Vancouver 1.1 and vicenh06 update

There’s a couple of reasons you haven’t seen announcements of release dates for these product updates: Holger isn’t available until September to do his bits (he was focusing on Tongass Fjords, thank goodness!), and more importantly, with FSX imminent we are looking at whether we can make these updates FSX-compatible. FSX may release as early as early October, and we may then be able to see if this is feasible. This avoids two releases and test periods. Thanks for your patience.

Airport Day at CYPK

Pitt Meadows Regional Airport is holding their annual open house on Sunday, August 20. See http://www.pittmeadowsairport.com/ for more info on the airport.

As well as showing off the facilities, they plan to have three sim pilots from Canadian Virtual Airlines (CVA) bringing in their equipment and one controller from VATCAN who will set up alongside. The plan is for a virtual fly-in to coincide with the event with “heavier” aircraft converging on CYVR from anywhere the pilot wishes; then transition to light aircraft for a VFR fly-in into CYPK. The VATCAN controller will handle CYPK tower while the pilots will do as seems appropriate.

The simulated demonstration will feature Vancouver+, including of course CYPK. Thanks to Ken Malaniuk for setting this up.

Drop by if you’re in the neigbourhood, or stop by virtually. More info at Vancouver Island Virtual Airlines

Jaggies part 2

It’s getting more interesting! My dealer kindly lent me a video card while mine was sent off for repair … and it had the same problem! So it’s not the video card, hold that RMA, please.

He thinks it’s a RAM or power supply problem, but before taking the machine into the shop, I wanted to ensure I’d tested every variability I could think of (and some others have had good ideas too). So I’ve tried:

- two different model video cards (Nvidia 7900GT and 6200)
- three different monitors with three different video cables (2xSamsung 920N and one Samsung 710N)
- two different video adapter drivers (84.21 and 91.31), uninstalling, running drivercleaner, re-booting into safe mode to reinstall
- re-installing DirectX9
- two different monitor drivers (920N and 710N)
- dxdiag reports no problems

And after all this, the problem looks slightly worse.

I’m quite intrigued as to what the problem could be ….

The Jaggies

A couple of weeks ago, the icons on my taskbar suddenly looked jaggy and crude.  In FS9, the display looked terrible: huge jaggies, severe shimmer; no matter what settings I used.

I finally today sat down to diagnosis this.  First problem: changing anti-aliasing on the card had no effect on the display.  Fiddled with more settings (and settings in FS9), no diff.  So I phone BFG tech support, and after an hour got a very helpful individual who quickly determined the card had gone bad, for whatever reason.  Good news: BFG has a lifetime warranty on their products, and I got an RMA#.  Bad news: managing the logistics of losing my video card for a couple of weeks.  I’ve asked my dealer (who warrants the system) to give me a loaner.

Do we like technology, or the content?

No, this isn’t about McLuhan’s theories.  It seems culturally we are enamored with new technologies.  But there are some contradictory examples: television, movie theatres and cell phones.  Most TVs are still displaying video using specifications created in the 1940s, and enhanced and kludged over time constrained by the original specs.  Ever notice how mushy your reds are?  How much the screen flickers?  How lousy the resolution is?  All designed to work based on low-speed vacuum tubes.  It wasn’t until the 1990s that DVDs at least dealt with the colour bleeding.  And only in this decade is HDTV starting to become mainstream.  But higher definition, better quality transmission was possible 40 years ago.

Same with movies: I saw a movie in the theatre the other night: 24 frames a second, jiggly picture registration.  Looks awful when there is a lot of movement.  In some theatres I’ve found focus is a problem.  I don’t know when that standard was created, but probably the 1920s.  Higher quality movies were available in the 1960s (remember Cinerama? although it’s frame rate was only marginally higher: 26).  Imax (up to 60 fps) and Omnimax theatres offer higher resolution and frame rates, so look much better, but are still somewhat fringe.

And finally cell phones: the average call I get right now has vastly inferior voice quality to the cell phone I had in 1990, even without reception problems.  Why do consumers tolerate such poor quality?  And in North America, in my experience, reception is dramatically worse than in other countries.  In Hong Kong, cell phone reception is clear in most elevators, let alone on the street.

So maybe it’s like the plastic non-functioning cell phones I saw on many people in Costa Rica some years ago.  Having SOMETHING is what matters.  As long as it serves a basic purpose and looks cool, then the quality is secondary.  So our essential needs are being met: we can still laugh at the cheesy sticoms, get into the movie plot, and hear enough of the mobile conversation to get by.

Sometimes software is too bizarre to be anything but funny…

Check this out: for my corporate website my wife suggested a different font, and colour scheme.  She’s good at that stuff, and the new colour theme (light blue) looks way better.  The font is a different matter: Franklin Gothic Medium, a standard Windows font, I believe.  In Photoshop Elements on my machine however, the only variant available is italic, not regular, which I want.  Ick.  On her computer, in Photoshop Elements, regular IS available.  On all other applications on my machine the font is available in regular, italic, bold and italic bold.  To be sure I copied the font from her machine to mine, and rebooted.  No go, it’s just not available in Photoshop.  I’m sure there’s some logical explanation, but it struck me as so absurd as to be quite funny . . . in the meantime I’ll stick to my bold Verdana for the sub-headings, and hope for a bolt of inspiration.

Having my cake and eating it too . . .

I’ve been quite busy over the last couple of weeks clarifying and focusing the services I offer, outside of the flightsim world.  I’ve picked up a bit of contracting and coaching work recently and enjoyed it a lot.  Earlier this year I’d hesitated to go the full entrepreneur/consulting route as I recognized my need to follow projects through to the end, and be part of a team, might not be met.  But I’m realizing that contracting allows me to continue to work on flightsim development and nicely scratch that itch.

So I’ve redone my corporate website to better reflect what I offer.  It’s a simple site; I see its purpose as follow-up documentation rather than directly attracting clients through the Internet.  I also may add some other little pics, rather than having my smiling, beaming face on every page.  But it serves as a placeholder for now.