Month: <span>May 2009</span>

Month: May 2009

Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Fail, LISP, Microsoft, Nostalgia, Performance, Thoughts

Why AutoCAD for Mac is a bad idea

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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 I’m very much a user advocate and I’m arguing here against something that some users have been requesting for a long time. If you’re one of those users, I’m sorry, but I think this is one of those cases when giving you what you want would …

AU2009, Autodesk, Autodesk University, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Rant, Thoughts

Autodesk’s Revit rebellion reaction

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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 asking for feedback on the Autodesk discussion groups, the AUGI forums and its own blogs, and getting lots of it. Much of it is negative, but it is to Autodesk’s credit that I’m not seeing much in the way of denial, or demands that the criticism …

Fail, Fun, Grammar, Pictures

Clealiness of toliets in schools

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This sign was visible for some months at my daughters’ old school: It vanished rather quickly after I was spotted taking a photo of it. My daughters don’t go to that school any more. Instead, they go to the school where I took this photo this morning: Again, the sign vanished almost instantly.

AUGI, Rant

AUGI World’s missing column

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Despite living in troubled times, AUGI is managing to keep its AUGI World publication going, at least in electronic form. The printed edition, which was previously available only in North America, is no longer with us due to printing costs and/or green intentions. It may or may not not return at some later date. AUGI World current and past issues I was happy to note that not only is the current copy available in PDF format, but that previous issues have also been made available in that format. The unpopular NXTBook experiment is over, it seems. Another change you may …

AUGI, Autodesk University, Fun, Pictures

Who is this person?

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The first person to identify the pixellated personage below will win a virtual doughnut. Bonus sprinkles will be provided if anyone can identify the other people, the event, the location and the year. Picture courtesy of Donnia Tabor-Hanson (CADMama), from this thread in the AUGI Coffee Without CAD forum. I encourage you to read that thread and see if you can contribute to the idea it is promoting, but not until you’ve had a guess here! Readers of that thread and the people appearing in the photo should recuse themselves. Over to you! Edit: lots of right answers (which I’ve …

Hardware, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia

My first computer

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My first computer was a Dragon 32, which I think I bought in 1982. With a massive 32 kilobytes of RAM and a proper typewriter keyboard, it was quite advanced for a home computer of the time. The Commodore 64 may have had more RAM, but a lot of it was grabbed by its very basic BASIC. I preferred a computer with an ELSE to go with its IF, thanks. Microsoft Extended BASIC for me, not the crummy old BASIC 2.0 of the Commodore. The Commodore 64 was one of the great consumer electronics sales successes of all time. The …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Customer Service, Other Blogs

AutoCAD 2009 Update 3

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Update (nee Service Pack) 3 for AutoCAD 2009 is now available. See Between the Lines for full details. As always, read the readme first. Here are the links: Readme AutoCAD 2009 AutoCAD LT 2009 AutoCAD 2009 for Revit Architecture AutoCAD 2009 for Revit Structure No word yet about related updates for the vertical products. While I’m not convinced by some aspects of the recently introduced multiple-update-per-release regime, I do approve of Autodesk continuing to maintain 2009 after 2010 has been released. People have complained about this not being done in the past, and on this score at least, I have …

AUGI

AUGI Board of Directors – election process starts

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The long-awaited election of members of the 2009 AUGI Board of Directors has finally got under way. Nominations are now open and will be until 24 May 2009. To nominate yourself or others, see this page for details. Various announcements have been made about the timing and format of the election events, see the Announcement forum (AUGI members only) for details. It is likely that two positions will be filled by this election and one by Presidential appointment to replace one Board member who resigned, taking the Board to the 6-member minimum. I will be covering the background to this …

Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs

Revolt of the Revit Ribbon Renegades

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I hesitate to cover this subject because my understanding of Revit is very close to nil. I’m going to cover it anyway, because it relates to the Does Autodesk Listen? theme that I’ve discussed here in the past. Revit 2010 has appeared with a Ribbon interface, and many users don’t like it. Some well-known Revit users, including bloggers, former Autodesk employees and Revit founders, have railed against the new release. Autodesk has been accused of ignoring long-standing wishlists and pre-release feedback. Autodesk has (it is said) wasted precious development resources by introducing a badly-designed and poorly-performing pretty new face at …

AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Raster Design

Network/standalone clash is confined to Raster Design

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Autodesk has been in touch to confirm that the failure to allow a mixed network/standalone environment is confined to Raster Design. I haven’t yet tested this myself, but I’ve been told unequivocally that you can mix standalone and network license models for the major products. Here is the official Autodesk response to the issue: We are very aware of the issue currently relating to the co-existence of an AutoCAD SLM (stand-alone license) and AutoCAD Raster Design NLM (network license) configuration. This was not an intentional “change of licensing policy” as expressed in some blog posts this week, but an unfortunate …