Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 was released in early November last year.  In the intervening period, Infinity Ward have released two patches to fix some major bugs and exploits, but have refused to say anything about DLC or its contents apart from it being released in Spring. Just this week, however, Robert Bowling tweeted that DLC news will be released this week, and in one tweet, mentioned a weird website.

They have to announce some DLC, because there’s a heap of bad press about Infinity Ward and Activision at the moment, surrounding the inglorious removal of the two lead developers, supposedly for insubordination.  There’s talk that the DLC can’t be released without these two guys permission, so it’s off to the courts to decide.  In the meantime, us gamers all lose faith in MW2, and both Infinity Ward and Activision lose credibility and what little support they have left…

The only way I’m going to return to MW2 is if the DLC is way-out-there awesome!

Introducing Battlefield Bad Company 2

In the meantime, I’ve been playing the new Battlefield release, the second iteration of Bad Company.  The same four characters return in a battle against the Russians to stop the deployment of a terrifying weapon on US soil.

The game has a deep (and long) single player campaign, and the usual online multiplayer component.

In short, I love it!

Why?

I think it’s because the maps are large (some extremely large), the action is deep, but spread out, and there are no over-powering aspects like kill streaks.  I can slink around as a sniper, and pull off some awesome headshots from across the map.  Ok, I could do that in MW2, but sniping across the map involves a lot of skill, as bullet drop needs to be taken into consideration - no more do I aim the crosshairs centre-mass, and squeeze the trigger.  I need to estimate the distance, aim off the elevation, and only then take the shot.  Headshots are the usual result - well, either that or a hit marker.

Multiplayer also includes various weapons, from quad bikes, to tanks, hummers, AA guns, helicopter gunships, a remote-piloted UAV helicopter, and a Blackhawk with crew-served miniguns in the waist. Lots of personal weapons, launchers, machine guns, grenades, C4etc, all add up to some hectic and confused battles across a completely destructible landscape.  There’s little emphasis on KDR ratios, as the missions are objective based.  Sometimes, the mission is to capture and blow up M-com stations, or capture points.

The graphics aren’t quite up to par with MW2, but that’s ok, as you’re not there to enjoy the scenery, but to blow it all up!  However, the landscape, and the ambience are superbly done - fighting for control of the M-com stations across a hilly, snowy, dark map, or through the middle of the jungle, is just surreal at times.

Ranking up is slow, but this is primarily because I’m only starting, and have still to unlock most of the sniper rifles (and all of the other non-recon weapons for that matter!) - sniping targets across the map, raining mortar rounds on top of tanks, throwing C4 onto vehicles (not to mention collapsing buildings), and spotting targets for the squadmates, is just so addicting, I’m not scoring massively (unlike the demo…) each game.

So far, a thoroughly enjoyable, and refreshing game, given the fiasco that was Modern Warfare 2.

The only issue I have with BF:BC2 is that noone seems to talk in this game… Hmm…

I should have tweaked to the issues in the weeks leading up to the release, because Activision started pulling all the YouTube vids of the game, citing supposed “DMCA” concerns.  Why would they do that?

So, I buy the game, settle in for a night of gaming, and finish the single-player campaign in about 4 hours! The content was gripping, but the ending was a bit, well, abrupt.  It certainly clears the way for Modern Warfare 3, or DLC content, given that Gaz and Soap are now international fugitives.

The strength of Call of Duty:World at War was the Zombies mode - you run around inside buildings, and repel hordes of zombies.  MW2 has taken a different tack, and introduced Spec-Ops mode - you complete set missions from scenes out of the single player campaign.  Same maps, same stories, rehashed in an interesting way.

But it’s the multiplayer aspects which has me in fits at the moment.  The maps are brilliant, and much larger than the CoD4 maps, have some amazing environmental effects (snow, blizzards, sandstorms, etc). Infinity Ward also added a lot of new weapons, new skills to master, new challenges, and both kill and death streaks.

In recognition of the fact that gamers are producing some ridiculous kill streaks (racking up the kills without dying), they added about 15 different streak rewards, from care packages (which drop random kill streaks), to UAV jammers, Predator missiles (which you can steer towards your target), various helicopters (one of which you can sit in the gunners seat), the AC130 (which is controllable), and even a tactical Nuke (which obliterates everyone on the map, and then ends the game in the Nuker’s favour).

There are also a bunch of new perks, including “pro” versions of the perks.

The number of ranks has increased to 70, and there’s still the ability to prestige too.

All up, sounds like a lot of fun, eh!?

So, why am I stupid for buying this?

Because I thought that Infinity Ward cared enough to listen to the gaming community, and fix some of the major bugs and flaws seen in CoD4:MW, and ended up in Modern Warfare 2.  However, they didn’t, and now I understand why.

I read an article in the newspaper the other day that Activision raked in $580M of our money in the first week alone! So, it’s not about entertaining the community, and being sensible enough to do something about the bugs and flaws, it’s all about making money, lots and lots of money. Update: As at 30 November, it’s now being reported that Activision raked in $3B - that’s $3 Billion dollars!

Who cares about us gamers, right?

All I can say about that is, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you!”.

They didn’t bother to fix the matchmaking - it prefers to select US-based gamers as hosts, rather than the one most suited to the majority of gamers in a lobby.  Thus, we could have 12 aussies in a lobby, all with green pings, but if one leaves, and an US gamer joins, it automatically moves the server to them, and thus us Aussies get screwed over, and end up with yellow or red pings.

The gaming community asked for the ability to restrict searches for games to local games.  Treyarch responded, and wrote a facility to do local game searches into CoD:WaW, but IW didn’t.  They said they’d improved the matchmaking, and thus don’t need to provide a local search facility.  See the above for the resulting matchmaking problems.

They didn’t bother to fix the spawn system. MW2 often spawns you in front of an enemy, or spawns you under an airstrike, or spawns you in full view of a chopper, so you end up immediately dying again. Surely the game should know where the airstrike will strike, right? Surely the game should be coded so that you don’t respawn within (say) 20m of an enemy.  Alternatively, why not give us 5 seconds of invincibility, so we can get away to safety (or turn around and gun down the guy spawncamping)?

I also suspect that they haven’t fixed the ranking up bug either.  Why do I say this?  Because I have lost rank, perks, points etc on occasion when the game occasionally locks up when in the lobby.

I am also experiencing issues where a “lost connection to host” immediately bombs me not just out of the game, but completely out of Xbox Live! Why? Cod4 did this too! It’s not my internet connection, or network, or Xbox, because I can play Rainbow 6:Vegas 2 all night without a single dropout.  So, I can only conclude that IW doesn’t know how to write clean, efficient, and resilient netcode.

They’ve added a bunch of weapons, including a few more shotguns.  However, the shotties are over-powered, and you can dual-wield these now too (called “akimbo” in the game). You can infinitely run around without degradation, dual-wield shotties, and snipe with them across the map. A shottie should be ineffective past about 15m, and dual-wielding them should make them wildly inaccurate.

One perk I’m now using all the time is “Cold-blooded”. This perk hides you from UAV’s, and removes the red boxes around you when someone is controlling the various kill streaks.  Ok, that’s fine.  So, why then can I stand under an enemy chopper, and blaze away, and not have it shoot back at me? Granted, I like this (I considered the choppers in CoD4 way too overpowered - they snipe me through closed windows on occasion), but it’s a bit ridiculous at the same time.  I’ve been in numerous games where a helo or harrier jet arrives, hovers over the map for 30 seconds or so, and leaves, without firing a single shot. What’s the use of that?

Some equipment attachments are weird - why a “heartbeat sensor”? Is it to stop people camping, because they can be detected by the heartbeat sensor?

My biggest gripe though, is with the Riot Shield.  Apparently, it’s impervious to all bullets in the game - you can’t shoot through it, so how are you supposed to stop the advances? Some people say it’s easy, but I find them impossible!  This game is Modern Warfare, not Modern SWAT Police, so the concept of a Riot Shield is completely lost on me!

There are some things which I think are great touches.  I can now shoot down UAV’s, and all the other flying “vehicles”.  They add to my pointscore (but not the lobby/team points) too!

There’s a new sniper rifle - the Cheytac Intervention .408, which is the only bolt gun in the game! I initially thought that this rifle was utter crap!  But, after getting used to it, I’ve found it to be a beast of a gun in the game - it’s accurate, and makes the coolest “silent” sounds.  Yes! I can now equip my sniper with a silencer!

So, my sniper class is now the following:

Primary: Cheytac Intervention .408 w/ silencer + hearbeat sensor

Secondary: PP2000 automatic handgun w/ FMJ and holographic sight

Claymore and Smoke

Perk 1: Bling Pro (allows me to dual equip both primary and secondary guns)

Perk 2: Cold-Blooded (working towards Cold-Blooded Pro)

Perk 3: Ninja

I’m pretty invisible now, apart from being detectable through a thermal scope, which Cold-Blooded Pro will fix, and just love to sit back and snipe people running around the map.

Alas, the problems I see with this game, and the bewildering array of weapons, perks, and options, makes this game rather frustrating to play.  Unlike CoD4, I don’t think this game has the stayability as CoD4 had.  I certainly don’t think Infinity Ward are going to do much with it, bar release a map pack, and a couple of limp-wristed patches.

A lot of people are saying that this game is awesome, and is game of the century et al, but I think they’re all blinded by the rather slick promotions, the supposed controversy, and that we’re all sheeple in the end.

If you don’t have it, go and hire it.  Don’t buy it.

Why bother giving them any more money?

Flight Control has spawned a bunch of related apps, including games like HarborMaster, which I also have, and enjoy playing.

The game play is pretty simple - aircraft appear on the screen at random times, and you have to route them into their proper airport, by drawing a track on the screen with your finger.  The game finishes when two planes collide.  Generally there are three types of aircraft (fast, medium, and slow movers), and a helicopter.  The action starts off slow but ramps up to the point where you can end up with 15 or so aircraft on the screen at once!  Quite a handful to keep separated, which I still have not worked out a reasonable strategy.

I discovered this morning on the train that Flight Control has been updated again with another map.  Flight Control has teamed up with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, so the map is themed after the Australian outback, with the usual two airports and a heli landing pad.

However, this is where things depart from the usual Flight Control gameplay, which I think is a great change from simply adding another themed airport.

The first screen shot on the left is the main screen after I’ve selected the RFDS airport. The high score, after a very quick play once Flight Control was upgraded is 38 *sigh*. I seriously have issues playing this game - my highest score is about 130 on Seaside. I am not worthy!

Where this map becomes quite interesting, and a departure from the usual Flight Control gameplay is the interaction of the RFDS aircraft. The icon on the left of the display in the second image is the alert showing that an RFDS aircraft is inbound. The track that it is going to follow is automatically selected - there’s no choice as to which airport it is going to land on, nor where the track is placed. Thus, as in real life, you have no choice but to route your aircraft around the RFDS plane. Very clever, and adds to the complexity, especially when lots of planes are on the screen at once.

It’s also not the smallest plane in the fleet either! The icon is quite large, at about the same size (or slightly larger) than the Jumbo aircraft, so the chance of collision goes up. It just adds to the challenge of maintaining clearance, and getting it on the ground successfully!  The track in the third picture shows the RFDS plane is going to land on the small airfield, but I’ve also seen it go to the large airfield at times too.  There’s no way to control the RFDS plane!

This latest addition to Flight Control adds some new spice and challenge to an otherwise great game, and just in time too, because I was watching how many updates were being released for Flight Control versus HarborMaster (who have released three updates with new maps and changes of gameplay (a hurricane which changes the routing of the ships, a pirate ship which you have to destroy using a cannon, changes to the dock layouts, and now a monster which gobbles up ships in the dock)). I was becoming bored with the Flight Control gameplay.

Because I’d previously played CoD4:MW (Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare) to death last year (and ended up selling it in disgust due to the inaction by Infinity Ward towards fixing the ranking up bug), I quickly settled into my usual style of play for these games, being a sniper.

Many games passed, whilst I put up with and adjusted my game style to the horrible Springfield w/ scope - terrible weapon with a terrible scope.  I moved away from sniping (because I was too slow at sniping with the Springfield, and the maps are too small), I started using what I deem to be CQB weapons (the Thompson (which I love…), and the other rifles and MG’s).  Of course, because my style of play is as a sniper, I’m no good at CQB, and would often get smashed in the scoring.

Eventually, I ranked up enough to unlock the Russian Mosin-Nagant, and found it to be quite nice, and _then_ unlocked the scope for it.  Godly weapon! Back to sniping I went, even on relatively small maps.

A thought crossed my mind - how about I unlock the scope for the M1 Garand?  In the game, the Garand is a painful semi-auto, because of the stripper clip, and it’s weak power.  However, unlock the scope, and I found I could one-shot kill people across the map easily, and accurately to boot!

The Garand contributed to my slinking away into a corner to snipe away all game.  The end result, lots of games where I’d shot 4 rounds for 4 kills with zero deaths…

My definition of Camping

The new maps for CoD:WaW are great!  They’re spread out in both width and depth, which allows me to do what I excel at - snipe at long distances.  I’ve often been accused of “camping” in these games, because I’ll sit in one spot all game.  I’m not a camper, because where I set up my “camp” I can usually see most of the map, sighted down roads, across to high-traffic windows, doors, alleyways etc.  To me, a person who is a “camper” is one who sits under a stairway, and gets targets of opportunity.  There’s no skill in that, no challenge.

So, why 4 and 0? Why not more?

I don’t blaze away at just anyone who strolls by.  Before I fire, I consider the following:

• Is a Recon plane up?  If so, I won’t shoot, because then I’ll be marked on the map as a red dot, and my position has been given away.  For my sniper class, I’ve usually equipped the “UAV jammer” type perk, which usually means your character is wearing a gillie suit, thus invisible to recon planes.
• Is the target looking in my direction?  If so, I may or may not shoot, depending on other factors.  Generally I will, but I do consider what will happen next if I shoot and miss…
• Is the target near someone else who could “see” me or my shot?  It’s slow to move from target to target quickly, so sometimes I won’t fire, because I can’t take on more than one target at a time.

As a result, I quite often finish a game with four kills and zero to two deaths.  Is that good or bad?

In my opinion, a positive kill/death ration (KDR) is a good thing - I’ve contributed some points to my team’s effort, but minimal deaths.  If I went 10 kills and 15 deaths, is that good?  A lot of people think it is, but why?  10 kills is good, but it’s the 15 deaths which is the bitey end of the statistic - I’d seriously doubt you’ve scored a 7-streak, and brought out the dogs with that kind of score!  If I went 10-15, I’ve obviously had a terrible game!

Bring on CoD4:MW!

For some strange reason, about a month ago, I bought my 5th (!) copy of CoD4:MW, and have since abandoned CoD:WaW for the moment.  One glaringly obvious thing that I’ve noticed in these CoD4:MW games is that people love running around the map like chickens with their heads chopped off.  This presents lots of targets, and lots of problems to snipers like me, who like to slink around silently and slowly, getting into a good spot to score kills.  With people moving about, they get seen, and get shot at.  If you don’t move, you (generally) don’t get noticed, and (generally) won’t get shot at.  It’s simple!

The equation: moving about = activity = noticed = shot at ~= kill.

The problem is that lots of people moving about usually equates to doing it without regard for what the rest of the team are doing, and therefore there are people wandering all over the map, quite spread out, and thus likely to find the odd sniper holed up in a spot…

Just about every game, I’ll equip with one of the sniper rifles (M40, M21, Dragunov, R700, or the venerable Barrett .50cal). Most games, again, I go 4 and 0, 4 and 1.  I have gone 15:0 and better too. Those games I cherish, because the headless chickens were really headless, running around and getting knocked off and wonder why afterwards!  Of course, the converse is also true.  I know I’m tired, and need to quit and go to bed when I get 0 and 10 (which I’ve had twice now…).  Both games, I’ve done my usual slinking about, but both games, I’ve been caught out in the open, moving about *sigh*

Isn’t 4 and 0 boring?

Sometimes it is, definitely.  Going 4 and 0 usually means I’m being overcautious, or am just plain in the wrong spot at the wrong time.  Other games, I do it deliberately, for the in-game achievements, or to manage my KDR, or to “slow” the game down somewhat, especially if I’m 4 and 4, and the other team are aggressive. With the other team being aggressive, they’re up and about and being rather noisy, my potential targets increase, but I’m in danger of going 4 and 15, which is never good!

Is 4 and 0 too passive?

According to the point score, yeah, maybe I am being passive - but I’ve never been accused of being quiet on the mic.  For instance, on “Ambush”, there are two well known sniper buildings - one with a hole in the wall in the metal section, and one which has been blown out completely, in the concrete section.  I was sniping from the hole-in-the-wall building, and noticed a target sniping from the other building.  However, because he wasn’t looking over towards me, he was sniping down towards the grassy section, so I knew he was there, but couldn’t get a clean shot.

I noticed that another player on our team was set up atop a wall in the middle section of the map, and could see across to this target.  So I called him into it, he took the shot, got the target, and thanked me for it.  My job was done! I went on sniping down the road, and across the sandbagged flat roof in the concrete section.

It’s extremely rare to hear people calling out targets to others - I do it all the time - if I die, I call out where I was shot from.

So, just because I go 4 and 0, doesn’t mean I’m not playing!

Along with a great crew, I was flying a great glider, the NAN Models Xplorer, imported by Dave Pratley.  The Xplorer is a 3.5m F3J/TD fully moulded carbon/kevlar/fibreglass glider, which can be acquired from Dave in various colour schemes.  Extended tips are available.

The Xplorer is renowned for light air floating.  My Xplorer truly revelled in the Jerilderie air, and I regularly achieved 9:58 or better, with inside 2m spots.  I had two “bad” flights where we didn’t pick the air correctly, and I flew the X into crap air, and suffered.

Over the 5 days of flying, I only flew my F3B Icon a couple of times, and even then only during the Friday practice day.  I flew the Xplorer over all 8 rounds of the competition proper, and during several fun fly days back in Sydney recently.  I’m in total awe of the floatiness, and flat glide, that the X achieves.  With a setup fine-tuned by Steve Keep, the landing approaches are slow and predictable. A great glider, and a worthy addition to my quiver of gliders, very much beginning to replace the Icons.

Over the two and a half years that I’ve been flying the Icons, I’ve become one with them, to the point where I instinctively know when I’m flying them too close to the stall, or too slow.  I only managed to achieve great launches after Brian Lindsay provided some magic tweaks to the radio programming to my (now dead) Icon Bitza.

Now I’m learning to fly a new glider, and it’s quite a challenge, but I think I’m starting to get a feel for the Xplorer’s flying attributes.  It doesn’t like to be flown slowly in thermal mode, and is much more tip-stally than the Icons - it’ll drop a tip, whereas the Icons drop the nose.  Hands off, the X just wants to glide and glide and glide, so that’s how I fly it now - point it in a direction, and left it fly.

I went out to the HMAS field on Saturday, and had a couple of flights.  The launches were downwind, with about a 5 knot breeze down low, but about 15 knots up at altitude.  The X didn’t like it at all.  With a bit of ballast, I think it’d do quite well, but at the moment, I don’t have any finished ballast bars to use.  As a result, the glider was tossed around quite a bit, but even so, I managed to thermal away in a strong area of lift, and to my surprise, a flock of pelicans joined me.  We flew with the thermal for a good 5 minutes or so, following it downwind, but as the glider was approaching a no-fly area, I hit the reflex, and flew back upwind to where I originally encountered the thermal.

Lo and behold, another thermal, but much weaker.  Again, to my surprise, the pelicans followed me upwind, and began circling underneath me once more.  Alas, Steve had to pack up, so I brought the X home to a straight-forward landing.

On Sunday, I again took the X out to HMAS for another funfly day.  The initial few flights were pretty short, as the sink was horrendous in the cold still air.  Around 2pm, the Club held it’s AGM, so Steve launched my X, and I had the field to myself whilst the power planes were grounded.  I spent about 6 minutes or more doing lazy 50m circles at tree height off the end of the runways, and being chased by the crows.  I was impressed that it floated so slowly down so low, and so flat.  I worked a tiny bubble for ages, but it slowly drifted down the runway towards the wind sock, so I eventually gave up, and landed the X “on the runway” :)

At Jerilderie, we witnessed some rather interesting Xplorer wing failures.  It seems that there’s a potential quality/manufacturing issue with some builds, as there are reports (and experienced at Jerilderie) of joiner box failures.  There were two spectacular joiner box failures on launch, and one discovered failure on landing (the pilot knew something had happened on launch).  It certainly made Brian and I nervous about our Xplorers (both of us had new X’s at Jerilderie).  Joe Wurts also maidened a new Xplorer at Jerilderie.

However, that caution didn’t stop us from launching our X’s to the moon, or spearing them into the ground on landing.  As a result, I doubt mine has the same problem (maybe it’s a manufacturing fault only with the lighter build X’s?), as I was punishing it, and really bending the wings hard on launch.  Had some truly awesome launches too from Joe and Steve - real “Yip Yah!” affairs.

So where to next?  I’ll definitely be placing an order soon for the extended tips (takes the span out to 3.9m), for the light air mornings, and later acquiring another X.  Dave’s support before and during Jerilderie was very much appreciated!

- bec

When I looked away from my plane at the slow moving aircraft directly overhead, my eyes reacquired one of the other gliders flying in the same manner as my fingers were working my transmitter.  It just so happened that Fred had the same intentions as I did, and was flying slit-s turns to warn the pilot that there were model aircraft around him.  When Fred decided his glider was clear, he straightened up and flew upwind towards a lake.  I was flying his plane too, and my heart sank as I realised that I didn’t have control of it (believing it was mine, of course).

“Bec, you’re flying the wrong plane!”, Al screams…

Crunch!

It was all over in about five seconds.

My Icon slammed into a grove of trees about 300m from the field, near the high-tension power lines to the south.  When I eventually found it, my heart sank.  This Icon (a combination of my original Icon TD fuselage, and a pristine F3B wing bought off Carl 12 months ago) was an absolute mess.  The plane found the one clear patch in the middle of the trees, and slammed vertically into the ground at max velocity, burying the nose about 10 inches or so into the ground.

The fuse was broken half way down the boom, the leading edge of the fin was slit, the wing seating was split at the join seam, and there’s cracks up in the nose.

The centre panel has multiple bite marks out of the leading edge, the spar fractured near one of the tip panel joiner boxes, the flaps were torn, and broken, and generally the panel’s quite delaminated and beyond repair.

The tip panels have some major sections of delaminations, and gouges out of the leading edges, both aileron surfaces were ejected from the panels, servos are loose (but were otherwise working and chattering away when I got to the plane), but otherwise could be repairable with some effort and TLC.

The only parts left completely untouched were the elevator halves.

I’m in a fix at the moment - do I throw the glider away, or do I attempt a repair, and use it solely on the slope?  I don’t think that I can repair the spar sufficiently enough to winch-launch it, and the repairs would add significant weight to the glider overall.

The positive outcome of this incident will be the stimulus to buy some new gliders, and at this stage will likely be the NAN Models Xplorer.  I flew Dave Pratley’s Xplorer up at Armidale in January, and loved it!  That plane just didn’t want to come down!  Ugh, decisions, decisions! Is this the impetus to defect from the Icon Camp?

This site had been running for a number of years, and gaining in popularity because it was the only site catering to the rather close knit ice hockey community.  The previous owner (Rowan) decided to sell Hockey Pulse, because he couldn’t maintain the site due to other work and life commitments. As time slowly marched on, it became apparent that HockeyPulse wasn’t going to be sold in time, and thus, I decided to step up.

For me, it’s a commitment for the long haul, as it’s both a financial investment, and a hobby - it’s my opportunity to interact with the ice hockey fraternity more.  Because Ice Hockey in Australia is so small (and so unknown), the more information we can put out there, the more popular the sport will become.  Popularity, branding, sponsorship, exposure to the greater population, and I think ice hockey will expand in Australia

It’s a big step for me, as I never thought I’d be investing money into a website, but the opportunity to do so couldn’t be passed up.  One big benefit to me will be the branding aspects - I have a ready-made logo for branding my ice hockey photos.

Where do I plan to be in a few years time?  I’d love to provide some quality sponsorship to state and national teams.

If you’re interested in everything ice hockey, head on over to HockeyPulse.

After about an hour or so, I’d managed to connect it to the network at work using a Telstra NextG Expresscard modem.  Of course, the security guys were saying “have you got antivirus on that? Want a firewall on that?”.  Umm, no…

Anyway, I decided to put the Macbook to good use, and started work on a detailed design document within Pages 09 for a new network installation.  After about a week and a bit, I’d typed my way through 40-odd pages of Pages 09 document, including tables, getting to know the quirks and nuances.  Not too bad, but definitely not Word - Pages approaches problems a different way.

I was getting quite frustrated with some aspects of Pages:

• there’s no customisation of section numbering schemes - I either had to live with the predefined numbered list formats, or not use section numbering at all.
• I can create heading paragraph styles for each outline level (say, heading 1, heading 2, heading 3, etc …), which includes the text indents, font size, bold, etc, but could not set the actual outline level number.  As a result, each new heading I added would default to outline level 1, and I’d have to go into the Inspector to change the level each time.  With Word, I could add a button on the toolbar for each heading style, and everything would be set correctly.
• When I set a heading style to use “Body Text” as the next paragraph style, generally it would work.  Sometimes, however, it would use the “Body Text” style, but massively indent it, and I’d have to change the paragraph style to something else, and then change it back to “Body Text” to “reset” the paragraph indenting to the correct indent level.  Again, frustrating, because it seemed so inconsistent.

At one stage, I decided I needed to do a complicated enough table that I decided to use Numbers 09.  Easy enough, and even imported back into Pages ok :)

Now, I decided to be really brave, and start drafting a presentation for the design - I need to present the design to the systems admins and executive before starting the Build & Install phase.  I’d read all about Keynote 09 from the recent MacWorld Expo, and decided to learn about creating slides and presentations using Keynote.

After creating about 15 slides, with various transitions and effects, I think the result is quite nice, with the app intuitive to use, the effects quite stunning, and the themes exciting and polished.  I’m looking forward to the reactions from the audience, especially when I pull out the Mac and my new iPhone to control the whole show!

One problem with having a Mac that’s quite thin - there’s no built-in VGA port with which to plug an external monitor into.  I have a 24″ panel at work, which uses either a VGA connector, or a DVI connector (it auto-detects which one is being used), so I went down to JB Hifi, and bought both adapters for the MacBook (which has a mini-DisplayPort outlet).

I think the real power of OSX shines when it’s running multiple screens - I went into the Display setting, and found that OSX popped up a tailored display panel for each screen, and displayed it on each screen independently.  Nice!  So, I set the 24″ to 1920 x 1200, started working away, and almost immediately found a “problem” - I had my Macbook located directly below the 24″ panel, but I had to move the mouse to the right of the laptop’s screen to scroll onto the 24″ panel. The layout was really playing with my mind, and I kept trying to use the PC’s mouse (sigh).

Hmm… I wonder if I can re-order the  displays, so that the 24″ sits above the laptop screen?  Yup, I discovered it’s possible to place the two screens in any orientation, so I was able to stack the 24″ above the laptop display, so I could simply flick the mouse up above the menu bar to scroll onto the 24″ panel.  Nice!!  So polished!!

Ok, now the hard part.  One application that I’m sorely missing on the Macbook is Visio.  I do all my drawings in Visio, and I need to publish my design document in Word.  So I decided to install VMware Fusion, and use a virtualised version of work’s SOE to run Word and Visio.  I could then run Word and Visio natively on the Macbook’s display whilst the apps themselves run in Fusion - it’s called “Unity” mode.  Worked well too.

Now, I type away in Pages 09 with “Track Changes” mode on (so I know what changes have been made since last “import” into the Word document), fire up Fusion, run up Word, and copy/paste the text from Pages 09 into Word.  I can then import the various diagrams and drawings produced in Visio into the Word version of the Design.

How do I use my Macbook to connect to the routers and switches?  If the devices are on the network, it’s easy, use Terminal.app to connect through SSH or Telnet, but when I’m running up a new device, I have to use the Cisco rollover cable, with a USB to serial adapter.  I downloaded and installed XCode 3.1, and then downloaded and compiled Minicom (which is a utility to control serial modems!).  I also had to install a driver to create the link in /dev for the USB adapter when it’s connected to the Mac.

Fun n Games!

… but I’m loving the experience!  The new laptop has really increased my enthusiasm and work output when I’m documenting, as it’s fun to type away on the Macbook for a few hours, especially whilst zoned out under the control of the iTunes Genius!

• I flew quite nicely, and quite consistently in the Open Class Thermal Duration.
• My Pulsar 3200 also flew well in the Limited Electric Glider event.  The guys discovered a problem with the motor battery during the weekend, Peter Pine swapped it with a known-good battery, and the plane climbed amazingly!  My 18+ second motor runs were reduced to <13 seconds.
• My White Icon F3B didn’t want to fly - I kept having problems with the wiring harness, and now need to replace the harness entirely.  She just didn’t want to leave the ground it seemed…
• I’m going to wear appropriate clothes for flying before I leave home.  I left home on the Friday wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and packed my long pants and shirts in my bag.  By the end of the day, my arms and legs were beetroot red, and for the rest of the weekend (and the rest of this week), I’ve been suffering from the after effects of severe sunburn. So, no shorts, and no t-shirts!
• My repairs to the yellow Icon F3J have so far held up to the rigours.
• The Super Ava flew in anger for the first time on the weekend, and I managed to speck it, and get a 10 minute flight.  The conditions were just right for the glider.

Alas, no trophies this time around…

iMac + MacBook Pro + iPhone == Fanboi

I’m not quite an Apple Fanboi, but I did come a bit closer to it today - a brand new Apple Macbook Pro 15″ turned up on the doorstep.  I have the iMac, now the Macbook Pro, and *feebly* I have plans to acquire an iPhone.

Does this make me a fanboi?

What’s prompted this latest acquisition?

Why am I becoming so, umm, fanboi-ish?

It’s a long story, but the short version is that I’ve had what I’m calling an ephemeric period in my life over Christmas - I took the time to think about my work, where I want to go, and what I’d like to do for the future.  Having three weeks off work with a case of Bundy, a bottle of Port, a bottle of Baileys, and lots of time allows one to contemplate life.

Over Christmas and New Year, I had a lot of “tasks” to do, related to my hobbies (gliding and photography).  I performed 1/4 of the tasks I’d set myself.  The rest of the time, I was playing on the Xbox and thinking about work.

One aspect of my current work situation that I was particularly unhappy about was the sheer number of tasks I needed to work on.  The Christmas period was traditionally the period where work slowed down - not this year.  It seemed to ramp up.  Within the space of a few weeks, we had a dozen sites that were relocating, being established, or wanted link upgrades.  I also had to start the design process for new core networks in two other locations, as well as work on the personnel aspects - organise training, approve leave, etc.

So, predictably, my task “list” blew out, and I lost track of what needed to be done by when.  It was a real mess, I knew it, and was quite ashamed and disgusted by it too.

Ah home, I was using my Mac to help me manage the tasks I needed to do at home - I would enter in all the tasks for the various home projects, and track them to completion.  I was loosely following the “Getting Things Done” philosophy, and decided to try and follow it at work.

When I returned to work in the new year, I started the process by goign through all the papers around my desk, throwing out junk and stuff that’s no good to me.  My boss turns up, and asks me what I’m doing, “I’ve decided to follow the GTD philosophy”.  He turned up the next day with the famous book Getting Things Done by David Allen.  Two days later, my desk was clear, the recycling bin was full, and the boss was amazed.

One point Dave Allen stressed that I needed to have fun whilst following through the processes and procedures detailed in the book.  I could have fun by managing my tasks using a Mac, so I bought a Macbook Pro.

I’ve been playing with the Macbook all day now, and here are my first impressions:

• The aluminium shell is amazing - great look, great build, and the overall product is quite solid.
• The edges of the Macbook are quite sharp.  After a stint of typing, I have deep impressions on my forearms from the edges of the laptop.  It’s not uncomfortable, but certainly noticeable.
• The screen is good.  I don’t think I’ll be using my Macbook for photography work - I know Rob Galbraith thinks that the MacBook Pro screen is not up to the task - I have my iMac for my photography workflow.
• The Magsafe connector is interesting.  It’s my first time I’ve seen this technology, and I’m wondering how many times people have ripped power cords out of laptops to prompt Apple to produce a “safe” power cord.
• I just love the Mac, and the way the Mac works - it just works.  I’ve had no problems with my iMac so far, so why not continue using the OS?

Over the next week or so, I’ll go through my “inbox”, which is a stack of paper about 50cm high, and work out all the tasks I need to do, and enter them into the Mac.  Then, I’ll have a good idea of the tasks I need to do, and which ones I can delegate to the guys in the team.

Because I don’t have an iPhone, I’m not a fanboi (yet!).

*starts iPod Touch, puts in headphones, selects a RadioHead song*

… aahhh… bliss at last!