Category: <span>Other Blogs</span>

Photoshop disasters blog

I love this blog: http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/ OK, some of the “disasters” are a bit nitpicking, but there are some truly awful image manipulation efforts out there, some associated with very big companies. Look back over the archives, there are some real classics. Lesson to large companies: don’t penny-pinch, it’s not worth it. I can’t remember any Autodesk marketing image disasters, although some of you may remember being bemused by the relevance of the the short-lived Subscription Cow. The BENTLEY BIN image is pretty funny, though. Does anybody have any other CAD-related examples?

AutoCAD 2009 – An outsider’s look at the Ribbon

Kirill Grouchnikov is a developer who has a blog called Pushing Pixels. This wouldn’t normally be of particular interest to AutoCAD users, but he recently wrote a piece describing the AutoCAD 2009 Ribbon. It is always interesting to things described from a different perspective, in this case the Ribbon from a non-user’s point of view. He pays particular attention to the ways in which the AutoCAD Ribbon differs from Microsoft’s standards. As a non-user, he has skipped lightly over several aspects of AutoCAD Ribbon use, including some drawbacks of the current implementation, but it is still a worthwhile read, as …

Autodesk University buddy offer for existing registrants

There can never be such a thing as too many Autodesk University buddy offer posts, right?* So here’s another one. This time, I won’t mention the year so I can’t get it wrong. AU Program Development Manager Joseph Wurcher has pointed out that existing registrants can also take advantage of the buddy offer. So if you have already registered and you know somebody who would like to go, maybe you can come to some arrangement with them that ends up with AU costing you less than it otherwise would have. You will need to contact the AU team at the …

Autodesk University 2008 two-for-one offer

Although Autodesk University registrations passed 7000 a while ago, the financial crisis is likely to have slowed registrations considerably, so it’s not a huge shock to see Autodesk trying to ramp things up with a special offer. If you’re one of the first hundred registrants on November 5, you can register somebody else for free. If you’re late for that, you can register a second person for US$595. “For a limited time only!” Sorry, no bonus steak knives. Providing special offers is a tricky one. For the people who can take advantage of this offer, it’s great. Those who have …

A true AutoCAD teaching story

Reading Ralph’s post about going back to teaching reminded me of a time some years ago when I taught some AutoCAD evening classes at a technical college. As Ralph points out, students have a wide range of abilities. Although they were all supposed to have completed a prerequisite introductory Windows course, it became apparent that during that course at least some of them must have been absent in mind if not in body. Here’s an example, where I was explaining to the class how it was possible to modify toolbars. Steve: “Move your mouse pointer over any toolbar button and …

50 years of LISP

It is difficult to find an exact date for LISP’s birthday. It wasn’t so much born in an instant as it was gradually dragged out of the primordial slime during the heady days of late 50s computer research. What is known is that John McCarthy, LISP’s “father”, published a report in October 1958 about his new programming language aimed at providing artificial intelligence capabilities on the IBM 704 mainframe computer. That report, one of a series, was the first one to use the name LISP. OOPSLA, a major annual conference on object-oriented programming, has decided to celebrate LISP’s 50th birthday …

The John Walker interview, and other observations

I have been thoroughly enjoying Kean Walmsley’s interview of Autodesk co-founder John Walker, which he has now finished. Kean’s link to part 4 is currently broken (edit: now fixed) and that broken link has been picked up by others (edit: also fixed in Between The Lines), so here are the correct links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. One of the best things about the interview is that it contains some frank criticism of Autodesk (and Microsoft, for that matter). On an Autodesk blog. Think about that. OK, it may be criticism of some stuff that is …

Autodesk on-line survey

As posted on Between the Lines, there is an Autodesk survey you may wish to complete in an attempt to have some kind of influence over AutoCAD’s future direction. Among other things, you will be asked specific questions about these issues: Interoperability Batch Processing in AutoCAD Custom Linetype Creator Custom Hatch Creator Transparent Fills You will also be asked to rank 10 possible future features: Batch process drawings in AutoCAD Draw order by layer Enhanced visual styles Visual compare two drawings 3D Dynamic Blocks Transparent hatch fills Convert PDF to DWG 3D enhancements Hatch Pattern Generator Linetype Creator Without knowing …

I like Adobe a lot more now

If you haven’t found the Dear Adobe gripe site yet, have a look. Some of the comments are moronic, most are strongly worded, some are sarcastic, and some are just precious. How has Adobe reacted to being publicly blasted like this? Very well. Read what John Nack, Adobe’s Photoshop Principal Product Manager, has to say about it on his blog. Also, see how he has responded to many of the comments on his blog posting. Good stuff! How would the good people at Autodesk react to dearautodesk.com? Would they ignore it? Would they pretend that the existing “constructive feedback only” …

Matt Stein’s Blog and Microsoft’s Mojave Marketing

Thanks to Shaan Hurley for revealing to the wider world the existence of Ribbon Man Matt Stein’s blog. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for a blogging n00b like myself to welcome somebody with a blog four years older than his own, but I’m going to do it anyway. Welcome, Matt (no pun intended). Some of Matt’s blog posts (particularly the early ones) make for, er, interesting reading, so don’t click if you’re easily offended. Please bear in mind that this is a personal blog, not an Autodesk one. Matt and I generally get on fine, but we have had some …

CAD history book

In case you missed it on WorldCAD Access, Dave Weisberg has released a history of CAD as a free book on-line. It is called The Engineering Design Revolution and subtitled The People, Companies and Computer Systems That Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering. I don’t like regurgitating things from other blogs, but this is an exception for two reasons. First, I find it very interesting. Second, it’s in a good cause and deserves all the publicity it can get. Access to the book in PDF form is free, but Dave is asking for voluntary contributions to the Cancer League of …

AutoCAD 2009 – How many people really are using the Ribbon?

I was interested to see Shaan Hurley reporting the Ribbon usage figures from the Customer Involvement Program (CIP). Shaan’s figures show Ribbon non-users at 46%, my poll results show it as 71%. Why the discrepancy? Is somebody telling fibs? I don’t think so. First, blog nauseam poll respondents represent a biased sample, comprising people who are more interested in AutoCAD than average users. Dare I say more knowledgeable? More likely to be power users or CAD Managers, anyway. They are probably more likely than average users to make changes from the default AutoCAD settings. But Shaan’s CIP users are also …

The Ribbon Man interview – fluff?

Looking at the comments, it seems not everyone is happy with the Matt Stein interview. If so, I’m sorry you feel that way about the piece. In my own defence, I would point out the following: I like to think my work at Cadalyst represents a balanced viewpoint. I pride myself on being fair. Whether Autodesk deserves praise or criticism for something, I provide it. But an interview isn’t really the place to do that. An interview is supposed to be an opportunity for the interviewee to say things, not a platform for the interviewer’s opinions. My job as an …

Autodesk University is moving!

No, I don’t mean it’s a deeply emotional experience, however true that may be for certain CAD geeks (who will remain nameless to protect the dorky). What I mean is that it’s moving in the fourth dimension, and possibly the other three too. This will be no news for several hundred of you, but it might be handy to know for those of us who need to plan things like this well in advance. A couple of months ago, when I was pondering the possibility of speaking at Autodesk University 2008, I registered using the on-line form and was intrigued …

AutoCAD 2009 – Putting things back to normal revisited

I see Lynn Allen has written a post explaining how to restore the “classic” interface. I commend Lynn for doing this in response to the requests she’s been receiving. It must be pretty painful for some people at Autodesk to see their Technical Evangelist showing people how to turn off AutoCAD 2009’s Big New Feature, but it’s absolutely the right thing for her to do. The worst thing Autodesk can do right now is go into denial mode, which has happened more than once in the past when users have reacted negatively to various things. This post from Lynn gives …

Where have all the developers gone?

I noticed in Ralph Grabowski’s latest upFront.eZine that Autodesk has announced that 100 developers have 200 add-ons working with its 2009 series of software. I hope I’m not supposed to be impressed by those numbers. I remember when Autodesk boasted about having over 3500 third-party developers. What happened to the other 3400-odd? This is a serious question; if anybody knows where they all went, and why, I’d love to know. Of those two hundred 2009-ready applications, how many of them take advantage of 2009’s Big New Feature, the Ribbon? My guess would be close to zero. Why? Because the AutoCAD …

The _XREF_XREF killer

If you’re an AutoCAD 2008 user you probably already know what the title refers to. If not, you probably don’t need to know. If your drawings are afflicted, I suggest you hop over to Between the Lines, grab the scale list cleanup utility and start cleaning up. Although I’ve found that this utility works very well, paranoia is usually wise in computing so make sure you back up everything before you start! The utility is installed into the AutoCAD 2008 or 2009 main installation folder, and you can make a shortcut to the CleanupScales.exe file on your desktop if you …