Month: January 2009

Inauguration Updates

Hello nickganga.com followers! In celebration of the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama, I will be traveling to Washington, DC with a group from Oakland University and tracking every part of it here! The Map located at the top of the page will follow our progress as we drive from Auburn Hills, MI to Shady Grove, Maryland and then take the train into DC. As always, comments are welcome. If you need to reach me, @nickganga on twitter is the way.

How To: Create Blackberry Ringtones with GarageBand

I’ve put together a short video (~ 6min) about how to create ringtones for a Blackberry using GarageBand on your mac. Soon to come are Quicktime Pro & iPhone variants.

[display_podcast]

YouTube Version

OS X + Active Directory + Notebooks

Working with OS X, Windows, Active Directory and other network services as much as I do, I came across a great tip when adding a leopard based machine to a AD domain today. After you bind the machine to the domain, make sure to enable the option called “Create mobile account at login”, especially if the machine is a notebook. I’m not going to say I learned this from experience, but hey you get the drift.

Create mobile account at Login

After binding to your domain, select “Show Advanced Settings” and select the “Services” tab. Open the Active Directory settings and enable the Create Mobile Account at Login check box and confirmation box if necessary.

Flight Simulator

My project for the semester in my CSE 541 Project Planning and Management course:

Your assignment is to plan and manage the development of software for a reconfigurable cockpit simulator for an advanced stealth fighter.
The instrumentation is identical to the actual production version.
This is a tool for pilot skill and mission training. The simulator must provide a high-fidelity representation of the actual fighter’s response to the controls.
As the stealth fighter is modified over its lifetime, the simulator must be capable of being modified to reflect those changes.
It should also be reconfigurable for different fighter variants used for different missions.
The hardware interfaces are stable, available and well documented.
This is a standalone system.
The software of the aircraft’s control responses, Aircraft Model, World Model and Aircraft Controls are available as COTS products.

As the new project team, you must conduct the planning, designing, construction, testing and delivery of one of the simulator subsystems (see Block Diagram).
One Team will be the Lead System Integrator (LSI) and will coordinate the work of the other teams (subcontractors).

This is going to be a fun semester.