Update

Not much progress on VicPlus last week, I had family in town and there was much to do, combined with job-hunting and other shenanigans. I plan to get at it again this week. There isn’t really that much left to do, mostly fiddly bits like buildings (and docks for SPBs) at the airports, some minor coastline adjustments, integration with Don Grovestine’s CYYJ, and then the installer/configurator.

Work on VicPlus

Lots of fiddly bits in the last week on VicPlus:

• added radar dome and antenna to Mount Newton (near CYYJ)
• fix up floatplane docks at CYWH to match new harbour object
• adjusted Bay Street Bridge to new elevations (and lengthened it, and added exclusions)
• add breakwater and docks to the Pat Bay research station
• started to slightly realign inner harbour boat docks
• changed tower location for CYWH, CBF7 and CBZ7 to the correct location
• fixed the tiger-stripe hold-short mark at all the floatplane bases

Thanks to Don Grovestine for the last item.  He discovered that if you draw the link from the runway node to the hold short node (rather than the other way around), no H/S marker is created.  This allows me to make the apron route approaching the H/S node 20′ wide, minimizing the possibility of taxi pileups.  Thanks, Don!

FS9 Reinstall. Well, almost.

So after getting some of my default-altering addons tangled, a lot of my FS9 default files seemed messed up. So I chose to do a partial reinstall. I did this by:

• backing up my entire FS9 folder first
• uninstalling any addons that modify default files (ASV6, FE, V+, Ultimate Terrain, Freight Dogs, Misty Fjords, EDDF, Orcas Island, BEV, etc.)
• restoring my original distribution Flight Simulator 9\Scenery and \Texture folders from my backup copy
• copying back my Ultimate Traffic traffic.bgl into Scenery\World\Scenery and disabling the default traffic file by renaming to traffic.utb

This meant I didn’t have to install/uninstall: FS9/9.1 patch, a pile of aircraft, Ultimate Traffic, FSG landclass and mesh, other non-default altering scenery.

I’m still tussling with having run out of reactivations for one package, but otherwise this seems to have worked, and been much quicker than a full reinstall.

Coast Guard heli at CBZ7 – Shoal Point

Thanks to Razbam, Vancouver+ users will see a new heli repaint at Shoal Point, Coast Guard C-FDOF.  This heli does a little loop around the harbour in the opposite direction to the Helijet heli at the adjacent CBF7. 

I should note that my screenshots do not capture my hardware antialiasing, so they look jaggy.  I haven’t reinstalled a screenshot program yet.

And speaking of the harbour traffic, I am running Ultimate Traffic and have assigned the Helijet S-61 to the Helijet rotary wing aircraft in the Victoria-Vancouver schedule.  BUT that schedule in UTraffic indicates CYWH to CYHC, the floatplane base ICAOs, not the Heliport ICAOs (CBF7/CBC7).  So now I have Sikorskys docking in the harbour.  Oooops.

The Rules

I like to be reminded that there is not usually a “right” way of doing things: I get to choose!  In this case a very experienced employment counsellor who I respect had advised when approaching recruiters that the best way is to phone them up, tell them you’ll be in town next week, and ask which day would be best for an interview.  I can see that shows assertiveness and a pro-active attitude.  Then I picked up the Guide to Canadian Recruiters who advise that recruiters are very busy, and that candidates should never insist on an interview.

So how do I prefer to approach it?  I like to respect people’s time and not make the assumption that they want an interview, but be pro-active in followup and ensuring that the connection is made.  When approaching potential employers, if I get return calls or emails or acknowledgement in some form, that tells me a lot about how the company does business.  If I don’t hear back after repeated attempts, I get the message: it’s likely they are not good communicators.  And that could mean they are not good employers, or just that there’s a bit of a gap in the corporate culture that needs filling.

Technical Funnies

The new machine is in general working quite well and both allowing me to be much more productive and to enjoy simming a lot more.  There are still some glitches:

• I added some more addon scenery and unfortunately messed up my road system in Canada: defaults are still showing, and I can’t fully disable my UT roads.  I’m trying to avoid a reinstall as it as been a long road to cautiously install addons up until now.  No pun intended, honest.
• The analog video I capture with the PVR-150 as 12Mbit CBR MPEG2 isn’t always read properly by Premiere Elements: the audio is sometimes screwed up.  In one case the same 30 second bit of audio repeats throughout the project when seen in Elements, but it plays fine in PowerDVD.  Weird.  Hauppauge tech support can’t offer any answers this time, and I posted on a forum.  I’m also disappointed that the PVR-150 does not have lossless capture option, and that other capture programs can’t see or capture properly from the PVR-150 S-Video port.  My fallback here is to do the capture on my old computer: the Ti4200 SVideo port works fine, and I can capture AVI with WinProducer.  The new computer took less than an hour to burn a 2 hour DVD, I was quite impressed.
• I still haven’t heard back from TASCAM on the problem with the US-122: if I leave the USB device plugged in, my computer won’t go to sleep and seems to lock up at times.  Simply removing the USB plug solves this.  I use the TASCAM box rarely so it’s not a big deal, but it’s unfortunate that I haven’t heard back from them.

On final at Butler Field

Don’t be landing too early . . .

A bright white spot

… but from the ground the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre is red and white . . .

Busy week

Most of this week has been taken up with job-hunting and volunteer work (co-op membership committee and some MKP work).  I realized on the job-hunting front I was constraining the type of position too much: I like to create motivated teams who exceed goals.  I’d put that in a operations/project manager box, but it can be done just as easily in a customer support or HR or relocation environment.  I’m content with that.

In flightsimland Holger and I worked through some shoreline issues, and Don Grovestine has been providing some good feedback in that area.  I’ve added a few more buildings, including the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre arena which is quite prominent from the air with its bright white roof, and some parks and golf courses.  My sister and her husband and I climbed Mount Work on Wednesday, and it was fun later to duplicate the view in the sim.  We only had views to the West, but in the sim I can see that from this 443m peak the view to the east would have been spectacular.

The CBW9 Madrona Bay helipad does not work well with AI because of surrounding terrain.

I also reinstalled Ultimate Traffic this week after a one year absence and that’s added a lot of life.  It’s still possible to bring this machine to its knees with 100% traffic at LAX (450 aircraft in the area) and real-world weather with all sliders maxed. Down to 11FPS or so.

I’m playing with Jim Keir’s version 2 of LWM viewer as well, which could not run on my old video card.  Very cool, although I’ve yet to get deeply into it.

Floatplane bases today

I’d created the AFCADs for the Victoria+ floatplane bases some time ago, but only got around to testing them for AI today.  With some tweaks, they all work, with no collisions with nearby hills.  Whew.  And I added in Shawnigan Lake (CAV8), which I’d forgotten.  The air is now full of floatplanes.

Owners of Vancouver+, which includes AI Beavers and AI B206L Longrangers will find they get a bunch of additional AI traffic in Victoria+, including all seaplane bases, and AI helis at CMBH (Mount Belcher, Saltspring) and the Victoria Coast Guard Station at Shoal Point (CBZ7).

I also doublechecked the CFS today and found that I’d missed another heliport: CBW9, Madrona Bay, near Ganges on Saltspring.   This may or may not be usable for AI.

 Oh, and I’ve pretty much finished the Victoria buildings: I did the Songhees area and a few other buildings around town.

The pudding: Harmony 880 update

A quick check-in on the Harmony 880 remote as my Mom has used it now for three months or so: she’s very happy with it. So regardless of the challenges I found, the intended user is content.

More buildings for the harbour

I’ve been adding buildings for Victoria harbour.  I’ve added the CYWH tower at Shoal Point and the heliport there, AI functional.  Songhees is next (the point on the middle left of this shot), it’s a bit barren right now.  Flight Environment used in the shots.

VictoriaPlus

The sixth release in the Victoria enhancement series has shed it’s development title of “vicenh06″ and will be known as VictoriaPlus. A freeware title, I think folks will like the features, installer and configurator and UT compatibility.

I’ve spent the last few days pushing through some other computer technical issues and working on some other issues, but I plan a push over the next couple of weeks to complete most of the features.

In VictoriaPlus, Vancouver+ owners will get additional AI floatplane and heli traffic using the models distributed in that product.

How to minimize your customer base

After some good experiences with customer support (thank you in particular Hauppauge on the PVR-150, well done!), I recently experienced some excellent teaching on how to drive customers away, courtesy of Apple iTunes.  Using the a cost-minimizing approach that have evolved from analyst's realizations that every customer costs money, some sophisticated techniques have evolved:

1.  During installation ensure that as many tasks as possible will be left permanently running on the users machine, regardless of whether they are needed or not. (ITunes, iTunes Helper and IPodService for example)

2.  If part of your product or service is to provide data, ensure that is incompatible with most popular applications. In this case ensure that your music format is incomtabible with all popular music players (yes, I do understand about DRM)

3.  Ensure that every trivial step needs internet authorization.

4.  Buy as few servers as possible so that it can take 1-15 minutes for a transaction or authorization.

5. Create fake progress bars that repeat over and over regardless of the transaction or application status, so the users won't know the application is hung.

6. Ensure that if the application is not hung, but access is unresolved when the users exits, the full program stays memory resident and cannot be rerun until the process is terminated in the Windows Task Manager. 

7.  Ensure that direct support is deeply hidden:  First direct the user to an FAQ (which makes sense), but then drive them to a peer-support forum where inexperienced but well-meaning folks cannot solve the issue.  Ensure this forum is populated with sympathetic folks who assume that PCs never work and tell the user buy a Mac.

8.  If the user does find the email support link, ensure no human looks at the email, and provide an automated response to the first recognized keyword, eg, "Hello there" can be responded with, "It looks like you're writing a letter…."  Follow this with links on better letter-writing, and suggestions to read the FAQ and use the support forum.  Ignore any other requests or information.

9.  At the bottom of the response, say, "In the impossible event this redundant information has not solved your issue, please email us and provide the following information."  Ensure that you ask again for all the information the users already provided in their email request.

If you're lucky, the customer should go away at this point and not use up any more valuable corporate resources.

The next step gets funnier.  I emailed them back with the information requested and they responded (honest!!) with "As the previous agent stated; It sounds like the issues is with the computer connecting to the iTunes Music Store when authorizing, which is what the progress bar is indicating it's trying to do. The iTunes Music Store team answers non-technical questions about billing, customer accounts, downloading music, and iTunes Music Store content."  And then suggested I visit the FAQ or the forums.  ROFL! 

But the sort of good news: there was an AppleCare phone number at the bottom of the message, and that did connect me eventually to a fellow who was enthusiastic to help out.  Rather ironically the problem fixed itself in the meantime.  From chatting to the AppleCare guy, it's clear there are two divisions:  the "music" people who provide no technical support whatsoever for their product.  And the "Apple" people who are so keen to support the brand they will try to support a product that is not theirs.  Two extremes in customer care.

So let's take a guess: which division will survive?

Last hint for a while . . .

V+ Easter Egg

The monitor arrived

The replacement monitor finally appeared, and it works fine. Much larger virtual desktop to work with; already easier. And I see that if I want to playback video on the TV, I have to disable one monitor, which is fine. I can only have 2 out of the 3 active at one time.

And I finally got around to getting the sound I/O card: M-Audio FastTrack Pro. So far it doesn’t work, and I have a call into tech support. The sound card on the Asus board is quite noisy (electrically speaking), but I didn’t expect to use it for much, and had budgeted for a sound box of some kind.