F-15E Flight Test-Success!

If you've been looking at Linux for an embedded project and wondering about its suitability for harsh working conditions, wonder no more. Today I'm finally able to report that LAHMP successfully completed its first flight test! The tests were performed back in September 2006, but we didn't have permission to release the details until very recently. Official press release is available from TRI's web site.

The flight test was on board an F-15E Strike Eagle, and I'm happy to say that my gizmo performed without a hitch. We were able to acquire data throughout the entire test and never lost a second, even during a few (limited) aerial maneuvers.

In testing running up to the flight test, LAHMP was shown to survive +/- 6 G six-axis shock testing and in our own testing was fully operational for any temperature between -40 C (-40 F) and +85 C (+185 F). We used my home-grown Coughlinux for both the initial testing and the flight test itself.

Standoff Resolved Peacefully

I'm pleased to report that as of this morning, Nintendo and I have resolved our situation to mutual satisfaction. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank NowInStock.net for mediating the arrangement. :)

(Seriously, if you're employed and don't feel like camping out overnight in front of a megastore, go check out NowInStock. They cover PS3's and other must-haves as well.)

I'd have to say that my first impressions were right, this thing is fun! I've got a couple of Wii games on the way next week, but so far I'm really enjoying Wii Sports. Bowling is #1 with me, followed by baseball and then golf (haven't tried the others yet). Packaging Wii Sports with the console was pure brilliance, otherwise I'd be grousing all weekend about the expensive brick sitting in my living room until I got my games next week.

Graphics are actually pretty good (digging the cartoony look so far), sound very good as well. Granted, not PS3/Xb0x 360 good, but I knew that going in. All in all, it's a lot of fun.

Now...let's get a decent hockey game on this thing, huh? Don't make me start up another ultimatum. :)

Rather Unusual

Now there's something you don't see in Austin every day. Check out the video evidence of actual snowing:

• http://www.chriscoughlin.com/dnlds/MVI_0157.AVI
• http://www.chriscoughlin.com/dnlds/MVI_0158.AVI
• http://www.chriscoughlin.com/dnlds/MVI_0159.AVI

I'm on Day Four of my weekend, thanks to this stuff. :)

Nintendo Ultimatum

All right Nintendo, time to lay the cards out on the table. It's a couple of weeks before my birthday, and I'm liking the looks of the Wii. Problem is, it appears to be well nigh impossible to lay your hands on one these days without camping out in front of retailers or buying a mega-bundle for mega bucks.

So here's the deal. I'm going to get a console for my birthday. If you can get more units out there and somehow convince the retailers to not wrap them up in $600 bundles, I'll go with you. If not, I'll go for my second choice and get a PS2 bundle* for around the same amount of money I'd otherwise be giving you. Sure, it doesn't have the Wiimote, but on the other hand it plays DVDs.

Ball's in your court, Nintendo. The Wii might be my first choice but it's not my only choice. Somebody's going to get that green, and I'd rather it was you than Sony or Microsoft. So let's say we just make this happen, ok? :)

* Why not Xbox360 or PS3? I'm at most a casual gamer (something to kill time when TV sucks), and they're both a serious outlay of cash for the non-hardcore group, where serious outlay is defined as my SO reaching for the nearest blunt instrument when she finds out.

Affordable Source Code Control For Visual Studio

I bit the bullet and picked up a copy of Visual Studio 2005 a few weeks ago. Most of my development is done in Eclipse, which has great source code control integration with CVS and Subversion. Outside of Eclipse, I tend to use command line systems (darcs being my personal favourite for cross-platform and simplicity) for the most part. I have to admit that I'm a huge fan of Superversion though, so if you're looking for a dead simple system I can't recommend it enough if command lines and IDE integrations aren't that high on your list of priorities.

Anyway, source code control in VS depends on the SCCI interface. Do some searching and you'll find that there are quite a few source code control systems that use this interface, including

• ionForge's evolution;
• Perforce;
• Sourcegear's Vault;
  
• etc.

The three listed above all offer free single-user licenses, and are well worth a look. You'll find plenty of other possibilities out there as well, but I'm interested in affordable/free solutions. Most of the rest tend to be on the "they want how much?!?" side.

I really wanted to use Subversion or CVS if I could, simply because as free products I can use them both at home and at work. I really don't want to learn 10 different SCMs and/or shell out for something for work. One Solution To Rule Them All and all that.

For Subversion there are really two solutions for Visual Studio integration: AnkhSVN and VisualSVN. I haven't tried VisualSVN, but I did use AnkhSVN for a week or two and while it worked as advertised it did seem to slow Visual Studio down perceptibly. I've since seen anecdotal evidence that suggests that it's because AnkhSVN is structured not as a SCCI provider but as a plugin. Can't confirm that, though.

I really wanted Quma Software's QVCS to work. Out of all the commercial offerings it was the most reasonably priced for the solo developer and appeared to be the most straightforward to use. I was able to install the trial version and use it as a separate client without any trouble, however I could never get it to work in Visual Studio. It would be recognized as a valid SCC plugin, but would report an error every time I tried to check in a sample project.

Serious web scraping ultimately led me to the TamTam CVS plugin. It sits atop a CVSNT installation and plugs directly in to VS.NET. I've been using it for a few hours now and it seems to work as advertised with no perceptible Visual Studio slowdown. The initial documentation on getting set up could be a little clearer, but once you get it up and running it's essentially a seamless part of Visual Studio living. Considering it's only $10, it's probably worth your time to take a closer look. Ultimately I've decided to go this route as the best combination of price and ease of use.

One final note: my favourite Windows text editor Zeus actually comes with its own CVS-SCC source code control system. Although it works great within Zeus and it does register as a potential SCC source code system in Visual Studio, I wasn't actually able to get it to work. Which is to be expected, according to a post by Zeus' author.