Between the Lines

Autodesk 25th Anniversary: Do You Have Photos, Trivia, Stories, or Memorabilia?

Autodesk is celebrating 25 years in 2007 and we want to do it by highlighting those who brought us this far and that is you our customers, resellers, partners, and employees. We are looking for photos, stories from the past 25 years and not just the oldest we need the stories, highlights, and images from the entire 25 years. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com should you have anything to contribute and also spread the word far and wide as I am trying to get some rewards for contributors of all categories.

Thank You,
Shaan

AutoCAD CLEANSCREEN Tip From Neuchâtel Switzerland

AutoCAD Tip: If you are one that cherishes your screen real estate in AutoCAD, try the CLEANSCREENON command.

Press CTRL+0 (zero) to switch between CLEANSCREENON and CLEANSCREENOFF. A clean screen button is available in the lower-right corner of the application window.

My AutoCAD 2008 screen without CLEANSCREEN Enabled (CLEANSCREENOFF)

My AutoCAD 2008 screen after using CLEANSCREENON
 

I am working today at the Autodesk office in beautiful but rainy Neuchâtel Switzerland. I still do not have my luggage from my travel to Switzerland via Brussels. Unfortunately after 5 days and British Airways has instead of a friendly call to my phone they sent me a general letter by fax that states "we are sorry you lost your luggage" how did I lose it when you had it? The letter goes on to request I file a claim with my insurance company, but why would I do that when it was United and British Airways that lost my luggage...grrrr

I have been taking some photos while in Switzerland and posting them to my Flickr account Switzerland June 2007.

Cheers,
Shaan

Still No Luggage, but What an Adventure Weekend it was in the Swiss Alps

I have been in Switzerland for 3 days and still my luggage is missing. Having all my clothes, tripod, camera lights, shaving kit etc missing is no fun and has resulted in quite a few trips to local stores to get a few things to carry me through. I am hoping and praying my luggage is found tonight so I can work in the Neuchâtel region this week.

This weekend I spent some time gathering some B roll video and images for later use.  I have been all over the area and logged over 300 miles on the ground and about 50 in the air by helicopter. Yesterdays travels were busy and here are a few highlights:

• I encountered beautiful villages, nice people, a few great hikes where you get winded easily due to the high altitudes.
• When purchasing some hiking clothes and trying them on, the store I was at had an unusual dressing room. It was essentially a sheet hanging on a metal ring with very little room to move. Half way through trying on the new clothes I realized the store was getting a real show when the curtain kept opening without my knowledge. I did not get any dollar bills thrown at me just some strange looks.
• I ran into some local alpine wildlife on the mountains and had one large male ibex warn me with a loud whistling noise that I was going to get knocked down the mountain the fastest way if I did not back off which I did considering my history with wildlife like the Kangaroo incident on film.
• I realized the people here really like electric fences and I found one the hard way when leaning on one to take a photo. The electric shock was like an extreme energy and adrenaline increasing event equal to drinking about 4 espressos.
• I almost caused an international incident when I passed some slow bicycle riders going up the alps, but how was I supposed to know they were in the Tour de Suisse race at the time.
• I ended last night near Zermatt and the breathtaking Matterhorn but my favorite village was the old Swiss village of Saas Fee hands down. I was tired and I could not fathom driving back the way I had came so I found an awesome solution. I drove my vehicle onto a train car and rode underneath the alps reducing the 6 hour drive to 40 minutes. I was shocked pulling onto the train car as I was thinking surely someone is going to check the vehicles and then we would have to go sit in a passenger car but that was not the case. I was on the phone with my brother when all of a suddenly the train took off darting into a dark and really quite smoky tunnel.
• I even ran into an AutoCAD user that I bumped into.

Today I took a helicopter flight up around and over the Eiger, Jungfrau, glacier fields, and the Schilthorn. The only disappointing items was that I was unable to land up on the glaciers or summit due to the winds and I also had my camera get into a funky setting accidentally and some of my white balance settings were out and it was also not saving the RAW images. The photos are still fine, just not the quality I would want them to be.

I have began uploading some photos to Flickr on this trip and also tracking by GPS the photo locations and a route map in Google Earth KML using the GiSTECH PhotoTrackr which also set the geotags in the photos so you can see them on a map in Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/btl/615198506/map/?view=users

Here are a few of my favorites as well as a link to my Switzerland June 2007 collection.

 

www.flickr.com S.Hurley's Switzerland June 2007 photoset

Cheers,
Shaan

Made it to Switzerland

But my baggage has not made it, or even been located at this time. I will be posting some photos tonight of my adventure so far. Today I am in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I have also been told this location is a hidden secret mostly known to local people but one leaked the details to me and I drove over 2 alp passes a great distance down near Saas Fee to see a real town stuck back in time. I am currently up on a ridge just below the tallest mountain in Switzerland The Dom at over 4500 meters and taller than the Matterhorn which is also near me and I am headed to next. I am at about 2448 meters making this the highest land based blog posting of mine.

Cheers!
Shaan

Shaän is Traveling to Switzerland and some secret details...

The umlaut over the second "a" in my name "Shaän" is not an accident or a clever play on Switzerland and the Germanic language. After 40 years of thinking my mother had spelled my name as "Shaan" but pronounced like "Shawn" was due to some residual anesthesia side effect, she told me the real story or as she believes it to be.  As an added bonus I also found out another shocking detail, I was not Irish-Russian ancestry but actually Irish-Danish.

Having endured the emotional hardship of 40 long years of people assuming I spelled my name wrong and them kindly correcting it for me or having people call me "shan" like my boss I can finally retort with something better than "well, my mom was heavily sedated when asked how to spell my name". I can now say "hey, I have an umlaut above the second a which means the sound is different than the vowel is normally pronounced".

So perhaps I will now write my name as  "Shaän" (Shaãn for the Brazilians)

Well just a few hours until a journey to Switzerland begins and routes me by air through Washington DC and Brussels Belgium before arriving in Bern Switzerland. I will be spending the weekend in Interlaken then in Neuchâtel the following week.

Haben Sie vielen Dank

-Shaän

KMZ file for Google Earth of my June 21st 2007 Trip Route from Salt Lake City Utah USA to Interlaken Switzerland.  Download june_21_2007_travel.kmz

AutoCAD 2008 Productivity Study Report from Cambashi Published

There is more to performance and productivity than timing whether one command is .0002 or .00012 seconds long and that is productivity of tasks you perform using the software. Think about it for a minute, simple things right-click and or middle wheel functionality and how you could not work the same speed without them now as is the case for me when going back to play with AutoCAD R14 that has no middle wheel mouse functionality to double click zoom extents. There are many features in the past releases up to AutoCAD 2008 that streamlined the work flow and process to have a net increase in productivity ala do more in less.

The findings from independent and well respected industry research firm Cambashi:

• AutoCAD 2008 is significantly more productive. On average, architects using 2008 completed the exercise 26% faster than those using 2005.

• Training makes all the difference – AutoCAD 2008 users who invested time in a short period of training were substantially faster.

Download AutoCAD08_Productivity_White_Paper_Final.pdf

Diversion: Funny New Game Show on Tetris

Human Tetris in Japan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE6I8vHV0MY

We should do this at Autodesk University this year for entertainment. :-)

Tuesday Tips: AutoCAD, Windows Vista, Thank You Chicago!

* Using ALIGN command in 3D posted by Erhan Toker on Daily Autocad

* Where have the Layout/Model Tabs gone? posted by John Benstead on CADit

* ALIGN command in 2D posted by Bilal Bilgi on Daily Autocad

* Align, the forgotten AutoCAD hero posted by Robin Capper on RobiNZ CAD Blog

The ALIGN command does ROCK!

One tip on Windows Vista from lifehacker.com for a free utility to change settings in Vista.

• Tweak Vista with Vispa

I love my lifehacker.com RSS feed as there are so many interesting ideas and tips daily on diverse subjects.

Thank you Chicago!

A quick but sincere thanks to the crowd that attended my session in Chicago two weeks ago. I got my laptop stolen later that evening while checked at the Hotel...grrrr you cant have your goods safe anywhere not even in a hotel checked baggage area while out having the best damn pan pizza ever. I have been playing catch up every since and also preparing for a trip to Switzerland later this week.  Anyways, I loved the excellent feedback forms as all rated the session good or excellent. A few feedback comment forms standout in my mind and one actually mentioned I was the "masculine Lynn Allen". This was of course due to the session originally set to be one from Lynn Allen but she needed rest before taking off on her Asia shopping trip <g>. It was amazing to me how the Chicago skyline and downtown has changed in the past few years and is active, modern, exciting and a vibrant place to be. The laptop theft was no black mark on Chicago in my book, it was just some low life creep.

 

Cheers,
Shaan

Autodesk Products & Resource Free for Teachers and Students

I just wanted to mention this again for those that did not check out the link when I announced the Autodesk’s Student Engineering and Design Community awhile back. If you are a student you can download many of Autodesk's products and network with fellow students and resources.  For teachers there is curriculum content and more.

Products available for free download:

• Autodesk® Inventor™ Professional
• AutoCAD® Civil 3D®
• Revit® Architecture
• Autodesk® AliasStudio™
• Autodesk® VIZ
• Revit® Structure
• AutoCAD® Raster Design
• Autodesk® Impression
• AutoCAD® Map 3D

More details are located at:

http://students.autodesk.com/ 

http://www.autodesk.com/education

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6080671

Have Old Autodesk Photos, Trivia, Stories, Memorabilia, Get My iPod Nano!

In light of 2007 being the 25th year anniversary of Autodesk, I am on a quest for all historical photos even box shots, customer stories, memorabilia and such that may be out there around the world. This also includes any historical photos of items designed using Autodesk products over the past 25 years by our customers. Please rummage through the closets and hard drives. Perhaps you have some pictures of the old Sausalito days or even back to the old garage days where it all started. Maybe you have a picture of an Autodesk employee when they did not have gray hair, or back when they had hair. I know some have even over the years tracked Lynn's hair colors and actually had a timeline in PowerPoint presentation at a past Autodesk University. :-)

I am offering up a new black iPod Nano to two people and perhaps many other special rewards in return like a special Autodesk limited edition iPod external speaker set. I would be happy to discuss any photos or memorabilia you might have so we could get copies to celebrate the 25th anniversary. Maybe you would like to be featured for your many years of Autodesk product usage and your designs as that might also be a possibility as we look for ways to celebrate the 25 years around the customer. Maybe you have some great Autodesk or AutoCAD Trivia to share.

Recent post on the request:
Twenty Five Years of Autodesk, and Request for Your Stories

I am also rebuilding my AutoCAD History Site so stay tuned for a updated version soon.

S.Hurley's AutoCAD History photoset

Cheers,
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk, Inc.
shaan@autodesk.com

Weekend Steak Tip Time :-)

It is a great time for a barbeque here at almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit and Fathers Day weekend. For the record I prefer charcoal to gas barbeques after many years of testing and even teaching people how to BBQ around the world.

This article is excellent and shows the same hand method for determining the doneness of the steak that I have for years.

• Grill the Best Steak Ever

Cooked to perfection

Check doneness by pressing a steak in the center, says Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue! Bible. Then use your thumb, fingers, and the varying firmness of the base of your thumb as your guide.

Something you did not know about me: I once spoke for over a half hour with none other than the crazy heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne.

Well back to the weekend for me and also trying to get some travel arrangements complete for a trip next weekend to Switzerland for business.

AutoCAD Wish List - June 2007 Voting Begins

AUGI member, volunteer, and the AUGI AutoCAD Wish List Manager Brenda Richardson wrote a nice article in the latest AUGI HotNews about the AutoCAD Wish List and how it works. Brenda also also mentions that the June 2007 AutoCAD Wish List voting has began, so get in there and vote! Also if you are interested in volunteering your AutoCAD experience to assist Brenda please contact her.

• AutoCAD Wish List - June Voting Begins - June 2007
• AutoCAD Wish List
• AUGI HotNews
• AUGI AutoCAD Community 
• BLAUGI

We here in the AutoCAD Team greatly appreciated AUGI members and the efforts and resources they provide our product users. We also would like to give a huge thank you to the hard working volunteers who work on fellow product users behalf to improve the products and educate others. There are so many that make AUGI what it is that it would be hard to mention all of them without missing some or making this a 20 page post but I would like to highlight Brenda for her work on the AutoCAD Wish List and the CADgeek duo of Mike and Melanie Perry for dedicating most of their free time to AutoCAD users.

More great articles and columns from the AUGI HotNews June 2007:

• AUGI Launches Brazil Country Chapter The Brazil Country Chapter was successfully launched June 1st. Our friends to the south will enjoy these AUGI offerings—AUGI Forums in Brazilian Portuguese and in English; AUGIWorld magzine, Brazil edition; AUGI HotNews, available for download; and lots more. Some pleasing initial statistics: 130+ visitors to the Brazil Chapter's website became 130+ new AUGI members before they left the website. In this article, AUGI HotNews asks Herbert Ortiz, AUGI Brazil chapter coordinator, about the benefits for Brazilian AUGI members.
• AutoCAD Wish List - June Voting Begins It's time for the second leg of the tri-annual AutoCAD Wish List voting cycle. Be prepared to read the posted wishes for AutoCAD improvements and to vote for your 10 favorites. Ready? Set? Click!
• Inventor Wish List - June Voting Begins For the entire month of June, AUGI members can read the wishes posted by their peers for improvements to Autodesk Inventor and then to vote for their top 10. Click here to learn more about the Inventor Wish List.
• Revit 9.1: Getting Started Eric Wing takes you on another trip through Autodesk Revit 9.1. This month, how Revit handles line weights.
• Exploring CAFM: Managing FM, Part 2 When the topic is file sharing, the magic word is CONTROL. Author Jose Rios tells you why.
• Intro to Stress Analysis, Part 3 This month, Sunith Babu shows how to solve problems related to Modal Analysis with Autodesk Inventor 11.0 – Stress Analysis.
• Why Finance Software Acquisitions? Part 1 Know you need to upgrade to new releases but can't find the funds? Here are some tips for smart financing.
• Sponsor Spotlight: Green, from the Drawing Board If your goal is to be a good global citizen, read this article to find out how HP can help.
• Autodesk University 2007: Save the Date! It's never too early to plan for AU. Early registration is right around the corner.
• TIPniques: Using Referenced Files Guest Columnist Melanie Perry explores new referenced files in AutoCAD 2008.
• The Creative Inventor: Area Loft Columnist Dennis Jeffrey investigates Area Loft, a new addition to the loft feature in Autodesk Inventor® 2008.
• The Civil Side: First Look at AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 Melanie Santer, Civil Side columnist and winner of Autodesk's "Americas Instructor of the Year" for 2006, introduces some standout features in the newest version of AutoCAD Civil 3D software.
• Standardizing the CAD Software Market What if all CAD software were developed using the same standard? Author Mark Kiker ponders the notion.
• AutoCAD Electrical: Installation & Location Codes Renata Pfeifer examines AutoCAD Electrical. This month: installation and location codes used for selections in components.

HCYAWB - Here Comes Yet Another Web Browser

Apple has ported their Safari web browser to run on Microsoft Windows (put that old cocoa source to use) but you may be best to wait a little longer given the initial reports on its readiness in areas of security and stability and a update will be coming in the future.

• http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070612-afirst-look-safari-3-on-windows.html
• http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/safari-3-for-windows/
• Difference between IE and Safari running on Windows
• Welcome to the blurry, but fast, browser…
• Apple announces Windows browser
• http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SafariForWindowsFirstImpressions.aspx
• http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=283
• http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12791/1103/

I find it interesting as it seems Firefox is the preferred browser on Apples machines but perhaps this is a new plan to expand and catch up to Firefox, Opera, iCab, and Internet Explorer. For those that develop and maintain web sites, this will add one more number to the pieces of a puzzle for testing your sites appearance for browsers but competition is good. Now if they would only release OSX for Windows. :-)

The World Lost a Great Science Educator

Don Herbert lost his battle with cancer this week. Don will be remembered by millions over 50 years as "Mr. Wizard" on television. He demonstrated science concepts and experiments exciting many to consider the science fields as a career option or just to understand science in general.

http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

http://mrwizardblog.mrwizardstudios.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_wizard

AutoCAD Tip Drag and Drop Multiple Xrefs

Question:
"I would like to drag and drop Xrefs from Windows Explorer into the current drawing in the same way as dragging and dropping blocks into drawings. Make the option available. Do you want to insert as a block or an Xref?’"

Solution:
Drag and drop from the Windows Explorer using the right mouse button "RMB". When you release the button, you will receive a menu that allows you to select one of the options XREF, INSERT, OPEN, or CREATE HYPERLINK.

 

Thank R.K. for jogging the old brain cells on this nice tip.

 

Technorati Tags: AutoCAD, Xref, Autodesk, AutoCAD Tips, CAD

Have you Seen CADoogle?

You can search and view DWF files on the web all without installing a single application. 2D or 3D does not matter as CADoogle uses Autodesk Freewheel to display the views of DWF files in any Java supporting browser.

http://www.cadoogle.com/

CADoogle Feeds
http://cadoogle.com/feed/

CADoogle Mobile
http://cadoogle.com/mobile/

New Autodesk Blog: Topobase Insiders

The Topobase Insiders blog (http://blogs.autodesk.com/topobaseinsiders) has gone live to spread information on the power of Autodesk Topobase. The blog will be hosted by the Topobase Product Manager Cédric Moullet, Andreas Boos, as well as other team members. The topics will cover the latest news about Topobase, to learn new GIS features, and for information about the API.

For those not aware of Autodesk Topobase check out the product information site http://www.autodesk.com/topobase.

Cédric &  Andreas welcome to Autodesk Blogging!

Cheers,
Shaan (in San Rafael California currently)

Technorati Tags: Autodesk, Autodesk Topobase, Topobase, GIS, Geospatial

In Chicago for the Experience the Possibilities Event Today

As mentioned a week ago "I will Be There -> Experience the Possibilities Autodesk Event in Chicago June 5th, 2007" I am presenting today the Tips and Tricks session at 1:30. There are over 900 attendees signed up so Heidi Hewett and myself will be doing this session in two rooms. This is the session Lynn Allen has been doing so I will be filling her shoes or pumps so to speak but not wearing a dress. ;-)

If you see me, stop and say hi. I will stand out as I will be wearing my Autodesk rugby shirt with my name on it unlike most everyone else wearing suits.

I went out to dinner last night with several Autodesk employees to the Heaven on Seven Cajun restaurant which was awesome and have thousands of hot sauces. We then went to a very nice dessert dining spot. I told the story about my hotel room situation which is a real shock to me. This downtown Chicago hotel ran out of rooms and upgraded me all the way to a room that must be about 1200 square feet with multiple large plasma screen TVs, Bose surround sound system, 3 rooms, 6 chair meeting room table, many nice chairs and couches, and a desk with a top notch view looking down Michigan Ave, There is a even a separate room attached for someone's staff to stay. This must be a presidential suite. Luckily I don't have to pay the rate for this room!

   

Twenty Five Years of Autodesk, and Request for Your Stories

1982 / 83

• Autodesk founded; AutoCAD released
• Adobe & SGI founded
• Sun Microsystems founded
• Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software
• Atari develops the data glove
• The science fiction movie "Tron" is released

Have you been using Autodesk products for a longtime, tell us about what you have designed and done and your experience over the past 25 years with Autodesk products. Maybe you started with AutoCAD 86 or version 2.18 and designed a building and were glad to ditch the pencil, and now use Autodesk Revit. Send them to me at shaan@autodesk.com with the subject line of "25 Years of Autodesk". we would love to hear your story about how you have used Autodesk for many years maybe even 25 years and what it has meant to you and your career.

Cheers,
Shaan

Lindo maravilhoso! Brazil Autodesk Product Launch Photos

Thanks to Jeferson for sending me the photos from the São Paulo event. It was a great success and was attended by over 500 people and was also the launch for AUGI Brazil "AUGI Brazil Launches in Portuguese "Bem-vindo ao site da comunidade do AUGIbr!".

www.flickr.com S.Hurley's Autodesk Brazil photoset

I hope to get back to Brazil this year.

Muito obrigada!
Shaan

Ugh...

I spent the weekend trying to fix my laptop which has been in a state of never ending Adobe Acrobat 8 installer with over 500MB on my hard disk. No matter what I do if I right click on a menu I get the Acrobat 8 installing for about 3 minutes. I have seen others on the web with the same issue and have uninstalled and reinstalled, repaired and other tricks to a tune of 8 hours with no success. It all started with an innocent install of Adobe Web Premium CS3.

 

Grrrr,,,,and I have a presentation today in Chicago.