A Program Manager spends half his time in meetings with the big bosses explaining why his team is not on schedule, the other half in meetings with his team trying to find out why they are not on schedule, and the other half putting together the charts and spreadsheets to justify all the delays. A lot of halfs! The result is many late nights and week-ends at the office.Only extremely hardy souls should apply for that position of Program Manager at Microsoft.A Flight Simulator programmer died and wound up at the Pearly Gates where St. Peter was waiting, reading his file."Well, you weren't really bad, but you weren't really good. People like you get a choice whether to go to Heaven or H*ll (Tom doesn't like to see the H word here!)", said St. Peter"Fine," said the FS programmer, "but can I see what they look like?""No problem," says St. Peter. He waves his hands, POOF, and all of a sudden they are in a park, it is overcast, and there are a lot of sad old people sitting on benches feeding the pigeons. It looks like Boise."So, this is what H*ll looks like," says the FS Programmer."No, this is Heaven," replies St. Peter, who waves his hand, POOF, and says, "This is H*ll."They are on a beach on a bright sunny day, all the guys are tanned and surfing, and there are lots of pretty girls in bikinis playing volleyball. Something like Malibu, but without the grunge."Wow!", says the FS programmer, "I love it. I choose H*ll."POOF, St. Peter waves his hand, and all of a sudden, the FS programmer is up to his neck in fire and brimstone, burning in the suffering of d*mnation, with the screams of the d*mned in the background."Wait," says the FS programmer to St. Peter, "this isn't the H*ll you showed me.""Oh, that," says St. Peter, just before he disappears, "that was the demo!"Best regards.Luis

If FS10 is still under development and at least a year away, that would place FS11 for four years down the road. Would they hire this soon for a version four years down the road? I guess they could...RH

ROTFL, *:-* :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lolNice joke...

Could be very possible when you look at software development. If you start at version 1.0, you will have an idea what you will release in version 1.0 and what will be moved over to version 2. Then, when developing version 1.0 you will get better ideas or encounter difficulties that you will move over to version 2. Also you will get a better idea on the wishes of the customer and you will draft version 3. While finalising version 1, version 2 is already on the map and version 3 is in draft etc etc.. Reasons for this all is to for instance to make quick releases and deliver something to your customer which is already matching 90% of their requirements. Also they will see results instead of waiting for 3 years till something comes up. Furthermore, it is also costwise.

When you start looking at the details of the scenery code in FS2004 - you see quickly that it's conversion to XML is less than half complete. The product is a half-step to the desired version.I'd expect FS10 to complete the conversion to XML based scenery and gauges - with possibly some backward compatability. There will be some improvements in the flight engine, some better localization, some improvement in the video demands of the complex clouds. I also expect the B787 aircraft to be included in the new version - and maybe a flyable Piper GA.There are a couple dozen parameters in the XML code files we can read now which are not used by FS. The developers writing FS9 had to have features for FS10/ 11 in mind to include those code elements / place holders.For FS11 - ?? STARs, DPs, ?? flight procedures ?? separation control of AI and UI aircraft on approach ?? takeoffs between two landing aircraft on a single runway ??There is a group down the hall from me who work on developing the point of sale system for our stores in the US - we also sell the system to most of the franchisee's.Their version and development timeline is two years out - with goals for some features four years out. The hardware in the stores is their biggest limitation - they must maintain backward compatibility.I don't see why any commercial product would be different.When Microsoft brought us the beta of Windows Server 2003 to begin testing - they gave us a list of things it would do, and a list of things they plan to implement in Windows Server 2005.The very best thing about these job postings - it looks like MS is commited to the product line for a couple more versions.But we have to keep our fingers crosses - Combat Flight Simulator 4 was at the beta stage when Microsoft decided that continuing to release was not cost effective and killed the product.I do expect to see a "classic" mode in FS10 - which will be pretty much CFS 4.

>I tried https//www.fsinsider.com to check the certificate. I>get a warning that "the name on the security certificate is>invalid or does not match the name of the site". >>The certificate is issued to forums.catonline.com>>I'm still suspicious!Well, that's certainly your perogative, but it seems a bit paranoid from this vantage point.Why would Microsoft OWN the domain name "fsinsider.com" if it weren't legitimate???I'm inclined to surmise that they simply haven't finished the integration of the "new website" into the main MS webstructure yet.Contact information is included in the 'whois' listing. A simple email should answer your curiosity and ease any "suspicions." ;) Registrant: Microsoft Corporation Domain Administrator One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 US Email: [email protected] Registrar Name....: REGISTER.COM, INC. Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com Registrar Homepage: www.register.com Domain Name: fsinsider.com Created on..............: Tue, Jan 18, 2005 Expires on..............: Thu, Jan 18, 2007 Record last updated on..: Tue, Jan 18, 2005 Administrative Contact: Microsoft Corporation Domain Administrator One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 US Phone: 1--4258828080 Email: [email protected] Technical Contact: Microsoft Corporation MSN Hostmaster One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 US Phone: 1--4258828080 Email: [email protected] DNS Servers: ns3.msft.net ns4.msft.net ns1.msft.net ns5.msft.net ns2.msft.net

Hi Luis,without a question your best one yet :-beerchug :-bigangel :-ukliamCheers, HolgerP.S.: back to working on my next demo :-wink2

I phoned Microsoft HQ in the UK and was told that www.fsinsider.com is "NOTHING TO DO WITH MICROSOFT".I note this morning that its Security Certificate is now issued to forums.forzamotorsport.com. Yesterday it was forums.catonline.com!

Hi mgh,The best resource you can trust on this, is to go to www.whois.net or www.allwhois.com. You will see that it is registered by Microsoft in the US. Therefore it could be very likely that Microsoft UK was not aware of this. I do not know every department in the over >160,000 staff company I work for. It could also implicate that although Microsoft owns the site, the maintenance is outsourced.I do not know how you get those Certificate, they could be from an advertisement.

>I phoned Microsoft HQ in the UK and was told that>www.fsinsider.com is "NOTHING TO DO WITH MICROSOFT".then probably MS Uk doesn't know that site.Want to see VISUALLY it's belonging to MS ?http://www.visualroute.it/vr.aspjust put www.fsinsider.com, and see were the routing goes...

>>I do not know how you get those Certificate, they could be>from an advertisement.Tryhttps://www.fsinsider.comI get a warning.I admit that there may be confusion within Microsoft and I'm waiting a reply from [email protected] I get it or the site is actually linked to the MS Flight Simulator site I shall avoid it.

Lol, Now I understand you!You are making a mistake here, you are trying to access the 'https' server in stead of 'http'. The secured server indeeds asks for a certificate. Please try http://www.fsinsider.com and you will see it is better now :-) That is the Flightsim site of Microsoft.

Yes, but it still shows that the certificate's not issued to Microsoft.If I go to the known Microsoft Insider site usinghttps://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/insider.aspI get a warning that "This page contains both secure and nonsecure information. Do you want to display the nonsecure items?"If I click Yes, I go to the site with no warning messages about the names not matching.The certification system isn't foolproof. There are two apparently genuine Microsoft certificates that are false. In IE6 check under Tools|Internet Options|Content|Certificates then look under the Untrusted Publishers. They were obtained by a Microsoft employee without authorisation.The site says "The old URL brings you to this new site. To simplify your access, we have also created a new, shorter URL www.fsinsider.com. Bookmark it now!" However the old URL takes me to to original Insider site not this one!As I said, I'm waiting for e-mail confirmation.

>Yes, but it still shows that the certificate's not issued to>Microsoft.I don't see the problem, since the site *itself* is RUNNING on servers at Microsoft ? Do you think someone breached into MS headquarters and it's running a clandestine website using their IP and connections and domain, without their knowledge ?

I also add: the certificate is reported as "Untrusted" ONLY with IE6 and Firefox. I've checked the same URL with Mac OS Safari browser, and is recognized as a valid certificate, it has been issued by GTE Cybertrust, probably this CA is not yet recognized by IE6, but Safari does.