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In response to Shaan’s variant on the old “if you question the value of any change you must be a Luddite” argument, I was going to write a lemming-based parody. I didn’t, mainly because I didn’t want to perpetuate the lemming mass-suicide misconception. Instead, I’ll answer the point more directly. Autodesk will acheive better [...]  23 January 2013, 12:55 pm |  14 comments | Tags: Armadillos, Lemmings, Shaan Hurley | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Customer Service, Fail, Fun, Other Blogs, Spin As reported by Joe Francica (via WorldCAD Access), Carl Bass has confirmed, in a somewhat ambiguous way, that his Cloud-only vision rules at Autodesk. I do believe that everything is moving to the cloud. But… There are a lot of applications that will [still] be done on the desktop. Whether Autodesk does it or [...] 30 November 2012, 2:20 pm | 18 comments | Tags: Carl Bass | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Fail, Other Sites, Spin, Web Stuff I was going to ignore this subject, but I’ve changed my mind because it allows me to post something positive about Autodesk. After all, I do try to post positive things; it’s hardly my fault that Autodesk has a habit of making it difficult. In upFront eZine #756, Autodesk’s Andrew Anagnost (or was it [...] 23 November 2012, 12:22 pm | 6 comments | Tags: Good news, Sarcasm | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Customer Service, Nostalgia, Other Autodesk Products, Other Sites, Polls, Spin Ever wondered why Autodesk is putting so much emphasis on social media these days? Why AutoCAD needs Facebook and Twitter commands? It’s because Autodesk pays social media consultants lots of money to tell them about the importance of social media, and how to be social and media-ish. In this video, one of those consultants [...] 22 November 2012, 9:14 am |  One comment | Tags: Parody, The Onion | Category: Advertising, Autodesk, Cloud, Fun, Spin, Video, Web Stuff Does Autodesk intend to move all its applications exclusively to the Cloud? That is, online only and no longer available on the desktop? Autodesk people who say yes: Carl Bass, CEO Phil Bernstein, Vice President, Building Industry Strategy and Relations Scott Sheppard, Autodesk Labs Software Development Manager (with private Cloud caveat) Autodesk [...] 20 November 2012, 11:37 am | 14 comments | Tags: Damn Lies, Lies, Truth | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Web Stuff As I indicated in May, Autodesk will be increasing the cost of upgrades to 70% of the full retail cost of a new license. This renders it totally pointless upgrading Autodesk software at all, which is obviously Autodesk’s intention. This change probably won’t affect many people, as those who have chosen to stick with [...] 19 October 2012, 12:27 pm | 5 comments | Tags: Anti-Customer, Bullshit, PR, Price Gouging, Spin | Category: Autodesk, Customer Service, Nostalgia, Rant, Spin, Subscription Following up on its acquisition of Socialcam (which was then abandoned by 50 million users), Autodesk has acquired social media platform Qontext from Indian company Pramati. What exactly is this? I have no idea. I tried to find out by reading the Pramati site, but it’s so heavily obscured in trendy but vague corporatespeak [...] 5 October 2012, 4:50 pm | 3 comments | Tags: Buzzwords, Plain English, Social media | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Spin, Web Stuff August 2012: Autodesk increases profits, but not as much as expected, and gets rid of 500 people. This sort of thing has happened before, resulting in the loss of good, skilled people, some with many years of priceless and irreplacable experience. September 2012: Autodesk goes on a recruiting drive. So, if you want to [...] In a recent post on Between the Lines, Shaan passed on the following response from the AutoCAD Team: There has been some recent discussions about the built-in help system in AutoCAD 2013, both positive and some criticism. As our longtime users know, AutoCAD help has been through many evolutions. We are particularly proud of [...] 20 September 2012, 5:00 pm | 5 comments | Tags: Cloud, Documentation, Help, Navisworks, Shaan Hurley | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Autodesk, Bug, Cloud, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Rant, Spin, Thoughts, Tip, Web Stuff I’ve made the point before that while Cloud proponents like Autodesk have been happy to talk big on the potential benefits, they have been conspicuously (suspiciously?) silent on the legitimate concerns their customers have raised. The best responses you have been likely to see regarding such concerns can best be characterised as “glossing over”. [...] 30 May 2012, 5:28 pm | 18 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Autodesk 360, Cloud | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Legal, Spin, Web Stuff Autodesk has produced a 2-minute video explaining the features of the new Help system in AutoCAD 2013 that I recently panned. As you might expect, it’s kind of upbeat and chirpy, but the fact that Autodesk feels the need to provide a tutorial on how to use Help says it all, really. Whatever, it [...] 2 April 2012, 1:55 pm | One comment | Tags: Documentation, Help | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Spin, Video, Web Stuff 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 [...] 1 April 2012, 12:01 am | 5 comments | Tags: Angry Birds, Facebook, Parody, Rovio, Satire, Twitter | Category: Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Autodesk, Fun, Other Products, Spin It’s AutoCAD new release time again and many of you will want to get hold of the trial software, or download the production software from the trial site rather than the Subscription site for performance or other reasons (the resultant downloads are identical). As in previous years, Autodesk is heavily pushing the use of [...] 28 March 2012, 9:23 am | 18 comments | Tags: Akamai, Download | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Autodesk, Customer Service, Fail, Rant, Spin, Tip, Web Stuff As I’ve already discussed, one of the areas where CAD on the Cloud shows potential is in handling specific tasks that require performing intensive calculations that are suitable for sharing among many processors. That sounds great in theory, and a lot of Cloud marketing (e.g. Virtually Infinite Computing) emphasises that point. OK, that sounds [...] 16 November 2011, 12:38 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Alex Bausk, Carl Bass, Cloud, Feedback, Hype, Labs, Project Storm | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Performance, Review, Spin, Web Stuff One argument that CAD in the Cloud supporters sometimes make is that the Cloud is taking over regardless of what anybody thinks, so we might as well just embrace it and reap the benefits. Nice try, Nostradamus, but I’ve been around computers long enough to see many Next Big Things come to nothing and [...] Autodesk recently made a big announcement about its Cloud initiatives, and reactions have been all over the place. Some people can barely contain their breathless excitement while others are outraged to the point of passing out the pitchforks. Why? It’s pretty much business as usual. It’s nothing like Dassault’s disastrous we’re-moving-you-to-the-Cloud FUD campaign against [...] 30 September 2011, 1:00 pm | 3 comments | Tags: AutoCAD for Mac, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Hype, Labs | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Subscription, Thoughts, Web Stuff Deelip has just published an extensive interview with several Autodesk people about AutoCAD for the Mac. Deelip had a good set of questions and I suggest you read the whole thing, but if it’s all too tl;dr for you, then here is the lazy reader’s version of what Autodesk had to say: The AutoCAD [...] 13 September 2010, 3:25 pm | One comment | Tags: AutoCAD for Linux, AutoCAD for Mac, AutoCAD WS, Deelip Menezes | Category: Apple, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Development, Interview, Linux, Other Blogs, Spin Good news! Autodesk has announced an app that will link iPads and iPhones to Project Butterfly. This provides viewing, markup and limited editing facilities. Bad news! Autodesk has decide to call it AutoCAD WS, which is bordering on the fraudulent. It’s not AutoCAD, is nothing like it, and is unlikely to ever be anything like [...] 3 September 2010, 5:28 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Flash, He's going to save every one of us, Lulz, WTF? | Category: Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Fail, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Web Stuff According to Autodesk, the forthcoming OS X version of AutoCAD has “many of the powerful AutoCAD features and functionality.” So what doesn’t it have? What are the holes? Autodesk hasn’t bothered to let me know a single thing about this software, so I guess I’ll just indulge in some irresponsible and uninformed speculation, based [...] 1 September 2010, 6:06 pm | 8 comments | Tags: AutoCAD for Mac | Category: Apple, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Customisation, Spin, Thoughts |
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I was wrong about AutoCAD 2013 Help, it still sucks
In my effusive welcome of AutoCAD 2013′s updated Help system, I wondered if I had been shocked into missing some glaring problem. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. In my enthusiasm, I managed to totally miss the fact that the new system has not been introduced for offline users.
If you use the new system, [...]