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Take to the skies with Google Earth

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1st Apr 2010
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If the garden, pub, football or country walks hold no attraction for you this Easter weekend, Google Earth’s flight simulator mode offers the chance to explore far-flung horizons from the comfort of your home PC.

Previously at this time of year IT Zone has celebrated the software industry’s tradition of “Easter Eggs” –  credit screens and extraneous goodies tucked away in obscure corners of programs to amuse the programmers and intrepid/nerdy users. The most famous of these is the version of Microsoft Flight Simulator that was accessible via cells X97:L97 of Excel 97.

Sadly, like Bill Gates himself, this proud tradition appears to have taken leave of the Microsoft campus in Redmond WA and we were unable to uncover much of interest in the latest versions of Microsoft Office. But our research took us to the home of Google Earth, which has very cleverly turned a flight simulator into a marketing vehicle for its database of global satellite images. (You’ll need to download the Google Earth client application first – a five-minute task – and then activate the simulator by pressing Ctrl+Alt+A).

Back in the old century, Microsoft's Flight Simulator used to be the industry standard for checking the compatibility of a system with MS-DOS and Windows. But as with so many other areas of technology, Google's web-based alternative presents a symbolic challenge to the old order.

With the UK weather forecast looking damp and miserable for the holiday period, aeronautically minded AccountingWEB members can pass their leisure hours at the controls of a high-powered F-16 jet fighter or a more sedate propeller-driven model.

That’s if they can tear themselves away from the Any Answers debates and the discussion groups now catering for a wide variety of special interests among the membership.

Chocks away – and have a happy Easter, folks!

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By cymraeg_draig
01st Apr 2010 22:54

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Good tip.

There are now several digital F16's whose pixels are scattered all over Snowdon. 

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
03rd Apr 2010 12:58

If at first you don't succeed...

This one is definitely not a good one for those with deadlines on their hands. I also recommend starting with the propeller plane - not quite so unforgiving. After one mishap I did manage to put my plane down on them Gatwick runway, but at a somewhat creative angle.

Pressing the wrong keys to reduce the thrust, I ended up ploughing into the Travelodge rather than taxing to the terminal building. All this was in the intersts of research, of course!

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