Last year, Friday November 24, 2006 to be exact, Best Buy had Microsoft Flight Simulator X on sale for I want to say for a little over $18. Well, I couldn't resist so I picked up a copy for myself, only to find there was absolutely no way my machine at the time was going to even load this game, much less play it at anything close to acceptable levels.

So I put FSX away, for the time being, until I could see fit to invest into an adequate machine, in case you are curious anything on level of Cybertron or above should do just fine for this game. This game recommends a Windows Vista Experience score of 5.0 or greater. Basically Microsoft FSX already hates your machine, even before you bought FSX. You could by a new machine today, or tomorrow for that matter, and it could be too old for FSX.

Fortunately for me, and thanks to advice I got from Ars Technica's Hot Rod System Guide and Scott Hanselman's Ultimate Developer Rig guides, I was able to build myself a machine that is actually capable of running FSX. Well, at least after I downloaded the patch for Vista that fixes a problem with FSX and multi-monitor systems.

I told you that story, so I could tell you this story...

One of the things I noticed when I was first trying out FSX on my new system, was that you could fly FSX using the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows. You think FSX hates you and your PC, just try using it with either a mouse or a keyboard. I actually have an old Saitek X45 Flight Stick and throttle, but haven't wanted to set it up yet due to two reasons. One it uses a serial RS-232 port to connect to a PC. And two it is HUGE, and needs a whole desk of its own to hold it.

So the idea of reusing my Xbox 360 controller with FSX is perfect. It fits in my hand, and uses our friend USB.

First Attempt:

I have two Xbox 360 wireless controllers and I also have a Xbox 360 Play & Charge Kit. Basically you get a USB charge cable and a NiMH rechargeable battery pack. I know the regular Xbox 360 controller, the non-wireless version, works with Windows XP and Windows Vista out of the box. What about the wireless controllers?

I had read Scott Hanselman's article: "Xbox 360 Controller Wireless Receiver Adapter for Windows". So I know I could buy either an adapter, or a combo pack with both the wireless controller and the adapter, to get my controllers to work with Vista. Or I could just buy a standard non-wireless controller. But I didn't know if my controllers would work by using the USB charge cable. And why spend $20 to $60 if you don't have to?

So I plugged the USB charge cable into my controller, and then again into my PC and waited... Found New Hardware... hmm, this is promising... maybe... Locate and install driver software... Windows couldn't find driver software for your device... Uh, oh... Check for a solution... Contact Microsoft Corporation for support... hmm, not good... but wait there's a link... Download Gaming Software... Controllers, Xbox 360 Controller for Windows, Windows Vista (32-bit), English (US)... Download Xbox 360 Accessories Software 1.1 32-bit for Windows Vista... cross fingers...

Round Two:

...After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally had to face the stark realization that something wasn't right. The question was what? Was it Vista? Was it my new PC? What could it be?

Well, I knew I was wishing and hoping from the start. I mean the Xbox 360 Wireless controller had to have a RF transmitter in it, and the Xbox 360 had to have a matching receiver in it, which was something my PC doesn't have. But did that mean that Xbox 360 wireless controllers don't have the required guts needed to send data out over USB like the standard controllers could do so effortlessly? I had to know.

Final Lap:

Google Search on "Play & Charge Kit PC Support" -> results: Scenyx Entertainment Community: PC Tools and Utilities (Xbox 360 related).

There definitely seems to be some difference of opinion on the matter, even at Microsoft, but in the end I accepted defeat.  It does NOT appear that the Xbox 360 wireless controllers will send any real controller data over the USB charge cable. This had better be due to cost constraints, and not simply an over site or profit decision.

Conclusion:

So I went to my local Game Stop store today and bought a Xbox 360 Controller Wireless Receiver Adapter for Windows today for $20, and took my first flight, in a Bombardier Learjet 45, from KFLO - Florence Regional Airport to somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Um yeah, I'm still working on the landings.

"First Flight" Microsoft Flight Simulator: $18 Adequate PC: $1600+ Xbox 360 controller adapter: $20   Getting to join the friendly skies: priceless

Note:

Once you do actually get your Xbox 360 Controller to work with Windows Vista you have a lot of cool opportunities to take advantage of the synergy.

Vista Games - you can use the controller to play any of the games that ship with Vista.

Virtual Earth 3D - this is a great way to explore maps. Very intuitive, responsive, and useful, and not to mention fun.

Games for Windows - any game that get Games for Windows certification is required to have Xbox 360 Controller support

Scott Hanselman's blog, at ComputerZen.com, is one of my favorites. He seems to always have the best answers to the worst problems.

Recently I had purchased a Western Digital MyBook 500GB External Hard Drive. (I managed to find them at a local Sam's Club for only $120, which was a steal at the time.)

I installed and setup the external hard drive and collected at least 200GB worth of data on it before I noticed something. "This hard drive came formatted as FAT32, which doesn't support files larger than 4 gigs."

This was a problem for me for two reasons. I wanted to use the external hard drive for both Virtual PC images and PC backup images, both of which can be larger than 4 gigs.

I knew I could copy off all my data and then format the drive as NTFS, but this meant finding over 200GB of free space on my network, which I could do but would be a hassle to do and the undo again.

Fortunately for me I remembered an article I had read on Scott's blog: "The Duh Files - The file is too large for the destination file system".

C:\Users\CJCraft>convert /?
Converts a FAT volume to NTFS.

CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]

  volume      Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
              mount point, or volume name.
  /FS:NTFS    Specifies that the volume will be converted to NTFS.
  /V          Specifies that Convert will be run in verbose mode.
  /CvtArea:filename
              Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory
              that will be the place holder for NTFS system files.
  /NoSecurity Specifies that the security settings on the converted
              files and directories allow access by all users.
  /X          Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
              All open handles to the volume will not be valid.

Brilliant, simply brilliant. Thanks again, Scott.

What is the PopSci Predictions Exchange?

It's The Hollywood Stock Exchange for science and technology.

You get $250,000 in virtual PopSci dollars. Then you can expand your portfolio with bets on energy, space, consumer technology and extreme science, and compete against other players for prizes and bragging rights (So far I'm up $20,994).

So far here's my portfolio:

Overall Rank: 369 of 2465 (percentile: 85%)

• iPhone Hack in First Two Months (IPHACK) 5.36%
  • Will the iPhone be hacked to run third-party applications within two months of its U.S. release?
  • If nothing else it'll run DOOM. It's already on almost the entire Apple iPod line. I've made 5.36% on this one so far.
    
• PlayStation 3 Wins Console Wars (PS3WINS) 12.36%
  • Will the PlayStation 3 outsell both the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii by the end of 2009?
  • I can't see the Playstation 3 making this kind of come back. So I'm shorting selling this one. I'll make money if the price goes down, which it will , -12.36% already.
    
• Skydiving Altitude Record Broken (SKYDV) 9.55%
  • Will a human successfully break the world record for skydiving of 102,800 feet by the end of 2009?
  • So let's see. There is a world record of 102,800 feet. Alright well then someone can do 102,801. Easy money.
    
• Major U.S. Hurricane in 2007 (HURICAN) 13.87%
  • Will a Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane make landfall within the U.S. this year?
  • Weather seems a little volatile lately, and fairly good odds to me on this one. 13.87% and counting.
    
• Google Overtakes Yahoo (GOOGL) 17.07%
  • Will Google.com overtake Yahoo.com as the world's most trafficked Web site by the end of 2007?
  • To me Yahoo seems more like a portal site to me than Google, but I couldn't resist the easy profit due to market popularity. This one might max out the way it is going.

This is a long video, a little over eight minutes, but it is so worth seeing. It has several plot twists in it, worthy of M. Night Shyamalan himself. Just wait, Disney will make a movie out of this yet.

Corporate Comedy by Corporate Comedian Don McMillan.

This is a great PowerPoint presentation on how NOT to do PowerPoint presentations . It's about 4 minutes of pure PowerPoint wisdom, plus its hilarious.

How NOT to user PowerPoint by comedian Don McMillian

I've post an article about Microsoft Popfly on CodeProject.com.

CodeProject.com: Meet Microsoft Popfly: Part I - Mashup App Creator Built On Silverlight

It covers the following areas:

Popfly Space	Popfly Web Page Creator
Popfly Mashup Creator	Popfly Block Creator

If there is enough interest, then I'll do a part two on building mashups, and a part three on creating Popfly blocks.

Make Magazine, one of the coolest magazines ever, has an article on their blog on all the progress being made in the world of 3-D printers, or as I like to call them replicator prototypes.

The article I'm referring to is The Desktop Factory - Fab@Home.

Here's a real good overview section from the article:

Lipson’s fabrication machine, called a “fabber,” can print thousands of three-dimensional objects, everything from toy parts to artificial muscles, using dozens of materials, including PlayDoh, peanut butter and silicone, by following simple directions sent to it by a PC. About the size of a microwave, the fabber costs $2,300 to assemble—roughly one tenth the cost of commercial 3-D printers.

While I was watching Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed on History Channel I happened on one of the coolest commercials I have send in a long time. It was a commercial for the Craftsman CompuCarve. You can pretty much see the same thing here.

The Craftsman CompuCarve is $1,899.99, which I think is still a little high. But if you consider the business opportunities, from everything like mall kiosks, flea markets, business logo items, and eBay and other online possibilities I think it would be easy to make you money back on the investment. (Yeah, I'm tempted.)

I'd want to make a Möbius strip or a maybe a Sierpinski triangle. It's a shame it is limited on 3-D capabilities. I think I'll hold out a little longer and see how the The Desktop Factory - Fab@Home project does. Besides I probably couldn't resist trying other things besides wood in it.

Famous Last Words: "Hey, look its winter. Let's make ice sculptures."

I just saw on Robert Scoble's Blog that Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Live Writer. And I thought the previous version was good.

Since I both use and really like Windows Liver Writer, and its Free, I figured I give my endorsement and big thanks to the team for great job.

"Writer is a desktop application that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog."

Highlights of New or Improved Features

• Inline spell checking
• Table editing
• Ability to add categories
• New look and feel

Key Features

• Compatible with your blog service
• WYSIWYG editing
• Rich media publishing
• Powerful editing features
• Offline editing

Developer Community

• Blog
• Community Plugins - here are three I'm trying out.
• Insert Spaces Emoticon
• Allows you to insert a Live Spaces Emoticon into your blog entry
• Paste from Visual Studio
• Easily transfer syntax highlighted source code from Visual Studio to elegant HTML in Windows Live Writer.
• XFN Link Editor
• This plugin enables Windows Live Writer to insert XFN (XHTML Friends Network) aware links.
• Forum
• Developers
• Provider Customization API

[Download]

---

There are new versions of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 Beta and Windows Live Mail as well.

I've put together a beginner's introduction into Silverlight on CodeProject.com. The article covers how to use Silverlight to create the famous Sierpinki Triangle fractal. It's really meant to help someone who wants to create their first Silverlight experience, but then again maybe that's you?

Sierpinski Triangle - An Introduction into Silverlight by Example