Yes, I’m still here.
The relative silence is because lately I’ve been far too busy at both work & play.
I’d like to say the “play” has all been XNA, but I’ve been enjoying Battlefield 2142 a bit too much for that.
What I have done is add the “skywriting” feature (my 6 year old daughters idea) to my “Air Legends” game. Basically the plane puffs out red smoke trails while you press a particular button, so you can do lovely pacifist pictures in the sky. 
A very easy feature to do with some tweaks to my existing smoke particle system. So a nice quick win on the progress front.
It’s certainly not a historically accurate feature, but that’s why it’ll be presented like a seperate game mode with no enemy aircraft. (actually it should probably be a different themed game altogether). Anyway, doing the menu for it is taking longer than the feature itself. Go figure.
XNA news
It’s December at last. So not long to go now for the Full release of XNA. December 12th, I believe.
David “LetsKillDave” Weller posts some exciting news that the migration of code built on XNA Beta 2 to the Full release, should be relatively painless.
Those of you that are fearing the RTM version of XNA will result in the same kind of pain as the Beta 1 to Beta 2 transition, take heart. There are VERY few API changes this time around. All the “beta 2″ code that I’ve tested so far has worked without needing code modification (or very minor modification). Those of you that have invested time in writing Beta 2 games or tutorials will most likely find your code works perfectly.
He also introduces us to another great XNA resource. Michael Anderson’s blog is putting out some very cool info with source code included.
Check out “Manders vs. Machine“. Definately one to follow.