NEXTMap® ProMesh™ France

NEXTMap® ProMesh™ France is now available at http://www.fsdreamscapes.com/store


Dean arrived safely back in Baguio City, Philippines after narrowly dodging what appears to be the last typhoon of the 2009 season.

We're now hard at work behind the scenes and have made some heavy progress in the last few days, even though Dean was knocked 'offline' for a few days due to a human virus that he was unfortunately exposed to immediately upon return home.

We're not announcing what the latest developments are just yet, but we are pushing ahead with many projects, and especially in finalizing current projects.

Transit

Dean is headed to the airport, will be flying out in a few hours. There's a typhoon inbound aimed directly at Baguio City. Dean will be on a bus to Baguio as the typhoon is due to hit and will be going up the same mountains that had many landslides two weeks ago...

Here's hoping for a safe journey...

Back to the Office & Typhoon #4

Dean is flying back to the Philippine office tomorrow, and will be landing 12 hours ahead before the next typhoon is scheduled to hit Baguio City.



It might be hairy for a few days and hopefully there won't be any more landslides for the bus trip up to Baguio...

New Release Soon...

We're currently getting back up to full speed with production and we're anticipating a new release within the next week, we'll have more details on launch day.

Dean is busy gearing up to head back to the Philippine office this week and will hit the ground running as soon as he arrives.

As you may have noticed, we're being more aloof these days with news and announcements, there's a few reasons for that but mostly it's about bringing FS users the best possible experience and when the time is right we'll have exciting news to share.

There's so much we'd like to share publicly but until all the elements are in place we're not wanting to speak publicly about what is in the pipeline.

Watch this space in coming days.

Philippine and Projects Update

Alrighty, we're coming to the end of our journey to Australia, Dean is close to heading back to the Philippines now that roads are open and relief efforts are ongoing...

A few more days of finalizing things in Australia before Dean finally heads back to Baguio City and then we'll be back into full swing at the office...

DVD's are in the mail for all recent orders. We've decided to suspend DVD backup service for VFR+ Utah for now until we can get a new system in place for delivery of content outside of download...

We're working on finalizing NEXTMap ProMesh France as well as the remainder of Europe and are expecting that to be complete very very soon.

2009 has been a year of twists and turns in the Flight Simulator market, with 3 unexpected and unplanned international trips taking up 3 months out of the year. 2010 is looking to be a lot more stable due to having further defined our objectives for the coming years.

Looking forward to being able to share all our upcoming news when the time is right but for now it's back into production...

Disaster Update

The last few days we've seen Baguio City (where our main office computers are) inundated by Typhoon Parma (Pepeng).

Nearly 300 people were killed in Baguio City due to floods and landslides caused by Typhoon (aka Hurricane/Cyclone) Parma...

It has been a few days since I've blogged as I've been working towards getting back to the Philippines to do relief work there and at the same time trying to keep contact with Melanie in Baguio to make sure our office is still okay.

Melanie is now working with a team from Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to help reach out to those who have lost homes and families. 244 families have been confirmed to have lost family members and the team from YWAM is asking for donations of $15 each which will help one family each to start rebuilding their lives. There's still 45 families in need over 199 have already been helped.

For a few days Baguio lost power and we were unable to access funds to get money from PayPal to our bank account which is causing delays in shipping recent DVD orders. I'm currently booked on a flight to Singapore and am aiming to get back to Baguio before the end of October, in order to also help with relief efforts. All DVD's will be shipped once the funds arrive in our bank account and all DVD's will be shipped from Australia.

Please bear with us during this challenging time, the Philippines was hit three times by two typhoons in the space of 1-2 weeks. We're keeping operational but a lot of our time right now is going towards relief operations...

If you'd like to help, please feel free to email us at fsdreamscapes at yahoo dot com and we can give details of how to get funds to the teams on the ground as quickly as possible. People are in dire need of food, clean water, clothes, medicine and shelter. Any assistance would be appreciated at this time and 98% of funds donated will go directly to helping the victims...

Alternatively you can also help by purchasing products through our online store at http://www.fsdreamscapes.com/store and all sales from October are going directly to helping those affected by the typhoons...

Thanks again,
Dean.

Sale, Prizes and Disaster Relief...

Aloha again FS Fans...

Urgent Philippine, Samoa, Indonesia Disaster Relief - Help Out, Win Prizes...

In recent weeks we've seen the Philippines hit by two devastating typhoons, Samoa struck by a tsunami (tidal wave) and Indonesia rocked by several earthquakes.

In light of these devastating events and our humanitarian efforts we've decided to run another 50% off sale and all sales for the month of October will go directly relief efforts for the Typhoons in the Philippines, the Tsunami in Samoa and the Earthquakes in Indonesia.

We are working at helping YWAM's operations in providing relief efforts to those affected in the Philippines and also RescueNet's operations in Indonesia and Samoa. More news to follow in our blog, but if you buy this month from FS Dreamscapes, all funds will be directed towards helping those devastated by recent disasters the last few weeks...

Also for everyone who makes a purchase this month during our relief fundraising drive, will have a chance to win A) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, B) Cyris or C) a NEXTMap ProMesh product of their choice.

Dean is personally heading back to Manila in late October and is planning on diverting funds over to the teams on the ground in all three countries so food, water and clothing can be distributed to the poor and needy affected in all 3 countries...

Thanks for your continued support, and for any and all assistance given towards those affected by these devastating events.

Sincerely,
Dean Mountford.
FS Dreamscapes.

DVD Week...

We're now in the midst of a massive DVD duplication run for all recent orders. Should be finalized with mailing by Tuesday USA time.

We're in the midst of preparations for Typhoon relief for the Philippines which has been hit twice by Typhoons in the last week or so.

In the next few days we'll be making a public announcement about our Typhoon Relief effort for all those in Manila and the Philippines affected by the Typhoons. Our office has held up well, with only a little minor leaks through the walls from Typhoon Parma.

Dean is looking to head back to the Philippines in the next few weeks, but Manila is still under water. This is the first time Manila has been flooded, and virtually the entire city was underwater.

Currently we're needing to raise funds for clothes, clean water and medical supplies for teams we're working with to help with the relief efforts.

In conjunction with the support raising, we'll also be running a draw for Crysis and Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare for all purchases made during the month of October. All funds that come in this month will be directed towards the relief efforts.

I'll post more news on specific projects right now, we're only about $200-300 away from setting foot back in the Philippines, but we still don't yet have word on if it's possible to land in Manila or if it's possible to travel up to Baguio City...

More news in coming days...

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie...

Sorry for the delay in blog updates... I had a sudden trip to Australia come up at the beginning of September with only a few days notice and have been catching up with family who I haven't seen in 7-16 years depending on the family member...

My father has started home dialysis and is waiting for word on whether he will eventually be put on a kidney transplant waiting list. The last three weeks have been a blur, with seeing nephews and nieces I've not seen in years, and helping my parents as the home dialysis unit was installed...

So here I am back again to blog and getting back into the swing of things on the simulation side. There's the oz flight sim expo coming up Oct 10,11 in Brisbane, Australia which looks promising and exciting...

On the simulation front we're working still on new technology beyond Microsoft Flight Simulator X but there's not a whole lot we can talk about right now. This has been an ongoing process for the last seven months and if we can get all the dots to connect we could see some exciting developments down the track...

A few days ago I went out to Archerfield Aerodrome which is one of 3 airfields I learned to fly at. While there I did manage to pick up a guide I'd been looking to buy for years but was always out of budget range, it's something to do with Australia and in future it might lead to some new databases being developed...

Right now I'm prepping to finalize the datasets for Oahu watermapping... NEXTMap ProMesh is also being prepped for France and all DVD's recently ordered will be mailed this week, from Australia Post which will mean much more secure shipping...

More news soon, I promise...

Good News...

We've done some testing today on our software tools that have been ported over to VB.net and so far so good, everything is running and functioning as it should.

A few more beta tests over the weekend will confirm the photoscenery side of the process is also intact and no bugs have been introduced. With Karl's programming skills though I fully expect it to be at full speed.

What this means is that we'll be able to start implementing the code for the next phases of the automation and start the photoscenery production process pumping...

We've made some decisions today about our future direction when it comes to the Photoscenery and FSX market and we'll explain more when we're ready to share...