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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 -... Read more →
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. Map of 4000 Civic Center Dr San Rafael, CA 94903-4171 Cheers, -Shaan Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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 Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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:... Read more →
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 Read more →
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... Read more →
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 Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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 Read more →
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... Read more →
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... Read more →
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.... Read more →
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 Read more →
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. What is... Read more →
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... Read more →
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 Read more →
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... Read more →