Author: robi

Not long ago I was talking to a friend, and I mentioned OpenStreetMap. I was surprised to learn that he had never heard of it before.

OpenStreetMap is a freely available online map, similar to Bing maps or Google maps. The big difference is that OpenStreetMap is editable. Just like Wikipedia, it is edited by the online community. Everybody can upload GPS tracks, define roads, mark buildings, and so on. Even if you don’t have a GPS, you can help, for example by entering street names.
Continue reading OpenStreetMap

There is a nice article about HTML5 video: http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html

After I have upgraded our media PC to Ubuntu 10.4 (Lucid Lynx) audio stopped working in XBMC. Upgrading to the latest XBMC ubuntu packages from PPA didn’t help. After some experimenting, I have figured out that pulseaudio had to be started. I have the XBMC session file (/usr/share/xsessions/XBMC.desktop), and it turned out that it simply starts xbmc-standalone, which in turn starts pulse-session. But only if it exists. On Lucid it does not.

Fortunately we can use pulseaudio –start instead. So I just modified the startup script and now it works fine.

For the records /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone before:
#!/bin/sh
if which pulse-session; then
pulse-session xbmc --standalone "$@"
else
xbmc --standalone "$@"
fi


And after:
if which pulseaudio; then
pulseaudio --start
fi
xbmc --standalone "$@"


Reading material 😉
– http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/20100504-facebook-tracking-via-like.html [en]
– http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline [en]
– http://index.hu/tudomany/2010/05/06/meghataroztak_a_kvarkok_tomeget/ [hu]
– http://fedor.blog.hu/2010/05/06/a_lo_tulso_oldala_1 [hu]
– http://www.portfolio.hu/cikkek.tdp?h=1&k=3&i=132686 [hu]

During the flight I mentioned in my last entry, I realised that I had forgotten to install and setup some stuff. So I installed them today. These were:

• Service Pack 3 for the Flight 1 ATR 72
• Latest navitational database for the ATR 72, available from navigraph.com

I also had to set up my microphone. It wasn’t easy. Windows 7 detects two microphones for some reason. I had to disable the first one in the list. Furthermore I had to increase the volume to 100% and boost to +20.0 dB (66%). We tested the microphone with a fellow pilot so now it should be ok. 🙂 By the way, it was the same pilot as yesterday, let’s call him BCY007 Lotfi 😉

The engines were too loud, so I changed the sound settings as well. First in the ATR 72 configurator. Ambient sounds are set to 50%, everything else is set to 90%. Unfortunately, I cannot hear some less important sounds using these settings, but I cannot set the ambient sounds higher to 50%, otherwise I get a terrible noise in the cockpit.

I have also changed the Flight Simulator sound settings as follows: 2, 30, 20, 10, 80, 80. As you see I have set the engines to very low. Now it’s fine. I can still hear them so I notice how the engines react on changing the throttle.

Finally I did a short flight from EIDW (Dublin) to EINN (Shannon), and everything went fine.

Yesterday I have installed a Fokker F50 for FS2004. It was made by DreamWings Design, and it contains a CityJet livery by Mathieu Vos. It is available from flightsim.com: http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=139789

Installation is straightforward, just copy the extracted directory in the Aircraft directory of FS2004. There is also a panel for the F50 from the Fokker Panel Project, but I haven’t installed it yet.

Today I did a flight with a fellow pilot from CityJet VA from DTTA (Tunis) to DAAG (Algiers). There is a very nice sceenery available for DAAG that I installed before the flight. Just unrar to Addon Sceeneries, add as usually, and it works. Available from http://riadg.free.fr/

As the DAAG sceenery is in a rar file, I had to install winrar as well. However, I set it to be the default application for rar files only. Windows 7 can handle zip files, so I’m glad I don’t have to use winzip. And I will use winrar only when really necessary.

My Windows XP kept crashing when I was running Microsoft Flight Simulator, so I decided to upgrade to Windows 7. I just had to find some space on the disk, insert the DVD and the rest was straightforward.

For those who know me it might be surpising that I use Windows. Well I do, but only for Flight Simulator. 😀

As a future reference, here is a list of things I installed or configured:

• Windows 7 – quite simple procedure
• Firefox – musthave
• flash plugin – open a page with flash, and click on the popup to install
• flashblock – I quickly realised the need when I started browsing
• adblock pro – see above
• bluetooth headset – works out of the box
• Flight Simulator 2004 – takes some time
• realism settings – display flying tips: off
• realism settings – autorudder: off
• resolution – a bit bigger than 640×480
• Joystick – works out of the box, only a calibration was neeed
• Flight1 ATR 72-500 – my favourite aircraft so far
• text-o-matic – to install some more textures
• F1 view utility – I didn’t find it that useful yet
• serivce pack 3 – TODO
• IvAp – first install wasn’t successful, but the second one was OK
• config – populate TCAS: on

Finally I had time to fix my blog. When I upgraded my system and did a database backup, I did it in a wrong way. So I couldn’t do a straightforward recovery, I had to do it manually. And it take so long. Well, it only took a few hours, but I never found the time for it until now. But now it’s back, time to share my latest adventures 😉