Archive for 2015

One year later with the Twelve South SurfacePad

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A year ago, I wrote that the Twelve South SurfacePad was my favorite iPhone case. After a year, I’m still very happy I bought the case. I love knowing that I can leave the house with just my phone knowing I have the two most important cards with it.1 I thought it would be worth following up on two aspects a year into using this case based on the most common questions I saw in reviews while buying the case.

The biggest question was around one of the marquee features: can it be moved/removed without residue and while still remaining effective?

For me, I ran into a snag, but was able to get it off and onto a new iPhone successfully. The snag has to do with how the adhesive is made. It’s basically attached as a sheet to the insider of the leather. As I started pulling the case off the phone, the adhesive sheet started separating from the case and sticking to the phone. I just stopped when I noticed that, made sure I got the adhesive off, and then made sure to peel by pulling the adhesive & leather. The adhesive stayed intact as a sheet, still attached to the case, once I got the first edge pulled off. I had no problem after that. No residue on the old phone, too.

I then reattached it to the new phone. So far, it feels snug, I can dangle the phone by the case and the adhesive doesn’t seem to budge at all. I’m pretty happy.

The second question was around how the leather would age. Leather darkens and can stiffen as it ages, especially something like a phone case that’s always in my hand or in a pocket.

It has definitely darkened, and I’m debating whether to get a new case for this reason. I do like the darker red, but I’m going to get some leather cleaner and see if I can brighten it up.

The slots that hold the cards still hold the cards well, but they do slide around a tiny bit. I have one card that’s heavier, made of a faux metal material, that does want to slide out if I shake the case. That may seem contrived, but I do jog with the phone in my hand, which does worry me a little (I check to make sure the phone is right side up as I begin.

I’ve included a photo below that shows the case back when I bought it, the case now, and the back of the old phone. The phone photo was taken without any cleaning or other work – just the case removed. Click on it for a larger view.

Even with the wear, I’m really happy with the case.

Composite-SurfacePad-Shots-small

  1. Interestingly, in the US, that’s my driver’s license and main credit card. In India, I just carry two credit cards since I don’t have a valid driver’s license.↩

Saying goodbye to Google Analytics, Hello Piwik

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In my previous post, I mentioned that I was looking at reducing my dependence on free services as an experiment to see if I can improve my privacy.

That post was about changing my behavior as a consumer. This time, I’m looking at the services I use in my personal development work, especially those services that feed ad networks. In the case of my personal sites, this means Google Analytics (GA).

I did some looking around, and decided I want to be close to the same functionality as GA. It’s not a fair comparison if I don’t have the same features, so that criteria limited my choices.

After some poking around, I settled on running Piwik. It’s open source, free, and can be self-hosted on hardware I control. It seems extraordinarily customizable, though I haven’t done much here.

There are other choices like Mint or Woopra or Snowplow. There are actually more commercial options than I realized, in addition to the giants like Adobe’s Marketing Cloud (aka Omniture).

Ultimately, I chose Piwik because of it’s simplicity, it’s feature set, and it’s flexibility. I wanted to own the data1 and I also wanted the ability to keep up with a massive site if necessary.

So far, so good.

My Piwik Setup

I setup a cheap VPS somewhere, created a domain to host the server, and then ran Piwik on that single box. It looks like the service could have been installed on my simple web hosting account at Pair Networks2 with room to grow, but I wanted to work through the server setup for a refresher on setting up a VPS from scratch.

I then followed the Getting Started guide. That’s pretty much it.

Setup was also not as smooth as hoped. The configuration wizard has a bug, for example, that wouldn’t let it complete (I fixed it locally because I could – yay open source). It’s also non-trivial setting up an Apache server with SSL enabled when you haven’t done it in a while.

Cost

Piwik has a hosted option where I still own the data, but it’s not cheap (Piwik Cloud is minimally $29/month). Not the best option for me.

The good thing is that the software itself is free. Of course, nothing is exactly free. Here are some of the costs I ran into:

  • hosting for my own Piwik instance
  • SSL certificates to enable HTTPS
  • GeoIP database for accurate IP to location lookups (I ended up sticking with their free option)

This list doesn’t include my time getting all of this running, plus the time required each year to make sure the servers are secured, running the latest security patches/upgrades, and are monitored.

Looking back on it, Piwik Cloud might have been worth it when you consider the time & money spent.

Bye Google Analytics

I’ve removed Google Analytics from my main personal web projects, and replaced it with the Piwik tracking call. Since my server is the only thing that sees this data, hopefully people are more willing to whitelist the tracking domain in their ad blocker.

  1. I’m surprised more companies don’t setup their own analytics, at least in addition to their primary service. A lot of interesting things can be done with the raw data.↩

  2. Which I recommend: use this referral link to give me credit.↩

Goodbye Google Apps (GMail), Hello Fastmail (and MailRoute)

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I recently moved nearly all of my email off of Google’s services over to Fastmail, with MailRoute in front of it to block spam. 1

So far, I’m really happy. The services are relatively inexpensive, and the features compare well with Google, both in terms of space as well as functionality that I used. The best thing is that Fastmail offers a real, simple, plain vanilla IMAP implementation, which means it works a lot better with my iPhone and OS X’s Mail.app without weird label/folder/all mail strangeness.

MailRoute’s best feature is the quarantine summary email. Basically, each morning (or any interval you define), MailRoute sends an email listing mail it blocked that might be legit. Each email listed has a link to recover the mail and/or whitelist the sender. So, from there, I can quickly recover false positives without logging in and trolling through dozens of obvious spam emails.

I’m really happy with the setup, and with a lot of the surrounding email cleanup this prompted – I consolidated a few addresses and unsubscribed from a lot of newsletters/marketing crap I wasn’t reading anyway.

On the spam front, it’s just a tiny, tiny bit worse than what I had with Google. There are fewer false positives (legit email that ends up in the spam folder) and once in a while, a spam message makes it into the inbox. There are knobs and controls to twiddle with if that bothered me, but so far I’m not motivated to fix it – it’s just not enough of an inconvenience that it bothers me.

Whys and Wherefores

Both Fastmail & MailRoute are paid services, while my use of Google Apps for Domains/Business/Work/whatever-its-called-today was free. So, why did I do this?

I had a long, rambling explanation written talking about tracking and the ad market and evercookies and super cookies and why this bothered me, but I’ll summarize all of this with a few images. These are all the third party elements loaded when you visit a major online site like people.com:

people.com

Step down to a smaller publication that has to be more creative about ad networks or revenue, like, say the Norwich Bulletin:

norwich-bulletin

Tell me the business models and privacy policies of all of those third party sites. I’m in the industry and even I don’t recognize them all.

While most of the top 10-20 online sites are pretty good about restricting the partners they work with, ad retargeting and related ad models are getting more popular, all of which require tracking you as you wander around the web.

I just want to browse the Internet without a simple Google search or visit to an Amazon product page, for example, following me around the Internet for the next few days. So, that means not relying on services that need that data unless I have no choice. 2

Email is only one of the things I’m looking at removing. I’m testing out DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search.3 I’m also contemplating writing/installing/tweaking a web analytics package to get rid of Google Analytics. That’s a bigger time commitment, though, so I may just need to find one with a better privacy stance.

Why Fastmail and MailRoute?

There are a lot of services out there and, if I’m being honest, I didn’t do a ton of research on this one. Just too busy these days. I heard about both of these services over the last few months from the Accidental Tech Podcast (MailRoute sponsored them a few times, I think), and co-host Marco Arment has blogged about them a few times.4

So, I basically just ran with that recommendation after pricing it out and deciding that the $5-6/month was worth it. A little more privacy (plus the better/different features) for a little bit of money seems like a fair tradeoff.

Like I said, it’s been about a month and I’m very happy so far.

  1. My @gmail.com address can’t be moved, and I’m keeping it. While I’m shifting most of that email to my main address, I’ll still use it for some things.↩

  2. I still can’t justify/rationalize quitting Facebook or Twitter. Moving email providers was easy. Yay, standards!↩

  3. so far, Google just seems better, especially for technical/programming searches. I haven’t switched over to DDG yet.↩

  4. That post, by the way, expresses a lot of what I like about this setup↩

On the New MacBook

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I’ve been using the new MacBook as a personal travel laptop for the last month or so. I’ve been coding and writing blog posts with it and I wanted to share my experiences.

If you care about these sorts of things, I’m sure you’ve read countless reviews of the device. So I won’t try to cover everything. Instead, I’ll hit on a few specific things that matter to me.1

This thing is liiiiight

So, I bought this sort of on a whim. I had to travel quite a bit recently, internationally and with a lot of luggage already2. I’m working on an app for myself, and using that to learn Swift. I couldn’t justify the weight of a second laptop in my carryon, so I couldn’t/didn’t want to bring my own MacBook Pro in addition to my work laptop.3

For this scenario – a second, lightweight companion laptop – this thing is perfect. Far better than an iPad with a keyboard, because it runs OS X, and light enough that it’s like carrying a book. I hardly notice the extra weight. It’s just awesome.

Yes, the keyboard is weird (trackpad, too)

The keyboard is a polarizing feature. Reviewers seem to love it or hate it. I love it. It does take some getting used to, but once I did, I am able to type on it as fast as I can on my MacBook Pro. Switching between the two keyboards is my biggest problem. I make a few more mistakes when I first get on the Macbook, but it goes away quickly.

The bigger problem for me is that the keyboard layout is actually subtly different. Arrow keys and the Fn keys are the big ones for me. I still haven’t figured out the arrow keys, and still stumble around on those regularly. Thankfully I tend to code in things with Vi keybindings, so it doesn’t mess me up as often as it could.

For what it’s worth, I typed up the Mobile in India blog post on my MacBook (and this post, too).

The trackpad is similarly uncanny valley-ish, but more easily ignored. I sometimes tend to crash down on the trackpad to click it (trying to stop the screensaver from kicking in, for example), but since it doesn’t give, the haptic feedback illusion breaks since it doesn’t match the force with which I hit the trackpad.

Performance is merely OK

The Intel Core M processor used in the laptop is Intel’s attempt to build a tablet/hybrid processor. The processor also limits the amount of RAM. It’s OK for most things, but the laptop does struggle with anything that’s pushing a lot of data around. Overall, I see the beachball a lot more than I ever do on my MacBook Pro.4

That said, I run Xcode, I compile apps, and for the smaller applications I’m working on, it’s fine.

On the other hand, for writing blog posts, emails, and that sort of thing… this thing is PERFECT. I love it so much that I reach for it now when I want to sit down to write. The small screen minimizes the temptation to have distractions visible, and the retina screen makes reading type easy on the eyes.

Should you get it?

Depends. If you prioritize weight over performance, this is perfect. In any other scenario, the MacBook Air or the 13” MacBook Pro is a better choice.

For the developers, this cannot be a primary development laptop, but you can get away with Xcode or Atom or the like running with little trouble. Expect build times to be a lot longer than whatever you’re used to.

Bottom line: I love it, glad I took a chance on it.

  1. Two reviews that I’ll highlight, in case you missed them: Marco Arment’s review (he hated it) and Rene Ritchie’s review.↩

  2. Ex-pat living note: when you travel back to your home country, it’s expected (neighbors will mock you otherwise) that you maximize your return luggage allowance with everyday luxuries that you can’t buy easily here in India. For example, my last trip I had a suitcase full of baby stuff from our attic, many boxes of mac & cheese, maple syrup, and Clif Bars.↩

  3. Yes, I like carrying a separate laptop for personal things. I’m always hacking on personal apps and ideas, and I do all my writing on personal gear so I don’t cross the streams. Work is work. Personal is personal.

    I recognize this is like the ultimate first world, self-inflicted problem.↩

  4. I also installed El Capitan on this, so performance has dropped a little as I’d expect with with a beta OS and working in a beta Xcode↩

Some Observations on the Mobile Market in India

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Living in India has given me a new perspective on a lot of things. Professionally, I’m constantly learning a lot just by seeing how differently people use their phones, and how different the market and ecosystem around mobile is here.

Intex? Karbonn? Spice Mobile? Oppo?

The biggest eye opener has been seeing the number of India-focused brands here in the smartphone market.

In the US, there are global brands like Apple, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and LG and then a spread of other smaller brands. Here’s IDC’s list of the top smartphone vendors in India last year:

  1. Samsung
  2. Micromax
  3. Intex
  4. Lava
  5. Xiaomi

The market is also full of up & comers like Spice Mobile, and Karbonn, & other Chinese manufacturers like Oppo among many others I probably haven’t heard of.

Windows Phone is still a factor here, and I do still see Blackberrys from time-to-time, though they don’t rank in any public market reports I can see.

And feature phones – J2ME, basic phones… still big in India, too.

I’m Developing Android First

Most of the smartphones sold in India run Android. Android has a 90+% market share in India. Nothing else really is worth talking about, when you’re talking about smartphones.

So, while I personally am a dedicated iOS user, professionally in India, our teams think Android first. This is not the case for our US development teams, where both platforms have roughly equal priority and resources.

In the U.S., Fred Wilson’s 2010 call for Android first was bad advice then (and probably still is now), but the realities of emerging markets like India means doing exactly that. It’s literally the only game in town that matters.

Price is King, But Technology Matters

India is a price sensitive market. Obvious, right? But what I’ve found living here and talking to coworkers is that it isn’t just price that matters, but affordable value. From Ben Thompson’s excellent blog, Stratechery, talking about Xiaomi’s (and others’) rapidly growing customer base in India & China:

These customers are not conservative, or even pragmatists: they are enthusiasts and visionaries who simply don’t have very much money. The proper way to reach them, then, is not to sell them trickle-down technology: they will see right through that, and dismiss it out of hand. Rather, the solution to is develop new business models – indeed, in the case of Xiaomi, a new company – that is built from the ground-up to serve their specific needs.

This, too, is a powerful opportunity: there are far, far more potential customers in developing countries than there are in developed ones, but just because they don’t have much money does not mean they are technological laggards. Indeed, many of these customers are even more advanced when it comes to being mobile first because of the lack of a PC legacy, and they will embrace a brand that lets them live on the cutting edge.

Specs and feature bullets are still huge here, and not just because so many people in India work in the technology sector.

Android is Different Here

That central point, that people want tech but simply can’t afford the flagship devices, means that manufacturers need to find creative ways to manage cost while still offering an overall solid device. This creates subtle differences in user experience that go beyond the speed or feel of the device.

For example, Rs. 10,000 (~$160) is a common marketing cutoff for “inexpensive” smartphones (all phones are sold unlocked and contract free here).1

So, I decided to pick up a Micromax Canvas A1, which cost me about Rs. 4800 (~$75) fully unlocked, got a SIM for it, and have been using it as my ‘free time’ phone when I don’t need work email or iMessage.

It’s not a bad device – performance is fine – and because it’s an Android One device, it runs the latest version of Android. It does have some limitations that impact how we need to develop apps.

First, it’s a 3G phone – no LTE or HSPA+ etc. Even though LTE is coming online here in the cities, the state of the networks, plagued by inconsistent coverage, make this a less significant limitation. App developers already need to think about bandwidth as a precious resource. I’m used to seeing my iPhone on 2G/Edge networks regularly, and I’m not alone judging from our user reports.

The bigger surprise was the limited internal storage. I always found Android fans’ focus on SD card slots odd, but now that I’m running a phone with just 2 Gigs of internal flash memory, I suddenly understand. I went to download an app yesterday and got an error that I was out of space. And all I had on the phone were about 10 reasonably sized apps (the biggest was Facebook, at 150 MB(!). Android does let you move apps and some data to the SD card, so moving apps (when you can2) is the only way to continue installing new apps without deleting other apps.

There are even more subtle issues, some of which are detailed in this blog post at NextBigWhat. It’s a good summary of some of the challenges if you want to target the broadest swath of Indian mobile users.

Of course, you do get what you pay for. While things like Twitter and Facebook run fine, the screen isn’t as nice as the flagship phones. My main gripe, though? The horribly inferior camera.

Photo taken on my Canvas A1:

Canvas A1 Sidewalk Shot

Photo taken on my iPhone 6:

iPhone 6 Sidewalk Shot

No contest, IMHO.

I’m still learning a lot about India, and writing software for Indians (and the world outside the U.S. more broadly – Cricket, rugby, & F1 are global sports). We’re getting close to a few new releases at work, so I’m sure I’ll have more to learn and share soon. And there’s still other things – missed call marketing, the SMS market in India 3, and so much more.

  1. Contrast that to a flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, which runs for about Rs. 53,000 (~$833), or an 64GB iPhone 6 which runs around Rs. 56,000 (~$880), though on sale at Amazon for Rs. 43,499 (~$684.49) right now.↩

  2. So, I have an SD card installed, but not all apps allow themselves to be moved to the card (it’s a developer choice to allow this). Why wouldn’t apps allow this? Because moving to the SD card disables things like the app’s widgets. So… you need to focus on app distribution size, then you have to think about the user experience when the app is on the SD card, and parts of your app just stop working. Bottom line: not convinced SD cards are that useful, and rumor has it that Google is moving away from them anyway…↩

  3. Every company seems to send free text messages for everything. Seriously.↩

OK, I’m convinced… Must have headphones for heavy travelers

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I can’t believe I’m recommending this, being a Bose-hater for most of my adult life, but the Bose QuietComfort 25 Headphones are now my favorite travel accessory. Overpriced, yes. Average-ish sound quality, sure. But the noise canceling is uncanny. Flip the switch and the silence is surprising. Unlike most other noise canceling headphones I’ve tried, these don’t give me a headache. I’ve used them on a few long haul flights at this point (17-20 hours in the air each trip) and they’re comfortable enough that I sleep with them on.

The Sony noise canceling headphones I used to own would give me a headache on a cross country flight. They were so annoying (and others I tried so poor at canceling noise), that I switched entirely to passive noise cancelation, using IEMs that just blocked sound.

That worked well enough, but on these long flights, enough noise gets through that my music needs to be loud enough that the music ends up giving me a headache after 5-6 hours in the air.

So, consider me a convert. If you have to fly as much as I have had to recently, these are worth the investment.

They work really well in the office, too. I’ll still use my PSB M4U 1 there, because the sound quality is better and I have an office with a door. 🙂

Moov: Fitness coaching, not just tracking

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41WGe2Sns+L._SL250_We’re flooded with fitness oriented wearable devices from the step/activity trackers like the Fitbit and Up to smartwatches like, of course, the Apple Watch. Some phones even have dedicated activity tracking chips.

The sad reality, though, is that most of devices are basically the same. They do step tracking. A few add some extra dimensions of motion capture, or have some additional functionality like sleep tracking, or online tools for food tracking. They’re all about quantifying your day and they’re mostly passive companions. You may get a short vibration when you hit some goals, but that’s kind of it.

There are exceptions, and one of them is Moov. A few years back, I preordered it based on a tweet from a friend and one feature I hadn’t seen before: it pairs with dedicated smartphone apps to provide live feedback during workouts.

So far, they have dedicated apps for Running/Walking, for Cardio Boxing, Swimming, and the trendy 7-minute workout (with Cycling on the way).

I’ve been using the Running app as I come back from my shin splints injury. As I run, the app provides feedback on my balance, stride frequency, and posture, making sure I’m landing without too much force or jarring of my leg. So far, the runs feel better on my legs when using the app, and it’s been good about keeping me from running to fast or too aggressively (it talks to you to stay within a certain stride frequency). It’s simple, but very useful.

I also tried the 7-minute workout app for the first time today. The workout is based on the workout the NY Times covered in The Scientific 7-minute workout. It’s not the exact same workout, instead using a simpler set of exercises with multiple reps. It did feel good this morning – the muscles I don’t workout regularly were slightly sore, and the app’s feedback and rep counter worked well.

Every time I use this device, I’m impressed. I’m surprised it doesn’t get more buzz, to be honest. It’s way more useful than any other fitness tracker I’ve tried. Totally recommended.

An iPad, a Mac, and a Twitch.tv

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I found myself watching some players on Twitch.tv this weekend playing Vainglory. It’s pretty much the only game I play these days and has been for months.

This was the first time that I could remember actually watching Twitch streams naturally – not checking it out because it was in the news or whatever. I actually found it helpful to my gameplay, and it was mildly entertaining. Most of you are probably rolling your eyes now, but you can kind of think of this like watching the Golf Channel. If you’re a golfer, you’ll watch because it makes you better. If you’re not a golfer, it’s the most boring thing on your TV.

That’s a big part of Twitch – hanging out, learning from, and socializing with people who take a specific game (or gaming) as seriously as you do.

What’s interesting about Vainglory is that it’s an iOS game. On Twitch, a big part of the experience is watching people play the game. So, they’re streaming live from their iPad (usually with other video, e.g. a webcam looking at them) on screen too.

So, the question is how people stream from the iPad. Today, I snuck in an hour here and there to try and get it setup.

I was prepared to write a nice post with sample videos and screenshots of how I was able to successfully stream and record Vainglory from my iPad, but sadly none of the attempts were good enough to share.

At this point, my conclusion is that streaming from an iPad using a Mac is frustrating and unnecessarily complicated. It involves installing a device driver from Github (to capture audio), running either an Airplay server or routing video through Quicktime, and installing a broadcasting app that’s sparse on the on-boarding.

I gather that the situation is lot better on the Windows side of the world, but I’m amazed that Twitch is so popular considering how barebones the streaming software options are. Even the Windows options, while better, look to involve a few steps.

I’m surprised Twitch doesn’t invest directly in the stream creation experience. They do get Twitch support embedded directly in specific games – that seems to be their avenue of choice – but those integrations tend to be very specific to each game and lack the features that make the good Twitch streams interesting (PIP, the ability for player voiceovers, etc).

On the upside, I learned that Quicktime Player can record video (including sound) off of an iOS device with nothing more than the lightning cable that comes with the device. That’s going to come in handy.

Practicing RC flying with a simulator

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One of my recent obsessions has been RC flying. So far, I’ve played with relatively cheap quadcopters and helicopters, but I’ve managed to crash every single one enough times to end up with a pile of damaged copters. So, I basically gave up on the hobby thinking I didn’t have the time (or budget) to really get into it. I felt like I either needed to spend to get an advanced quadcopter that auto-leveled and could correct for novice piloting, or really dedicate more time than I had to do the fly, crash, repair, charge cycle required to practice.

Recently, though, I discovered the world of foam board RC planes. These are planes built from cheap – like under $5 cheap – foam board using either custom plans or downloaded plans over the internet. Pre-made kits for the body of the planes can be found from places like Flite Test for under $40. These kits contain pre-cut or pre-scored foam board and the hardware required to connect to your electronics and servos. Flite Test has a great series of ‘swappable’ designs that make it easy to share batteries and electronics between several planes.

I found out about this via one of Flite Test’s videos featuring planes modeled after characters from Planes: Fire & Rescue, which happens to be my son’s current movie obsession. The models are amazing, and when they mentioned foam board, I had to see what it would take to build one with my son.

As I was trying to figure out if I could build one of these with my son, I discovered that I can now buy hardware that lets me practice RC flying using a flight simulator with a real RC transmitter. So, I could actually practice flying without all the crash, repair, charge steps in between flights.

I finally snuck in an hour to set this up at home and the results were awesome:

Aerofly RC 7 10th flight from sujal shah on Vimeo.

It’s hard to tell from the video, but I’m flying a simple RC plane in the simulator using a transmitter wirelessly. The sim is focused on RC flying, which is a little different than a typical flight simulator. The big difference is that the sim simulates operating the plane from the ground, not from inside the cockpit. This lets me practice the hardest aspect of this for me, which is maintaining an understanding of the spatial orientation of the plane and my controls. In other words, when the plane is flying toward me, I need to remember that pushing right on the stick will make the plane turn toward my left (because it’s facing me). That’s really hard for me, especially with my cheap quadcopters where identifying the “front” is tricky in flight.

That’s all the gear I needed to do this:

The connection process is pretty simple. Make sure the receiver is paired to your transmitter before you start connecting everything up. Then, the basic wiring pattern is the Single Line Converter (SLC) connects the receiver to the USB adapter on the computer side. Just connect channels 1-6 on the SLC (or as many channels as your equipment has) to the same channel output on the receiver using the included cables. The slot labeled S on the SLC should be connected to the USB adapter. Then just plug the USB adapter into the computer and fire up Aerofly. It will detect the USB connection and walk you through the setup process. It was pretty painless, though I recommend reading the instructions that come with the Ikarus stuff (for example, pay attention to connect + pin to + pin, – pin to – pin, etc. between the SLC and the receiver – the instructions contain the diagrams you need to make sure this is done right).

There were some gotchas in my particular setup: the Orange receiver doesn’t label the pins by channel number, but they turned out to be in order. Next, the Spektrum’s channel 6 isn’t in use by default. Aerofly likes all the channels to be calibrated, so I had to figure out how to enable that channel on my transmitter so I could finish the calibration without a warning message (it is a harmless error, but I was being picky).

Once that was done, I was able to get a plane up in the air, which I promptly crashed. I was thrilled, though, and am now just trying to do a simple racetrack around the airfield and then land. So far, I haven’t succeeded. 🙂