For any of you Civil Air Patrol Search and Rescue pilots who have spent endless hours gridding your sectionals, life is about to get a whole lot easier for you! The fine folks over at Sky Sectionals have just launched CAP Charts for CAP Pilots (or anyone flying Search and Rescue for that matter) at http://www.capcharts.com/.

These digital charts are the same as your typical FAA/NACO charts but insanely more manageable. What Sky Sectionals has done for us is provide the conventional grid overlay we use (15'x15') further subdivided into 7.5' grids (A,B,C,D). The grids are easily identified with semi-transparent lines and don't obscure key critical information on the chart. This is simply a Godsend to Search and Rescue Pilots and Aircrew. Now you can carry current and updated GRIDDED charts with you at ALL times. I still see some guys flying around with charts that are 10 years old because they don't want to grid a new one (granted they have current paper charts, but still...), all that is in the past! There's simply no excuse for not having up to date gridded charts anymore.

Other nice things about these charts are that they are perfect for folding up and putting them in your kneeboard. Just get your grid assignment ahead of time and print them out before you head out to fly your missions. I've gone the extra mile and printed out the entire Seattle Sectional, TAC and VFR Flyway and laminated each page. I carry them all in one giant spiral bound stack so that if we get reassigned to an unexpected grid, I've always got them with me. The laminated surface works great with a dry-erase marker as well for adding notes and outlining your grid.

If you're jumping up and down like I was to hear about this new product, you can get a full tour by heading over to: http://www.capcharts.com/tour

Last but not least, if you aren't already convinced you need to go order these charts, a portion of the proceeds of every CAP Chart they sell is donated to the Civil Air Patrol Foundation. You can make your life easier and contribute further to a great cause all in one! It's great to see a company that has taken the time to address the needs of an organization like the Civil Air Patrol and we should definitely make every effort possible to support them. Happy flying!

There aren't very many times where you can get in on the ground floor of something and have a shot at really putting out something huge on a platform. The iPhone proved that anyone can make an app that sells well and launches a new career for someone. Now we've done the same at Amazon for the Kindle. Make sure to sign up now to get notified when we officially release the Kindle Developer Kit next month! The full PR can be found here.

KDK Limited Beta Coming Next Month

Submit your e-mail address to get notified when the limited beta starts next month. Participants in the limited beta will be able to download the Kindle Development Kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle, and submit finished content. Those wait-listed will be invited to participate at a later date as space becomes available. The Kindle Development Kit includes sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops. We are excited to see what you invent for Kindle.

User revenue will be split 70% to the developer and 30% to Amazon net of delivery fees of $0.15 / MB. Remember that unlike smart phones, the Kindle user does not pay a monthly wireless fee or enter into an annual wireless contract. Kindle active content must be priced to cover the costs of downloads and on-going usage.

Pricing Options

Active content will be available to customers in the Kindle Store later this year. Your active content can be priced three ways:

• Free – Active content applications that are smaller than 1MB and use less than 100KB/user/month of wireless data may be offered at no charge to customers. Amazon will pay the wireless costs associated with delivery and maintenance.
• One-time Purchase – Customers will be charged once when purchasing active content. Content must have nominal (less than 100KB/user/month) ongoing wireless usage.
• Monthly Subscription – Customers will be charged once per month for active content.

Active content applications have an upper size limit of 100MB. Applications larger than 10MB will not be delivered wirelessly but can be downloaded from the Kindle Store to a computer and transferred to the user's Kindle via USB.

Developer Guidelines

Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed. In addition, active content must meet all Amazon technical requirements, not be a generic reader, and not contain malicious code.

We will work to refine the above guidelines throughout the beta.

For the price of a Starbucks latte, you can put a smile on a soldiers face by sending them some Girl Scout Cookies. My "big girl" is finally old enough to be a 'Daisy' (pre-brownies girl scout). I didn't even know there was such a thing! :-) Her troop is now selling cookies and has decided to also support the troops. We will be collecting donations and sending the cookies to our troops deployed around the world in what we are calling "Operation Cookie Drop."

If you would like to show your support, it only takes a check for $4 (made out to GSWW (Girl Scouts of Western Washington)) to do so. Contact me @ [ cookies (at) bisonium.com ] for the address of where to send the check. Thanks for supporting our troops!