The “other” C word – collaboration – was super-trendy in a mildly amusing way a couple of years ago, so I hesitate to use it here. But it seems to me that it represents a real potential benefit of CAD on the Cloud. Not just potential, because it’s already here, free for anyone, thanks [...]
 18 October 2011, 9:51 am |  4 comments | Tags: Collaboration | Category: AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Web Stuff 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 As you have probably noticed, I have changed the theme used on this blog. You may see some more minor changes to the layout over the next few days. If there’s anything you don’t like about the new theme, please say so. 21 April 2011, 8:53 pm | 8 comments | Tags: Blog Layout, Theme | Category: Announcement, Comments, Web Stuff Let’s say you’re trying to download some software and it insists on first installing some intermediary download manager. Do you think, “Great, this will make my life easier, things are bound to go quickly and smoothly now”? No, didn’t think so. How about when it’s by Akamai? Does that make you feel more confident? [...] 23 March 2011, 7:46 pm | 22 comments | Tags: Akamai, Download | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Fail, Rant, Subscription, Web Stuff 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 [...] 10 September 2010, 10:27 am | 2 comments | Tags: AutoCAD WS, Contest, Fine print | Category: Announcement, Cloud, Fun, Polls, Web Stuff, Win 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 Autodesk is running a web survey to try to find out which user communities (including blogs) its customers find valuable. If you are interested in participating, the survey is here. If you want to specify any blogs, you will need to type or paste their names into various “other comments” boxes. As the number [...] 23 August 2010, 2:56 pm | 3 comments | Tags: Polls, Survey | Category: Announcement, Autodesk, Other Blogs, Web Stuff In a thread in the Feedback & Questions about the Discussion Groups section of the Autodesk discussion groups, somebody called ACADuser contributed what I thought was a highly amusing bar graph as a test image. Inspired by this, I contributed a couple of test images of my own. A few hours later, the whole [...] 30 July 2010, 4:36 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Censorship, Discussion groups, Fail, Streisand effect | Category: Autodesk, Fail, Fun, Image manipulation, Web Stuff I will be airing my own views on the Autodesk discussion group changes in a future post. In the meantime, I have collected some reactions from other users. For the record, there has been only a little censorship in this area. Here are some of the comments that made it through unhindered: I’ve given it a fair shake [...] 30 June 2010, 12:36 pm |  Leave a comment | Tags: Discussion groups, Fail, User Interface, User Reaction | Category: Autodesk, Customer Service, Fail, Rant, Web Stuff The Autodesk discussion groups have quite a few problems at the moment, which I will discuss at length in future. One unnecessary problem that has been added to the mix is censorship. Having praised Autodesk in the past for allowing discussion to go unhindered, it’s only fair to slam heavy-handed moderation when I see [...] 28 June 2010, 1:24 pm | 9 comments | Tags: Censorship, Discussion groups, Educational version, Plot Stamp, Rant | Category: Autodesk, Cadalyst, Comments, Customer Service, Fail, Rant, Spin, Thoughts, Web Stuff On 4 June 2010, Autodesk turned off NNTP access to its discussion groups as part of the process of updating its software to use a different engine (the new one is from Lithium – here are its own forums). I am preparing a large post about what I think of the new web interface, [...] 11 June 2010, 12:00 pm | 10 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Discussion groups, Newsgroups, Polls | Category: Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Polls, Web Stuff As of 4 June, Autodesk intends to update its discussion group software to something that does not support newsgroup (NNTP) access. From an email by Autodesk’s Eric Wright to NNTP users: “As an active NNTP user, we wanted to reach out to you directly. We recognize this will change your experience participating in the [...] 27 May 2010, 12:39 pm | 9 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Newsgroups, NNTP | Category: Announcement, Autodesk, Other Sites, Polls, Web Stuff Disclaimer: I have absolutely no access to inside information about this Beta. Even if I had, I would not reveal anything that I had learned as a result of such access. This post discusses only information that is already public knowledge. The native Mac OS X AutoCAD port that Autodesk has been foreshadowing for [...] 24 May 2010, 12:25 pm | 4 comments | Tags: AutoCAD for Mac, Beta software, Confidentiality, Leak | Category: Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Interoperability, Other Sites, Performance, Video, Web Stuff As announced by Shaan Hurley, Autodesk has made some changes to the AutoCAD 2011 online Help system. Please check it out and see what you think. After a short time with it, here are my experiences using IE6 (yes, I know). As this is a dynamic system and dependent on browser characteristics, Internet connectivity [...] 12 May 2010, 1:29 pm | 12 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Cloud, Fail, Help, Search | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Cloud, Fail, Other Blogs, Performance, Web Stuff It was good to see Autodesk react to criticism of AutoCAD 2011′s browser-based Help with an acknowledgement of the problems and an attempt to provide a workaround by making a zip file of CHM files available for download. That’s much better than ignoring people’s concerns, denying the validity of those concerns or shooting the messenger, [...] 7 May 2010, 1:18 pm | 6 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, CHM, Civil 3D, Download, Express Tools, Help, Subscription, Tip | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Bug, Cloud, Customer Service, Customisation, Development, Other Autodesk Products, Subscription, Tip, Web Stuff A couple of days ago, my web hosting server was down. This is pretty unusual with the hosting company I use, but these things can happen to the best from time to time. This site was up again after a couple of hours, during which I received the excellent customer service that is par [...] 7 May 2010, 11:18 am | 3 comments | Tags: Comments, Downtime, Web Hosting | Category: Comments, Customer Service, Web Stuff In a comment in response to my AutoCAD 2011 Help system is not popular post, Autodesk’s Diane Serda acknowledged the problems, offered apologies and posted a link to a CHM version of the Help. From Diane’s comment: We have posted the zip file for download here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?id=15068206&siteID=123112&linkID=9240618 Instructions: 1. Download the AutoCAD2011CHMHelp.zip to your [...] 28 April 2010, 2:27 pm | 7 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Documentation, Help, Listening | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Web Stuff I spotted this on the AutoCAD Research Twitter feed: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AutoCAD_Internet Autodesk wants to know your views on web content and how it relates to AutoCAD and your work. It’s a fairly big survey, but I encourage you to take part. You can also sign up to participate in user research sessions here. This is [...] My poll on this subject is still running (see right), but so far about 2/3 of respondents rate AutoCAD 2011′s new browser-based Help system as 0, 1 or 2 stars out of 5 (total fail, very poor or poor). Frankly, I’m surprised it’s doing as well as that. Have a look at this discussion [...] 23 April 2010, 3:48 pm | 9 comments | Tags: 12-Month Release Cycle, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Cluelessness, Comments, Fail, Help, Newsgroups, Rant | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Cloud, Comments, Fail, Rant, Web Stuff |
 Loading ... Loading ... Loading ... |
|
|
All original content copyright © 2008-2013 Steve Johnson - All Rights Reserved |
||
This blog is just wonderful, apparently
One of the more interesting things about running a blog that is visited by a reasonable number of people is the fan mail. My immense modesty prevents me from keeping visible the thousands of positive comments that are posted here, but I thought I would give you an idea of the sort of praise [...]