May 2012

This post describes my experiences, to the extent that I can remember them, during my FAA Private Pilot check ride. The whole process was much less stressful than I had anticipated. I think you’ll find that as long as you are prepared, you will quite enjoy it.

My DPE was very friendly and reasonable. She is definitely there to do the job entrusted to her by the FAA, but she is not at all difficult or intimidating during this process.  As expected I found interviewing and flying with her to be easier and less rigorous than it was during my mock check ride.

The day started by her reviewing my log book to ensure that overall hours minimums and specific requirements (Long solo XC, etc) were met. She then reviewed my 8710 form, photo ID, etc to ensure all was in order before we began.  Once satisfied that all the requirements were met, she accepted my payment of $400 and the test began.  She mentioned we can pause the test at any time if we need a break for water, bathroom, etc.

She made sure to tell me to answer all questions from the point of view of a Private Pilot, not a student pilot. This seems obvious, but after several months of learning the rules of a student pilot’s license, this may be a helpful reminder.

Part 1: Oral Exam

Here are the topic areas we covered, and any specific items I can recall.

• The privileges and limitations of a private pilot. What documents you need to carry as a private pilot.  Be prepared to discuss legal passenger cost sharing, business flying etc. She will ask if you must carry your logbook and if you must log your time.
• Currency requirements. Biennial flight review, as well as passenger currency requirements for day/night/tailwheel flight.
• Required airplane documentation. Know your A.R.R.O.W. documents
• Airplane inspection and logs. Be sure to review all of the required VFR inspections (A.V.1.A.T.E.), and be prepared to discuss Airworthiness directives. It is wise to pre-tab these items in the airframe/engine logs book for easy access. The examiner will be happy you did this.
• Day/night Fuel requirements for cross country flight
• VFR Cruising altitudes for cross country flying based on magnetic course
• Requirements for complex/high performance/tailwheel aircraft operations
• Review of the previously requested cross country flight plan. You will be asked in advance (when you make your appointment) to plan a flight from your home airport to KEAT or KMMV, depending on where you are located. Expect to use this flight plan for several sets of questions coming up, so know it well and keep it handy.  She will want to see each climb/cruise leg individually calculated.
  • Be prepared to walk through the entire flight plan on the chart including your reasons for choosing your waypoints, cruising altitudes, etc.
  • She will do a quick check on your wind correction angle, magnetic variation, etc on a leg or two to make sure you are planning correctly. I did not include compass deviation in this flightplan, and she was fine with that, but be prepared to explain what it is.
  • While you will not actually file a flightplan, you will be expected to have the standard FAA flightplan form (or equivalent) completed, and she will ask you to explain each item.
  • She will check your work on the weight an balance, and ask you if we are within the limits for this flight, both on takeoff and on landing (after weight changes and CG shifts due to fuel burn)
  • You will be asked about your TAS values during cruise and climb, and how you came up with them. If I recall we talked a bit about the difference between TAS, CAS, and ground speed here as well.
  • You will also be asked to explain your fuel burn for at least one climb and one cruise leg of the flight.
  • I suggest calculating both takeoff and landing distances for both the departure and destination airports. She was pleased that I had done this in advance, and didn’t feel the need to quiz me on them accordingly.  Be prepared to discuss several factors that will increase or decrease your takeoff/landing distance. Specifically we touched on density altitude, head/tailwind, runway surface, and aircraft weight.
  • Know the pattern altitudes, pattern direction for each runway, and generally familiarize yourself with the departure and destination airports. She will ask you about a few scenarios for approaching the airport from a different direction, and with different winds.  It is a good idea to draw out the runway/pattern diagram on your flight plan.
  • Airspace. She will ask you scenario-based questions, using your cross country flight plan when possible, or using nearby areas on your chart.
    • You will be asked to identify several airspaces at different altitudes and points on the chart that she selects
    • You will then be given a hypothetical scenario where you are sitting in a rocket on the surface and launching straight up to 60,000MSL + and you will need to explain each airspace you will pass through. She may ask you about weather and equipment minimums during this scenario, or after (see below)
    • VFR Weather minimums
      • She did not ask me to recite each and every cloud separation requirement for each airspace, but I get the sense that this was because I had the first few she asked me memorized well. She spot-checked my knowledge here. If I recall she asked be about B, G (day and night), and D. Just in case, be prepared to discuss the minimums for every airspace (G, all the way through A), day and night, above and below 1200agl/10,000msl.
      • Special VFR. She will give you a scenario where weather is below VFR minimums and ask how you can continue your approach to land. Then you will be asked about the day/night requirements for SFVR, etc.
• Equipment & communications minimums
  • Be sure to know what equipment if any (e.g. mode-C transponder, radios, etc) are required for in (and above when applicable) airspaces B, C , D, E, and G. You can also expect to be asked about the Mode-C veil around class B airspace.
  • Know what communications are required (if any) to enter or operate within airspaces B, C, and D.
• Special use airspace
  • She pointed out MOAs, Restricted, Prohibited airspaces on the chart and asked me to explain each and asked if I could fly in each and under what circumstances. Expect to be asked to look up operating hours, etc in the margins of the chart as well.
  • Be prepared to discuss military training routes, and the difference between IR and VR routes. She also appreciated hearing the difference between 3 digit and 4 digit route IDs.
  • TFRs. Know what they are, why they are used, and what it means to you as a pilot. She asked for some examples of recent TFRs in our area.
  • Weather sources and route information
    • You will have been asked to bring a printed RAW (not decoded) copy of  today’s weather for your cross country flight to the test. Be prepared to decode and explain any METARs, TAFs, FAs,  NOTAMS, PIREPS, AIRMETS and SIGMETS that exist in your actual weather, including Zulu to local time conversions.
    • You may be asked to point out the specific portion of a TAF that is relevant to the arrival time at your planned destination, and what runway to expect to use, etc based on that information, for example.
    • We did not look at any graphical weather products
    •  Minimum equipment
      • You will be asked a couple of scenarios about minimum equipment required for VFR day flight. I was asked if it was permissible to fly with a broken magnetic compass, or a broken turn coordinator. I answered these correctly and she did not press me on others, but I get the feeling here she had further questions at the ready as well. Know your T.O.M.A.T.O F.L.A.M.E.S
      • You will then be asked about VFR night requirements. F.L.A.P.S
      • Aircraft systems
        • Explain the fuel system your aircraft uses (injected vs carbureted), etc.
        • How the heater works and why it is important to know this (CO poisoning)
        • Electrical system, including detail on the separate buses and the voltages of the battery and alternator
        • What the magnetos are and how they work
        • Emergency scenarios. Be prepared to discuss the basics of how to handle a few in flight emergencies.
          • Electrical fire
          • Engine fire
          • Flight into clouds (one minute standard rate turn 180)
          • Communications failure scenario, light gun signals, etc.
          • Stalls & Spins
            • What is a stall? Explain what creates a stall and that it can happen at any speed/phase of flight.
            • What happens to stall speed in a bank vs wings level flight
            • What is a spin and how to recover from one
            • Aeromedical factors. Be prepared to discuss CO poisoning, hypoxia, hyperventilation, and motion sickness, as well as the rules relating to scuba diving and flying.

Part 2: Flight test

• Briefing and Go/no-go decision
  • Call a flight briefer or pull an abbreviated briefing and make a go/no-go decision for the cross country based on that data.
  • You will be briefed that you are the PIC at all times, including an actual emergency on this flight.
  • Pre-flight
    • Perform a thorough pre-flight walkthrough explaining each item you are looking at and what you are checking for. Make it obvious that you are referencing your checklist
    • As the PIC, you will be expected to deliver a pre-flight passenger briefing. Be sure you touch on the exits, seats/belts, fire extinguisher, and ELT. Make it clear you know that you are and will remain the PIC throughout this flight.
    • Starting/taxiing/run-up. Be sure to use your checklists.

• Takeoff, Cross country flying, and diverting.
  • She requested a soft field takeoff to begin and we climbed out and began flying the cross country as planned. It is very important that you note the actual takeoff time, and remember to start your clock for the leg timing.
  • Once you leave your departure airspace, it is a good idea to simulate opening your VFR flightplan. No problem if forget though.
  • You can expect to fly to your first or second checkpoint before being asked to divert. Make sure you keep your altitude and airspeed in line with your plan.  During this time, keep a close eye on your actual vs estimated en route times and write them down at your checkpoints. You will be asked if we are ahead/behind schedule and by how much at some point. These checkpoints will come quickly (mine were 4 miles and 8 miles out) so the timing is very easy, but don’t get distracted.
  • You will then be asked to divert to a local airport. You can expect this to be any airport along your route of flight, but be prepared for anything. Once this request has been made you will be expected to come up with an approximate course, turn to it, and then calculate an approximate time/distance/fuel to get there. You won’t be going far so this shouldn’t be too hard to figure out in your head, but  she is ok with you using any tools available to you (GPS/iPads/etc) as well if you prefer.  The PTS tolerances here are +/- 5 minutes on the time to arrive at your diversion location, and you will only be flying for a few minutes most likely, so there is plenty of cushion.  If you did simulate opening your flight plan earlier, simulate closing it now. Once it is clear you have found your destination and will get there within a reasonable amount of time, you will break off to begin the maneuvers.
  • Maneuvers. This is the order that I was asked to perform my maneuvers, but it will likely change from checkride to checkride.  Remember that you are the PIC and expected to select your altitude, heading, and airspeed for these maneuvers. Be prepared to discuss why you have chosen them too. At times you may be asked questions during the flight such as what is your Va (maneuvering speed) and why it is important. You are also responsible for ensuring you do clearing turns when appropriate. You can (and should) ask for help in looking for traffic, but don’t rely to heavily on the help. You will be watched to ensure that you are performing an appropriate traffic scan.
    • Steep turns – take your time and get yourself setup on your altitude  and heading, and trimmed or straight and level flight before entering. You will do one each direction.
    • Slow flight – wings level, then turns each direction to specified headings.
    • Power off stall  wings level flight– you will be asked to go directly into a power off stall. It is acceptable to treat the turns you just accomplished in slow flight as clearing turns, just be sure to make it clear you are aware of that. She did not ask me to perform a stall in a bank, but indicated that may change in future checkrides
    • Power on stall – good idea to do specific clearing turns before this one
    • Hood work – positive exchange of flight controls when getting situated, then basic hood flying. Climb and maintain, turn to heading, constant speed descent, etc.
    • Recovery from unusual attitudes – You can expect one nose up (airspeed slow and decreasing) attitude and one nose down/spiral (airspeed high and increasing) attitude to recover from.
    • Emergency scenario – shortly after removing the foggles she pulled the power on me to initiate the engine out scenario. Pitch for best glide, identify your landing spot, engine restart checklist, forced lading briefing, securing engine checklist. There is a lot going on and it is a good idea to talk through this so the examiner knows what you are thinking. I was given my engine back earlier than I had expected once we were setup nicely for an approach to a large field.
    • Turns around a point – again, you are the PIC. Select a point, choose a safe altitude, determine the downwind leg to enter on, and don’t forget clearing turns. Make sure the examiner knows what point you have selected and when you are entering the maneuver
    • Back to your home airport for landings. The order that you experience these may be different.
      • Remember to select and maintain an appropriate altitude and cruising speed for your trip back to base.
      • Shortfield landing stop/go. You will be given a point to hit. Keep your airspeed under control on base and final. Use a go-around if you think you will be long or short.
      • Shortfield takeoff. It will be your responsibility to call out the 50ft obstacle.
      • Engine out approach. Expect to have your power pulled somewhere on downwind around the key position abeam the numbers. Cut your downwind leg short and glide it in to a stop and go.
      • Forward slip to a landing. Keep your approach high/long and slip to loose altitude once you have turned final. Be sure to respect the recommended slip/flap combinations on your aircraft (e.g. start your slip with 20º flaps in a C172, and wait to apply 30º until you have transitioned back to a standard approach)
      • Soft field landing. Add a touch of power on round out and hold the nose wheel off as long as possible.

The debrief

Upon rolling out from your final landing, you will know how your test went. Hopefully, you will be told that you are now a private pilot as you roll past the runway hold short line, but be sure to perform the proper after landing checklist and taxi checklist. Assuming this is the outcome, you will head in for a debrief and receive your temporary certificate on the spot.

Here are a couple of my own comments from this experience, that may be helpful to others:

• Examiners really appreciate you talking through everything you are doing. Tell them what altitude you are climbing to, what heading you are going to select, etc. Also feel free to tell them that you are taking a minute to get the plane trimmed out for straight and level flight. Don’t leave them wondering.
• If you are off by a little bit on your altitude, heading, airspeed, etc, it is OK. The PTS allows you to exceed tolerances from time to time as long as you are not consistently outside the threshold, and as long as you do something to fix it. Tell them you are off and what you are doing to correct it. The statement I read while preparing for this checkride that really resonated with me is: “Your examiner knows exactly what the plane is doing, what they don’t know is if you know what the plane is doing”. In otherwords, if you are off by 150ft in a maneuver or while cruising, don’t think you can get away with it and they just won’t notice. Make sure they know that you noticed it too and are actively working to correct it.
• Study and memorize. While you are allowed to look things up in the FAR/AIM if you get stumped during the oral, you will be setting yourself well ahead if you don’t need to. Memorize the airspaces, memorize your plane’s Vspeeds, memorize checklists,  and memorize equipment lists.
• Have fun. It is daunting at first, but I found my checkrides (mock and actual) to be enjoyable. You get to do a lot of interesting flying in a short period of time and by the time you are signed up for this, you should be well prepared. Good luck and have fun!

Thus far, I have been having a blast with the training process. I’ve been looking forward to my three weekly classroom sessions, and really looking forward to the time I get to spend piloting the plane. I’ve been fortunate to this point, and I have been able to take a few hours each week off of work in the middle of the day to hop down to Boeing Field, 4 miles south of Downtown where I work, and get my flight time in.  There is just one problem. It is mid November.. in Seattle. The hours of daylight are getting shorter by the day, and the weather is getting worse and worse. As we move into December and January, I’ll have less and less opportunity to get regular flight time in, so naturally I’ve been looking for other ways to supplement the time in the plane with another experience that can be beneficial to a student pilot, the flight simulator.

While I’ve had a computer setup to run Microsoft Flight Simulator in the past, I had never experienced the potential that it has as a training tool for someone learning to fly until now.  While there are a lot of factors involved in flying a real airplane that do not translate well to the simulator (e.g. control feedback, spatial orientation, etc) its advantages are many. After a real world flight with my instructor, I can come back to the simulator and recreate the scenario I had just flown with remarkable detail, and repeat the lesson.

With that in mind, I decided to build a dedicated ‘gaming’ machine for the purposes of running Microsoft Flight Simulator X, and/or X-Plane. I put in hours of research to familiarize myself with the latest and greatest hardware options (I’m an IT professional, but had long since lost touch with the hardware that the kids are using these days for gaming.)  More importantly I researched the specific hardware components that the most experienced and passionate flight simulator users are using on their machines at home. As with all technology hardware, you often get what you pay for, but there are almost always points of diminishing return that are reached when dealing with the latest and greatest. With that in mind, I have put together the following components, which achieve extremely high FSX benchmark results*, while maintaining a relatively reasonable price point.

Motherboard: 

 - $269

The all important Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 015-P3-1580-AR Video Card - 

$499

Power supply: 

 - $169

Processor: 

 - $319

Processor Cooler: 

 - $94

Memory: 

 - $84

Hard Drive (SSD): 

 - $279

CD/DVD/Bluray drive:

 - $60

Finally, the Case: 

 - $139

Grand total: $1912 for a machine that will handle just about any high end graphics intensive game you throw at it. For my purposes, this will allow me to run Microsoft Flight Simulator with very high graphics settings, along with a number of third party addons toachieve greater visual and functional realism.

* For details about FSX Benchmarks, and to see real world results, click here.

Photo booths were once so specialized and expensive that you would only see them in high traffic public places. I personally have fond memories of the photo booths in the metro and train stations of europe, and we’ve all seen them in shopping malls and bars. More recently, the availability of inexpensive digital photography equipment has helped drive build and maintenance costs down, and photo booths are popping up everywhere. After being guests at a handful of weddings over the past few years that featured (rented) booths, my bride to be and I knew we wanted one for our own wedding. Enter the beer fueled conversation. With booth rental prices for one evening’s use coming in between $1200-2000 we kicked a few ideas around and decided, as men drinking beer often do, “hell, we could build that”!

Here is what we came up with. Read on below the gallery if you are interested in how it was all done.

With those basic ideas in mind, we pretty much went off to the hardware store and got to work. We started by building out the interior frame using inexpensive and relatively lightweight 2×2 timber. Unfortunately the photos I took of this stage of the build were lost but you can imagine a fairly basic frame in the dimensions of 6’2″ x 3’5″ x 2’6″. The lumber was cut and screwed together with wood screws, being careful to maintain the correct (square) angles on the corners. We also built a simple shelf dividing the unit into upper and lower sections, in order to have a place to mount the electronics. On top of the frame we slapped on some nice looking but very light weight 1/4″ plywood to form the body of the booth.

Once all of the lumber was cut and placed to form the body we cutout the holes needed for mounting the screen, button, and lights on the front, as well as the photo slot on the side and the access panel on the back. Using a jigsaw I was able to make precision cuts for these detail pieces, and any imperfections would be covered by trim. As the body started to come together we turned our attention to the finish. There was plenty of indecision over painting vs staining the wood, but in the end we decided to go with a rich dark stain for the body to highlight the wood grain, and paint the trim black. We went with a simple curtain design to enclose the guests in the “booth”, which has provided plenty of flexibility when it comes to transport and setup options. Needless to say we are very pleased with the final look of the product.

The basic electronic components required for any digital photobooth are a camera, a computer (with monitor) running photobooth software, a printer, and a triggering mechanism. There are any number of ways to put something like this together, but here is the approach we used.

• Camera: Logitech C910 1080p Webcam. This high quality webcam provides very sharp images for our software to work with. I would have like to use a high quality digital camera instead of the webcam, but the software (see below) we chose only supports webcams at present, and the quality of this unit definitely gets the job done.
• Monitor: I had an older Dell 17″ LCD monitor laying around, but these can be easily found at low prices these days. We removed the internal screen portion from the plastic case, and mounted it inside the wooden frame of the booth so that the screen would sit flush against the front panel.
• Computer: Older generation Apple Macbook Pro I had laying around. Any laptop or smaller desktop will do however. Just be aware of the software’s system requirements. In this case you’ll want something with a 1ghz process or better and at least 2Gb of ram. I recommend using a laptop with it’s own internal screen (and mirroring the displays) so that you can easily manage the booth while hidden from behind, rather than needing to drag a keyboard/mouse around front to look at the display monitor.
• Software: Sparkbooth. Runs on Mac, Windows, or Linux and provided great features, and costs under $50. With this software I can customize the interface and photostrip template, upload photos automatically to the internet, and much more. I looked at all of the options on the market today, and found this to be the best choice, short of spending upwards of $500 for a commercial option.
• Printer: Epson Picturemate Charm. This small but capable printer retails for under $150 and prints very high quality photos at 4×6 which are perfect for cutting into 2×6″ strips. You’ll want to use the 150page glossy paper packs for best results. The printer is mounted above a “photo slot” that we built into the side of the booth, so that when it finishes a print the photo drops down to the delight of the guest.
• Triggering Button: We used a 100mm illuminated ‘big red button’ which was flush mounted into the front of the booth. I wired this up in a way that makes my computer think it is a giant space bar, which is the key used to trigger the sparkbooth software. (Stay tuned for a separate post on how this was accomplished. ) A standard 12v power supply that I cannibalized from around the house was used to power the light in the button when the booth is on. This took a little effort to perfect, but it has been very worthwhile. The large glowing red button leaves no question in your mind when you step into the booth what you are supposed to do.

Total cost to build including all of the raw materials, electronics and software was just around $900 – well under a single day’s rental for a professional booth. Of course we spent – I don’t know how many hours – building the thing, but we had a lot of fun doing it. At the end of the day we’ve got a truly one of a kind photobooth made to our exact specifications, and you can’t put a price on that.
I tried not to go into too much boring detail on the specifics of construction or design, but if you are interested to know more about any part of this process please feel free to contact me. This booth is also available to rent in Seattle, WA. Contact me for details.

Her favorite Tripel isn’t actually a Trappist, nor is it even Belgian. La Fin du Monde by Unibroue in Quebec, Canada is a fantastic Tripel style ale. It is brewed by French Canadian hockey fans rather than Belgian monks, but I have always had a real soft spot for this beer. It didn’t take much convincing when she mentioned she’d like to have a home brewed version of this available at her party.

In addition to the standard beer ingredients of malted barley, water, hops, and yeast, a Tripel will often contain flavoring spices as well as a significant amount of adjunct neutral sugar content to provide the extra alcohol. This particular recipe uses over 14 lbs of grain as it’s base, as well as 2 lbs of candi sugar (think rock candy). It also incorporates sweet and bitter orange peel, and coriander seed along with the hops for flavor.

I tracked down the ingredients needed and got to work this weekend.

Filling the brew kettle. I started with 7.5 gallons of water to make 5 gallons of beer. I use the Brew in a Bag method of all grain brewing.

“Mashing in” Stirring the grain into the water at a carefully controlled temperature (152ºF in this case).

After a 90 minute mash to convert the starches in the grain into sugars, I haul the grain out to drain, leaving behind the “wort” to be boiled.

The first round of hops, and other ingredients are added and the boil begins.

After a 6 minute boil, the hops are removed to drain and the copper wort chiller is used to quickly drop the temperature of the beer-to-be from 212ºF to under 80ºF.

The spent grains and hops make great garden compost

Transferring the chilled wort to a sanitized carboy for fermentation.

Yeast is added and into the fermentation chamber it goes to carefully control the temperature as the yeast goes to work. A sanitized airlock is placed on top to keep germs out while it ferments into beer.

There is a huge amount of fermentable sugars in this beer (meaning a high alcohol content when it is done), so the yeast were very happy got really active. There was so much pressure from the escaping CO2 it blew the airlock assembly right out of the bottle and sprayed yeast and beer all over the chamber. This photo was taken after cleaning and re-inserting the airlock. Academically, I suspected this would happen with such a “big” beer, but I had never seen it in practice. Once I got the mess cleaned up, it was actually a pretty cool experience.

It was very clear that the airlock wasn’t go to stay put a second time either, so I setup “blowoff tube” to allow the escaping CO2 gas and yeast particles to flow into a large container (1/2 gallon growler in the back) full of sanitizer. This allows more pressure to escape while still keeping a sanitized barrier between the outside air and the fermentation.

This post is intended to be an overview of one day’s brewing experience, not a tutorial on how to brew. If you are interested in learning more about this rewarding hobby, I suggest picking up a copy of “How to Brew” by John J. Palmer, and checkout the excellent forums at homebrewtalk.com

I have re-created the script, which behaves almost identically to previous versions. This one contains a little bit more error checking for dealing with various iTunes states. I’ve also included more code comments than previous versions, which should help people modify it to their own needs.

Here is the code, Working as of December 3rd on iTunes 10.1.

Where I started to run into trouble however was when I attempted to integrate my fledgling MCV Vera Home Automation system. In short, I wanted to be able to trigger a series of events in iTunes from an existing home automation scene so that pressing one button on the wall would do such things as:

• Turn off living room lights
• Bring dining room overhead light up to 60%
• Enable Kitchen and Sunroom speakers within iTunes
• Disable all other home speakers within iTunes
• Play a playlist called “Dinner Time” on random shuffle.

The lighting events are very straightforward with my z-wave switches and the Vera, and with my previous experience automating actions on the Mac I knew that the iTunes control should be able to be done with Applescript. Indeed, Apple provides a fairly complete set of built in applescript actions for iTunes making things like selecting playlists and playing tunes extremely easy. What they do not provide however is any native way of controlling the Airtunes functionality for whole house audio distribution. Many attempts at searching for an existing solution to control the Airplay (previously called Airtunes) functionality of iTunes provided conflicting information on it’s feasibility. I did however run across a third party piece of software that claims to use applescript to provide this level of control to their users, so I knew it was possible.

After some experimentation, I was able to produce the below applescript which reliably adjusts the Airplay/Airtunes speaker settings on your mac. I am providing it here with the hope that it can be found by those of you who, like me, had been googling like crazy to try to find a solution like this, but coming up empty. This can be called via a local command, a scheduled action, or (as is the case for me) a remotely executed action from my home automation system. This script will only run successfully if you have one or more Airplay speakers connected to your mac (this is obvious). It also requires that “Enable access for assistive devices” to be enabled from the Accessibility preferences in your system settings. The first bit of code in the script checks this setting and will prompt you to enable it if not already enabled. I’ve left the example deliberately simple. The code below will simply turn on three speakers, found by name if they are presently off. Building more logic into the script will be straightforward if your solution requires it.

If you would like more information on the other components required to make this work with my home automation system, or would like to see my recommendations for Speakers/amplifiers to be used with your Airport Express units, please see my original forum post on the Mi Casa Verde user forums here.

Please feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, and code improvements (I do not claim to be an applescript expert) in the comments.

This version of the script is for iTunes 10.0 only.

You can find a newer version of this script for use with iTunes 10.1 here.

I have also provided an earlier version of this script for use with iTunes 9.x here.

--

-- Remember to turn on access for assistive devices.

-- Working as of September 2010 with iTunes 10.0.x only. (this is now Broken in 10.1)

-- See http://fall-line.com or http://forum.micasaverde.com for iTunes 9 version.

-- First, check to make sure assitive devices is enabled. If not, allow the user to turn it on so the rest of the script can execute.

tell application "System Events" to set isUIScriptingEnabled to UI elements enabled

if isUIScriptingEnabled = false then

tell application "System Preferences"

activate

set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"

display dialog "Your system is not properly configured to run this script.

         Please select the \"Enable access for assistive devices\"

         checkbox and trigger the script again to proceed."

return

end tell

end if

activateapplication "iTunes"

tell application "System Events"

tell application process "iTunes"

clickbutton 8 of window "iTunes" --Press the iTunes 10 Speaker Button

key code 125 using {command down} -- this is essentiall hitting page down (command + down arrow)

delay 0.1

keystrokereturn

tell window "Multiple Speakers" of application process "iTunes" of application "System Events"

activate-- Make sure we are on the right window

tell table 1 of scroll area 1

activate-- Drill into the Table that contains our speakers

-- "Computer" should always be row #1 since it is immune to the alphabetizing iTunes does to the rest. If it is off, turn it on first, so that we can modify the status of others in any way we please without getting an error.

if (description of checkbox 1 of group 1 of row 1) = "Computer" and value of checkbox 1 of group 1 of row 1 as integer = 0 then

clickcheckbox 1 of group 1 of row 1

end if

repeat with i from 1 to (count of every row) -- Itterate through each row, looking for the criteria below

set rowcount to count of rows

if rowcount > 0 then

tell group 1 of row i

activate-- Drill into the object group of each row, so we don't have to later.

-- If "Speaker in Room A" is turned off (value of checkbox 1 = 0), turn it on. Otherwise do nothing

if (description of checkbox 1) = "Speaker in Room A" and value of checkbox 1 as integer = 0 then

clickcheckbox 1

end if

if (description of checkbox 1) = "Speaker in Room B " and value of checkbox 1 as integer = 0 then

clickcheckbox 1

end if

end tell

end if

end repeat

end tell

end tell

end tell

end tell

-- Finally, play the Dinner Time playlist. All you need to do here is create a playlist called "Dinner Time", etc.

tell application "iTunes"

set shuffle of playlist "Dinner Time" to 0

set shuffle of playlist "Dinner Time" to 1

play playlist "Dinner Time"

end tell--

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Camera: Canon EOS 40D

Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 28 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Camera: Canon EOS 40D

Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 132 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Camera: Canon EOS 40D

Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 56 mm
ISO Speed: 400