Teamprise Remote Accelerator

(This post is geared primarily towards Visual Studio developers who use Team Foundation Server)

Rarely do you see me sing praise for products out there, but in this case, I felt I have to write about a product that has already increased our team's productivity and its ROI is continuing as our projects are getting larger in scope and source code size.

The product is called Remote Accelerator, by Teamprise. It acts as a local version control proxy for Team Foundation Server - its main functionality is to increase access speed to version control data for remote developers, and boy! does it do it well!

You can read more info (and some benchmarking data) about Remote Accelerator, but if your team uses Team Foundation Server and you're a code developer who likes to work from home or from remote locations, run, don't walk to purchase this product. For $99, it's a steal!

A piece of history... with some future!

It was nice to be in London for a couple days (although my body isn't getting any younger, so these quick turnaround trips are a bit more tiring lately).

The reason for my visit was dual:

- A visit to the Brooklands museum, where the first one of the Britain-built Concordes (G-BBDG) is resting comfortably at home, to talk to some of the wonderful people there who spend their volunteering hours helping preserve history (and ensure that our Concorde-X product is going according to spec, while we were able to snap some more detailed photos for the FSX and ESP versions).

- The Microsoft ESP conference in London, where my role was dual: As MVP, to sync up with the team and as Flight Sim Labs lead, to meet some very interesting people and ensure our collaborative efforts are ongoing. I was pleased to also be introduced to some excellent and very intelligent people as well who I had not met before, who I expect will be making a big difference in the near future for flight simming as well.

For the developers among us...

Finally! A web site with REAL questions and REAL answers for those developers who are tired of googling for a very specific programming question and having to look through pages and pages of Programmer Q&A website non-answers, needing to weed through idiotic encrypted "expert exchange" sites which require you to pay to get answers, or other, advertisement-filled pages with spam-to-info ratios which would blow your ears in the decibel scale...

This is provided by Joel Spolsky (among others) - of Joel on Software fame - and so far, even though at a public beta stage, has been showing tremendous promise in reaching critical mass (others have tried, only to fail and become ghost sites eventually).

The site is called Stack Overflow - I think it's grrrrreeeat! :-)

GoFlight MCPPro driver for PMDG FSX products out!

Just a small note to say that Flight Sim Labs just released another one of their specialized driver interfaces, this time the MCPPro-X for GoFlight's MCPPro and optional EFIS modules. The driver enables the hardware to interface with PMDG's 747-400 aircraft family for FSX, something long-desired by cockpit enthusiasts and hardware builders.
You can find the product announcement at Flight Sim Labs and the interface link here.

Building a sim cockpit?

You might probably have heard by now that CPFlight has been producing some excellent hardware for Flight Simulator hard core enthusiasts and cockpit builders.

Up to now, these products were designed exclusively with Project Magenta in mind, as there was no 737NG addon for any simulator version out there that could fully utilize the various modules CPFlight so expertly has created. Various efforts to use keyboard commands, mouse clicks etc. allowed some interfacing with the PMDG 737NG to some extent, but it was always a tricky proposition and not everything would work properly.

This is not so anymore!

Flight Sim Labs is now able to interface the CPFlight MCP, MCPPro, EFIS modules to the FS2004 PMDG 737NG family directly, with its upcoming FS2004 CPFlight driver interface software. No keyboard command programming is required and you can easily forget about having the PMDG panels open while flying your favorite aircraft.

If that was not good enough, Flight Sim Labs will offer full compatibility for an extra 8 CPFlight modules, allowing full and complete interfacing for the following modules now:

- MCP Pro (USB version)
- MCP (USB version)
- MCP (RS232 version) - will require a hardware dongle from CPFlight
- EFIS module(s)
- Radio Stack VHF1, VHF2 modules
- Radio Stack NAV1, NAV2 modules
- Radio Stack ADF1, ADF2 modules
- Radio Stack XPDR module
- Main Instrument Panel, containing
- Autobrakes
- Fire Warning
- Master Caution
- Captain / FO sixpack warning lights
- Flaps Lights
- Gear Lights
- Test Panel
- SPD Ref
- N1 knobs
- Fuel Flow
and many others!

We are very happy to provide such full functionality with the upcoming CPFlight driver interface for Flight Simulator 2004 and the PMDG 737NG family of products. Stay tuned for more news about this in this blog and in our web site!

Was this for our own good? (Part DEUX)

- Well Manuel, it seems like Deja Vu all over again!
- Que?

Excuse the attempt at some dry humor, but having spent two straight days investigating a weird Flight Simulator X crash to desktop, that was apparently completely unrelated to anything remotely related to FS, I have to find some avenue of escape for the unrealized amount of frustration. Thankfully, the solution itself, while not apparent to the untrained eye, provides some level of fulfillment to those who keep blaming the %^%%#@ operating system for everything that goes wrong with their simulator. And guess what: This time, they're right.

To explain:

At the labs (yes, that is the new affectionate term for our new company, Flight Sim Labs), we've been getting some customer support emails from friends who've tried repeatedly to purchase our hardware interface products that have been released as Try-Before-You-Buy, only to hit a hard Crash-To-Desktop (CTD) as soon as they click on the "Purchase" button on their driver dialog window.

Long story short, Yada Yada Yada, some days later, (insert your favorite bit here), and with the very appreciated help of our web sales vendor, eSellerate.net, it became apparent that the common element (if you can call it common) in the CTD has been that the operating system was NOT Windows XP. We were able to reproduce it on machines running Windows Server 2008 (my machine here - experiences with which I'll blog about at some point soon) and/or Vista (regardless of flavor - 32bit and 64bit, Home, Premium, Business, Ultimate - it happened sporadically to those).

It turns out that the common denominator in those systems was the security facility called "Data Execution Prevention" (DEP for short), which does not play nice with Flight Simulator X. While goog- I mean searching through the net for a solution, I found several posts that described weird FSX crashes that seemingly had nothing to do with what the user was doing at the time. In our case, something in the concurrent threads that the eSellerate webClient DLL uses to run online comms with the credit card verification scheme is considered to be "bad bad bad" with FSX, even though we were assured that there's absolutely no attempt at wrong doing by our very respected vendor.

Solution? Simple. If you are running Vista and you haven't done so already, disable DEP if you want your sanity maintained with Flight Simulator X. It won't hurt you either, as I am sure you already have a good firewall and antivirus system going, and you're not relying on DEP to protect you anyway. - And no, it won't be enough to "OptOut" - you'll need to set it off permanently on the PC, or else you'll think you've done it but FSX will still complain and crash. The way is simple:

Run a command prompt (DOS) with elevated permissions ("Run As Administrator") and issue the following command:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

Then reboot your machine and you're good to go. Simple, eh? For more information and a detailed explanation on what DEP does, how to turn it on and off etc, visit this link.

I cannot profess to know exactly why FSX crashes with DEP turned on, I will leave that to Phil and our good friends at ACES - perhaps it's something we're doing wrong, but if so, I'd definitely welcome a technical explanation and a hint or two on how to fix it, if possible ;-).

Concorde-X wallpapers

We published some high resolution (1600x1200) images (for desktop wallpaper) of the Concorde-X dressed in FSLabs colors on the Flight Sim Labs website, as many of you requested it in its splendor.

You can find them here.

Overwhelming response!

I would like to extend a very heartfelt Thank You! to all of you, my readers and friends, who've flooded my mailbox with such warm wishes for Flight Sim Labs. While I expected that there was a relatively large number of you who were anxiously waiting to see what project my stealth mode was all about, I never expected to be inundated with emails that had so much good stuff to say!

Once again, thank you for the kindness! It's very refreshing and gives me added strength and willpower to create even better products for your enjoyment!

Flight Sim Labs, Ltd.

Those of you who have known me for awhile will be wondering by now why I've been so silent in the past couple months or so. Apart from the odd post on various sundries, I have stayed very quiet and there was a very good reason for doing that... none other than the launch of a new Flight Simulation company and associated web site.

Flight Sim Labs, Ltd.

FSLabs, as we more affectionately call the company in-house, is formed to serve the demanding flight sim pilot who wishes to upgrade himself from the default aircraft complexity level and enter a realm of fidelity found in products that I've associated myself with in the past and will continue to do so (even better) in the future. Apart from aircraft addons, though (first in line of which is the beautiful Concorde which we're developing together with Andrew Wilson and his associates from SSTSIM), FSLabs will be providing driver interfaces to link home cockpit hardware with other addon products such as PMDG's 747-400 for FSX, as well as working together with 3rd parties who wish to contract our consulting services for specialized work.

So, without further ado, you're cleared direct to Flight Sim Labs, Ltd., number one for the approach!

Google C++ style guide

Haven't posted in awhile... that's not because I have nothing important to say - in fact, there's going to be a very important announcement very soon, but for the moment, I wanted to bring your attention (at least those of you who are C++ coders among us) to a very useful style guide that Google published (kudos to Steve Lacey for blogging about it).

I think that if we can follow the recommendations (at Google, they're mandatory) shown in that style guide, we'll make our programming lives a lot easier (we've all had to maintain older code, no?)

Here's the guide...

Gia tin Ygeia / For Health

I have it as my rule not to turn this blog into a political forum - I try to keep it "in context", with matters that are mostly related to computers, flight simulation and my work / hobbies.

I'll make an exception here, as today marks the one-year anniversary of Amalia Kalyvinou's death. Amalia, a 30 year-old literature graduate died on 1 June 2007, after fighting for 17 years not only with cancer and amputation, but also with malpractice, bribery ("fakellaki") and bureaucracy in the corrupt Greek National Health System.

Amalia - you'll live forever in our memory. May your efforts find repeaters, copiers and let your death mean something to those who keep fighting to "fix things".

Please read this page - and if you feel like it, sign the petition at the bottom...

Package Tracking 2.0

I am sure most everyone knows that the major package shipping companies (UPS, FedEx, DHL etc.) offer online tracking if you take the trouble to visit their web site and plug your Tracking Number in there...

I didn't know, however, that there's an aggregator site that now offers a unified and graphical way to track your in-transit package... Kudos to isnoop for this site...

ESP now on MSDN!

Did you know that Microsoft ESP is now part of MSDN? As a result of months of hard work by the good people at ACES (yes, Todd, that includes you too! :-)) you can now find the ESP developer center on MSDN. If you're an MSDN customer, you can also download ESP without having to go through the normal purchasing channels.

Let me know if you need assistance with developing on ESP! Also, if you are a current or potential ESP customer and require contract work or help with developing your software, I'd be interested in hearing about it as well!

Here's the link for where all that good fun happens!

Penryn Q9450 - just received it!

I owe a small debt of gratitude to my good friend George Marinakis for picking up one of the new Penryn Q9450 CPUs (Intel specs here) on my behalf and shipping it to me (it took five days to ship from Cincinnati, OH to Athens, Greece! Amazing record for the US and Greek postal services, during Greek Easter busy shipping times too!).

Installation was pretty straightforward... (Yeah - I wish!) My rig is a Thermaltake Kandalf LCS super tower box which includes liquid cooling. It weighs in at a hefty 20kgs so removing it from under the desk was tough to begin with... putting it sideways was pretty much out of the question, as I didn't want all the crap spilling out of the pump container, so I had to undo the screws that were holding the pipes and heat sink onto the old (Core 2 Quad 6600) CPU, remove the CPU itself without harming the myriad pins and install the new CPU into its slot (try doing that all while the motherboard is still hanging vertically!).

Once that was done and the heat sink was put back in place, I had to endure about five panic-stricken minutes of pain during which the box would start booting, beep, then cycle power down and up again to go through the same process... ugh. At least I had my wife's PC on the desk next to mine, so I could log onto the Internet and see if anyone else had gone through that problem. Sure enough, I found out I had to update the BIOS on my ABit IP35 Pro motherboard to a new (beta!) version which would boot the new Penryn generation (funny - I thought the IP35 Pro was designed with those Penryns in mind... guess not).

How do you get the box stable enough to replace the BIOS? You guessed it (right?): Out comes the Penryn, in goes the old Q6600 (yes, yes, heat sink, hold vertically, unscrew while holding CPU in place, screw back on, etc. etc) and the process continues.

The rest was quite uneventful. New BIOS went back in, CPU was replaced again (yes, yes, heat sink out, etc. etc.) and booting now was successful.

After about three hours, I am typing on this new Penryn box. Wow! Amazingly fast performance for writing Blogger articles! :-) :-).

I couldn't resist though, so I put it through some preliminary tests: I am seeing about 20-30% faster performance with the PMDG 747-400X in Flight Simulator X SP2 with my settings. This means I can now turn back on the ground and aircraft shadows and put a modicum of AI traffic for a more pleasant outside view, or fly online at VATSIM with the new Squawkbox 4 Beta version...

Overall? Well worth the $320 I spent on it (shipping included - but not counting the free flight George gets in the C172 as a well-earned thank you for his willingness to help me out!).

Go get it? Heck yeah!

It's all about the weather...

Literally! If you're interested, there's a huge collection of weather forecast and related links here.

The titles are in Greek, but I am pretty darn sure that everyone will understand from the URLs what the topics are.

ESP - now blogging at a URL near you...

Excited to find out about this from fellow MVP Arno Gerretsen:

The product team responsible for Microsoft ESP is now blogging! They just started, but you can find more here.

(Soon I'll start talking about what I've been doing in Stealth Mode and I'll start inviting queries on it - and it might also be ESP related - who knows!).

In Stealth Mode...

I've been quiet for awhile. You haven't seen much written here because I've been very busy with work. I can't say what it is I'm working on, but I'm very excited about it...

In other news, I was honored to be part of the Heroes Happen Here 2008 Hellas Launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 - I even had a small part in the Visual Studio 2008 technical presentation, demonstrating how cool the new Team System features are, which allow a developer a very rapid cycle of bug catching / source control checking / bug fixing / source control restoring process; all this while showcasing the new Microsoft ESP platform and an example of new features that can be added to any simulated aircraft.

As soon as I find out that the video of the presentation becomes available, I'll update everyone with a post here (sorry - it will be in Greek :-)).

Where it all began...

Some of you may know that I've been elected Microsoft MVP by the good folks at ACES, an honor that I take seriously, constantly reminding myself that there's still so much to be done to improve my code base and provide more efficient and thorough work so my team mates can become more productive. I owe a lot to our friends in Redmond who make the best flight simulator there is today - if not for them, our 737 and 747 products wouldn't have been so greatly acknowledged.

Focusing so much on the future, though, sometimes keeps me from remembering the past: Where it all began for me in flight simulation and who was responsible for my involvement in the business. I have a very warm place in my heart for the team which caused me to realize that flight simulation is so much more than just a game. That team was Terminal Reality and the Fly! developers.

The trip down memory lane was caused by an article I happened to read today, written nine years ago (already!). It describes a (real) trip I would have liked to have made myself, to meet at least some of the people I considered very important when I started my humble career in flight simulation development. One of them, in particular, who unfortunately is no longer with us. Fare well, Richard Harvey, I am sure I'll meet you one day in a different cloudless sky...

The PMDG 747-400 and Microsoft ESP

I've been feeling quite under the weather lately - turns out I caught the family flu bug and I've been going through the five stages (denial, etc.)

I can't code like this, so I'm taking a bit of time to say that I've successfully ported our 747-400 code base over to Microsoft ESP. For those of you who don't know what ESP is, it's the commercial simulation platform the good folks at Microsoft created to allow professional enterprises to bring previously games-based technology to training and learning, decision support, and research and development modeling for government and commercial organizations.

This means those entities who were previously running the PMDG 747-400 for training purposes, "bending the rules" a bit and ignoring the EULA which suggested it was "for entertainment purposes only", can now negotiate a specific license agreement which will allow them to run the platform on a different relationship basis.

No - we're not abandoning the entertainment market, so stop worrying! :-)

Why you NEED to install SP1 if using Vista

Mark Russinovich posted a very enlightening blog entry regarding file copying in Vista and how SP1 affects (actually: improves) this.

Those of you running Media Center and viewing files remotely are particularly interested.

Those of you running Flight Simulator X are also interested, due to a particular bug which calls for re-reading some base BGLs constantly (yes, we've alerted ACES and no- it can't be fixed for FSX).

You don't know... Jack.

I remember this game from back in the first days of the PC (IBM and compatibles)... I didn't know Jack back then either...

Do you know Jack?

TSA Blog - no lines to enter comment?

Well- not everyone might catch my double-meaning in the subject title, but I tried to be spiffy enough to suggest that the Transportation Security Administration (better known as TSA) - responsible for more than a gazillion hours in flight delays in the USA - has now started a blog where people can post comments, "since there is no time for agency personnel to answer passenger questions during the airport screening process".

The real question becomes: Do I have to wait long hours in line to enter my questions? :-)

Are you LinkedIn?

I don't know how late I am to the ball, but LinkedIn is the newest "cool thing" among my professional peers.

Check it out - and don't forget to add me as your "connection" once you are satisfied!

How to set folder permissions in C++ for Vista

Burhan, one of our customers requested this and here it is:

const char* g_strFSXPath = "g:\fsx";

void SetPathPermissions(const char* path)
{
// Set permissions for the folder
PACL pDacl,pNewDACL;
EXPLICIT_ACCESS ExplicitAccess;
PSECURITY_DESCRIPTOR ppSecurityDescriptor;
PSID psid;

// Get the current Security Info for the path
char szFileName[MAX_PATH];
sprintf(szFileName, "%s%s", g_strFSXPath, path);
GetNamedSecurityInfo(szFileName, SE_FILE_OBJECT,DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION, NULL, NULL, &pDacl, NULL, &ppSecurityDescriptor);

//BuildExplicitAccessWithName(&ExplicitAccess, "Users", GENERIC_WRITE, SET_ACCESS, CONTAINER_INHERIT_ACE | OBJECT_INHERIT_ACE);

ConvertStringSidToSid("S-1-5-32-545", &psid);

ExplicitAccess.grfAccessMode = SET_ACCESS;
ExplicitAccess.grfAccessPermissions = GENERIC_WRITE;
ExplicitAccess.grfInheritance = CONTAINER_INHERIT_ACE | OBJECT_INHERIT_ACE;
ExplicitAccess.Trustee.MultipleTrusteeOperation = NO_MULTIPLE_TRUSTEE;
ExplicitAccess.Trustee.pMultipleTrustee = NULL;
ExplicitAccess.Trustee.ptstrName = (LPTSTR) psid;
ExplicitAccess.Trustee.TrusteeForm = TRUSTEE_IS_SID;
ExplicitAccess.Trustee.TrusteeType = TRUSTEE_IS_UNKNOWN;

SetEntriesInAcl(1, &ExplicitAccess, pDacl, &pNewDACL);
SetNamedSecurityInfo(szFileName,SE_FILE_OBJECT,DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION,NULL,NULL,pNewDACL,NULL);

LocalFree(pNewDACL);
LocalFree(psid);

fileOut << endl;
fileOut << "User reset folder and Subfolders permissions." << endl;
fileOut.flush();

}

Diskeeper 2008

I used to be a big fan of OODefrag. In fact, their version 10 product is very good.

I can't hide the fact, though, that I am a changed man ever since I tried Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier. Its defragmentation process is really smooth and the background service keeps defragmenting your disks continuously, but only when it detects that your computer is sitting idle (i.e. it doesn't interrupt or slow down your ever-important FSX sessions).

Three thumbs up for Diskeeper 2008!!! You can find it here.

You know you're getting old when...

Three out of seven of your friends who used to work for the ACES studio are no longer there...

Jason - you and I haven't been chatting much (other than in the bus, at DevCon 2005, going to that smelly brewery), but I always respected your artist's view and kept in touch with all you had to say in your blogs. You have a fan whatever you choose to do next! Keep it up!

(Please follow Jason Waskey's work through his blog here - it's really worth it).

Windows Live Messenger status

(Rant Mode On)

What does it mean when I put my Status as "Busy" on Live Messenger?

Is it perhaps an invitation to say "Talk to me, I am idle"?

Is it a sign that says "Taking a break, I prefer to chat about last night's Heroes episode"?

No. It means I am most likely either looking at a customer's problem, or coding like crazy on the next product or infrastructure.

It most certainly also means that I'd prefer not to be bothered, but I am there in case someone needs help that can't otherwise wait, like for example when our product cart server is offline or experiencing issues that require immediate attention.

I'd respectfully request those of you who have me on their Messenger contacts to please use email instead as I can concentrate better on your issue when I focus my attention to it, rather than when you interrupt me.

(Rant Mode Off)

How to get updates to my blog automatically

You may think that I am doing this to increase traffic to my blog but that isn't the exact reason. I was asked by no less than six people last week how it would be possible to receive my posts automatically in their Inbox.

I'll give you examples for Firefox and Thunderbird.

In Firefox, click on the "Atom Feed" link you see on your right. Then, use "Subscribe to this feed using..." and hit "Subscribe Now".

In Thunderbird, if you already have an RSS News & Blogs account, skip this step. To create one, go to Tools->Account Settings, click on "Add Account..." and follow instructions for "RSS News & Blogs".

Then, select "News & Blogs" and click on "Manage Subscriptions". In the popup window, click the "Add" Button and copy/paste "http://lkalamaras.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" in the "Feed URL" edit box.

These two methods will allow you to automatically receive an update whenever I have a new article written in my blog (which HAS to be more often :-)).

Beyond Comparison...

Seems I don't post much, but when I do, it comes in batches... :-)

This post is about a wonderful little utility called "Beyond Compare". As a developer / code writer, it's very hard sometimes to keep track of changes that have occurred between file versions and bugs can creep into our products simply because of a file regression.

Beyond Compare helps prevent such problems by allowing levels of file and folder comparison in an intuitive, productive way that I had wished for a long time, but had never imagined existed.

Here's their web site. Well worth the $30.

Engauged Shared Cockpit

Susan posted a very interesting article about shared cockpit / multiplayer coding so I will be investing some time on making sure we can take advantage of this in future products (and by "future" I mean AFTER the MD11 ;-)).

The URL is here.

Back Home!

I am back home after having spent a very interesting week in Seattle. For those who are just catching up with the news, I attended the Microsoft Developers Conference (and I can't say much about it as all that stuff is under NDA) and the AVSIM Fan Conference (and that was NOT under NDA :-)).

While in Seattle, I saw old friends, acquaintances and rival developers (hi Daryl!), some of whom I had met before and some I was getting to meet for the first time and actually talk to (yes, that means you, Lou!).

During the FanCon, PMDG had the pleasure of more publicly revealing the now-in-alpha testing MD-11 (I had shown some of it during the 2006 Aerosoft Conference in Paderborn). Fans and customers had the opportunity to fly it for the first time and comment on usability and new features - I was amazed by how well it was received!!!

Michael Frantzeskakis and Bill Grabowski did a wonderful job in presenting it to the FanCon attendees, showing some of the newly programmed stuff (like the PMDG cursor standardization, variable lighting, overhead panel popups etc) - these guys are truly amazing!

I am now back home, working feverishly on finding a couple pesky problems with the FSX 747-400X and correcting them. After thousands of units sold so far, there's only a very limited number of customers facing issues, so pinning down the problems is hard... but we'll get to them!

Also working on finalizing the bits for our external hardware driver software (GoFlight, Engravity) modules so our customers can get to them too. Be assured, there will be a significant discount for those who've purchased the FS9 versions as well!

I'm getting some feedback from users who own the Aerosoft Australia 747 MCP hardware who wish me to write driver software for FSX. So far, there's only 20 or so users who want this done and unfortunately, it means I can't readily justify time allocation towards that project, however if there are more of you out there, by all means - BE VOCAL! We need to know so we can allocate the time.

Still in the USA (now on business)

We returned to Athens, of course, after the trip to the USA, so how is it that I am now finding myself back in Seattle?

Well, I attended the Microsoft Flight Simulation Developers Conference and am now attending the AVSIM Fan Con which will last until Sunday (so those of you local in the Seattle area, do come visit our booth - we have some cool stuff on display!).

I met with some very interesting people here in Bellevue, had an opportunity to hook up again with some of the ACES people who I've come to consider good friends through the years (Z, yes, that means you!) and get to see familiar faces once again with whom we've shared some war stories.

A special thank you goes to a (will remain nameless) person who helps out continuously and without regard for those who might have the audacity to consider it favoritism (even though the help we receive goes public immediately afterwards). 'Someone', you know who you are and thank you!

There have been some awesome presentations (unfortunately, all of which are under NDA and as such, I can't disclose anything about), but suffice it to say it's been an eye-opener all around!

I am looking forward to the AVSIM conference - we have some cool stuff to show in our booth as I said already, so I am hoping that people will enjoy the weekend as much as we hope.

Trip to the USA, part... err... :-)

The terror! I had forgotten I was supposed to keep writing more about our beautiful trip through the USA last summer, so I guess I owe those of you who visit this blog an explanation:

I got preoccupied: PMDG released the long-awaited 747-400x for FSX, so it became a very important priority to get that out the door, and by the time that was done, my blog was stale.

I promise, I'll write more about that - in the meantime, do visit PMDG's site and take a look at our 747-400X product - it has some very cool features!

Visual Assist X (by Whole Tomato)

I am hoping that people won't mind a small plug here for a product that I have been using extensively throughout my Visual C++ coding years and I find indispensable. I am talking about Visual Assist, which is now in its tenth iteration (with thousands of in-between builds and continuous support by its creator, Whole Tomato).

It runs within Visual Studio (all versions) and converts a very good product (Visual Studio == a Volkswagen) into a Porsche.

Run, don't walk to your nearest URL site:

http://www.wholetomato.com

Trip to the USA - Part 1 (Washington DC)

Haven't written much the past month or so, but the reason was simple: I was on the road. Margarita and I decided to take advantage of a couple meetings I had scheduled overseas, so we combined business and pleasure to take a three week long road trip in the USA.

Our flight into the US was uneventful - if one ignores the absurdity of having to go through security measures TWICE while changing planes in London. Heathrow has now quickly climbed to first place in my "places to avoid" list - where else would you be subjected to an hour-long security checkpoint WHILE IN TRANSIT.

The first scheduled stop in the US was Washington DC, home of "I didn't vote for him, but he's still my president" (famous quote by a not so famous acquaintance of ours).


Thankfully, he was away on vacation (again?) together with most of the capital's residents, so there was almost none of the usual traffic that makes DC so likeable to tourists.

DC is always nice to visit, as it offers beautiful walking-distance tours that can be done in a day without that much pain. Starting at the Capitol, a round-trip to the Washington Monument offers a variety of museums and historical site stops which educate and entertain.


My favorite? The Air and Space Museum of course. While there are other significant sites in DC, I always had a soft spot for the place that hosts most of man's attempts to escape gravity, documenting and keeping track of events and vehicles that made it possible for people to realize how beautiful it is to soar in our skies.

Gotta be done with the 747-400X no?

We visited the Museum of Natural History as well - always a favorite for children and adults alike, although comparing it to its New York and London equivalents I found it lacking a bit, for no specific reason.

Dad and... extended family ;-)

Another favorite spot is Georgetown, with its restaurants and bistros that offer quality for different tastes depending on the mood. Our day trip happened to take place on a Sunday, so we got lucky with a nice Italian restaurant that offered an all-you-can-eat brunch for $14.95 - can't beat that deal!

We left DC for Seattle - which will be part 2 of the trip blog entries.

Jing project... would have been great!

Been getting some good comments from friends regarding The Jing project. So I tried it to see if I could showcase some of our upcoming 747-400 and MD11 for FSX new features. Unfortunately, when I applied it to the FSX window (which was 1024x768 pixels in size), Jing made the entire machine crawl to a halting stop...

Hopefully, newer versions might work better... in the meantime, Jing is benched until something makes me change my mind :-).

MVP status

It just occurred to me that I neglected to publicly thank Microsoft for awarding me MVP status for 2007 in the PC Games category.

I've always tried to do my best as a professional and as a hobbyist to support Flight Simulator newbies and experienced users alike, as a PMDG developer and as a VATSIM founder and previous Software Development VP, so I am very grateful that Microsoft recognized my contribution through the MVP award.

Thanks to everyone at ACES for pointing my way when selections were made! Hope I can continue helping in the future as well!

Huh?

So my kids are spending time at summer camp for three weeks. So we went and bought some supplies for them - the usual: toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. Also bought some kids' shampoo: Johnson's Kids Shampoo, Watermelon flavor.

Imagine my surprise when I read at the back of the Johnson's Kids Shampoo label:

"Please keep out of reach of children".

Hello? Anyone? Buehler?

Select C comments in my code...

So you think hitting Ctrl-Shift-R to record a macro, then Ctrl-F to find "/*" and then something-something, and then Ctrl-F to find "*/" to finish the selection would be enough.

Huh? Let me explain myself.

As we transitioned from FS9 to FSX, one of the most major pieces of the work was to replace all the FSUIPC code in our SimLibrary with SimConnect code. As this wasn't going to happen overnight (or even in a week) but instead took almost a year (yes, that's right - people said it'd be easy), I gradually went ahead and wrote all my SimConnect code snippets below their FSUIPC equivalent, commenting out with /* ... */ in the process, so in case of a bug (and there were a few), I could have easy access to "the older way". That also allowed "mix-and-match" code so we could test without needing to finish the transition first.

The end result was that our .cpp files, when all was said and done, were littered with multi-line comment areas such as this one:

/*
if (theFSUIPC)
{
theFSUIPC->Write(PMDG_CFSUIPC::PMDG_FIRE_CONTROLS_SWITCHES, 1, &val, &m_result);
if (m_processNow)
theFSUIPC->Process(&m_result);
}
*/

m_SimConnectMiscData->setFireControlSystem_Switches_PMDG(val);

I had always thought that it'd be easy to simply delete the commented areas when the transition was over, to clean up our C++ source files. Yes. So easy, he said.

(Disclaimer - I am NOT a VB guy, but I know how to read VB and do tiny bits).

I spent hours trying to figure out if and how I could record a macro that would enable the following in a couple key presses:

1) Find next commented code area
2) Select it
3) Delete it (if old code)

Ideally, I'd like to press "Ctrl-Shift-P" (for Macro Playback) to find the next area, then "delete" if needed or "Ctrl-Shift-P" again if this wasn't a comment to-be-deleted.

Sounds simple? Turns out that there's no way (that I could find) to record a "start-select" / "stop-select" keyboard activity. Instead, after hours of searching the net, I came up with this (admittedly easy) piece of code that I have now placed under a nice macro of my own (using VS2005's nice Macro Editor/Debugger):

Sub TemporaryMacro()
Dim objSel As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection
objSel.LineDown()

'Look for the beginning
objSel.FindPattern("/*")
Dim lStartLine As Long = objSel.TopPoint.Line
Dim lStartColumn As Long = objSel.TopPoint.LineCharOffset

' Look for the end.
If objSel.FindPattern("*/") Then
' Select the entire section.
objSel.SwapAnchor()
objSel.MoveToLineAndOffset(lStartLine, lStartColumn, True)
End If
End Sub

Soooo simple. And yet, it took me so long to figure it out. Maybe I am getting old(er).

FSX Load Manager

I've been tinkering...

and results are promising that our aircraft Load Manager can now update pax and cargo payloads on the fly in the upcoming FSX version of the 747-400. I'll make sure that this functionality also finds itself in the MD-11 Load Manager as well.

On to fuel updating!

Was this for our own good?

Those of you already using Flight Simulator X will have noticed by now that there's a new concept of authorizing third party DLLs and GAUges before they are loaded into FSX.

The first time a user installs a third party addon, depending on how many of those DLLs the addon uses, a security warning dialog box pops up asking the user if they "want to run this software" with a "Run - Don't Run" button choice. If the software (read: DLL or GAU) is code-signed, there will be information on the software publisher and a "More Options" tab which leads to radio boxes allowing the user to "Always run software from 'Publisher'", "Never run..." or "Ask me every time". This is default behavior by the new Windows Cryptograpy API.

FSX adds another layer after the user has (presumably) selected "Run" which allows them to "designate this module as 'Trusted' software", thus making FSX automatically load this software any time it runs again in the future, without having to go through the security dialog pop up again.

All this is well and good - for normal users. Of course, if the software publisher produces an update, the entire process has to happen once more, since the new DLL versions will be detected as different and the user will need to allow them again.

For us, developers, this is a pain in the butt. We produce new builds of our DLLs and gauges many times daily, so we need to keep "allowing" them each time, because if we "always trust" our own code, we are doing our users a disservice in case something goes wrong when FSX first loads the gauge (and I've already been bitten by that happening - and it wasn't even my fault! - more on that perhaps in another blog entry).

If this pain in the butt wasn't enough, I spent the past two days trying to figure out why FSX suddenly stopped asking about verification and designating modules as 'trusted'. Instead, it refused to load any 3rd party addon.

Two entire days. Wasted. I even tried removing FSUIPC and reinstalling it, thinking that I might have done something to my certification process to cause this, so another addon should surely be OK. Nope. FSX never asked me for that either - it simply failed to load FSUIPC too! OK - go ahead and remove the [Trusted] sector from fsx.cfg? Nope. Still couldn't care less - FSX will not load anything. WHY?

In the meantime, I had noticed that, when running the Certification Manager, it would sometimes give me an error when viewing my code signing certificates about "Cryptographic Operation Failed due to a local security option setting". Hmm... Whah? Huh? I know they're bought and paid for - and checked by a valid Root Authority! What gives? This was surely a mystery... but it led me to goog- I mean search MSDN for any related issues...

I can now thank Steve Patrick (at Spat's Weblog) for providing what turned out to be a very simple solution to this issue. While apparently unrelated, it turns out that something had switched my

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinTrust\

Trust Providers\Software Publishing

registry key to 0x63c00. This value is Microsoft's WinTrust policy selection flags, as described here. The 0x40000 flag means Allow only items in personal trust database and apparently, this clashes with FSX's ability to allow manual authorization of unrecognized DLLs, telling it instead to never trust anything outside the user's personal trust.

Unsetting this flag (putting it back to its default 0x23c00 value) returned all operations to normal and Flight Simulator was once again able to ask me to designate my modules as 'Trusted' software.

I never found who/what changed that registry key... but at least now I can return to my normal schedule of love with Microsoft's code signing necessities!

This is what I do for a living... who said programmers don't have "the life"! ?

Code, manifest yourself!

(Warning: Extreme nerdy article to follow - talks about C++ code and Visual Studio 2005) - You've been warned!

You might want to chalk this one up to "lessons that were learnt the hard way"...

I was investigating a report from some users on our PMDGSounds.DLL failing to load entirely. So I thought: I must have screwed something up with the release builds - possibly linking to the wrong SimConnect.DLL version. Nope -that wasn't it.

I discovered (after having to remote-login to a beta tester's PC and after going through all the pains of changing .ini settings so that logs can be created) that it was really an issue with dependencies, but of the wrong kind: I had done my latest build on Vista and VS2005 - which since I am regularly updating my setup, had been updated to include SP1 and the latest Vista patch. As such, all MFC and CRT libraries were now linking with the newer SxS assemblies, rather than the RTM builds that FSX links against. Ergo, the missing dependencies on only some users' PCs, ergo my frustration.

This wasn't the first time I had run into this issue, though, so I went back to my notes... I had discussed this with our friends at Microsoft who had suggested / recommended a flag in the Preprocessor settings: _USE_RTM_VERSION, which supposedly will instruct the linker to embed the RTM version of the CRT and MFC libs in the manifest files...

The hard lesson is (after 4 hours of tests) that this holds true for executables (.EXE files) but NOT for DLLs. As most of our addon code is, well, added on to FSX, it comes as multiple DLLs and thus dependencies fail.

The fix isn't what I consider "beautiful" - rather than depending on the auto-magical way VS2005 embeds manifests, I had to make a manifest file myself with the appropriate versions and include that as an RT_MANIFEST resource in the .rc file.

Seems to work, but what happens if later I'd like to add another library dependency? I'll lose the ability for VS2005 to pick up on the new lib automatically and I'll have to remember to add it in the manifest file now...

So much for progress, I guess...

PMDG Web Site updated!

Fresh after the release of Flight Simulator X Service Pack 1, we decided it was time to show the world our new looks. Our web site is now completely redesigned, giving more emphasis to the new product line for FSX that is being released in the upcoming months.

Look out for the PMDG 747-400X to arrive first, then the MD-11 and the 737NG-X generation of products.

We're very excited about what the near (and not so near) future holds!

FSX SP1 is out!

We'll be posting a bunch of new information - just as soon as we are ready to :-).

(I had to post this, didn't I? Cheap shot :-)).

FSX SP1

It's coming! Very soon! According to a post by Phil Taylor, the ACES group is putting the build in Final Test tomorrow, so it should be released next week.

So - the question everyone keeps asking me is: How's your product development going?

Well- with SP1 out, be assured we'll be posting a lot more pictures of what will be there. This is my blog though, so for more information on our upcoming FSX products, please visit our support forum at AVSIM.

Bitchin' session...

As some of you may know, we receive lots of customer support requests over our support emails, but from time to time, there are some who post cries for help in our forum over at AVSIM as well.

We try to be very understanding, even though most technical queries have been answered many times in the past and/or exist in our support Wiki (which anyone can add entries to, by the way - just use common sense when posting).

It rubs me the wrong way, though, when we get the occasional

"Hey guys, all of a sudden, my bladiblah.dll has started crashing with no reason asking to send an error report to Microsoft - why?"

Last time I threw the Tarot cards, I still could not predict the future, the Lotto numbers or whether AEK will ever be able to win another Greek Football championship, so I doubt anyone can claim they can give an answer to such a vague and abrupt question.

So - if you read this and you're one of our customers who experience such issues, try the following:

a) Think of what you may have changed "right before" this problem started occuring.

b) Read our Wiki

c) Contact our support, PROVIDING AS MUCH DETAIL AS POSSIBLE on which ones of our products you own, what other stuff you might have installed that could affect them etc.

d) Go to (a) above, as it's the most crucial.

e) When you solve your problem, if it didn't appear in our Wiki, ADD IT YOURSELF so you help others too, or tell us about it and we will!

Sorry about the rant, but... it just gets to me sometimes :-).

Fly a kite? You wish!

The ONE day that everyone in Greece is out flying a kite, we get a seriously CAVOK day - I mean NO winds whatsoever!

And if you think I am desperate, I want to see YOU try to tell the kids that "no, it's not daddy's incompetence that can't get the kite to fly - it's the lack of wind!".

Yeah - they believed THAT!

PMDG GoFlight MCPPro Driver released!

It's official!

We released the PMDG GoFlight MCPPro driver interface, finally, after a very long wait. There's still an outstanding issue with the EFIS module support for it, but after a multitude of attempts to get GoFlight's feedback on what exactly they need to fix (most likely in their firmware, as Doyle Nickless mentioned in his emails to us), we didn't want to keep our customers waiting any longer.

So - any and all of you who already own a GoFlight MCP Pro hardware module (and possibly its EFIS accompanying hardware) can now enjoy full compatibility with the PMDG product line for FS2004 (737NG and 747-400 series, that is).

"All-in-one" multifunction printers/scanners/faxes...

I love them... they take up 1/4 of the space the equivalent devices used to take back in the old day. (Well, that's if you were required to have a printer, a scanner, a copier and a fax all in your office).

One question though: Did they HAVE to also subscribe to the "we break after a year and a half" category as well? They're almost cheap enough to replace that going through the trouble of crossing half of Athens in morning traffic, paying 80 Euros for service and worrying that they might break again in a year makes it almost not worth it, but... the bitter taste remains that "I am throwing out 4 devices because of a paper jam problem".

Ugh. Brave new world we live in, for sure.

Interesting thoughts...

I stumbled upon an article published in Computer World today, discussing why thinking of buying into IPOs can be a fool's errand (read here) and went to check up on the author... Steve Duplessie's blog can be found here.

Interesting thoughts... from an interesting author.

What SP1 should bring...

While I should probably disclose that we're under NDA and thus not permitted to speak about certain things, it's now common knowledge that the ACES group is coming out with a Service Pack for FSX. It's been mentioned by Phil Taylor, ACES' Senior PM for Graphics and Terrain, in his blog, among other places (I just thought of his as the "most official" for now). To that, I say YEAH! I am glad these guys "get it".

So - what should SP1 deliver that FSX lacks currently? (*My* wish list)

Well, from an end-user's perspective, I'd say performance is top on the list. There's a million reasons why it's really hard to redesign FSX to introduce "true multi-core" programming, so I am sure ACES devs are doing their best to wake the "other CPU dude" up from its deep slumber during FSX process execution.

Still on the end user's perspective, I'd say scenery comes as a close second. I know this is tied into performance, but there are some places in the world (Greece included) that look too much like the Sahara to be seriously considered as "better" from what was there in FS2004.

As a developer, though, I would wish for a more complete SDK, especially where SimConnect is concerned. The developer primarily responsible for SimConnect is a true wizard, in my eyes - I consider myself a "good programmer" and the logic behind the push/pull stuff he produced was simply exceptional, even though a bit hard to conceptualize / visualize and get used to. My wish? That it brings forward some sorely missing functionality where addon products are concerned (ClientData, weather radar functionality, etc.). After all, SimConnect was developed "for addon developers to use", so I am sure SP1 will bring out some new goodies we've been politely requesting for as long as FSX has been out. (Go ACES!)

There are other areas that need attention that I cannot discuss, due to the NDA, but suffice it to say, these guys must have been making strides so I am sure what we'll get come SP1 will make a big difference and everyone will suddenly start crying "FSX? more! gimme more!"

What I think? That I might just simply jump on that simulated MD-11 and fly to Seattle for a day or two when SP1 releases, for a celebratory touch-and-go at the Boeing field. All on VATSIM of course :-). Who knows - perhaps I might see Robert fly his 747-400X around for a couple test runs.

The MD-11 presentation

No, this isn't going to be a zipped-up Powerpoint file for anyone to download, simply because I never could do it that way... All my presentations up to date have been based on notes that I write to remind myself of what I want to talk about, while showing the true star of the presentation: The product itself.

The MD-11 presentation at Paderborn was no exception to this rule. With so much new stuff to show, all I had to do is point to the projected laptop screen on the wall and showcase the new features Michael, Bill and Vin are putting in place... and the audience of 200 or more fans of the MD-11 would react to the fun we're promising this to be.

What would this include? Well, new, standardized ways of clicking on panel instruments, for one. Michael Frantzeskakis found a neat new way of making customized cursors that are clearly indicating whether the click-spot allows for left- or right-clicking, wheel rolling, new panel popping, etc. You'll have to see this to understand, but suffice it to say, it's going to be really neat!

The 2D art is also very well done, with Bill Grabowski shining once again in demonstrating his talent for rendered art that mixes with photo realism. With his emphasis on real-world eye perspective, he mastered a 2D main panel view that encompasses all the gauges and displays that an MD-11 pilot would want to look at when flying the bird. Add the foldout popup panels to that, and you have yourself a very handy and quickly accessed panel.

I would do us a disservice if I didn't mention Vin Scimone's absolutely stunning 3d external model of course, which takes advantage of all the new capabilities that FSX has to offer (bloom, specular and bump mapping, etc) while maintaining the degree of clarity only found in PMDG products.

Last, but certainly not least, comes the amazing 256 new levels of lighting that can be found for night flying that add a never before found ability to control light ambience on your panel instruments. Separately rendered as in the real bird, they allow the pilot to set the perfect combination of shine and darkness required for any flight conditions... (wow - this definitely sounded like a marketing blurb ;-)).

Here's a link to some pictures, hidden in between the nice happenings that took place in Paderborn. With those, I'd like to extend once again a heartfelt thank-you to Markus Burkhard who was kind enough to sit next to me and provide commentary on those items that I might have missed or needed further clarification. He's a real expert when it comes to the MD-11!

Thoughts on FSX (a developer's stand point)

I've been promising myself (and a good number of friends who've been asking) that I'll post my views on the newly released Flight Simulator X product by Microsoft, but until now, it's always been difficult to find the bracket of time required to do so without interruptions and phone ringing off the hook... so now that I can catch my breath after just coming back from the Aerosoft Conference in Paderborn, here are my thoughts on this subject.

First off, I'd like to say that it's always a breath of fresh air to see a new release of Flight Simulator. With each one, there's progress, so it keeps the hobby alive and well. Furthermore, it's interesting to see the public's attitude before, during and after each release, as I am beginning to note a trend that's similar to what happens when we release something... at first, there's wild speculation and anticipation of what the new product will include, with opinions running rampant on why this time, it's going to be the best thing since sliced bread. Then, there's the glorious yells of success from people who rush to buy it, followed eventually by cries of annoyance and anger because it didn't do exactly what they felt it should do, it was released prematurely, etc. Eventually, all this dies down only to be followed by the calmer realization (every time) that it's "the best product release to-date". It is interesting to note that it's the same small fraction of people who are the most vocal and they always go through the same cycle. I guess you can't please everyone all the time.

On with FSX:

--The good --

a) Can someone say "Graphics"? If what we saw now is followed by a further update when D3D10 comes out (and we plunk out another $1000 for hardware), I can only say "Wow!" - this is amazing. Waters that are realistic and move with wind... Ships that even move on predetermined routes... Gates that come out to our aircraft when you park at the ramp... All around Nice!!!

b) When you're done saying "Graphics", can you also say "Missions"? I never thought I would have such a feeling of newly discovered fun with a product that I've been working on for the past five years. I particularly love going through those green circles... Kudos, Microsoft guys. Very well thought out and highly recommended!

c) Can you also say "SimConnect"? As a developer, I am so VERY glad that our good friends at Microsoft have opened up the platform in a way never before attempted, and while doing so, they gave us a chance to communicate beforehand what we wish to connect to. SimConnect is not a product, it's not an SDK - it's a means of sending and receiving lots of information back and forth from our addons to FlightSim, so that we can do more with the platform, rather than rely on hacking into the executable and DLLs (and one of the biggest is my good friend Pete Dowson's FSUIPC module that we were greatful to be able to use for the past five years).

d) Finally - Microsoft FS Developers opening up to the public. Blogs, forum posts, developer conferences, meetings - you name it, they now participate! While this isn't strictly a "good" of FSX itself, it means that there's fresh air blowing from Redmond - glad to see it, guys!

-- The bad ---

a) BSOD. For those uninitiated to the term, it means "Blue Screen of Death" and I used to get it every single time I'd try the flour bomb mission (#7) on my 6600GT VGA equipped PC. The error message (after the obligatory reboot) was a cryptic reference to "some drivers causing this problem" but there was no offer or resolution there. My solution? Plunk 350 Euros for a 7950GT 512MB card that allows video memory to fill up with textures so the mission can continue uninterrupted. FS Devs, this is your window of opportunity for a fix - if you want my VGA, let me know and I'll even pay for shipping!

b) Scenery. While the world is now round and the North Pole can be overflown for the first time, I'm still going to wait for some addon to come on top of the vast yellow sandy areas that my home base of LGAV (Athens Int'l Eleftherios Venizelos airport) now sits on. Yes, guys, we have yellow sand... but it's AT THE BEACH :-).

c) SimConnect. It seems that with all the greatness it provided, it still requires more work to be complete. I've already shared my wishes and complaints with Mike Z, Brett S and Dave D, so I am hoping this will move once again in the "good" category.

-- The ugly --

Only ONE item here: Frame Rates, when you haven't yet tweaked. However, I am only mentioning this here as an opportunity for you, my fellow readers, to visit our PMDG wiki center which includes a very well drafted article on how to improve your experience, by my friend Ryan Maziarz. He assembled and will be maintaining a list of all the currently known tweaks and fixes so that you can also turn your sluggish tortoise of a PC into the rocket that he has. You can find his article here.

As I've been working closely with some of the Flight Sim devs in the past (via the beta forum that I was previously not even allowed to mention ;-)), I can only offer an opinion from inside the curtain. I'd really be interested to see some commentary though, on things I might be forgetting to mention, so by all means, add some here... I'll revise the post when I see things I missed!

Aerosoft Flight Simulator Show in Paderborn

Once again, it was time for me to attend the Aerosoft Flight Simulator Conference that took place in Paderborn last Saturday, October 21st. This has quickly become an annual tradition which I find very enjoyable as it gives me an opportunity to meet face to face with friends and developers who I don't often get a chance to see, other than online on our messenger systems.

This year's event turned out to be the biggest so far, with over 800 people in attendance. It was even more significant because it was the first show in Germany that had Microsoft Flight Simulator X on display, after its release last week. As expected, the Microsoft stand was impressive, with two desks fully equipped with Saitek joysticks and throttles and large wide screens displaying an immersive view into the new product (More on FSX in a bit).

While walking around the stands, I also noticed some new offerings in the hardware and cockpit building category - I missed our good friends from Engravity who had some conflicting schedules and couldn't attend, but I had a glimpse of the CockpitSonic 737NG and Airbus offerings that show some promise in that aspect.

VATSIM and IVAO were there manning their respective virtual skies, and so were Just Flight and Flight One with their wares on display.

I am sure I am forgetting others, but I didn't have too much time to roam around, as I was busy putting the final touches on my presentation of the brand-new PMDG product, the McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 aircraft that we're going to release "some time very soon" (tm).

I already knew that many of our customers have expressed interest in the MD-11, but I didn't know exactly how passionate many of you are on this large ocean-crossing aircraft. Well, it turned out to be a packed conference hall with no empty seats and some of you standing around wanting to catch the first glimpse of what our product looks like - I was really impressed by the attendance!

I'll post a separate article on the MD-11 as this one focuses more on the conference in general.

The day ended with the Captains' dinner, an event that's quickly becoming tradition for the conference. It included (apart from a very well prepared buffet meal) the presentation of the SimFlight 2006 Awards. PMDG were once again contenders in the voting and I was very pleased and honored to receive the award on behalf of our team for the 747-400 Freighter, which won the 2006 Airliner Aircraft award. I only wish I were a bit more photogenic (and I promise to start my diet again ;)). Perhaps next year we'll hire Jennifer Aniston to receive it on our behalf :-).

Next, I'll be posting my thoughts on FSX and a recap of the MD-11 presentation. To end this, I'd like to thank Winfried, William, Mathijs and the rest of the Aerosoft team for a nice weekend. It's great to see you guys again in person!

(For more information on the Flight Sim Conference, head over to FSKonferenz and Aerosoft).

Now the FSX NDA ban has been lifted...

I can finally post a couple pictures of what I've been working on through the summer - the work had started before I left for the honeymoon and continues since I came back.

(Click on each picture for a larger version)


For those of you who'll be quick to say "but nothing seems to be changed!", believe you me: There's SO MUCH that had to be upgraded and/or gutted in order to transition to Flight Simulator X that I've been working almost non-stop since May so that the 747-400 (and Cargo) can be released for FSX. At the same time, I've been reworking our code-base to take full advantage of SimConnect, rather than depend entirely on FSUIPC. Unfortunately, since the good guys at Microsoft are now slowly wrapping up their release, there are some parts of SimConnect still missing before we can safely say that we'll transition completely to it, but I have full faith in Dave and the rest of the team that their post-RTM updates will include all our wishes and expectations.

So... what have I been doing?

Actually, there were a couple very good excuses for the apparent inactivity in my blogging:

I got married! Margarita and I have been living together for quite some time now, so we decided we would make it official! The wedding took place at a very scenic location underneath the Akropolis, among only our kids, closest friends and relatives - it was idyllic! The right season, the right time of day, the right temperature - seems that the world was conspiring to make for the perfect wedding! We couldn't resist making the perfect pictures, so here they are:




After the wedding, it's only natural to go on a honeymoon, right? We travelled to Sri Lanka where we spent eight beautiful days in a fantastic villa resort called the "Saman Villas". The resort is designed especially for people on honeymoon - a private beach, individual pools in front of each villa and romance all around. Highly recommended!
On the way back from Sri Lanka, we had a three-day layover in Dubai, for the requisite shopping and all-around tourist action. Those who think Dubai is "cheap" - think again: It offers exquisite comfort and luxurious accomodation, but it all comes at a price, however it's well worth it, especially if you're on a honeymoon and feel you can spend the extra couple Dirhams.

I've been back now for two months, so further news about what I've been doing, next!

Outlook replaced... at last!

I've been wanting to do this for the longest time... ever since it started becoming a real pain in the @$$ to have to wait 2-3 seconds everytime I wanted to read a new incoming email, or a new newsgroup posting.

I am assuming it has to do with how Outlook organizes its .pst file - all the entries in your Inbox and local folders are kept inside the one .pst file, in my case resulting in a behemoth of a .pst measuring almost 1.3GB in disk space.

I finally had enough and moved all my stuff over to Mozilla Thunderbird. I am a HAPPY CAMPER now! No longer do I have to wait, no longer do I need extra plugins for RSS feeds and NNTP news reading and most of all, the CPU usage is now negligible!

Oh- and for those Outlook die-hards who can't have it any other way: There's a neat Theme (skin) for Thunderbird called Outlook 2003 SilverTB that makes it look JUST like my Outlook looked before!

Call for MD11 advisors... wow!

I had NO idea I would generate such response through my call for more MD11 advisors. I just wanted to mention that we got some very exciting people joining the team. Thank you guys! (You know who you are!).

If there are more, please don't hesitate to contact me - we still want some!

Visual What?

I haven't written in quite awhile... I wish it was because I had been on vacation... far from it, though. The reasons were other:

1) Not much to write about (there is quite the calm before the FSX storm) and
2) Getting ready with our code conversion (we're moving everything from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio 2005).

Reason 1 isn't exactly true - the MD-11 is progressing very nicely and I've been trying to find some new technical advisors to complement the existing team, as we're going into beta status soon (I'll be posting a couple pics of the MD-11 panel once I get my hands on a stable alpha release).

Reason 2 is a bit more special: Being spoilt by Microsoft, I wouldn't have expected that the transition would have been so... um... not fun / easy. This was almost senseless - or I haven't found the easier way... :-) To explain:

All our code is written in Microsoft Visual Studio 6 / C++. We had skipped the transition into Visual Studio .NET / .NET 2003, as the Flight Sim 2004 SDKs were still written in VS6 C/C++ and it seemed quite unnecessary to have to bother (let alone find / schedule the time to do it).

Now that FSX is coming out, it appears that the SDKs are going to only support VS2005 - so we had to finally bite the bullet.

One might think - what's the problem - copy the code over to a different hard disk, open the workspace in VS2005 instead, and viola! (sic). Errr - nope. The workspace / project files are seamlessly translated into solutions and vsproj files, but the code itself doesn't compile out the box. In fact, it takes lots of effort and pain to translate: Apparently, the VS6 version of C/C++ wasn't exactly conformant... so there are TONS of warnings / errors that occur...

The main ones: C4244 (arithmetic conversions - float/double, int/short etc. etc.) which are a pain, but at least make sense (if you were bad enough to blindly pass one to the other indiscriminantly) and C4996 - and this one is silly, IMO: It's a warning about the deprecation of all printf/sprintf etc. type commands and their replacement with buffer overflow-safe equivalents, named _s - i.e. sprintf_s etc.

So- instead of a global setting (so we can maintain the code and allow it to also compile well under VS6) to turn those C4996 warnings off, I had to visit all the files and issue #pragma warning disables... Fun.

Anyway - rant off for now, but if someone knows how I could have skipped this pain, let me know too - at least I'll let our friends know as well.

Is YOUR product PMDG-certified?

This post made me laugh...

"I rarely post on forums so forgive my lack of fancy banners etc but I do have an opinion I wish to share. For those at Micorsoft working on the next release of Flight Simulator - your product is no longer the mainstay of the flightsim world - PMDG has become the primary product such is the excellence of the 737 and particularly the 744/F. As far as I am concerned and I urge other PMDG fans to join me on this - any future versions of MSFS should be PMDG compatible or I won't be buying it. Why should PMDG have to re-work perfection just to suit the entirely non perfect Flight Simulator software?

The days of developers modifying their products to suit Microsoft have gone - its time for Microsoft to work with companies like PMDG to ensure compatibility.

Well done PMDG, the 744 is now perfect! To Microsoft - make sure the box on your new versions of Flight Simulator carry a PMDG compatible sticker or else!"

Is YOUR product PMDG-certified compatible? :-)

Ooomph-carrying laptop

I've been promising myself to write about my new laptop - a Fujitsu-Siemens M1437G (Amilo series). It took a little bit of research to finally decide to get this one, so I wanted to explain the thought process a bit, as I went through it:

Background, first: I wanted a laptop that will support both demonstration and development purposes. Since the main work I do is Flight Simulation aircraft addon code (99% of it written in C++ on Visual Studio - all flavors), I had to find a lappy that will support debugging with Microsoft Flight Sim open as a (smaller) window. At the same time, it should be able to run Flight Sim in full screen, with as little performance degradation as possible.

All this meant two things: a) CPU, b) Graphics Card, c) RAM :-).

Reading through the web, it looked as though I should go for the most CPU I could find, which would be the new dual core ones coming out. The question was: Are they available? Well, not today, not in Athens, not yet. Also, reading along, I discovered that they suffered from a (fatal, IMO) flaw: if you plugged any USB2.0 device into them, battery time would be reduced, sometimes by 80%. Well, that's no good... scratch dual core laptops (for now).

What about a video card? Well, availability dictated decisions here as well... the "best" card available today for laptops was the ATI x700, unless I wanted to lug around a 17" beast (at 4Kg NOT the easiest thing to carry through airports, if you consider that the bag would be another 0.5 to 1kg.)

The M1437G has a 2.13GHz Centrino CPU, with 2GB of (pretty fast) RAM, a nice 15" screen (wideview, unfortunately - seems the market's saturated with those nowadays - I looked and looked, and couldn't find any "regular" screens) and an X700 VGA that would most likely run MSFS "adequately".

These are the results (for the newly released 747-400F Queen of the Skies Cargo):


Not half bad, it seems :-). I am happy with it. If you read this description and want further info, don't hesitate to contact me about it!

Gettin' ready...

(A picture is worth a thousand words)...

Relax times

Francois' comment in my Comparisons article triggered another synapse in my neural pathways :-). He mentioned that he loves to ride his BMW motorcycle with his wife Nina along and go cruising the highways... I got a bit jealous, because lately the only relax time for Margarita and I comes when we go see a movie, have a nice dinner somewhere or visit a couple friends. No longer are we willing to endure the smokey, jam-packed claustrophobic rooms that are called night clubs here in Athens, to get ripped off with overpriced, diluted alcoholic drinks and bad music.
With a seven-year-old child, it's all but impossible to think about a weekend escapade, not because we don't have "baby parking", thank her parents, but because we already see him little during the week (school, work, all) so leaving him with the grandparents for a whole weekend is a big rise in the guilt-o-meter.
Some might say "take him with you". I am sure you don't have kids, do you? :-) It will certainly be very enjoyable, but it will definitely NOT be relax time.
So- what to do? Comments welcome!

Comparisons...

Something that happened last night got me thinking...

We were visiting my godmother when Margarita reminded me that we had forgotten to ask her parents to tape a show she likes to watch on TV, as we'd be out for the evening. She wanted to call, but to ask them a third Friday in a row might be considered indelicate, so I suggested that I remotely log on from my godmother's PC onto the home PC, from there onto the sat dish receiver (it's based on Linux) and, through its web connection, program the timer to "tape" the show onto its embedded hard disk.

Just a measly two years ago, this wouldn't have been possible: My house didn't have a permanent Internet connection (now we have ADSL), we didn't have a remotely accessible sat dish receiver (most dish receivers were using proprietary software written just for them) and there was none of that "connectivity" that makes the world a much smaller place...

Yet, this connectivity doesn't necessarily provide the requisite freedom, does it? Since my computer is always on the Internet, my friends bitch more when I am not online, because they know that I work from home, so I have no excuse for not opening Messenger to chat.

If anything, it provides even less freedom than before: My guilt levels go up anytime I consciously turn it off so I can relax and watch a bit of TV or play a game. So I've resorted to taking Margarita out to the movies, as a means of not feeling so bad about not being on the computer working, if I am at home...

What's the point of having so much "help" from gadgets and technology, if all it does is make us less free?

(DONT)README.TXT

[Rant mode ON]

I cannot figure out any good way of making users READ the friggin README.TXT file. You know, the one that BEGS you: READ ME! READ ME! READ ME!

Some installers will automatically open the README.TXT file as the last step before finishing the product installation, but even then, the user is not guaranteed (read: 95% of the time, won't do it) to actually put some effort into making sense of what's been written in there.

Can we get an installer that will pop out a semi-automatic, point it to the PC and play a .wav to say "If you don't ACTUALLY read the stupid thing, I am PULLING THE TRIGGER"?

Actually, bad idea... we'll get even more support calls that way, with people bitching that there was a huge explosion and a hard disk fragment popped their eye socket out or something...

[Rant mode OFF]

If anyone has any good solutions on this, I am all ears...

I'd like to go flying again...

The weather around Athens has been so bad lately (25-30kt winds blowing constantly, drizzle, cold weather and general misery) that I had to unthink my desire to go flying these past two weeks. This is bad for a variety of reasons: a) I will have to spend an hour with an instructor again, as it's been almost two months since last time I flew, but more importantly b) I don't get to reset the craving levels, so the amounts of craving are increasing to almost unbearable limits. ;-)

Meanwhile, Margarita and I are keeping ourselves busy watching the entire second season of 24 - the TV series, that we got on DVD, all in a period of a week or so (yes, that's 2-3 episodes per night). There's something to be said about good TV series productions and this is one of them. One major complaint though, now that we've finished with the second season series: Could they not have ended it without a cliffhanger this time? We'd watch Season 3 anyway :-). (Well, I can't complain - we've got Season 3 on DVD as well - starting next week).

Why next week? Well, we're going to spend the weekend at Euro-Disney with the kids. 4 days, in fact. Hopefully, this will be an unforgettable experience to them: at 10, 9 and 7, they're at the right age to enjoy this as thoroughly as possible - hopefully the weather forecasts will turn to be wrong (-3 degrees projected and rain/snow for the entire duration). At least the crowds will choose not to go :-).

Lastly, this is something I've wanted to do for awhile: Post a picture of myself and Robert Randazzo, so PMDG customers can put a name to a face. (I am the guy in the white shirt / blue shorts).

While the thing compiles...

Waiting idly, while a build is taking place for the PMDG 747-400F (The Cargo) can become very boring, very quickly, so I was trying to find something of interest to look at in the mean time. A full rebuild usually takes about 10 minutes, so in just that time, I bumped onto a couple web sites that made me laugh:

The first was one of those "now, how didn't I think of that first" types, where for ten seconds, you might consider that this is a cool idea, but afterwards you know that it won't work, now the novelty has worn off: The Million Dollar Homepage. I call this my "simple redistribution of wealth" principle: Money flows from those who have no ideas to those who have an idea, however stupid it might be.

The second was a derivative, that actually came from one of the advertised sites through the Million Dollar homepage. Now, you might have seen this a gazillion times before: The "Get Rich Quick" scams, that offer to make you a millionaire in no time, by just buying and reading this book, etc. etc. (obviously, the author is the one getting rich quick). This site, though, has a twist; it insults and cajoles the reader in such a way that it might just work enough to make them part with their money... Well, make up your own mind on it: Here's the Rich Jerk's home page. Amazing what people do for fame...

Users... users...

I was perusing our support forum the other day, checking to see if I could help someone by responding to a call for help or by showing new cool features that will be in the 747-400F (our Cargo product), I bumped onto a post that wrote (in reference to us deciding not to do wingviews):

I bet that when they re-write it they will also loose the ability for wing views like the 747. In that case, I definately won't buy it.

Please, I do not want any replies about other payware that can do this. It should be standard. Period.

I don't know about you, but it kinda ruined my day... Thankfully, it seems that our customers and friends feel otherwise, so I am grateful for them coming to my support (for a change :-)).

Click here to view the entire post...

How to whine creatively...

From time to time, we receive some odd-ball requests via our support@ email. Robert Randazzo alerted me to this one, sent by a guy I'll call "JT" - does it not win the whiner of the month award, considering that our customer account details are held entirely on our servers?

Subject: Frustrated

Hello PMDG,

I have recently had a large computer crash which tore down my accounts on Support, eCommerce, and my 737 and 747 are gone. I have been talking to this service about this for almost a month now, but have only gotten my 737NG back. That was on a seperate computer which my eCommerce account was not deleted. The 747 was deleted off this computer and I keep trying to get it back and locate my eCommerce account used on this e-mail address. Kudos for getting me my 737 back, but I keep getting denied another link back to my 747. It isn't my fault that my eCommerce accounts were wiped out, and I have been trying all the time to find it again. No success. So it would save so much hassle if I could just get my 747 back without the pain of spending another $54.99. I just think spending 109.98 is ridiculous and not worth my time for one 747. There is absolutley nothing wrong with the product but I would at least like it back!

Thank you,
(JT)