve, great blog 'n' podcasts...


from another 'Brit in Savannah, GA' (a Geordie, who moved to the US in 97)...

Its time to move on in life. (Im going thought the same changes too)



In the words of Dave Lee Roth... "its eat em and smile time!"



Cheers and good luck mate



Scotty

Hey Steve, great idea. Except, I work in marketing... lol

Regards

Paul

I have no idea what your new 'thing' is.

But I wish you the very best of British luck.

Great video!

Thanks for sharing!

Great video, thanks for the link!

Good Luck to you Steve! - i emailed you.

Nice active blog you have. You have some great reading here.

Steve,

Thank you VERY much for that link!!!! The owner of the website, Kent Wien, is the grandson of the legendary pioneer of Alaskan aviation, Noel Wien. I've read quite a bit about the history of Alaskan aviation, mostly through biographies of those pioneering pilots, and thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the adventures they've had.

Chris

Thanks for the post. We put everything we have into our music. We play our guts out every chance we have. It means a lot to us to hear that people are beginning to take notice. Thanks again and please support local music!!!! Peace and Blessings from THE MOB LAW

This is an interesting quote. Hahah!

Also, I had the pleasure of attending one of his lectures on entrepreneurship and loved it. Read more about it here:
http://e-bizz.blogspot.com/2006/02/10-steps-of-entrepreneurship-guy.html

Let me know what you think!

Christopher Salazar

Steve, you are always welcome mate! It was great to finally have you on the show! If you ever see me on Skype in the middle of my day, and you're up to being on the show, ping me!

I won't dispute that NS-10s are "highly regarded," but only as a bog standard for flat and lifeless reference sounds which are proxy for sounding great on various consumer systems. Some mackie monitors would likely put a newbie in better stead.

Wow, cool video. Scousers rule!

That video so takes me back to the days I mucked about with CBs, at School and going out with Girls from school!

great stuff fella.

Geoff

Ask the ZChick sometime about being on the other end of the 'service' industry and dealing with parents. Based on our small experiment I would say that 75% of the people are very good about paying on time, cancelling with appropriate notice and doing so on an infrequent basis. The other 25% try to see how far they can push the system. So those 25% don't even have any moral issues with the system and yes it sucks that you have to penalize everyone for the sake of the few but isn't that the case with just about everything these days. So you have to try and find a solution. You create a late fee, you make a policy that 24 hours cancellation is required for a makeup lesson. But the interesting twist for the ZChick is if you are one of the 75% tht are good parents then she's happy to stretch the policies on occasion.

And like I used to tell my employees when they bitched about the MS review system - if you don't like it make sure you suggest a better solution instead of just complaining. I can't think of a better solution to this one other than the disincentive. At least the poor teacher who has to stay late gets a few extra $$$

Which makes me think, maybe the book failed to mention that whilst late pickups increased teacher satisfaction increased too becuase instead of them working extra hours for nothing, now one teacher can volunteer to be the late person and make a bit more money.

My day care center charged a 25 dollar late fee and it feels somewhat degrading to be late to pick up your child. Not only do you feel bad for making your kid wait (in my case a one year old), you then pay a fine for being late on top of the exuberant amount of the normal weekly fee. It felt horrible to see my daughter the only neglected child in the toddler room nearly everday, then if traffic was really awful to have 25 bucks tacked on to remind you how awful a parent I am.

My resolution to the problem was to convince my employer to allow me to work from home. I had a 2 hour commute to work and a 2 hour commute home so not only have I eliminated the stress of this commute, but killed the weekly payment to daycare, begun to develop a bond with my daughter and seen her gain weight from not being sick everyday (since leaving daycare she has not been sick once in nearly 4 months now).

Sorry for the rambling but daycare was a poor experience for me, having restarted my life after a divorce 2 years ago and having another kid (6 between myself and my new wife) it is very enlightening to be a father and stay home with a 1 1/2 year old.

Ian.

Good for you Ian for finding an employer that allows telecommuting, I have a half hour commute and I find that too much.

About the daycare... when we enrolled our son I had read that there we're late fees and I was fine with that. I think that the teachers should get some overtime for staying later.

The problem was that our daycare didn't enforce it and is now trying impose this on now. Who knows whether the fees will be passed onto the staff. I'm sure some of the teaching assistants wouldn't mind the extra income. Esp when some of the assistants have 2nd jobs, and take up babysitting jobs to supplement their incomes.

Oi Andy, you know my thoughts about the MS bell-end curve ;)

See Ya.
Nabila

Ooops. I put up the private RSS link by mistake. Here is where you can see 6 of the blogs that I author about various podcasting aspects.

http://blog.podblaze.com

Enjoy
Rodney rumford

Its a great console the xbox 360

i only wish i could get my hands on them.
they have sold out everywere.

Nice job with the logo. Can't wait to see what the gears churn out.
Are we looking for games or utilities?

"The price per shirt is �150 [roughly $260 USD]."
OUCH.....

I agree it would very very cool to have a suit made to fit... after spending that much you would certainly be too scared to *ever* overeat and put on weight.

Jaco -

I'm taking a break from games for a while. The thing we're working on is actually something that I want very much, and I believe a lot of other people want, but don't yet realise :-)

Cheers.

And too scared to undereat and loose weight...

Maybe that's a good thing :-)

mate that show was our #1 episode for the month! you must have lots of fans. When are you coming back on?

Sweet!

I'll email you to set up a time.

Looks nice Jason !
Also curious to see what you guys will be churning out ;-)

Good luck as always,

Francois

http://www.keynoise.com/stuff/switchgear.jpg



This is how it will look like through a good old Fax machine. But taking care of that is an old logo designer's idea ... looong before the 2.0 bubble ;)



Good luck !

You gonna get a haircut too?

Happy Birthday in advance, and of course we expect to see a picture of the englishman in a suit.

Thanks Xavier!

Note to self - generate B&W version for fax usage...

UKnowWho - I doubt it :-)

Jurgen - Thanks!

So that's what life with quintuplets would be like. ha ha ha.

Yeah! I showed Julian the picture and he loved counting himself!

Nice job on the logo. Out of curiousity, which LogoWorks package did you go with?

Sorry our paths didn't cross at the secrets of ESIF event. Perhaps you'll be at Essentials of Angel Financing later this month?

Hans - Yup, I'll be there. See you then.

Hans - We went with the Gold package at $399. We just needed a logo - stationary isn't important right now.

But we did want the option of unlimited revisions, and six initial concepts seemed like enough.

One thing to watch out for was that was you move forward with one initial concept, the others become unavailable. It would have been nice to have referred back to the original ones, but not a huge issue.

I'm sure if it was an issue we could have called, but we ended up iterating entirely through their website.

All in all, highly recommended.

I've attended ESIF every year since 2000. As an angel investor, I've found it to be a useful day -- helpful in identifying possible new investments. I've invested in several ESIF-presenting companies over the years. I look forward to seeing you present there.

Hi Ken,

Even though I'd really like to, we're not actually planning on presenting at ESIF. It's just a little too soon for us to go public.

Having said that, we're really happy to talk to potential investors in private.

It all sounds so stealthy to me.

Congrats.

There's much more to SEO than meta-tags (which are said to be dead anyway). Com'on STEVE, snap out of the 90's :-). However, since you've used "Stephen" on the main blog page now (oops, there it was again), you are actually ranking high for Stephen Lacey (without quotes), but still low for "Stephen Lacey" (with quotes). That is probably because you used "Stephen" several times on the page, but the combination "Stephen Lacey" (as in the meta-tags) is still not valued high enough.

Search Engines (Google especially) do not fall for meta-tag spam. Use good content and you'll reach your goal :-). Make sure you have "Stephen Lacey" as the title for all your pages as a starter and lay lots of links with "Stephen Lacey" as the anchor text, there are many things you could do; if you are interested, read up on the "Search Engine Ranking Factors": http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php and read their fine "beginners guide": http://www.seomoz.org/beginners.php

But then again, do you really think your mother will check Google to see if you rank for your name? Just give her some flowers every now and then and visit her more often, then she'll be just as happy!

Who did your SwitchGear site? A little lacking ain't it? Or is that part of the whole "stealth" thingy?

I put the site together.

The purpose of the site right now is as a contact point for people who hear about us and want to get in touch. As we have no information to talk about publicly yet, there's no point filling it up with fluff.

The site seems to solve it's purpose fine:

• Announce that we're here.
• Let interested people/potential investors get in contact with us.
• Let people sign up give us a contact address so we can let them know when we've got more information to share.

Sounds like it's serving it's purpose to me and not really lacking at all.

Would you prefer a nice expensive flash site that basically did the same thing but cost us a bunch of money that we really don't need to spend? :-)

>What do you think?

Automotive springs, software controlled, running on Windows CE!

Now the secret is over!
:)

-Emerson

I really enjoy reading your articles. Keep up the great work.
TBoardenson

...let alone time to podcast!

Little different when there's no one to count on for a paycheck but YOU, I guess.

Speaking of post topics, did you ever settle on a podcatcher app or are you still using your own? I'm looking for something that I can accumulate vidcasts to my MCE pc.

Tell me about it. I haven't had a chance to put a podcast together since late November...

As far as podcatchers go, I'm currently using Juice (nee iPodder Lemon) as development on Katana slowed down and Juice caught up to what I needed.

But I'm thinking of switching to FeedStation as I'm currently using FeedDemon as an RSS aggregator and the two play really nicely together...

DnA test is interesting....have taken a few of the old style tests before....it remarkable how accurate they tend to be...
http://personaldna.com/report.php?k=vxoFIvyCJatlQcc-OJ-DCCAD-0f5a&u=8740bf965ede

OMG those pictures are wonderful. Steve, you should start a side-business. You have darling models though too - so that helps! Where's the pics of Dad?!

..uh...you know that you should be able to set the camera's file naming convention to something a little more representative? could save a little time.
As well, you know you can record a script in PS that can batch process(size/crop/filters/etc.) all the images, right?

OR, since you still have the originals on the cam, just batch process/rename all of the copies at the same time using the same fancy script.....

Darwin, I like have a different filename root for each set of photos. Doing a batch rename in bridge is quick and a lot less fiddly than trying to do change the name in the camera...

As for a script in PS, I do that for colorspace covert/save, but the crop and the sharpening is different for each picture.

But you're right - I should have pointed out that I have scripts in PS to help out...

I like you idea the the best of VC.

Drop me a note and let me know who and what you would include.

Awesome pictures!! Crystal clear. I have a Nikon F100 with a 80-200 mm (f2.8) and a 35-70mm (f2.8) lens.
I spent 300 bucks on film for my trip to Edwards AFB in October 05. Crazy! So I am saving for the D200. In the meantime I am simply jealous. :)
Have fun with your D200 and upload more pics..

I'll be there :)

I hope I'll be able to grab passes to these two conferences ...

Will FSX look the same?

Jim - you'll have to ask Jason :-)

That's a really sweet picture. Nicely done.

A few years back I saw a 3D Imax movie where they acheived a similar effect by varying the distance between the two cameras filming the scene. The resulting convergance point/focal point made it feel like it was just a few inches in front of your eyes. They followed a toy boat going down a river, zoomed in, and they you saw that there were real people in the boat and it really screwed with your head. heh heh.

Jason has gone AWOL ;)

Interesting to see Yahoo at the free stuff. I've been introducing myself to the prototype library and have found it pretty solid and very versatile, saved me lots of js coding and handles AJAX calls very well - AJAX is fun, but overused in a few places these days. I'm building an app for Jen with similar UI capability as your memeflow (click text to change a text item to an input, etc.), though can I find any resources about it..? ;)

Damn!!!
That's tight
How much did it cost 2 bild

Funny thing is... there's a bit of a resemblance (glasses, cheekbones). :-)

Congrats - so when is the office warming party?

We'll be having one - don't worry :-)

Man, do I love that Connections series. Do you have any idea the price they try to get for them online? $150 for the box sets of each of the series!!!

James Burke is The Man.

The same thing happened to me..eventually i got my cd project done but now they won't send me back my cd with all my cover art...i unfortunately only kept bits and pieces of it whihc is really my problem but i see no integrity in the way the do business...a simple return phone call or e-mail would have been just great.

Sympathetically,

Gina

Great ain't it Steve... Check out shots of FS running on mine :)

http://msmvps.com/blogs/thenakedmvp/archive/2006/04/05/89438.aspx

Congratulations - sounds like a real experience!

Our office search was a headache too, I wish there was a site like Official Space in the US.

In the end we used a company called Star Office Space for our executive suite in Seattle.

Oh yeah this one drives me crazy too... My other favourite is whenthey have a single box but they insist youse space or - to break up the numbers.

It must be that web developers these days are too lazy to parse phone numbers. Apparantly counting the number of digits entered and splitting the string are tough computer science problems.

See also http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000532.html

Blech, that's awful. I hate auto tabbing because I never know if they are going to do it or not, so I'm stuck tabbing too far, or trying to type additional characters into the first input.

you are a freak Steve. A complete freak!

I've never really experienced the problems that you're describing, but I can see how it would be a problem. On most of the forms that I've done I do just use one input field. I've never had any problems doing it that way. The only way I would really justify using three fields is that if the number had to be stored in a specific format for automatted dialing purposes, otherwise why use three fields.

Blah Blah Blah....everyone's an expert. And then, of course, the other expert was "more" correct.
Given the amount of UI design research, usability studies, focus groups, etc. that go into these large consumer sites, it often boils down to this: What do the majority of the customers prefer. It is always the case that you can not and will not please everyone. As a consumer UI, focused on the widest reachable user base, you must in the end focus your strategy on appeasing that majority. You can not alienate a vast majority of your site users by appeasing to a smaller class of users. With out hard-n-fast rules, to be successful we must do what the research studies show as the "lesser of 2 evils".



As well, we see this "predicament" or "choice" made in development constantly.
Case in point: developing for Mozilla or IE. Simply put, IE is shit, but you are a damn fool if you only develop for Firefox and risk alienating 80% of your user base. It would be nice if they both would play nice together, but of course that has never been MS's MO. It certainly would have been nice had IE followed the w3c "rules" when assessing css. I digress....another topic for another day.



Anyway, in an extremely competitive online marketplace, it is pertinent that you appease the vast majority of visitor's to your site. How you do that ought to be backed by years of continued research and usability testing. When you have done so, you have done all you can at that moment in time.


However, tomorrow is a different story...as users progress and we continue our movement towards a more computer literate community, we will see that as users grow and adapt their "habits", so will our sites.



BTW: As you know, I am "THAT" developer. And yes, it annoys me as well, BUT research(and the boss) tell me to do it anyway.



As you were


His cellular company's Developer

Actually, I didn't realise that was your code :-) I wasn't trying to point fingers. Hehe.

Anyhow, I wonder - with the usability testing on that component, did they actually test one single input box versus three? Did they test what happens when a customer makes an error?

And yup, I understand usability testing very well. You wouldn't believe the amount of it that goes on at Microsoft.

I WANT TO HAVE NEW THOUGHT OF THE DAY DAILY

Sorry to hear about this. I was just looking them up because I needed to have some CD's made. Sadly, I used them for 2 different projects. I will now have to dig up the masters of everything and start over if we want to re-print either CD. I can't believe they didn't tell anyone. They probably just threw all our stuff in the garbage. I would have paid the postage to have it returned. Thanks for putting the word out.

Also sympathetically...

Stefanie

Hey Steve. Gave teh show a listen. Good one as usual.

Curious, how long have you had your green card, and are you looking into citizenship? I've had my GC for 3 years now and probably need to start thinking about it. Seems you've got extra motivation as it may affect your standing with the new company and such.

Kim - I got my green (or rather pink...) card in November '01. You have to be a permanent resident for five years before applying for citizenship, so theoretically I could apply in November of this year.

I probably will apply, but not because of the company (it only affects the S-Corp thing), but for the following reasons:

1) I love this country, and really do consider it home.

2) I want to vote in 2008 :-)

3) My kids are US citizens. Actually they're US and UK citizens!

Steve, that is some hat you have on in your corner photo. I can honestly say it is a one of a kind.

Let us know how this test goes for you. I think you've determined precisely what's going on, but curious to hear the results.

Dick - The appears to have done the trick.

Dear Steve,
You have everything you need for CFS4.....CFS2 and were less than well received for only a few reasons. CFS1 still had a thriving community after 8 years when the zone pulled the plug...Make CFS4 a lot like CFS1. Do you guys talk to the gamers and ask why we didn't like CFS2 and 3? You can do a CFS4 that would be simple, allow for third party add-ons and you could even market several add-on packs your self.
CFS2 has boring planes and scenery (All water!) great game, graphics sound everything, but still boring

CFS1 has interesting and diverse scenery, Cool planes, It has London, Berlin and the Luftwaffe as an adversary! this why we like it in a nutshell!!!!!!

Start with a CFS1 Game-

Expand the map to include more of the Atlantic and up to Moscow (Forget the Pacific theater, the planes and scenery are boring, make that an add-on) expand south to include Italy, Sicily and a portion of North Africa.

__OR__

Have Italy and Russia be an expansion pack, along with a Naval expansion pack for the Italian and African areas. Include drivable Aircraft carriers, surface ships and U-Boats.

Make the Capitals Bombable.

Include more stock planes, Specifically the P-40 and the IL2.

Make the German aircraft Flight models more accurate.

Keep the open architecture of the game, but prohibit Flight model "Mods". Help us keep cheaters out of the sky.

More Stock Missions with more aircraft (I have authored a 300 mission expansion pack myself)

Include uncharted secret bases like the Peenemunde rocket base and make it bombable.

make the AI enemies tougher (Like Jane�s WWII Fighters)

Use CFS3 type graphics, and keep the planes easily paintable. I can transform many planes using tools as simple as MS Paint. This keeps the game interesting since there is always something new to do.

Put it back on the Zone, but eliminate the main chat area, the last few years it had degenerated badly.

That�s it, you now have a game that will sell millions of copies.

Sincerely,

Gary V. Caprio
AKA Col. R.E.Hogan

sorry for the multiple posts....I suppose I am a virtual idiot as well as a virtual pilot.....The plea for CFS4 does need repeating though..lol

Please make the game I describe, CFS1 had an enormous community when the zone cancelled sponsorship. How could an 8 year old game in todays world still have legs? It was good that's how. Not perfect, but excellent! You can easily and cost effectively modify this game and make it perfect, then introduce it to a whole new generation of virtual pilots. CD based would be best for greater available audience. OH, I'd like slightly better graphics too, like cfs 2 or 3 of IL2. I wont mention the fact that Microsoft would make a few bucks, since money is not an issue for MS anymore.

Cheers Steve,
Gary V. Caprio
AKA Col. R.E.Hogan CFS1 and 2

I got windows and osx bootcamp'd now. works like a charm and really moves on the windows side. Well Chuffed. :)

Gary - I deleted the duplicates. I also forwarded your comments to the guys on the team.

Every time it stuttered I couldn't help but think of Max Headroom :-)

Welcome to my world Steve...

This is why I do not touch brother (wait till a driver brings down your server and neither will you) ;)

The X64 thing is a nightmare. I really hope they improve the Vista driver set.

Ah Strange, the Brother printer that we use in my office has the Sharing printer option and it just works fine. We have too many "Brothers" in my little office :).

Was gonna suggest the hacking of the inf, that's all windows is checking on chances are it will working, ala w2k stuff from xp drivers etc etc. I have the same problems with x64 on my other box, that's why i sold my laptop and got a macbook pro. I was fedup that like logitech cameras and things would not work. Ruddy things.

Flying out to states shortly. We might be over in san fran, oakland in a few weeks. I'll let ya know, i'd like to do a video interview or podcast or something if we do.

Hi Steve,

This is a feature of Small Business Server 2003. The default wizards will set a limit of 250MB per mailbox.

Nick

Oh schucks, looks like you choked up on the last with that snowman Steve. Next time take a lighter grip ;)

What about all the people who buy apples becuase they can't get viruses, then run windows on it becuase they think the magic mac is protecting them....

I HAVE TWO NVIDIA SLI GEFORCE 6600 GT CARDS FOR 4 SCREENS MSFS4. WORKS ALRIGHT.

I agree! See:
http://kpallist.blogspot.com/2006/03/second-round-for-second-life.html

table tennis is a great game :)

Hi Steve!

I just came accross to your blog after clicking the link to it from Feed Demon's website. What caught my eye was that your blog has the same title as mine, mine being Seb's Random Thoughts. I also wanted to point out we are both members of Britblog and Britcaster.

You have a really cool looking blog and I am adding it to my FeedDemon. I would be most pleased if you would check out my version of Random Thoughts!

Blog on.. and hope to hear from you soon.

-Sebastian Prooth
Seb's Random Thoughts
Global Geek Podcast

Dear Steve .
You would get a lot of support from all like minded virtial pilots . I am sure this would be a winner like the gentle man from above has said it only needs a few tweeks but keep the theme the same, we in the cfs games theatre would really like to see a new cfs .If any person or company are thinking of doing this then the rule should be to do some home work first ,what I mean is to ask a few questions around those who play the game . As for the multiplayer problem or lack of it, an add on where pilots will talk, recrute, finally arrange a date and time for the battle then with both parties willing, use an ip to host the game ,finally play there game .this is only a dream for me i have seen the rise and fall of the games zone in flight simulator sector and over the years i have flown with many players and met many good friends

Dear HumbleS,

You get around don't you?...LOL

Hogan

There are no instructions in the download file.

John, I've updated the post to include the standard widget install instructions.

Cheers.

Nice but it's pretty big, and the cartoon is pretty small, why all the extra blue stuff?

I'd like just to see the cartoon and your header.

Thanks...!

Great Article, thank you!
The Audio sounds a little bit splashy, dont you think? As the De-Esser wouldnt work or something with the MP3 encoding went wrong. Hard to descripe.

How about this ripoff---Verizon popped me for an extra 2 hundred dollars this month for Text Messages I never made or received. After jumping thru several phone number hoops, I was told that they came from Premium SMS Messenging...a company that sends bulk spam messages to your number and bills your carrier. Your carrier, Verizon in this case, charged me and is holding me liable for payment. Verizons only suggestion was to turn off my messinging service, which I did, or unsubscribe from Premium SMS messages (another number). I chose to turn OFF the service as I dont trust either company to be honest with billing any more. As a simple consumer, we are at the mercy of these Corporate Crooks.

Holy Hell - I better get off my ass and write a #2! :-o

Thanks for the link and the praise, my friend. It's all the more important coming from someone who lives in Seattle. We Seattleites are inteligunt, after all.

Jay - Looking forward to it :-)

Cheers.

Interesting...

You do know I lived in Hastings right? 14+ Years :)

It seems to me from scanning the API's quickly that OS X uses the more correct but highly complicated unicode implementations, in which you are not tied to a specific encoding, so you can choose between UTF-8 or UTF-16 (UCS-2), where as the MS implementation of unicode chooses one encoding (UCS-2 I think) and wrongly labels that as unicode. A portable string library needs to handle any encoding really.

I have some questions/requests.



1) How do I change the password or when will that feature be added.



2) How can I make the sites opened in a new browser, it would be great if you can add that feature as a customizable setting.



3) What is Toggle debug, nothing happens when I click on that link.



4) How can I change the order of urls in a block ?

The site is very helpful and looks light weight right now.



I have some questions/requests.



1) How do I change the password or when will that feature be added.



2) How can I make the sites opened in a new browser, it would be great if you can add that feature as a customizable setting.



3) What is Toggle debug, nothing happens when I click on that link.



4) How can I change the order of urls in a block ?

Dave,
I would love to know if this is just something you built (Airbus A380) or can it be purchased? If so, please forward the address. I wish I had an idea of how much money would have to be invested in something like this. I'm very interested in this. Please get back to me at your earlies convinence. Ken

Home sweet home! Just another few months till im back (currently studying for my ATPL in Florida)

:-|

I've never had much hand at Mac hacking. Been doing Un*x and Windows for over a decade. This post really makes me appreciate that.

funny

i was just suggesting the creation of "venture life" yesterday to several VC friends of mine

Actually, it is, but not as widely advertised. Certain folks are providing grants (I'm guilty) and others are investing. Coincidentally, I'm from Silicon Valley and in SL. It's weird, some of our in-world ventures are on 'campuses'... no idea how that happened, it just did. :-)

Eric/Spin Martin

What do you mean by PR problems??

Well I have two 7800's and able to run 16x anisio and AA with the same fps as 8x,8x. So no gain except on the quality end. Works for me!!

Thanks
Bob

It is indeed beautiful. Thanks for the find...

I love it.

The ads just ticked me off. I use macs at work and pcs at home and believe me I sometimes take my notebook to work so that I will not have to use the awefull mac. It cannot even right click!!!!

THE COOKING CLASS WAS AWESOME! HOWEVER; SINCE OUR FAMILY TRANSFERED TO THE EAST COAST, MY RECIPE FOR THE MAJOR GREY CHICKEN CURRY AND THE PALO (Spelling may not be correct) it's the flavored rice. IS IN STORAGE, IF YOU HAVE THAT, WOULD YOU BE SO KIND TO SEND IT MY WAY?
CHEERS TO YOU AND YOURS
KYM

Yikes! Well, I guess some such comments were expected. Might help if I add a few points:

1. Spouses AND kids were welcome. We just chose to have a couple days away from ours. (2 year old twins - can you blame us?!)
2. Employees had to pay for spouses and kids, and most of their meals and entertainment. MS paid for air and 1/2 of hotel room (i.e. room paid for if you shared with a co-worker).

In other words, my 'free' weekend wasn't all that cheap :-)

That being said, I was a bit shocked too when I first learned of it. However, it's worth noting that the group is run very much as a P&L and this is something they chose to budget for. At the same time, this group is much tighter with it's budget than many others I've seen with things like debatably-unnecesary equipment purchases and eyebrow-raising expense account dinners and the like.

At the end of the day, it's something the PUM feels is a good idea for team-building purposes. His responsibility is running a money-making business, so he's got to make the call on whether it's a good way in which to do so.

Thanks for having us out to the show. It was very nice meeting you and Nabila.

We are off to Germany in a few days!

Steve Lacey (2) and Lana.

Enjoy the World Cup!

Hehe... great post Steve, it is so true. Now, as you know, I am also a Brit. But I have lived in the Republic of Ireland for as long as I can remember. A "Plastic Paddy" if you will.

When I go back to the UK to visit family, I get told off all the time that I am swearing too much ;)

In fact, I do not know of a worse country for swearing than here... but I am sure someone will suggest one here ;)

There was a media storm when gmail went beta regarding people being concerned that google was "reading their email".

Although the concerns are unfounded, it caused them real PR problems that had to be addressed here: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/more.html

They probably should have been more proactive about addressing these concerns (they were bound to be raised).

where did u buy that. (cool)

Zohib - it's not mine, I just found the link on the web.

Are we related? I'm in Edmonton, via Southampton, England.

You might want to try over on CJ's blog: http://www.bushrodchronicles.com

Hey M. Ford... What you did u mean by "clear intelligence difference between cats and dogs"? I am ofended! (ok, just kidding, right). I am a dog and I DO have a blog... Well, this is just to say that dogs CAN blog as long as we have a little help from the fingers of our human slaves ;)
Raisa, the Husky

I'm glad that people find this interesting!
I WANT THAT!

I was in the same boat. Got to our meeting room (we're doing meetings at the W nearby) at 7:30, first meeting wasn't till 9.

Strange minds think alike, or at least commute similarly :-)

You can have mine Steve. Don't bother mate, they are not worth the money :) Control of them really is not possible.

The fact that on the case here in Europe it was spelt "Radio Contrilled" should put anyone off :)

About time you made something from that nice camera. Other than photos of me you have a pretty good eye. Or do we only see the good ones? Is there a photo graveyard for all the photos we never see?

Thanks Andy - and yes, there's lots of cruft I don't upload.

Mind you, I think this picture is quite good ;-)

Cheers - Steve.

I have 2 6800 GS's, single monitor, and FS9 does not like running in SLI mode. I get much better performance by turning off SLI. Hopefully FSX will be a different story. Otherwise I'll have to look for a different hobby.

Children at Gnomedex? Nerds...

hey man... was great to see you. really glad you liked the pics. you can find more info on expired slide film and cross processing here

The Lama has two motors; one to control the top rotor disc and one to control the lower rotor disc. In a hover, the two motors run at equal speed. To yaw the helicopter (rotate left and right about the vertical axis), one of the main rotors either slows down or speeds up to create an imbalance in torque. This results in the Lama like Walkera 5 turning in the direction opposite to the rotation of the faster moving rotor.

The communities that develop around sports teams have always amazed me. You can gather the most diverse set of individuals that you can find to one place, and if they all follow the same teams, they'll get along like they've known each other forever.

Steve,

The local radio station ran a story about a guy in China who's house was burning down just as his favorite team was about to start a quarterfinal match. He stayed in front of the TV until he had to leave, then calmly unplugged it, carried it out, walked up to another outlet he could use, plugged it in and sat back down to continue watching the match.

He completely ignored the fire dept's response to try to save his burning house. There's dedication and then there's... well, a football fan.

On another note, please take a peek at my blog in general. Just some random thoughts and notes. I'm a regular on Avsim's AC and panel design forum as well as HoverControl. If you could, please ask Sebby to take a peek at the post Re: X files. I'm running into a lot of issues and think it may be the version of X exporter I'm using (7,8 and 9 are available and I'm trying to use 9).

I'm one of the guys who sees the depth of the design and can glimpse the configurability that was intended... and I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that all the work going into the new SDK's will shed some despirately needed light on how to make the sim's components do what you all intended for us to be able to make them do in the first place.

Thanks!

Scott / Vorlin

P.S.: Yes, that's a link to your blog on mine... yes, you're listed as the "Star" from Channel 9. I hope that gave you a chuckle. Really though, it was nice to see real people behind the scenes and get a feel for what you all have to contend with.

In case the above wasn't clear, the link to the blog is my name in the bottom "posted by" line.

Thanks,

Scott / Vorlin

I have a weird issue. When I just with scenery on in my view my FPS are fine 20ish. When an airport comes into view, I get this glitch that happens every 2 or 3 seconds. Almost like it drops down to 5-10 FPS. But with Shift-Z My FPS still are 20ish and don't really change for either times. Any suggestions. I am running all stock with no add-ons at this moment. It is on a laptop but runs pretty good for its power.
Thanks for any help.
Please respond to my email.
gregmbranch@hotmail.com
Thanks

Hello Steve!

Can you tell me where you see "Tons" of new features beside of new multiplayer????
from my observations:
- better 737 VC (default)
- better autogen (but fs9 have it already)
- airport traffic (we have it already)
-
and....???
- still the same touchdown effect...
- caravan roling like toy without any suspension..
- flight modeling of 737 looking ... eghhh
- road bitmap looks ugly
- clouds looks the same to fs9

Steve tell me where I`m wrong , that is early beta?, all settings down? ,
please tell something about it ...

brds Martin

Yep just spotted it at FSStation very good video indeed!

Martin - I no longer work on Flight Simulator, so you might want to try one of the Flight Simulator team blogs listed in the sidebar on my blog.

Cheers, Steve.

Vorlin - I no longer work on Flight Simulator, so you might want to try posting directly to Sebby's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/sebby1234.

Cheers, Steve.

That is a cool idea.

BTW, those "pick out the string" ones, when they pop up an example I can't figure out, lead me to wonder whether *I* am one of *THEM*!

The problem is "hot" is entirely subjective. I find that what I normally consider "hot" does not match the accepted "norm". And this appears to be borne out with HotCaptcha: It thinks I'm a bot.

But then I've also never had a problem dealing with captcha.

Potty training? One of the main three pillars in the title of my blog!

My boy wasn't showing any interest at all(the girl was) until my wife had a brilliant idea (actually two):

- Mini M&M's. You get one if you have a pee in the potty.

- Big Box of cheap-ass toys from the bargain store (all priced $0.10 to $1. You get one if you have a poop in the potty.

Can't keep the kid off the damn thing now!

What no 'Flickr' album ?

Lets see... does it still happen with Beta 3...?

how many do you see?

The problem is that the posting stage hangs steve on
/cgi-bin/mt-bar.pl...

The problem is steve that when you post, it hangs at that stage on the script it tries to run.

Then, I assume, people are pressing the button again and again.

Maybe time to try and upgrade or a new platform...

I'm using IE7 (beta3 now but was beta2) - it works just fine for me. I do notice that posting a comment does have a pretty big delay (that anti spam webservice you call??) so I bet people press the button more. But 12 times - thats not very patient.

I loved this:

Alexei Sayle, WRITER

Anyone can see that what Israel is doing is unacceptable, violent, cruel, evil and wicked. If Israel is behaving in the manner of a psychotic bullying child, then Britain and the US are like its mad tattooed parents.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1190596.ece

I think some perspective is in order.

Everyone seems to want to forget that Hezbollah provoked this reaction. Where are the international demands that Hezbollah stop firing rockets into Israel and killing civilians. where are the international demands that Iran and Syria be held accountable for their support of terrorist organizations?

Oh thats right, the UN is worthless organization that passes resolution after resolution with absolutely no effect.

The "innocent civilians" that may or may not have been killed as a result of attacking Hezbollah forces, are the very ones who provide aid, comfort, and support to the terrorists. As such, are they really innocent? I say no.

If there were terrorists operating from my neighborhood in Florida, and I took them in and provided them food, water and shelter, if I stored their weapons, and if I helped conceal their presence, would I still be "innocent"? No. I'd be the enemy.

The Lebanese government should take responsibility for eradicating the terrorists. The people should denounce the violence and help root them out. But thats not the reality of the situation.

The reality is, they want everyone in Israel (and America) to die. They support the terrorists. They are one and the same.

Bravo for the US and UK for having the balls to stand up and say, "You f**k with the bull, you get the horns."

The sooner everyone realizes that there is no negotiating with radical islamic terrorists, the sooner we can put this all to an end. Until then, we'll just keep trading tit-for-tat strikes, and sooner or later they're going to get a nuclear bomb. do you really thing that if they get "the bomb", that they wont use it. They will, on Israel, or New York, or Washington DC...

You'll be wishing Bush and Blair had done more about terrorism then.

Nick - thanks for the thoughtful post. It's a complicated situation, but I believe that this is exactly the reaction Hezbollah intended. Could their intention to be to to unite the Islamic world against Israel?

Of course it is. And Israel, the US and UK are playing the game exactly as they wanted.

This particular conflict will end at some point. The point is how quickly, and how many civilan lives and infrastructure will be lost in the meantime?

This show is heard occasionally in New Zealand on public radio but like you when I found the podcast it was a great find. It reminds me a little of the TV show "Have I got news for you" from the U.K.
We don't get that other than on DVD, but it's brilliant.

With IE7 Beta 2 I experienced the duplicated posts on moveabletype sites.
Speaking of websites anyone seen the new Microsoft site: http://preview.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx

Is golf really that interesting? I can look at it in one (or maybe both) of two ways: the first being that the sport is bollocks and dreadfully boring, the second being that it is more of a meditation than a sport, requiring severe concentration to achieve the goal of landing a little ball in a little hole.
The strangest thing is that I stumbled upon this blog entirely on accident. Why I'm moved to write at all is beyond me, though maybe the fact that it is 4:00 a.m. could be contributing.

So...yeah. I hope you enjoyed this little bit of randomness. Have a lovely day.

Thanks for that link. Must say I was mighty disappointed that I'm only worth $564. Must try harder I suppose.

Thanks for that link. Must say I was mighty disappointed that I'm only worth $564. Must try harder I suppose.

118 bucks, what a bargain

yes!!!... atta boy julian!!!...

and happy belated anniversary you kids...

I'd say that this is a bargain. Typically in the past I have taken the kids to the photo studio I usually have to pay $100 to select a few pictures I have no idea how they will turn out. Usually the print quality is just as crappy as the digital images that we view when selecting pictures. With this system I can take my favorite picture and have it printed. If the print quality is excellent it's well worth $118.

goto wants a quick "save my current homepage" as the top center block. Easier for dabblers to try switching homes and switching back.

I must say, I looked at the demo and I like the eye candy, but the performance disappoints me.

There's a good thread over at FlyTampa here: http://www.flytampa.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1762.

And this would be kewl+one.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/broadband/index.jsp

So what about managed directx in .net? Is it dead? Will everyone migrate to using XNA?

eventful day :)

Jim - Managed DirectX *is* the interface for XNA studio afaik.

I love the pics. You have an awesome family! We are so excited to see you guys soon.

I'm using IE7 beta, and while it's got a number of things that have me grumbling, one nice add is an RSS icon that "lights up" when it find the pointer to a pages feed on that page. Makes it very easy to subscribe.

(as an aggregator though, it leaves a lot to be desired)

please pass me a serial number of pop art studio

Maybe we should wait for XNA Game Studio "Professional" before passing comment.

I watched the show Anthony Bourdain in Beruit last night it was wonderful. It just shows that the majority does not want war. It's a handful of people who don't want to live in the real world.

I watched the show Anthony Bourdain in Beruit last night it was wonderful. It just shows that the majority does not want war. It's a handful of people who don't want to live in the real world.

I'm happy that Anthony saw our Marines for who they truely are. Hey Anthony! Your upset with Bush is understandable when you believe and "buy" the repeat footage that our media bombards you with into believing that he is careless. He was eating!!! We all eat even in times of trouble. The repeat bagel biting was a sensational ploy to wash your brain. You're too smart. Don't buy the media. You were rescued. I'm happy for that. We don't all live in TV land. This war was unexpected. It takes time to plan and react. If we acted too quickly and failed thaen what would you say? You got out. What other country would risk, pay and bother? I ask you that.

Thats just about as good if not better than the original.

Great find
Alan

Just ok - Clapton version would be alot better.

While I was watching Anthony in Beirut, a lot of questions were going through my mind. I couldn't even imagine how terrifying it is to be in a situation where one moment it is peaceful (usual life in the city) to hearing gunfire and watching lives being destroyed during the bombings. I am very grateful that Anthony and his crew finally evacuated. I am "extremely" grateful for our marines who helped our evacuees.

I like Anthony, but his comment about Bush was really a bit pompous - "How dare the President of the United States eat a buttered roll while I'm stuck in Beirut!" Anthony, you're a genius when it comes to food and how it relates to people and culture, leave the politics at home dude! I remember being in the UK when the invasion of Iraq started. The BBC made it look like the streets of the US were full of rioters. We called home to see if our families were safe. They were so worried about us - because the US media made it look like the streets of the UK were full of rioters ... PS I work with a Marine reservist. Believe it or not, they are human beings. Everyone looks on the evacuation of Americans from Beirut as "the Cadillac of Evacuations," thanks to those young men and women!

been listening to RP for years. It is the best. What's a Brit doing in Seattle?

It uses Yahoo! Maps, not Google Maps, which means anyone outside of the USA will almost certainly has to suffer maps that just aren't there.

Duh! Of course :-) I'll update the post. Stupid me.

Unhappy teacher from Leicester UK!

I have spent ages trying to share Brother DCP115c (bought only 6 months ago) with laptops on our Windows xp home wireless network. I haven't contacted the support line for fear I was doing something wrong. I am right in thinking that maybe this Brother printer won't share either?

Keep up the great work on your blog. Best wishes WaltDe

So what your sayin is that microsoft is releasing the coding for a console that is bringing in a nice amount of $$, but they wont release the coding for Combat Flight Simulator 2 even though they dont make it anymore and dont do anything with it? that sounds kinda bizarre. just my feeling on it.

Andrew Stone
aka
VF103_Moo

Oh really! That's nice. Enjoy your time while you are still there. By the way, I can't wait for those photos to be posted.

Dear Reader,

I am a 15 year old kid who loves to cook, and loves to cook for freinds and family. The reason why i am sending this is because i was wandering if i could have a chance to meet my favorite chef in the whole world, Alton Brown. I know im sure you guys get this alot i want to meet Alton Brown, I dont want to meet heim because he is a world renouned chef or anything like that, I would just love to cook and trade recipies with the person that got me so entusiastic about cooking. I have watched his shows ever since i can remeber im turning 16 on September 13, and this would be a dream come true if i meet Alton Brown. I know he has a busy secheduaal and all, but i just want to cook with Alton Brown before i go off to job core to be a World renouwned chef like him. I will be tought by a 5 star chef and before i go away for 2 years i was hoping to meet my cooking idol, I dont know if ur the person i should be talking to about this but if you can do me a favor please send this to Alton Brown and let him read this and let him know people are still out there recording and watching his shows. Alton Brown has inspired me to become a chef and teach people was to cook for them selves and friends and family, Most of my cooking skills i learned from watching A.B on tv and from my dad and mom around the kitchen but mostly from A.B my family isnt the type to go out and eat alot of fast food no we like to sit down and have a family meal together (mainly because we cant afford fast food) but we also learn great recipies from good eats. Me my mom and my step dad watch good eats everynight even if we have seen it just because we are learning about food and because its something i really want to do and i have ever since i was 12. My birthday is comming up soon ill be 16 but i wont get a car like most other kids i will go on a once in a life time chance to be a chef and im taking the chance. Ao please if you will make this 15 year olds Birthday wish come True by showing up on my door step and alowing me to cook with my idol Alton Brown.

Please contact me at 1(913) 250 1152 or call my cellphone 1(913) 250 1152

P.S. i do realize that this may now happen because dreams like this dont come true, But please atleast email me back telling me that he cant come or he will come, or just suprise me you will make this 15 year old boy's dream come true.

Thanks,

Steven E. Tolliver

I know this really good networking guy.... but he lives on the other side of the world ;)

That's really cool. I've never seen cassette tapes for awhile. Now at least I remember how it looks like.

Ohh! So all gadgets are off and ready to go. Don't forget that you need clothes too in oregon. You might forget that! Have a safe and enjoyable trip!

Oh i have to use that somewhere. That's great - thanks for sharing steve. Hope your well.

I need some too. Thanks for the tip. I used them as wallpapers for my pc or mobile phone. Aren't they fantastic!

Not sure if you're still in Rockaway, but there is a Fred Meyer's just to the south of you on 101 about 20 miles in Tillamook. You should be able to find a router there...=)

Hello! I�ve just recently checked your blog. You seem to have very intersting and informative posts. Guess, I�d be hanging around and see more of your latest posts .

JUST OPENED

ORBIT AIRLINES

VISIT MY SITE TO START YOUR FLYING CARRER USING MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2004

SINCE THE ONLINE PILOT CLOSED DOWN IM ON A MISSION TO HAVE ALL YOU COMPUTER PILTOS FLYING AGAIN BY MY ONLINE PLANNER

DROP INTO THE SITE WERE WE HAVE MORE INFORMATION

http://www.freewebs.com/flightworld09/

SO IF YOU LOVE FLYING AND WANT A CHANCE TO BECOME A PILOT FOR ORIBIT AIRLINES VISIT THE WEBSITE AND CLICK ON ORBIT AIRLINES ON THE NAVIGATION BAR!

my class is going to try to build an inexpensive, but yet great flight simulator. if you could give us some help, I'd appreciate it.

It is pretty sweet huh!

Cool!

Even better than the mother of all Hey Yas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNMPS10ESlw

Wow! Ipod is really making waves does it. Nice blog by the way, keep us posted all the time!

Agree with both, but amen on the first one.

We recently gave up with fighting with our daugther on her choice of outfits (women, it seems, are particular about this and it starts young). Want to wear PJ's to the mall? fine. Want to wear a dress to bed? fine.

i just have one question about hacking. I know its a federal offense in the USA, but what about canada, no i aint a hacker, just havin problems with em.
thank you

Andrew stone

I'm a fan of Bourdain's show, and the Beirut episode was particularly interesting. I think he was pretty justified in his comments about Bush. Bourdain wasn't criticizing Bush for eating during a crisis; he was criticizing Bush for being more interested in that buttered roll than in what Blair was trying to discuss with him about the important issue that needed attention.

I think it was perhaps more obvious on the show than in the article, but Bourdain and his crew--along with many other US citizens--were essentially trapped in Beirut without any news from the US Government about when they would be able to get out. The Italians, the French, and others were able to get out while Americans were just stuck there. And all along they had no idea why. Instead of seeing any such news on television, they watched the image of their President chowing down and pretty much blowing off the whole issue at the time.

Travelling internationally can be pretty scary, especially in our age. If I had been Bourdain, stuck in such a hostile situation with no news from my government about when I could leave and why I haven't been able to leave yet, I would be pretty bitter about it and the buttered roll, as well.

Just my thought, though. :)

Apparently, it only works in IE. I was wondering what the big deal was, as in Firefox the smaller image just linked directly to the larger one. Been doing that since browsers started supporting inline images ;-)

Wait - I'm wrong. Looks like the page didn't actually reload when I enabled Javascript. Very cool.

Wonderful.

By the way we share the majority of our names. There is almost certainly some statistical significance to this but since the death of Douglas Adams I doubt we will ever know the comic significance.

Anthony John Lacey

where are the damn pictures!? ;)

I haven't blogged it yet, but I just picked up one of these in Japan:

http://www.silverlit-flyingclub.com/xrotor.htm (PiccoZ)
Or see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WwYR06y6hs&mode=related&search=

While I don't think I'd start him out on a chopper, they also had a whole line of super-light, indoor flying, electric rechargable planes that seem like htey'd make good starters. (The helicopter was about $50. The planes about $30

Plus, they are cheap, so if he gets bored, you didn't waste a lot, and if he gets into it, you can upgrade later.

how does who do what?

What does one do when he or she "descripes"?

Jason: How does he take such great pictures...

I found an site for your problem..!!

here it is:
http://solutions.brother.com/hl1435/download/dl-winx64-pcl.html