MSN Video player

Just browsing my regular news feeds this evening and came across this at Neowin

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/07/30/microsoft-launches-msn-video-player-streaming-tv-shows-uk

Interesting stuff in deed. I’m a huge fan of the BBC iPlayer service here in the UK especially as I always seem to miss Top Gear when it’s broadcast.

Even better are the rumours that Hulu may soon be coming to our shores, offering 1000′s of hours of American shows.

http://www.hulu.com/

It’s a shame Pandora steams still can’t be accesses over here as  it was a great service whilst it lasted – I can never find a reliable off shore proxy

http://www.pandora.com/restricted

Windows 7 RTM available on August 15th?

According to Microsoft, the RTM build of Windows 7 will be released to Technet subscribers on August 15th, although many websites are reporting August 7th so i’ll be keeping an eye on the web around these dates. I’ve been running various beta’s since they first became available and my current RC release is still as nippy and stable since first installing despite throwing everything at it.

I’m also keeping tabs on rumours centred around Microsoft’s proposed ‘Family Pack’ licence deal which allows installation of Windows 7 on up to three PC’s (Windows 7 Home Premium only).

Dual screens and software solutions

On my main PC I use a 17″ TFT monitor which I often find quite restrictive when using programs such as Photoshop or a variety of flight sims. In particular with Microsoft Flight simulator, the screen can often look  cluttered if  I need to bring up the GPS display Radio Stack.

One solution would be to buy a larger screen, something like a 22″ or alternatively,  buy another 17″ TFT and set up a dual screen display. I’m intrigued to see if there’s  an alternative solution which might allow me to utilise one of my spare laptop displays instead. After spending a little time researching online, I discovered three solutions that might work.

The first is Synergy -  http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Synergy is an open source software solution that enables you to mirror your main display either too another monitor (connected to another PC) or a laptop screen via an Ethernet connection. I’ve been playing around with this for a project at work and it works seamlessly when i tried it. However, for my own use,  mirroring the display wouldn’t work in this case as i wanted to extend the desktop.

The second  is called MaxiVista – http://www.maxivista.com/ which does offers both mirrored and extended desktop functions over multiple screens via connected computes over Ethernet/Lan. The only downside is that it’s not free but at $29.95, is quite tempting. After downloading the 30 day trial I set it up using a very old laptop I have (see June 6th Post – http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/old-laptop-fun/

It worked perfectly and looked great when I extended my Windows desktop. With MS Flight Simulator, I hit a snag but this was was more to do with the aging laptop hardware’s inability to cope with the display updates rather than the software itself. In extended mode the frame rate was so low on the laptop it was unusable although it did work really well as second display to various cockpit controls  and external aircraft views.

The third (and free!) option works similarly to the above and also included Pocket PC support. It’s called Zonescreen http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm

Here’s a shot of MS Fight Simulator running on my main screen and PDA. Here I’ve extended the GPS display to my PDA. It works by using ActiveSync and my PDA docking station to create a connection to my PC. Totally fantastic!

Placing one of the aircraft’s external views on to the PDA worked really well too especially the ‘Chase View’ when landing the aircraft! Might also be useful set to a rear view in Combat Simulator so I can see if anyone’s sneaking up to shoot me from behind:-)

I’ve been happy with this setup for a few days now, but I’d still really like two equally sized monitors side by side. I’ve been browsing at eBay and have found the exact same model going for next to nothing.  It seems that nobody wants 17″ TFT’s anymore because I won it at a veeeery low price.

My graphics card (Nvidia Geforece 7600GT) contains both VGA and DVI output so, using a VGA to DVI converter I’ve managed to get both monitors connected, setup and desktop extended using the nvidia control panel (although Win XP options for extended desktops worked just as good).

Here’s a few photo’s taken this evening but the low light/bright screen is a little difficult to photograph.

Desktop, showing 2560 x1024 wallpaper

Gunning the An-2.

Flying over RAF Waddington.

An-2 at Sunset

Cabin lights on, now I can see!

Runway flyby.

If i get change tomorrow I’ll combine both monitors, my laptop ( for extended control views) and my PDA with the GPS display. Also looking forward to trying out the dual screen options in Adobe Lightroom 2.

Dual Screens…..highly recommended

Restored Apollo 11 videos on YouTube

NASA have released footage of the 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk which was has been recovered after being lost for 40 years. This is the original source footage shot on the moon rather than the grainy live feed that was compressed/scaled for TV broadcast. The footage is also being digital enhanced as part of a restoration project due to be complete by Autumn.

The YouTube footage is quite good compared to the original (you can see side by side comparison) but I’m wondering if anything has been lost in the down scale to You Tube? Can’t wait to see this when it’s released in broadcast quality.

Ya-arr, Monkey Island is back!

After almost nine years, Guybrush Threepwood is finally back in an all new piratety adventure entitled ‘Tales of Monkey Island’. I’ve been waiting to get my mitts on this since it was announced at E3.  Here’s and an excerpt from the Monkey Island websites -

‘While explosively stripping the evil pirate LeChuck of his demonic mojo, Guybrush Threepwood inadvertently infects the entire Caribbean with the arch-fiend’s expelled voodoo, which threatens to transform buccaneers into unruly pirate monsters. Pursued by a notorious cut-throat Pirate Hunter and a creepy French Physician who believes that Guybrush’s eerily-infected hand holds the secret of eternal life, Threepwood sails the seven seas in search of La Esponja Grande, a legendary sea sponge with unparalleled voodoo exfoliating abilities. But little does Guybrush know, his quest is part of a larger, more sinister plot, and good and evil are not always as they seem…

Who can Guybrush trust? Where can he turn? Everything you think you know will be challenged as Tales of Monkey Island builds to its unexpected finale!’

Publisher, Telltale games are distributing the game as a five part serial with each episode being available each month for download.  At the end of the series a DVD compilation of all episodes will be released.

I’ve placed my order and was directed to a link hosting the first episode ‘Launch of the screaming Narwhal’. After installing/registering etc the first few notes of Michael Lands classic Monkey Island theme started and the open scene began to play out – I knew I was in for something special and within a few minutes I was laughing my ass off.

I was a little sceptical at first when I heard that a third party vendor had brought the rights from Lucasart to produce a new Monkey game because it more often means they screw it all up. However, looking at the both Telltale Games website and opening credits of the game to appears that most of the original crew from all four previous games have worked on this new title. A few minutes into the game, you can tell a lotta love has been put into it.

Here’s a few screenshots I took this morning.

Hot on the heals of this new adventure is a special remake of the classic Secret of Monkey Island by Lucasart – and to my mind the best graphical adventure game of all time. I keep checking Lucasart’s website for scheduled release dates but so far it’s still showing as ‘Summer 2009′ for the PC version.

Right I’m off to practise my ‘insult sword fighting’ – tm!

Old Flight Simulator games

It seems every time we visit the RAF airshows, I feel the need to dust down my trusty PC flight yoke and take to the skies once again. Be it hunting down Messersmits in MS Combat Flight Sim or simple cruising around with Microsoft Flight Simulator I’ve always been enthralled by digital flight.

Thinking back now, my earliest recollection of playing on a ”Flight Sim’ was Flight Path 737 on our Commodore Plus/4. In theory it was a very simple affair, take off, fly over the mountains and land but boy was this a tough one to crack. Timing was critical, too much speed whilst lowering the under carriage and you were toast (graphically depicted by a cracked windscreen!).

Moving on to the Commodore 64, Micropose’s Gunship was by far my favorite and later on became became a huge fan of Microprose military titles. Despite being difficult at first to fly the Apache I was soon unleashing hell on enemy tanks.

It wasn’t until the early nineties, when owning both a Commodore Amiga and having access to a variety of early PC’s whilst working for IBM did my love of the combat flight sims quite literally ‘take 0ff’. On the Amiga, Electronic Arts F/A-18 Interceptor just blew me away with it’s ultra smooth vector graphics. I spent most of the time simply flying around, gunning the afterburner and whipping underneath the golden gate bridge in San Francisco or setting to rear view and barrel rolling after take off from an aircraft carrier ala ‘Top Gun’ style:-)

Back to Micropose, both F-19 Stealth Fighter and F-15 Strike Eagle II on the PC remain two of of my favorite games even today. I used to play them every lunch time at work and more often way in to the afternoon when no one was looking! The graphics and AI may look very dated now but back in the day they were state of the art. The sheer amount of detail not only in the actual game but in the supporting material like the keyboard overlay and the novel sized instruction book just pulled me in. I’ve been revisiting F-19 for this afternoon and it still hasn’t lost it’s appeal. Flying at break neck speeds as low as possible to avoid radar contact from snooping SAM sites whilst counting down the miles to primary and secondary targets….brilliant.

On the Amiga, F-29 Retaliator by Ocean wasn’t too bad although it didn’t seem to capture the suspense of the Microprose games. A huge favorite for my older brother but I much preferred the updated Gunship 2000, again by Microprose. I used to love sneaking low between the hills, rising just enough for rocket site to spot me and then duck down again before it could fire. Still keeping out of site I’d fly around him and when I popped my head above the hill he’d be looking in the wrong direction and easy pickings.

Over the years, as PC’s have advanced so too have Flight Simulators but it’s these early titles that bring back fond memories for me and I highly recommend trying out a computer emulator or Dosbox and enjoy a flight down memory lane.

Other notable favorites are -

Wings – Amiga

Red Baron – PC

Falcon 4.0 – PC

Warbirds – PC

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator – PC

Crimsons Skies – PC *I’ve had to set up a separate PC with older GFX card to get this running recently as modern Nvidia forceware drivers aren’t compatible.