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« November 2003 | Main | January 2004 »
The new year 2004 has started working it way around the globe with New Zealand and Australia out in front. Well at least I have at least 19 more hours of planning tonights festivities here in California!
Happy New Years and may it be better than any past year for you!
Also be smart & safe and dont drink and drive. Get a designated driver, cab, or just plain pass out where you are at.
-Shaan
Sydney Australia Fireworks - Tim Wimborne / Reuters
Autodesk is located in San Rafael California just about 20 miles North of the famous Golden Gate Bridge and the city of San Francisco. If you are ever in the area and want a quick tour of where AutoCAD is developed, just email before you intend to stop by.
Cheers,
-Shaan
I just added throughout the entire Autodesk Beta website the ability to chat with a beta team member when Traci or I are online. This was done to allow for easy answers quick and fast for visitors interested in beta testing or involved in beta testing with a question. So far in its first week it was a success and well received by all who have tried it thus far. It is really nice and fun to chat with visitors from around the world on many different beta topics. This adds one more personal point of contact for Autodesk and their customers. While Autodesk is shut down for the holidays until the 5th of January I will be online on the chat when I can so give it a try. You can find the chat link below as well as on almost every main web page at http://betaprograms.autodesk.com
http://betaprograms.autodesk.com/chat/chat.htm
Also make sure if you would like to be considered for the next release of AutoCAD beta testing to get your voice heard direct to the developers and designers, then go to http://betaprograms.autodesk.com/au for a limited time.
Happy holidays and spread the word of the blog and let me know if there is something you would like discussed in here or have a tip to contribute.
Cheers,
-Shaan
AutoCAD longtime guru Dietmar Rudolph created an AutoCAD LISP routine in 1997 to draw a random 3D Christmas tree. You can download the LISP routine from the below link then simply use APPLOAD to load the LSP file and then run it with the command XMASTREE.
From the commented LISP file: "This command draws a Christmas tree in 3D, including material assignments and lighting. It also renders the resulting tree. You will want to have a fast computer and lots of RAM if you try building this tree. Even with a height of 6 the calculation takes several minutes on a P/200 and uses almost 64 MB of RAM. The tree is built randomly, so you will never see the same tree again."
Happy Holidays!
-Shaan
Here is a holiday greeting photo I recently created of most of the AutoCAD Team here at Autodesk. I had to do some editing to fit some people into the photo which was taken at a team meeting a couple weeks ago. I also added a nice snowy background for the holidays as it does not snow here in the Bay area and christmas lights on a palm tree still does not feel right to me.
Happy Holidays!
-Shaan
I have seen some very clever usage of DWF files on a corporate network. You can show employee locations, printers and in many cases even install and map to the printers of an office as shown in Jimmy Bergmark’s intranet site.
I am showing a couple examples below.
Autodesk Facilities and Human Resources uses embedded DWF files to show the current office locations and associated information. Of course I have not made the clearest screen capture (below) on purpose due to the content such as office numbers in Autodesk facilities.
An employee goes to the corporate intranet site and then types in a search for an employee based on many different criteria just like a search engine. They then get the page with all the employee info and a link to their office shown in a daily updated database created DWF file. The web page has an embedded DWF showing the employee office and all current details at the top of the DWF window. It is originally zoomed in on the office but I grabbed the screen capture when zoomed out. Also the employee and office numbers have hyperlinks back to the intranet site so you know the phone number of the office in a reverse search.
Jimmy Bergmark’s excellent example of using a DWF in his facility in Sweden.
Jimmy uses the embedded DWF in his intranet to display many different office floor layouts. He says they do this because it allows employees at his company to easily connect printers since they move around quite a lot. In the floor plan layouts are all of their corporate networked printers and their mapped locations. Simply clicking on the hyperlinked printer device and you are all ready to print to the device just as you would by manually going through the network setup of a printer but this offers the visual and automated steps and it is so easy to do. Have you ever mapped to the wrong printer when searching through the network for the cryptically named device
Some screen images of his DWF.
Jimmy's web site www.jtbworld.com
The possibilities are endless really when you consider the flexibility and lightweight format of DWF.
Cheers,
-Shaan
It hit between San Francisco and Los Angeles at Cambria and was a 6.5 magnitude quake. It occured about 200 miles South of me and I did not feel it but some up here have.
I hope all are safe and there is no damage as I do have some beta sites and friends in the immediate region of the quake. Some fires and gas leaks are being reported as well as power outages and phones being down. Aftershocks in the 4. magnitute are continuing. It was described as a slow rolling quake lasting around 30 seconds. The most damaging quakes are the sharp jolting ones not the rollers.
-Shaan
For the past few years I have raided my office for Not for Resale copies of Autodesk products to give away in the holiday spirit. All I need is your email with details of a student or someone in need of a product and the reasons and product they would benefit from. Please also list your contact information including phone number and that of the person in need. I will provide those in the most need with one of the products but I have only a 4 boxed products.
If selected, I will email you direct and post the story in this blog minus the persons name if requested. I will also need the shipping information for the person you are gifting the product to so that I may ship directly to them. I expect to award the products by 1/9/03.
These products are only available for US/Canada.
1- AutoCAD 2004 Not for Resale
1- AutoCAD 2004 LT Not for Resale
1- Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 Not for Resale
1- Autodesk Inventor 7 Not for Resale
Word has it the Architectural Desktop team in Manchester New Hampshire may pitch in another ADT 2004 NFR.
Email Address: shaan@autodesk.com
Email Subject line needs to be "Shaan's Between the Lines Holiday Product Donation Entry"
Sincerely,
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk, Inc.
I mentioned last week (here) the planned outage of the public discussion groups for updates. Well the discussion groups are once again live and thriving with activity. I am sure many thousands of lurkers to the groups were going through withdrawals during the weekend.
This is the most widely used Autodesk product resource I personally know of.
The groups are available for both web and NNTP for newsreaders. There will also be some RSS feeds coming.
http://discussion.autodesk.com/index.jspa
Summary of changes:
Newsreader (nntp) access has not changed.
Web-based (http) experience has been improved to include:
- Watches: ability to monitor threads and receive e-mail updates
- Spell checking for posts
- Ability to search individual groups
- Preservation of formatting in posts
- Attachments in all forums
- Improved login/registration (existing logins will continue to work)
- Elimination of frames (allows direct linking to topics)
Here is a small screen capture of the new and improved web interface.
If you are using a newsreader to access you will need to reset the groups to get access.
In Outlook Express:
- Right-click on the discussion group
- Select Properties
- Then select the Local File tab
- Then select Reset
Cheers,
-Shaan
During the holidays I plan on cleaning my office. It has become a disorganized clutter of geeky books, gadgets, and computers. Of course it all makes sense and order to me but heck when I have visitors it could scare them. I even had a visitor from Botswana Africa last week.
Photo of my office
Cheers,
-Shaan
I have hit a minor milestone in this blogging experience with my one hundredth entry and thousands visiting daily to this blog and my Autodesk University 2003 Photo Album. I am enjoying how easy and quick the experience is. It is funny when an entry hits a nerve or sparks a question as I get the email feedback almost instantly. I have not received any negative feedback about the blog so far (knock on wood). This is just one extension I use for communicating as I am very active in the discussion groups, local user groups and many others. I am still fleshing out the format but have had feedback stating people like the mixture of topics and the tone of raw commentary. I plan on digging more into AutoCAD related tips and tricks for everyone sprinkled with other tech related topics from time to time.
If you have some suggestions, please feel free to email me.
Cheers,
-Shaan
Just browsing through my web browser favorite links on a Sunday and I found this gem of a resource.
http://www.tutorialfind.com/tutorials/default.asp?af=3&re=1&se=AutoCAD
There are many other application tutorials on this site as well. Some of the AutoCAD tutorials listed in the site are from http://www.autocadcentral.com/ which was a new find for me and looks like a really nice AutoCAD resource.
Cheers,
-Shaan
The next Service Pack for Microsoft Windows will be released in the near future. The aim of this Service Pack is to increase the security of the Operating System so that users without a firewall or anti virus are less vulnerable to hacking or viral worms. This Service Pack is one more step in the march of Microsoft for the Trustworthy Computing initiative.
Four Feature Highlights:
• Network protection with boot time security and restricting Remote Procedure Calls (RPC). The Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) will be enabled by default after Windows XP Service Pack 2.
"Prior to Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP shipped with ICF disabled by default. The user either needed to run a wizard or navigate through the Network Connections folder to manually enable ICF.
By enabling ICF by default, the computer has more protection from many network-based attacks. For example, if ICF had been enabled by default, the recent MSBlaster attack would have been greatly reduced in impact, regardless of whether users were up-to-date with patches."
• Memory protection
"With execution protection (also known as NX, or no execute) prevents code execution from data pages such as the default heap, various stacks, and memory pools. Protection can be applied in both user and kernel-mode.
Since execution protection prevents data execution from the stack, if it is implemented, the specific exploit that was leveraged by the recent MSBlaster worm results in a memory access violation and termination of the process. On a system with execution protection, MSBlaster is limited to a Denial-of-Service (DOS) attack, but does not have have the ability to replicate and spread to other systems. Execution protection is by no means a comprehensive defense against all viruses, worms and other malicious code."
• Safer e-mail handling - No details on expected changes for e-mail yet.
• More secure browsing - Internet Explorer Add-on Management and Crash Detection as well as a pop-up ad blocker
"These are two new, closely-related features that are included in Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer Add-on Management allows users to view and control the list of add-ons that can be loaded by Internet Explorer with more detailed control than before.
Internet Explorer Add-on Crash Detection attempts to detect crashes in Internet Explorer that are related to an add-on. When the add-on is successfully identified, this information is presented to the user. The user has the option of disabling add-ons to diagnose frequent crashes and improve the overall stability of Internet Explorer."
References: Preliminary Document - Changes to Functionality in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
For more information see “New Security Technologies in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)” on the Microsoft Web site at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=20969.
After a recent event, it came to my attention that some computer users still do not understand the simple concept of wireless or virus security. When you attend an event, hotel, coffee shop, airport, or your home and connect your computer up you are responsible for your own data and machine safety. What I mean is running without any anti virus, firewall or encryption is not a very wise thing.
Some people recently blamed a hotel wireless and room connection for the virus they got on their machines. Had they simply taken proper precautions they would have had no problems. Someone came to the event and obviously did not care about their machine or others and spread a virus. Of course those in the same boat lacking proper knowledge or caution got infected with an old virus that a freeware virus checker or a cheap one would have caught. Is it the responsibility of the host to make sure and inspect each and every machine coming to the location such as wireless access point like a coffee shop, airport, or a hotel? Not in my personal opinion. So the small minority of people running around these public network access spots either spread or get infected thus creating a network overload and problems for everyone and the cycle goes on and on. So make sure you have anti virus and a firewall running on your machine at all times especially in a open network. Expecting the host of a connection to be able to protect you is unreasonable. In the latest virus if you were not updated on your Operating System service packs, the only way to stop the spread is to disable on the network all connections which will defeat any access to all others on the network. Filtering on the server for all viruses known and unknown is not realistic so your machines safety is ultimately up to you. When I get in my vehicle, I do not expect the manufacturer to buckle my seat belt or make sure I do not drive unsafe as that is my responsibility.
As far as wireless security, simply having a personal firewall on your machine does not prevent access to your sensitive data. It only protects the local machine and not the data you are broadcasting to the wireless access point. You must make sure at any time you run encrypted (WEP) packets if at all possible. This prevents someone with a free utility from capturing and viewing all of your email and other data transferred in airborne packets. It is scary to see how many use little to no security out there. Your neighbors could be snooping or even a bad person could be using your wireless router to gain access to the internet. Make sure you setup a WEP encrypted wireless network to prevent bad things. Recently the Canadian court has been considering that the owner of a home wireless network that was unencrypted and used to access illegal content from the internet may be responsible because the router owner did not take proper precautions to protect access.
Why does it always appear to be Microsoft operating systems that are vulnerable? This is a hotly debated topic but the facts show that hackers and virus writers want to infect or compromise the largest populations and that is the 90%+ share of all PC computers, the Microsoft Windows crowd for now.
I will write more on this subject soon but just as you would hopefully not get in your car without fastening the seatbelt, getting on a motorcycle without a helmet, or wear safety goggles with power tools you should be also responsible with your computer and not rely on others to make sure everything will be 100% safe.
Helpful articles/links:
Microsoft Security Site
Microsoft AntiVirus Site
Microsoft Steps to Security
Article on Canadian WiFi case
Defending Against Insider Infections.
http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2009-1033_3-940460.html?tag=st_rn
http://news.com.com/2030-1069-5077872.html
Survey: Increasing Number Tap Into Neighbors' Wireless Net
Nosy Wi-Fi Neighbors
Be safe out there...
-Shaan
The best Autodesk product resource, the public discussion groups are getting a major makeover this weekend. There will be a weekend outage while this transition takes place. I know many active posters and lurkers will go through withdrawls while the groups are unavailable for 2 days but it will definitly be for the best. There will be a new look and new abilities to the groups and perhaps even a RSS feed of the discussion groups.
Post in the Autodesk Discussion Groups from Yesterday:
The Autodesk discussion groups will be unavailable Friday, December 12, 5 pm
PST to December 15, 5am PST in order to launch to our new infrastructure and
web experience.
The transition will be seamless. Newsreader (nntp) access will not change.
Web-based (http) experience will be radically improved to include:
- Watches: ability to monitor threads and receive e-mail updates
- Spell checking for posts
- Ability to search individual groups
- Preservation of formatting in posts
- Attachments in all forums
- Improved login/registration (existing logins will continue to work)
- Elimination of frames (allows direct linking to topics)
Cheers,
-Shaan
AU 2003 Photo Link - Lee at AU 2003
During the Industry Session for General Design with the AutoCAD Team panel, a question was asked about the ability to filter out objects like Mtext, Blocks and Dimensions so they can't be exploded. Well Super AutoCAD user Lee Ambrosius just created a routine to do just that.
"No-Explode - Undefines the standard Explode command and redefines it with a filter to block the selection of certain object types like Blocks, Mtext and Dimensions. The filter can be changed very easily in the code."
http://www.hyperpics.com/
http://www.hyperpics.com/customization/autolisp/autolisp_downloads.htm
Thanks Lee!
Cheers,
-Shaan
Greetings to all who have spread the blog URL around. I just noticed today that the following CAD industry news sites have spread the blog in the past 24 hours:
cadalyst.com
caddigest.com
cadwire.net
tenlinks.com
If you have feedback or suggestions on content or tips and tricks, please feel free to email me but please enter "Blog Feedback" in the email subject line" so I can spot it easily among my large volume of email.
Cheers,
-Shaan
http://www.autodeskevents.com/au2003/session_handouts.cfm
A lot of hard work went into these class handouts. Make sure if you use the material in your company to give full credit to the author/instructors and AU. Seeing just the class materials is a far cry from the experience of actually being at AU and attending the live class.
Hopefully you can attend next year if you were not able to this year.
Update 12/16/03: You will need your login emailed to AU attendees to get the files now.
Cheers,
-Shaan
From:
Arjan Timmermans
Cyco Software, Americas
"I was SO excited to see an AutoCAD weblog today. Terrific!
I have been maintainting several weblogs myself (TypePad rocks!), and I feel this is a great way to keep people informed in a very pleasant, non-intrusive and personal forum.
Since you're the first on the block, you might really grow this big...
You might be the world's biggest AutoCAD blogger soon and have to resign:)"
My response to this comment,
I have no plans of resigning ;-)
"Have Tenlinks.com or Cadalyst been interested in syndicating the RSS feed?"
My response to this question,
I have not heard from Tenlinks or Cadalyst.....yet ;-)
Cheers,
-Shaan
Autodesk, Inc.
Unofficial Title: Man of Many Hats
Official Titles: Autodesk Beta Programs Mgr & Technical Marketing Mgr for the Platform Design Div.
We are looking for some more active feedback oriented beta candidates.
Our Beta Program provides Autodesk customers worldwide with an exciting opportunity to be involved in developing a product line. The goal of the Beta Program is to test each product in a "real-world" environment, and to collect each Beta Site's assessment of its readiness for commercial release.
By evaluating the product early in the development cycle, Beta Sites are able to provide crucial data to the project development teams. Beta Sites are selected on the basis of background information obtained from enrollment data.
We want all of our products to be successful and our customers play a key role in determining what a product looks like, how it behaves, and when the final version gets shipped. The Beta Programs Team plays two roles in product development.
The second role is product beta testing. We ship alpha & beta versions out to customer sites for initial production tests and defect hunting! Program sizes range anywhere from a dozen customers all the way to 20,000+ sites as in the AutoCAD 2000 Beta Program.
We expect beta sites at a minimum to:
* Download the Betas
* Provide constructive and detailed feedback on new features and improvements
* Share your ideas with the beta community via the private discussion group
* Be courteous to each other and the Autodesk staff
* Read the readme document and Preview Guide
You must be able to download 350Mb so a broadband connection is required as there will be no physical CDs being sent.
Please note this beta should not be used without careful consideration that this is unreleased beta product, is not fully supported, and may contain software defects. The purpose for beta testing is to find the defects and have them reported so they can be fixed in the final released version. As with any beta software always back up your data and previous files and exercise caution when in a production environment. If you do not find these conditions acceptable, please wait for the final released version of the product.
If this sounds like something you are interested in, then complete the online profile survey.
http://betaprograms.autodesk.com/survey/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=148
Cheers,
-Shaan
Here are some nice AutoCAD related links I just ran across.
AutoCAD tutorials by Michael E. Beall of http://www.autocadtrainerguy.com/
http://www.cadtutor.net/michael/index.html
CAD Manager Survey, part 2
by CAD Manager Expert and all around nice guy Robert Green of Cadalyst Magazine
http://www.cadonline.com/solutions/mc/1203cm/
Cheers,
-Shaan
There is a new version of the free RSS feed aggregator. There are many new features to this great tool such as one can now search for feeds by keyword as well as by URL. This means one can search the for 'CNN', 'RSS Bandit' or 'XML' and get back up to a hundred feeds back from the Syndic8 database that contain that requested text in the description. Very useful for browsing for new feeds to subscribe to.
Get the new RSS Bandit Version
Cheers,
-Shaan
Every year at Autodesk University AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) presents their member’s top ten AutoCAD wish list to Autodesk. We at Autodesk try our best at getting them in. The AutoCAD Team has been fairly successful in adding many of the items from past AUGI top ten wish lists including the recent tabs and indents in MTEXT in AutoCAD 2004 as well as many others. While the AUGI wish list on AUGI.com is a great way to get your ideas heard it is not the only one Autodesk listens to and there are many other ways to speak with Autodesk in person and online. For example by posting in the Autodesk discussion groups and by participating in usability studies, Autodesk surveys, Autodesk Product feedback page which goes direct to the product teams, and of course beta testing.
I will write a quick post very soon showing all of ther many ways to provide your ideas or suggestions and feedback to the product teams year around. We definitly want to hear from you and also get your feedback on what our ideas are for future development.
The 2003 AUGI Top Ten AutoCAD Wish List:
#10 The ability to display object properties using a hot-key that opens a popup or tooltip while the cursor is over the object.
#9 A Blank and Unblank visibility command. Would be used when cleaning up leader and extension lines that cross each other. Like a two point break but does not split object, just changes visibility.
#8 The ability to create “paperspace only” layers. Some layers are used only for paperspace objects such as title blocks. When a model is inserted or attached, do not bring “paperspace only” layers in.
#7 A true decimal feet setting for civil engineers. When I get work from an architect I need to scale it down by 1/12, or the architect needs to scale my work by 12. This adds margin for error and cuts productivity.
#6 Provide a VBA Macro recorder.
#5 The ability to set certain properties by viewport. Objects could be assigned different colors, lineweights or shades per viewport for plotting different appearances in different views.
#4 An all new AutoCAD-centric “Swiss Army” GUI calculator with all ‘cal functions and the ability to add and subtract feet and inches, conversion to and from metric, and figure incline angles, and distances, yadda-yadda-yadda…
#3 The ability to automatically correct misspelled words when typing, like MS Word.
#2 Change the copy command default to “multiple”. For a single copy, hit enter to end the command.
And the number one item voted on by AUGI members:
#1 “File” tabs like layout tabs for quick change when multiple files are open. Searching through them in sequence with control-tab, and existing “Window” menu is too slow.
Cheers,
-Shaan
You can find a few more AU 2003 photos on AUGI.com. There is a free registration required.
http://www.augi.com/home/default.asp?page=333
I will also be updating my AU 2003 photo gallery over the weekend with even more photos and annotations.
Cheers,
-Shaan
Over 3300 in attendance at Autodesk University 2003 have many news stories and new ideas and information to take back to their offices and share. It was one of the best Autodesk University events I have ever attended. The course materials should be available online soon and I will also post a notice when I know the location.
Last night one of the conference floors was transformed into a large movie theater with food, popcorn, candy, drinks and 3 large movie screens. We watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After the movie we were entertained by John Cleese of Monty Python. A few attendees even won the opportunity to meet John Cleese including myself.
The red carpet was rolled out for subscription customers this week.
A real red carpet to the subscription registration booth where subscription customers received a thumb drives with the latest extension on it. They had many other perks including getting special VIP seating for the Monty Python event in the front.
Wish you all were here,
Cheers,
-Shaan
Last night myself a few Autodesk customers went out on the town and then to breakfast. There really is no time for sleep at this event. Today there are more classes and the ever popular Industry Sessions where you speak with various teams about the industry and their product directions. There are also some great Q&A opportunities. I will be attending the AutoCAD session which is from 5 to 6:30. Afterwards is dinner and then a comedy and movie event featuring John Cleese from Monty Python in person.
I have posted some more photos to the AU 2003 photo gallery.
Cheers,
-Shaan
I am posting more photos currently. The hardest part is actually finding time to do anything besides AU discussions and customer meetings.
Yesterday was a great day here and the exhibit hall opened to a record crowd of over 3000 people. I even got my photo with the legendary skateboard master Tony Hawk who was here for the Video Gaming Awards.
I will try to make a more detailed update soon but I have to get back to the keynote presentation.
Cheers,
-Shaan
I just started posting some photos from AU 2003 Monday & Tuesday.
I will be posting more later in the day.
http://autodesk.blogs.com/photos/autodesk_university_2003/
Cheers,
-Shaan
It was a very eventful Monday night here at Autodesk University in Las Vegas. I attended many different meetings and even had some informal discussions with some CAD press. I also found out that the professional skateboard legend Tony Hawk is here although when I asked his people that he come down to the lounge, he chickened out.
I will be posting some photos from yesterday and today later on.
Cheers,
-Shaan
Todays schedule is getting settled into the hotel, some meetings for ADN developers conference and some AutoCAD Team meetings.
Between 5 and 7PM you can most likely locate me at the Zuri in the main MGM Casino floor. At 7PM I have a meeting/dinner until 9:30 and then back to the Zuri and perhaps some good CAD discussions and stories, and a roller coaster ride or two.
Later tonight I will start posting some photos in the AU Photo Gallery.
Hope to meet you at AU!
Cheers,
-Shaan
Cell 415 328 6747
I am now on my way to the airport and will arrive in Vegas by 11AM. I have a fairly busy schedule today including travel.
Cheers,
-Shaan
The founder of Autodesk John Walker has always been into Astronomy. I found the latest web site of Johns which shows the current Earth or Moons view completely configurable to show where it is day or night.
Main Earth & Moon Viewer Page
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html
Current Earth View
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p
Cheers,
-Shaan
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