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Over on the oft-entertaining Deelip.com, there was an interesting comment made by Autodesk’s Scott Sheppard. After going back and forth a few times over Autodesk’s then-failure to allow Indian customers legal access to certain free Autodesk software downloads, Scott said this: I defer to Autodesk Legal on these matters which is where I get my [...]  7 May 2010, 3:05 pm |  3 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Deelip Menezes, Freedom of speech, Legal, Ralph Grabowski, Scott Sheppard | Category: Autodesk, Legal, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Thoughts I know that some of you out there (unlike me) are pretty cynical about anything that Autodesk says on any subject. So when Autodesk makes a big thing about being environmentally responsible, such as its new Autodesk Sustainable Design Center site, it would be tempting to say “Yeah, right” and assume it’s just more [...] 23 April 2010, 2:39 pm | 7 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Carl Bass, Environment, Green, Marketing, Spin | Category: Autodesk, Spin, Thoughts Autodesk, in common with other multi-billion-dollar corporations, periodically spends large sums on redeveloping and then consistently presenting its corporate image. It then spends even larger sums making itself look silly in court by claiming exclusive rights to such things as empty orange rectangles. Strange, then, that Autodesk should slip up online when it comes [...] 15 April 2010, 2:43 pm | 7 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Corporate Image, Fun, Image manipulation, Logo | Category: Autodesk, Fail, Fun, Image manipulation, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts, Web Stuff According to David Cohn, at yesterday’s blogger event in San Fransisco prior to the 2011 launch, Autodesk provided the following figures: 76,000 man hours spent on Q/A of the new release 6,000 total code reviews of new release 2,000 commands tested 4,600 Beta customers involved in AutoCAD 2011 1.4M lines of old code were [...] 26 March 2010, 5:41 pm | 2 comments | Tags: AutoCAD 2011, Blogging, Navel Gazing, Other Blogs, Uncritical thinking | Category: AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Fail, Navel Gazing, Other Blogs, Spin, Thoughts The past few days haven’t been so great for me. Here’s what has happened lately: A family member had an expensive musical instrument case burned when it was placed too close to a stage light. As I was driving home on Monday to escape a major oncoming storm, my car was hit out of [...] As I am currently re-reading Reach for the Sky, I happen to know that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Douglas Bader, a inspirational man who lost both legs (one above the knee) in an air crash while a trainee RAF pilot. A sporting hero and natural pilot, he used his immense [...] 22 February 2010, 3:22 pm | 3 comments | Tags: Books, Douglas Bader, Inspiration, Thoughts | Category: Thoughts James, you don’t know me, but I see you have been getting involved in CAD events lately, which is my area of interest. Autodesk University 2009 attendees got a sneak preview of Avatar and you were a key speaker at Solidworks World 2010. I absolutely loved Avatar. It’s the only film I’ve ever seen [...] 8 February 2010, 11:32 pm | 7 comments | Tags: Avatar, James Cameron, Roger Dean | Category: 3D, Fail, Review, Thoughts As I reported early last year, Autodesk is going to discourage you from paying for upgrades as and when you see fit. It is doing this by charging you 50% of the cost of a full license to upgrade from the previous release. The same 50% cost will apply if you crossgrade [edit: crossgrade [...] 8 February 2010, 10:40 pm | 37 comments | Tags: Autodesk, EULA, Pricing, Subscription | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts This post has nothing to do with CAD or the other subjects I occasionally cover. Last month, I unexpectedly lost two of my colleagues to cancer. Wayne was a loud, larger-than life character, full of life. Paal (pronounced like Paul) was a quieter, more reserved man, but very friendly, funny and positive. Wayne occasionally [...] 5 February 2010, 2:32 pm |  One comment | Tags: Cancer, Death, Positive feedback, Thoughts | Category: Navel Gazing, Thoughts One of the blogs I read regularly is Photoshop Disasters, which recently posted a picture of a Ralph Lauren ad. In common with many fashion photos, this showed a skinny model that appeared to have been further skinnified on somebody’s computer to the point that the poor waif was ridiculously deformed. Like this:
8 October 2009, 2:50 pm | Leave a comment | Tags: Dolts, Fail, Idiots, Image manipulation, Legal, Morons, Other Blogs, Pictures, Ralph Lauren, Rant | Category: Advertising, Fail, Fun, Image manipulation, Legal, Other Blogs, Photography, Pictures, Rant, Thoughts Don’t get too excited, because I’m sure Autodesk will appeal, but as reported at Owen Wengerd’s CAD/Court, Vernor has won the right to resell his used copies of AutoCAD. While this is seen by some as a victory for customers, it isn’t. This doesn’t open up a brave new world in which we are [...] 6 October 2009, 10:19 am | One comment | Tags: Autodesk, Legal, Thoughts, Vernor | Category: Autodesk, Legal, Other Blogs, Thoughts Last week, in my capacity as a de facto CAD manager for a large public utility company, I was having a chat with an Autodesk Australia person (he’s a nice guy and very honest, by the way). The topic of conversation moved to the new AutoCAD-based vertical, Plant 3D 2010. At that stage, I [...] 30 September 2009, 3:36 pm | 5 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Civil 3D, FMDesktop, Plant 3D, Trust | Category: Autodesk, Customisation, Interoperability, Nostalgia, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts Over the past few releases, and particularly in AutoCAD 2009 and 2010, I have noticed an increase in the number of information notices (bubbles, warnings, task dialogs, Communication Center notices, etc.) being displayed. Shaan Hurley has pointed out that 2010 Update 1 introduces a balloon notification that periodically makes you aware of how much [...] 31 August 2009, 11:39 am | 7 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, Comments, Messages, Polls, User Interface, User Reaction | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, Comments, Polls, Thoughts Most of you reading this blog are fortunate enough to live in democracies, and can only look on with sympathy at those who are denied the right to choose who represents them. What must it be like to live under regimes where the people are denied basic rights such as a free choice over [...] 23 June 2009, 2:28 pm | 6 comments | Tags: AUGI, AUGI Election, AUGI Forums, Democracy, Freedom of speech, Rant | Category: AUGI, Fail, Rant, Thoughts In a recent blog post, Deelip Menezes appears to be shocked by the very idea that a particular CAD company (no, not Autodesk) would ship software that contains known bugs. I thought he was joking, because he’s surely aware that practically all software companies with highly complex products release software with known bugs. As [...] 15 June 2009, 1:49 pm | 9 comments | Tags: 12-Month Release Cycle, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Bug, Deelip Menezes, Feedback, Listening, Other Blogs, Polls | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Bug, Cadalyst, Other Blogs, Polls, Rant, Thoughts I often see calls for Autodesk to support AutoCAD on Linux. Just like AutoCAD for the Mac, while I can sympathise with the users of that OS, I think a native port of AutoCAD for Linux would be a bad idea. Again, I think it would be bad for everybody: Autodesk, AutoCAD for Windows [...] 10 June 2009, 2:08 pm | 19 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD for Linux, AutoCAD for Mac, Linu | Category: Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Fail, Linux, Nostalgia, Thoughts There has been a fair bit of open discussion from Autodesk lately on the subject of a possible future OS X AutoCAD version. The more I think about this, the more I am inclined to believe that this would be a bad idea. A very bad idea. It pains me to write this, because [...] 29 May 2009, 6:46 pm | 62 comments | Tags: Apple, AutoCAD, AutoCAD for Mac | Category: Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Fail, LISP, Microsoft, Nostalgia, Performance, Thoughts It’s time to examine how Autodesk has reacted to the widespread criticism of Revit 2010. Is Autodesk listening? To be more specific, is Autodesk’s Revit team listening? The Good It has been good to see extensive public participation by Autodesk people in various discussions in different places. The Revit team isn’t hiding. It is [...] 26 May 2009, 1:33 pm | 11 comments | Tags: 12-Month Release Cycle, AUGI Forums, Autodesk, Listening, Other Blogs, Other Products, Revit, Revit 2010, User Reaction | Category: AU2009, Autodesk, Autodesk University, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Rant, Thoughts This post is not about the new SpacePilot PRO 3D controller from 3Dconnexion (a division of Logitech). This post is about the Internet coverage of the launch of that new device, journalism, blogging, freebies and ethics. It has long been common practice for companies to give out free stuff to journalists. Free gadgets, free [...] 17 April 2009, 4:41 pm | 12 comments | Tags: AU2006, Autodesk University, Blogging, CAD Blogs, Ethics, Freebies, Journalism, Other Blogs, Review, SpacePilot | Category: Navel Gazing, Other Blogs, Review, Thoughts, Writing |
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Comment censorship
I want your views on how much control I should exert over the comments that people make here. I’ve been led to thinking about this by a couple of things. Mostly by the occasion of the first troll comment on this blog, and to a lesser extent by Shaan Hurley turning off comments on [...]