Lifestyle – Page 2 – Matt Jones Tech

Review: X-Plane 11

I recently came across the opportunity to make my first decision toward my sport aviation journey. I had about $100 to spend, so I had a choice: I could book a discovery flight at my local airport, or I could get a flight simulator and a joystick. One experience would be real and over in an hour, the other would simulate reality, but I could play forever!

Why Not FSX?

If I were making this choice in late 2006, I’d probably go with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, just because they have dominated the flight simulator market for so long. Microsoft hasn’t updated their flight sim in several years, and I chose between FSX (released in 2006) and X-Plane 11 (released in 2017).

First Impressions

“Woah, that’s a massive download.” was my earliest impression. The core game and the included free DLC is pushing 60GB! Once I downloaded and launched, X-Plane 11 greeted with a basic, no-nonsense menu with a handful of options. I started my first flight, and promptly crashed. My joystick wasn’t working properly.

X-Plane Flight Configuration Screen

Joystick Configuration

It was unfortunate that my joystick didn’t load into a default configuration for X-plane, considering its popularity. Overall, not a huge deal. I would have been configuring my joystick anyway, but it’s more likely I would have done it later if I wasn’t satisfied with the default. As a total non-pilot civilian, I was (and still am) struggling with what specifically all the hundreds of commands are, and which ones I should map where. Despite being unclear on the commands, mapping the buttons is very straightforward.

Graphics

Woah. These are some of the cleanest graphics I’ve seen in a game. Runs well enough on my old GTX 970. It hangs up every now and again, but it’s barely worth mentioning. Only a 1 second hang every 30 minutes or so. X-Plane 11 is extremely stable running on Windows 10. I’ve not had a single crash (knock on wood).

This screengrab doesn’t even do it justice.

Simulation (Gameplay?)

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not yet a pilot, so I can’t yet speak to the realism of the flight dynamics. However, the fact that X-Plane 11 comes with an airfoil maker leads me to believe the dynamics are pretty darn accurate. The airfoil maker allows users to design and test their own custom wing shapes, which is perfect for those interested in designing and building their own planes from scratch, plans, or kits!

X-Plane 11 also comes with a plane maker application that allows users to create and test their own full aircraft from scratch. You can create your design in plane maker, or even import your own .obj 3D files.

My only minor complaint is the radio communication within the sim. The speech isn’t the most realistic and comes off feeling very robotic, but it is great to help me get a better idea of how aviation radio communication is supposed to work.

Weather System

Okay, this thing is awesome. You can program every possible weather scenario at virtually any airport in the world. There are options to set custom cloud cover and wind conditions ever 10,000 feet. Perfect for practicing the most difficult crosswind landings.

Custom Weather Options Page

My personal favorite option is downloading live weather conditions at the location where you’ll be taking off. That way it keeps things interesting while also providing the most realistic flying conditions.

Time of day and live weather conditions matched to the real world

Community

Despite this game being nearly 2 years old, it doesn’t feel old at all. I think the biggest reason being the community behind this software. I feel bad calling it a game! And after buying the simulator, X-Plane even offers users the opportunity to upgrade their license for professional use.

The base game comes with 11 default aircraft, which is plenty in my opinion, to learn the basic mechanics of flight. However, there is a massive community on xplane.org who generously provide a vast library of new content. There you can download new planes, airports, and even plugins. (Hopefully there will soon be a plugin that will improve radio communication!) All-in-all, X-Plane 11 has proven to be an excellent simulator and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Full disclosure: at the time of this writing, I’ve logged 19 hours on X-Plane 11. I have every intention to keep flying and customizing for the many years that it will take me to make a fortune, get my pilot’s license, and rent a plane on a regular basis. But until then… X-Plane 11 is awesome.

matt

January 15, 2019

Aviation, General Computing, Lifestyle

aviation, flight simulator, flying, games, gaming, simulator, sport aviation, x-plane, x-plane 11
I Spent 6 Months Learning Chinese. Here’s What Happened.

Interested in learning Chinese? Curious what it’s like? A few months ago I decided to start learning Chinese. No practical reason other than just genuine curiosity and to see if I could do it.

How Did I Arrive At This Decision?

I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and I’ve always felt slightly inferior to bilingual peoples. I don’t know why. It just always seemed a very cool and useful skill to have. After all, Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. More people speak Chinese than English. So if I’m going to play with learning a new language, why not shoot for the most useful?

It Begins.

I started by running a search for “learn mandarin” in the Google Play store. Several apps showed up, but I landed on one called HelloChinese. Overall, I’ve had a great experience with the app. It has a very user-friendly interface and I immediately felt right at home with it.

Lesson 1

I went in knowing that Chinese is a symbol-based language (there is no alphabet), but it didn’t fully realize what that felt like until I actually dove into my first lesson. There is no alphabet. My first lesson was an English explanation of what Pinyin is.

Pinyin actually answered one of my biggest questions about the language. If there are over 8,000 Chinese characters in the language, how on earth do you type? The thought of a single keyboard with 8,492 buttons on it seemed ridiculous.

This may be an oversimplification, but Pinyin is essentially the Romanized pronunciation of Chinese so you can type the character you want. On a desktop or laptop computer, you’d simply run a small program in the background that tries to auto-fill your Pinyin with the proper Chinese character.

For example, “Hello” is pronounced nĭ hăo. And when you type nĭ hăo, there’s a program that runs in the background that matches the Chinese character to the Latin letters you typed. Confused yet? Don’t worry, me too. Chinese is almost two languages rolled into one.

Here I’m using an input method called Fcitx available for Linux OS

On Android, you get Pinyin built into your keyboard after adding Chinese as a language option!

Why Only 6 Months?

In addition to other life events taking priority over a purely fun experiment, I simply don’t have any close contacts with whom I can practice speaking. Was it a total loss? Absolutely not. In fact, my interest in the language has grown even more! And at the very least, I can definitely tell the difference between Chinese characters and Japanese characters. Previously, I kinda had an idea, but would still run the risk of guessing or assuming incorrectly. Now I just need some Chinese speaking friends to stay sharp!

matt

January 8, 2019

Lifestyle

chinese, culture, language, learning, mandarin, Pinyin
How to Access Your Desktop When You’re Away
We’ve all been in a situation where a client calls you in a panic and they need something right away. Only problem is, the file they need is on your desktop at work or at home or… basically somewhere you’re not. Remote access can save you from trouble and offer a level of convenience like few other apps can.

Where To Start

There are tons of remote access applications out there, some free, some paid, closed source and open source. Previously, I used the free version of TeamViewer. That is, until they were hacked. So are there any decent applications that can just connect you without having to give up your email address? Thankfully, yes.

Remmina

Remmina is awesome. However, it can be terrible if it’s not set up properly, or if you’re not quite sure exactly how to use it. I’ve learned the hard way, and hopefully I can share enough info to get you up and running in no time!

Install Remmina

If you’re running Ubuntu, Remmina comes in the box. If not, you can grab the snap version by running this in the terminal:
```
sudo snap install remmina
```
Alternatively, you can grab the PPA like so:
```
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:remmina-ppa-team/remmina-next
```
```
sudo apt-get update
```
```
sudo apt-get install remmina remmina-plugin-* libfreerdp-plugins-standard
```
Uninstall Remmina

If later on, you feel like this wasn’t working for you, or you just want to uninstall everything, just run:
```
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:remmina-ppa-team/remmina-next
```
Once you’ve got Remmina on your machine, you should see a window that looks kinda like this:

So fresh and so clean

Set up the Computer You Want To Access Remotely

On the computer you want to access remotely, your first step is to enable screen sharing.

Linux was hitting up that dark theme about 35 years before Apple. Just sayin

By default, screen sharing is disabled, but for this to work, you’re gonna want to turn that on.

Clickity click

Now you should see the screen sharing options. You’ll want to allow others to access the screen, and prompt them with a password upon logging in.

All good

Establishing A Remote Connection

Now, all you need to do is open Remmina on the computer you’ll be accessing FROM, and enter the IP address of your remote computer. This can be tricky if you’ve never done this before. If you’re at home and the computer you want to control is also at home, you’re more than likely on the same network. This is known as a local network connection. You can access your machine easily just by typing in its local IP address. However, if you try this from your local coffee shop wifi, it won’t work.

What’s My IP Address?

As mentioned earlier, there’s your public (external) IP address, and your private (internal) IP address. Which is which, and why does it matter? Your internal IP is used for local networks, like your home wifi that’s connecting your laptop, desktop, Chromecast, AppleTV, Roku, your friend’s phone, and your Alexa. All those devices have their own individual IP addresses, and are connected to your wireless router (wifi), that has its own public IP address, which is accessable over the internet.

Use your PUBLIC IP Address

The point of remote access is… being remote, AKA outside the network where your other computer is. So before you leave the house, go to whatsmyip.com and copy that address to your clipboard. This is your public IP address (hence, why you can just hit that website and it displays it to you).

Set Up Your Router

Paste the IP address you got from whatsmyip.com into your favorite browser. This will bring up the login page to your home router. If you’ve never seen this before, the username and password is typically printed on a sticker on the side or bottom of your router. Look for a button that says “Port Forwarding”. Find the computer that you want to connect to and create a new rule for it. Set your port number to 5900 and save.

Set Up the Remote Computer

You need to install a VNC server that will allow your remote computer to listen for incomming connections. You can do this by running:
```
sudo apt install vnc4server
```
Connect

Okay, back to Remmina. In the main window, select VNC from the dropdown at the top.

RDP is only for connecting to Windows, and SSH is just terminal access

Next, type your IP from whatsmyip.com into the bar, and ending it with :5900. So, for example, yours might look something like this:
```
65.88.88.127:5900
```
Next, you’ll be prompted for that password you set up earlier.

Tales from the Encrypt

Then, badda bing, you’re looking at your remote desktop! You did it!

such linux. much awesome.

Did I miss a step? Having trouble? If you had any questions or ran into any issues while trying to set up your connection, feel free to reach out! Drop a comment below, or hit me up on Twitter.
matt

November 28, 2018

General Computing, Lifestyle, Linux, Ubuntu

desktop, networking, remmina, remote, remote access, remote desktop, remote work, ubuntu
How to Clean Your Computer Without Compressed Air

So, my computer is starting to show its age a little bit after being built a few years ago. Now it’s time to clean out all the dust bunnies. The only problem is… I don’t have a can of compressed air lying around. Who wants to make a trip to the store just for that? So what are my options? Luckily, there are a few.

Let’s do this

First, you’ll want to clean out your filters and fans. Fans typically get gross faster than anything else. Good news: they’re also the easiest to clean. This all depends on the make/model of your computer case and how it’s built, but most filters can be popped out or slid out for easy cleaning. I usually just run my filters through some water in the sink. I’ve done this for years and it’s never hurt anything. Just be sure that your air filters are completely dry before you stick them back into your computer case.

Photo courtesy of Nick Ares on Flickr

Now is when it starts getting tricky. If you don’t clean your fans and filters often, or at all… you may have dust that makes its way deep into your machine and starts to cover all your components. You know… the ones you can’t clean with water. There are a few approaches you can take.

Method 1

First, if you have some plastic drinking straws lying around, you can grab one of them and just blow through it to clean out the particularly dirty parts of your machine. This is a totally viable option, and can work, but it does take a considerable amount of time, and you have to be careful not to breathe in all the dust you stir up into the air.

If you don’t have any straws at your disposal, you could do this just by blowing with your mouth. It’s not as effective as a straw, and you may find it difficult to reach tighter areas inside the case.

Method 2

Another method, arguably more effective than both the mouth and the straw methods, would be to use a bicycle tire pump, or a sports ball pump. Most of these pumps come with a general purpose plastic tip that can be used to blow concentrated streams of air into tight places. One, technical note, this does require exact positioning of your pump and your computer case. With one foot to keep the pump on the floor and one hand to push the plunger, that only leaves you one hand to direct the air stream.

Photo courtesy of Your Best Digs on Flickr

Once you blow out all your components, your machine should be running much cooler. That’s all the computer cleaning methods I have at the moment; if I missed anything, or if you found this post helpful, drop a comment below!

matt

November 1, 2018

General Computing, Lifestyle

cleaning, computing, lifestyle, maintainence
The Benefits of Lifelong Learning

There are lots of you out there who are lifelong learners like myself, and you guys don\’t require any convincing because knowledge has always felt like the worthwhile reward for taking the time to learn something new. For those of us who frequently find that you don’t have the time to sit down and learn something new, let me take a few seconds to explain how taking the time to learn something new has ended up saving me a small fortune in parts and service.

When I turned 21, my parents got me a brand new mid-2009 MacBook Pro. I absolutely loved that thing. Everything I use in my job today, I learned on that MacBook. I used it to learn video editing, motion graphics, photo editing, and even 3D. Eventually, I wanted to upgrade my specs (my biggest 3D render job took me nearly a week (168 hours) to complete!) so naturally, I went to the best tech support I had available to me to upgrade from a spinning drive to a SSD: Geek Squad. About 2 weeks and $180 later, I swore I would learn everything I could about computers to prevent myself from being taken.

The learning begins.

It begins

In my line of work (video production and animation) I work a lot with computers. As can be expected, computers will eventually get old, have problems, slow down, and otherwise stop working. In today’s technology-driven world, with new computer models being release every few months, salespeople are always trained to push the “You should just get a new computer” approach. Great for their business; not great for my wallet. So instead of buying a brand new computer every 3-5 years, why not learn how to build my own computer? That way, when parts get old, everything starts running slow, I can just slowly upgrade it over the years instead of buying a brand new machine every few years. Sounds great, right?

I’m not saying this plan was easy. It took me several months to research how to assemble a computer and several months to learn which parts did which job, and how they all work together. And once I knew all the parts required to build a computer, I now had way more decisions to make. Instead of “Which computer do I buy?” Now I was thinking, “Which motherboard should I buy? Is this motherboard compatible with my CPU choice?” A few more months of research later, eventually I had to make a choice. So I ordered my parts one by one.

I love it when a plan comes together

One by one they arrived, and I used several online guides to help me assemble my first computer. It ran Ubuntu Linux (I couldn’t afford a copy of Windows), and it was my first ever computer build. Overall, it took about a year to learn everything I could about each of the parts and save up enough money to buy all the parts.

Today, that same computer has payed for itself over and over again because I took the time to learn about all of the components and I’ve used it to complete several video and animation jobs for clients. This is no “and he lived happily ever after” story, either. The custom build hasn’t been without its problems. However, learning the basics and even more valuable, learning how to learn, has helped me repair my computer, and keep it running smoothly for several years. Now when I encounter my next problem, I’ll never have to rely on a tech service ever again.

matt

October 7, 2018

Lifestyle

build, custom, DIY, education, goals, learning, lifestyle, new years, new years resolution, resolution
Master Password Management With One Tool

So if you’re like me, you’ve probably reached the limit of the number of unique passwords that you can 1.) come up with on your own, while still matching all the requirements like total character length, using capitals, using lower case, using special characters, using at least one or two numbers… oh, and it can’t be a password that you’ve used in the past. It’s a lot, but it is a great idea to have unique passwords for every site you need to log into on the interwebz. So how do I master password management?

The issue:

The biggest issue is… how do you avoid using the same one or two or three passwords for every single site? I recently took a little inventory of my digital life. Before the inventory, I thought I was doing pretty good. I usually keep 5-7 unique, at least 50-100 bit strong passwords just on the top of my head, and I figure that was better than most who use maybe one or two passwords across all the sites they use, right? Well, comparing the number of unique passwords I kept in my head to the number of unique websites I use on a daily basis, suddenly I wasn’t doing so hot.

In just a typical week, I use at least 50 different websites that either required a user/password authentication, or were sites that I had already had accounts for. Suddenly my 5-7 unique passwords weren’t so strong. I knew I had recycled a handful of passwords across sites, but I had no idea how bad it was. When I actually took the time to note how many sites I was logging into with the same password, it was very surprising. Proper password management was now essential.

The sub-issue:

So how do you solve this problem? Nobody has time or willpower to suddenly become some cryptographic expert and just generate insanely strong passwords every single time you log into a new site, or create a new account. And sure, I could easily just make up a bunch of random numbers, letters, and symbols to get a super strong password, but how on earth can I remember or manage all that random stuff?

Most people use password management tools like LastPass or Dashlane. A lot of these services have a free version, and most at least offer paid upgrades. But in today’s internet, hardly anything is safe. Companies like this are huge targets for hackers because all it would take is one data breach and you have one of the world’s largest databases of username/password combos on the planet.

There’s been a lot of talk going around on privacy, especially online, and some tech giants like Facebook and Google are being heavily criticized for their use.. and misuse of other people’s sensitive information. So yeah, we get it, big corporations are evil. But that still leaves us with this whole password management issue. If I can’t remember ten thousand unique and strong passwords, and I can’t store them with a giant, hack-able company, what do I do?

The solution:

Enter KeePass. KeePass is one of the best password management tools I’ve ever come across. It’s technically a Windows-native program (.exe), but it can easily be run on any machine using a tool called Mono. I use this tool on my Chromebook (running Gallium OS) every day. What makes this tool awesome is that there is no managed database. There is no company. And best of all, there is no fee.

KeePass is a completely free tool to manage all your passwords across all sites and even desktop applications and anything else you may need to log into. Unlike LastPass or Dashlane which are designed around managing your online accounts, KeePass manages your login credentials for anything. So instead of being limited to online accounts, you can simply generate insanely strong passwords and customize the number and type of characters used to match any password requirements, and paste them anywhere.

I use BitBucket to backup code that I’m working on, and before I can push code up to that repository, I need to provide my password… in the terminal. With LastPass, you’d have to log in to your LastPass account, scroll until you find the account you’re looking for, reveal passwords, copy… it’s a lot. And it requires you to be online. What if you need to log into a local network or a piece of software that’s offline? What if you need to unlock an encrypted file? KeePass has you covered.

Even more features:

KeePass also has a ‘notes’ section for each entry. This allows you can add required information in addition to your username/email and password. Some accounts, especially banking or loan servicing sites, require things like security questions, additional account PIN numbers that are different from your password, and any other pertinent information associated with your account. The ‘notes’ section is a great tool to keep track of all that extra information.

KeePass keeps all your login credentials in a single, encrypted database file. And even better, you can back up this file anywhere. Publicly, privately, whatever. You only need one password to unlock your own personal database. And KeePass is so flexible you can run it from a USB stick. Just plug it into the computer you’re using, run KeePass, unlock your database file, and boom. There’s your credentials library. Close it down, eject the drive, and leave no trace that you were ever there.

matt

October 7, 2018

General Computing, Lifestyle

cybercrime, cybersecurity, hack, hackers, organization, passwords, privacy, security