Category: <span>Announcement</span>

Category: Announcement

Announcement, Customer Service, Other Sites, Web Stuff

Autodesk Answer Day – 27 October 2016

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Autodesk is holding another Answer Day to encourage you to use the Autodesk Community (discussion forums). Hop along and get answers to your questions (hopefully), because this is a special day where Autodesk people will attend and be responsive. Here is the announcement. When is this event, exactly? Join us on Thursday, Oct 27th from 6:00am to 6:00pm Pacific Time. Autodesk, if you’re promoting a “global event”, please try to remember that the globe extends beyond the West Coast of America and include UTC (GMT) times in your announcements. Most of us know where our time zones are in relation …

Advertising, Announcement, AutoCAD 2012, AutoCAD 2017, ClassicArray, Legal, Navel Gazing, Tip

AutoCAD’s ARRAYCLASSIC command is my fault

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Ever wondered why most keep-the-old-version commands in AutoCAD are called CLASSICxxx but the old version of the ARRAY command is called ARRAYCLASSIC? Why can’t Autodesk be consistent for once? Sorry, that’s actually my fault. Here’s a little history. AutoCAD Version 1.4 (1983) introduced the ARRAY command with Rectangular and Circular options. AutoCAD Version 2.5 (1986) added the Polar option and hid the Circular option (but it’s still there). AutoCAD 2005 introduced a dialog box version of the ARRAY command. The command-line version remained available via the -ARRAY command (with a leading hyphen). AutoCAD 2012 introduced many new array features, including …

Announcement, Comments, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia

Is there anybody out there?

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I wonder if anyone still reads this blog? Would there be any point in reactivating it? I have stuff to say, but would anybody notice? Please let me know. Note that currently, I need to approve comments before they appear. I may change this setting later, but if you comment and nothing appears instantly, don’t panic.

Announcement, ClassicArray, Customer Service, Fail

ClassicArray Registration Service

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When you register ClassicArray, you are supposed to receive an automated response with the registration code. I have not been able to get this working reliably, so for some customers I have been sending out the email manually. Personal circumstances dictate that I will be unable to do this promptly for much of April, so if you purchase ClassicArray and do not receive your code immediately, please accept my apologies in advance. I will also not be able to be very active on this blog for much of April.

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Autodesk, Fun, Other Products, Spin

Autodesk acquires Angry Birds developer Rovio

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Autodesk announced today that it had welcomed Rovio Entertainment into the Autodesk fold. Following a US$2.6 billion acquisition, the publisher of mega hit video game Angry Birds is now Autodesk’s Mobile Entertainment division based in Espoo, Finland. “This is a tremendously exciting development for Autodesk going forward,” said Autodesk CEO Carl Bass. “Rovio is the world leader in mobile entertainment software,” he added, “so for Autodesk to have access to that market and that technology opens up a whole new world for us.” Bass was effusive about the synergistic benefits of the merger and the benefits it will bring to the …

Announcement, Comments, Other Blogs, Other Sites, Tip, Web Stuff

Repost – how to get your picture next to your comment

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This is a revisit of a post I made about three years ago, and repeated a year later. This has become more relevant recently because I changed the default avatars displayed next to comments to use random faces rather than random patterns. If you object to being portrayed as a grinning loon, read on. You may have noticed that some people’s comments have an avatar picture next to them (no, not the film with the Roger Dean visuals), while others have a randomly assigned pattern. On this blog, the avatar picture is a gravatar (globally recognised avatar), and you can …

Announcement, Other Sites, Web Stuff

Dark times, dark sites

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This site has gone dark for a day to support the movement against the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills. Rather than black out the whole site for a day like Wikipedia and thousands of other sites, I have decided to keep the blog somewhat usable. SOPA is really, really scary stuff. If you’re an American citizen, I encourage you to visit the American Censorship site and do what you can to protect the Internet from the evils of Big Content.

Announcement, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Development, LISP, Nostalgia, Thoughts, Web Stuff, Win

(so (long (and (thanks (for (all (the (parentheses))))))))

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A few days ago, John McCarthy died at the age of 84. He didn’t make a fortune selling gadgets, he just profoundly affected the world of computing. He will be remembered mainly as the father of LISP, without which it is quite possible that AutoCAD and Autodesk would not have survived beyond the 80s. However, his original thinking went well beyond the development of a language. For example, 50 years ago he came up with an idea that is very relevant to what we are actively discussing today: In 1961, he was the first to publicly suggest (in a speech …

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, ClassicArray

AutoCAD 2012 Service Pack 1

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The first update for AutoCAD 2012 is now available on the Autodesk site. As usual, read the readme first and exercise the usual paranoia. Make sure you install the right version (32 or 64 bit). The update is also available for AutoCAD LT 2012. There is no news yet on equivalent updates for vertical variants of AutoCAD, so just talk amongst yourselves for a while until Autodesk gets around to it. Autodesk has, thankfully, abandoned the confusing nomenclature for its service packs. So this is not 2012 Update 1 with a filename that includes SP1 and which results in the …

Announcement, AutoCAD 2012, ClassicArray, Customisation, DCL, Development

Old news – shipping version of ClassicArray released

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I have been somewhat neglectful of this blog lately, including a failure to mention that my ClassicArray™ plug-in for AutoCAD 2012 has been shipping since 1 May 2011. Thank you to those people from various places around the world who have been prepared to go to the effort of registering and paying for the product. Here are some details of the product taken from the ClassicArray page: ClassicArray is a simple-to use but powerful tool for creating arrays in AutoCAD. Provides a dialog box interface to AutoCAD 2012’s Array command. The familiar interface method provides continuity with earlier releases. Supports …

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, ClassicArray, Development

ClassicArray Release Candidate 2

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I have now posted the second Release Candidate of ClassicArray™ (version number 0.7.0). The main changes from the first Release Candidate (0.6.0) are: Help documentation, which you can also view here, now describes how to resolve an AutoCAD CUIx loading problem. (The problem is not specific to ClassicArray and can affect any CUIx file that is removed or relocated. More on that in a future blog post). Timebomb mechanism now works 15 days after first use rather than a specific date. Also now allows the interface to still be used (but no arrays to be created) once the evaluation period …

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, ClassicArray, Development, Fun

ClassicArray Release Candidate – massive download bloat

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I have just posted the Release Candidate of ClassicArray™ (version number 0.6.0). The main changes from Beta 2 (0.5.0) are: Setup executables have been provided to provide easier installation and uninstallation. Pretty comprehensive Help documentation is now in place, which you can also view here if you want to learn about the product without installing it. Bug fixed with Path preview not displaying accurately when no path is selected. Minor cosmetic dialog box fixes. Timebomb has been moved on 7 days to 28 April. Regrettably, the download file size has blown out to 787 KB because of the inclusion of …

Announcement, AutoCAD 2012, Bug, ClassicArray, Development

ClassicArray Beta 2 (0.5.0)

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I have just posted the second public Beta of ClassicArray™ (version number 0.5.0). There are some documentation updates (still no Help, though), and the main changes are: Bugs fixed with rectangular arrays where single-row and/or column arrays confused AutoCAD. The command now remembers its settings from one invocation to the next, within a single drawing session. Timebomb has been moved on 7 days to 21 April. The ReadMe.txt file in the zip explains how to uninstall the old version. Simply delete the old ClassicArray.bundle folder from the place you put it. Replace it with the new ClassicArray.bundle folder from the …

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, Bug, ClassicArray, Development

AutoCAD 2012 – ClassicArray Beta

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People have already started to notice that AutoCAD 2012 has killed the dialog box interface for the Array command, and not everybody is happy about it. So I guess it’s time to launch ClassicArray™ Beta. ClassicArray is an add-on for AutoCAD 2012 for Windows that allows the creation of arrays using a dialog box interface similar to that provided in AutoCAD from 2000 to 2011, but enhanced to include new AutoCAD 2012 functionality. I will create another post later have created a Help page that describes ClassicArray more fully, but for now here are the commands ClassicArray adds to AutoCAD: ClassicArray (short form CA) …

Announcement, Fencing, Fun, Navel Gazing, Win

Fencing at the Commonwealth Championships

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This blog has been a bit quiet over the last couple of weeks, as I have had other things to occupy me. I have recently returned from the Commonwealth Fencing Championships 2010 which were held in Melbourne from 30 September to 5 October. There, I was representing my country in the veteran (over-40) events. Which country? Read on. Fencing is one of the few sports to have featured in every modern Olympic Games, but at Commonwealth level it has been held separately from the main Games since 1970. Although not part of the Commonwealth Games currently being held in Delhi, …

Announcement, Comments, Legal, Writing

Right of reply

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From time to time, I have been known to be critical of companies, products, policies, publications, and even people (although I do try to “play the ball, not the man”). If somebody objects to what I write here, what can they do about it? They have several possible options. Post a comment in direct response to the allegedly objectionable post. Contact me by email to point out any inaccuracies or any other perceived unfairness in my post. If I consider the objections valid, I will amend the post and/or apologise as appropriate. If I disagree, I will explain my position. Such correspondence will …

Announcement, Cloud, Fun, Polls, Web Stuff, Win

AutoCAD WS contest poll added

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Thanks to all entrants in the AutoCAD WS contest. I have now closed the entries and added a poll (see right). Although I did state that there would be no prize for this contest, I have some exciting news! I am happy to announce that thanks to an exclusive* arrangement with Autodesk, the winner of this contest will receive a free** copy of AutoCAD!*** I will keep the poll open until I feel like closing it or the entry I like best is winning, whichever is the most convenient. * Exclusive to people with Internet access. ** Excluding any Internet …

Announcement, AutoCAD 2011, Bug, Other Blogs, Tip

AutoCAD 2011 Update 1.1

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As I described earlier, Autodesk recalled AutoCAD 2011 Update 1 because it killed AutoCAD under certain circumstances (e.g. plotting with the layer palette open). Now there’s a fixed version available for AutoCAD and LT. There is no news yet about Updates for vertical AutoCAD variants. If you have installed Update 1 and the hotfix, you don’t need to do anything. If you have not installed Update 1, you should install Update 1.1. If you have installed Update 1 but not the hotfix, you can either install the hotfix or uninstall Update 1 and then install Update 1.1. For the full story, …