[ and they gave me a blog - what were they thinking :-> ]

Hey Everyone,  Welcome to my blog. 

First things, who the heck is this guy :->

Name: Tim Gregson

Position: Software Developer - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Location: Fredericksburg, VA

History:

• 1990 - 1995 Worked at Bruce Artwick Organization (BAO) on FS4 SGA addon, Tower (Consumer and Pro versions), ported FS5 and SS1 to run on Japanese hardware/OS
• 1995 - 1999  Moved to MS when they acquired BAO, worked on FS95, FS98, FS2000 (also created the FRATE, ADVSTART, and ORDISP addons for FS95/FS98 :->)
• 1999 - 2001  Decided I wanted to do some hardware level work for a while, so I moved to the Windows CE Core OS Drivers team
• 2001 - 2002  Wanted to move to Virginia to be closer to my kids, moved to the MSTV group because they would let me work from home.
• 2002 - 2004  Took a couple of years off
• 2004 - 2005  Rejoined the FS team as a contractor (working from my home)
• 2005 - ?        Hired back on with the FS team as a full time MS employee again (still working from my home)

And now on with the blog

Let me start by saying, things are a lot different at MS these days compared to 10 years ago. 

When MS acquired BAO in '95, I had been hanging around the FSFORUM on Compuserve (you all remember CIS & FSFORUM don't ya :->) for over a year and would get the occasional "worried looks" from management when they found out I had been posting on various on-line sites (CIS, MSN Forum, AVSIM.COM, SIMFLIGHT.COM, etc ) - of course, these worried looks led to some of the management types starting to frequent the same on-line sites (the paranoid in me thinks they were checking up on me, but for whatever reason, at least they showed up :->).

Fast Forward 10 years (man, I'm getting old :->), and now the management types actually send us email encouraging us to visit the various FS-related web sites, start our own Blogs (like this one), go to the trade shows where FS has a booth, etc.

A very nice change in attitude.  Now I see phrases like "How will this effect our customers", "How will the customer expect this to work", etc in emails and "hallway meetings".  Even the template we use for design/change proposals for new versions has a field to list direct customer benefits of this new design/change.  Not that we didn't care about the user 10 years ago, we did :->, it just wasn't as universally applied to the decision making process as it is these days.  This is good for ya'll (the users) and its good for us (the developers/testers/designers/artists/etc).

What is this blog going to be about

I honestly don't know :->.  Probably some musings on being a telecommuter (which I love being, by the way, and more groups at MicroSoft need to consider this option :->), the Joys of Long Distance Driving Trips (OK, most folks would probably consider these to be mind numbingly boring - my Mom included - but I enjoy them; I've been averaging between 2 and 3 driving trips a year from Fredericksburg, VA to Redmond, WA since I moved here in '01), maybe some fun things I've found you can do with C#/.Net (if you were wondering, this is what I spent those 2 years I was "semi-retired" (sounds better than unemployed :->) playing with), anything techy/geeky/nerdy is probably fair game at some point :->, oh, and yeah, I might talk about things Flight Sim from time to time :->. 

Eventually I may even figure out how to use the tools available to make this blog page look nicer (a little paint on that wall, some nice curtains, maybe a throw rug :->).

Wrap Up

Before I wrap this up for today and get back to writing code :->, just wanted to say a quick Hi to all my old friends in the FS OnLine Community (you know who you are :->) and sorry I sorta dissappeared off the face of the web for 5 years, and also a quick Hello to any new friends out there :->.

Tim "Beatle" Gregson

OK, this may be more wishful thinking than prognostication :->.  Why am I predicting/wishing for the demise of Sony/BMG?  Well, if you haven't already seen this elsewhere in the blogosphere, start with this article by Molly Wood on C|Net: http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6376177.html

Apparently, Sony has come up with yet another stupid, ill-thought out (at least from the consumers standpoint, I'm sure it meets all of their requirements :->) DRM scheme to keep us from exercising our Fair-Use rights to the CD music we buy (in fact, the CDs come with a EULA that basically states that, like computer software, you are only licensing the right to use the music on the CD, not buying the CD outright).  The truly nasty part of this DRM scheme is that is uses a "root-kit" in order to hide the files used to implement the DRM scheme, and according to reports on the net, the hidden DRM software also "phones home" to Sony, sending along what CD and track you are playing and the IP address of the computer that is playing it.  As if that wasn't bad enough, attempting to remove this malware from your computer can permanently trash your Windows OS install from a minimum of disabling the CD-ROM drive in your computer up to causing the computer not to be able to reboot anymore.  Also, the root-kit that they install can be used by other malware-types to hide their own files without them even having to ship/install their own rootkit on your computer.

From what I've read, its quite likely that this DRM scheme will be found to violate several existing US and international computer fraud statutes - I find it humorous that in Sony's attempts to keep us from breaking the law, they have resorted to breaking the law themselves, and hope that if they are found to be breaking the law the various courts go after them with gusto :-> (apparently there is already investigation underway in Italy relating to this).

So, when shopping for CD's for your loved ones this holiday season (or personal/home electronics devices for that matter), "Just Say No" to Sony/BMG.

Well, enough ranting for now :->, I should get back to work.

First off, sorry for the rather large gap since my last post (to all 3 or so of you that aren't related to me that read this :->). 

Now, for that Geometry reference...

I was up in Wilkes-Barre, PA over Thanksgiving helping my parents move furniture and boxes and whatnot around their new house (well, it's an old house, but its new to them :->), they had just moved the weekend before Thanksgiving.  The previous owner of the house had finished the basement, but it has a really low ceiling (maybe 6' 4" to 6' 6").  They had some guys unload the truck for them and place most of the furniture, but when Mom showed me the basement, there was this white particle board shelf laying on its side.  When I asked where it needed to go, Mom said it was going to have to go back upstairs, because the movers couldn't get it to stand up in the basement because of how low the ceiling was.  At first I just accepted that (since everytime I moved around I seemed to be hitting my hands on the ceiling, seemed reasonable to me :->), but I kept looking at the shelf and something in the back of my head kept saying there was something wrong here.  Eventually I realized what it was.  The shelf was laying on its side (this is a 6ft high by 2 ft wide by 9 inches deep shelf), and I suddenly asked, "Hey, when they tried to stand this shelf up, was it laying on its side like this?", and Mom said "Yes".  So I had the bright idea to lay the shelf on its back and then stand it up, and it JUST cleared the ceiling ( sqrt((72 * 72) + (9 * 9)) is less than sqrt((72 * 72) + (24 * 24)) ).

So, sometimes you really can use math in real life, thanks Mr Gower (my High School Freshman Year Geometry teacher).

And for those who think you have to be a math wiz to be a computer programmer, the above was more math than I generally use at work.  Of course, not much call for math when doing dialog boxes and UI widgets (except for converting to and from meters, feet, miles, etc - and we have utility functions that do that sort of stuff for us :->), lots of cajoling windows messages into the right function/handler, but not much math.  Which isn't to say I've never used math for work, back in the old DOS days of FS4 and FS5, I used to do 2d graphics drivers, and for Tower I did some 3D to 2D point projection stuff (cylindrical projection to match the panoramic pictures we were using for our airport backdrops), so I did use some math then :-> 

I actually did do well in math in school, until Calc 2, which I took twice (at 2 different colleges) and got a C both times, at which point I decided me and math had gone far enough :->

All right, that's enough for now, getting close to bed time here on the east coast, and according to the weather report, I might be waking up to white stuff on the ground.

I know its been awhile since my last post, and I completely missed the first round of info we released at CES and the associated screenshots we released about that time.  But, we have some new screenshots out now, the first 3 new ones are available over at AVSIM .  Here's a link to the discussion thread talking about the new screenshots.

I know I haven't had much FS related on this blog, but I didn't figure folks would be all that interested in changes to our dialog boxes (which is what I'm working on this version) :->.  I mean, how interesting is it to hear that our list controls now have the ability to display graphic images within the cells, or can have different colored text per line or per column, etc.  Useful stuff for us as we design the dialogs, but not exactly earth shattering info for you guys :->.  That and I can only talk about features, etc that have been publicly announced (which granted, doesn't cover a whole lot just yet :->) further limiting what dialog/UI things I can talk about, even if anybody did find them interesting.

So, go check out those screenshots and I'll se ya around.