SkyBridge begins to take shape

Lots of work yet to do on support structure and texturing, but the structure is recognizable… this I believe is the longest transit-only bridge in the world.

Vancouver+ V1.1

We plan an upgrade to Vancouver+ to be released in August or September, with some new features and a few minor fixes.  Here’s a couple of screenshots. In the first shot, Park Place can be seen, the purplish office building on the right.  It’s the largest (not tallest) office building in British Columbia.  Just behind it and to the left I’ve added the CYHC harbour control tower on the top of Granville Square.  In the second pic is the HR Macmillian Space Centre.

Some AI traffic for the Gulf Islands

I’ve entered schedules now for Harbour Air, Seair, and Salt Spring Air for Gulf Islands Destinations.  I created a couple of DHC-2 repaints for this… these will work for folks that have the DHC-2 AI model in Vancouver+.

Goodbye iTunes

The email from iTunes I quoted yesterday ended with, "If you require more in-depth assistance, please call Apple technical support at 800-APL-CARE (800-275-2273)." So as promised yesterday, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and phoned AppleCare. After some time they told me that they had no ability to support iTunes and to email the mswin@apple.com. LOL. Of course that's where I was directed to Apple Care.

Between Apple's misleading ads, their intrusive installations (QuickTime hijacked my file assignments without telling me), and their lack of product support, I do see a company focused on short-term gain without consideration of the long-term effect.

Bottom-line is that I'm using Apple data I've purchased (a video) on Apple software (iTunes + QuickTime) and it doesn't work. I have no recourse, unless I want to take them to court. And I'm not a big fan of adversarial resolution.

So I'll vote with my wallet. What they've created in me is a strong desire to direct folks away from any Apple products. At the same time I see Microsoft opening up in many ways to become more human. Let's see how this pans out over the next few years.

Meantime, Ciao iTunes. Time to find a new source of music!

EDIT:  I found this site which lists other sources. I think one of the reasons it took me so long to find an alternative was the belief that iTunes is probably more comprehensive.  When I get some time, I'll look at these.  Certainly the one site I checked out as a disappointment: it appears you have to sign up before looking at the song selection. There's a sure way to drive potential customers away!

The reality is that if you click "About" at the bottom of the screen it's possible to browse the selections.  Why make that obscure?

Back into the fire

I liked that video I noted a few days ago so much I decided I wanted to buy it.  So I bravely went back into the nightmare that is iTunes.  I had a very difficult time getting it to work (it would abort after being invoked), but after Googling some solutions (the Apple site provides too many hits, and is not very useful), I got it up and running.  I downloaded the video, but it had no audio.  I checked other videos I had on disk, and some had audio and some didn't, so it seemed like it might be something peculiar to the format.

Throwing caution to the wind, I emailed the secret email address (mswin@apple.com) that is buried so deeply in the iTunes support site.  They responded quite quickly with a useful suggestion.  But when that didn't work and I emailed back, I once again got the electronic third finger, "The iTunes Store team answers questions via email about billing, customer accounts, downloading items, and the selections available on the iTunes Store," followed by the usual unhelpful links.

So tomorrow I will try the AppleCare 800 number again.  Last time the fellow was very sympathetic, if unable to help.  We shall what happens this time.

And I recognize that I'm creating a large part of this problem myself: there is competition out there for song/video downloads and I'm not taking the time to look at folks that may actually support their product.

Silly fun

I joined a bunch of folks from the Gettin' Higher Choir today for a goofy game of softball. Initially there weren't enough people for two teams, so we rotated positions, with batters going to first base and back. A few people even had gloves. More people came, but the rotation game persisted, although how we rotated was constantly changing. Some passersby joined the chaos and we played for 2-1/2 hours or so. Great to see people I haven't seen in a while. Many thanks to Bill Hanson for organizing.

Great fun, a reminder that I met my wife at the same choir event in 2000. That was a fun day, too.

Most airport stuff done

Over the last couple of days on VicPlus:

• finished off heliport fences and buildings at CAL7, CBF5, CBK8, CBW7, and CMBH
• finished off Dave Thomas’ strip on Saltspring and Village Bay on Mayne Island
• created flight scenarios for the new land strips
• textured the large dock surface at the Pat Bay base, and added various boats at the docks there
• thanks to some snappy work by Holger, the shoreline adjustments are just about done

Village Bay Approach:

 

 Jubilee Hospital Heliport (CBK with Cancer Centre in the background.

Ganges Harbour, early morning.

Into the dark

Thanks Steve Lacey for the link to I Will Follow You Into the Dark.

Seaplane bases done

I completed the eye-candy around CMAP (Maple Bay) and CAV8 (Shawnigan Lake).  The Maple Bay Marina is tucked into a little bay at the south end of Maple Bay (see screenshot).  Then I started on the obscure airfields and finished off CML2 (Raven Field, Duncan), Whiskey Point, and Earl Hastings’ strip on North Pender.  Earlier I’d completed John Gaines’ strip on Saturna.  That leaves a little bit of work on Butler Field, Dave Thomas’ strip on Saltspring and Village Bay on Mayne Island.

Then the bigger job integrating Don Grovestine’s CYYJ.  That should be interesting!

Fences are still needed at some heliports (not all will get them), and a few heliports don’t have buildings yet (CAL7, CBF5, CBW9 and CMBH).

More bits for the floatplane bases.

I got the docks and buildings (where necessary), static boats and other atmosphere done for CAB3 (Bedwell Harbour, South Pender), CAP8 (Port Washington, North Pender), CAW7 (Mayne Island, on Active Pass), and CAX6 (Ganges Harbour Saltspring). Just CMAP (Maple Bay) and Shawnigan Lake (CAV left to do.  Here’s a shot of Bedwell Harbour, with a plane leaving the dock.

More progress

Got a bunch done on VicPlus the last couple of days:

• aligned inner Harbour boat docks
• textured harbour gmax object properly
• added Coho and Clipper dock buildings
• made minor adjustments to boat AFCAD parking locations
• reduced Songhees flatten size
• started working on some minor shoreline adjustments
• minor AI flightplan changes