Updating from Work

A few quick hits:

• I'm thinking about what would be better: longer, more in-depth tutorials that cover more ground and more detail, or short feature blogs that would take one step and then stop. Obviously, there are benefits to both methods. The short blogs could be posted more often, and would be easy to implement. The longer tutorials would have a greater sense of accomplishment and would have a greater lens on the fine details and inner workings of what you are doing. The purpose is, of course, not to just have you copy my code, but to understand why it works the way it works. The downside to the longer posts is that they probably would be less frequent than the daily updates I had planned on.
• This project is completely open to suggestions. I have my own goals to accomplish with my programs, but this is separate from that. If you want to learn how to do something, let me know, and I'll incorporate it, assuming I can.
• Icarus (my FSX add-on) is officially in-development. I even bought a big whiteboard to map everything out on. In case you don't know, Icarus is a program that replaces a good portion of the AI handling in FSX. Currently, I am hoping that I won't have to take over the actual flying of the planes (FSX actually does a rather good job of that), but mostly the way they are vectored via the ATC and how they act on the ground. This includes SIDS and STARS, multiple runways for takeoffs and landing (including crossing runways) better spacing (hopefully resulting in no go-arounds) and a number of other little features.
• I will be looking for beta testers sometime early next year. The guys I really need are the people who have traffic packages (MyTrafficX, etc) installed. The goal is to accurately and smoothly integrate with those add-ons.
• Although Icarus is going to be payware (it's a pretty complex undertaking), I am absolutely open to doing as many freeware tools as I can. First off, some of this stuff is not that difficult. Some is, but it's fun to make, so I'll do it anyways. Any ideas?
• I definitely need beta testers soon for a project that I am almost finished with. It's called TrackerX, and it's basically a FlightAware.com style webpage for FSX. All you do is run a tiny little tray app while you fly, and it uploads your positional info to a database and displays it on a map with everyone else. So far, it's looking really cool, but once the webpage is close to finished, I want to be able to run with it.

That's all for now. Part Three of the tutorial will go up tonight, barring any craziness. I'll also be adding a link section on the sidebar for these tutorials, so you don't have to go digging around everywhere.

(P.S. - I like readers. Tell your friends )