WorldCAD Access

When Windows Update Stalls at 35%... or 100%

Replug

 

Despite the tech media having shrieked confidently and loudly about the death of Windows 7, Microsoft continues to update it and I continue to use it.

Last week, an update alert appeared in the operating system's taskbar, and so I installed it. I think the update had to do with that 20-year-old hole in the print spooler software that could let a malicious actor (bad guy) wreck your computing experience.

I installed it, and after rebooting the computing, Windows Update stalled at 35%. I let it sit there for a long time before manually restarting the computer. I won't describe all the details of my attempts to fix the problem, but it took four hours to get my computer running again. 

I was the cause of the problem.

My desktop computer's CD drive no longer works, but the computer dutifully checks for it during boot-ups. That slows the booting process, as the near-broken drive grinds away for a half-minute of so. I figured I'd be smart and disable the CD drive through the BIOS.

Solving that problem mixed up Windows, causing it to not complete the update. When I clued into what the problem was, I re-enabled the CD drive, and Windows gratefully completed its appointed task.

During the Windows update process, make no changes to the hardware!

 

 

 

Best tweet reactions to new BSOD

Black screen of death

 

As most of the tech media are Apple-maniacs, they don't really don't care about Windows 11's hottest new feature -- running Android apps -- and tend to be really, really clueless about the technique of side-loading.

A fact none of the tech media mentioned is that running Android apps on Windows is not new: it's been possible for many years (going back to 2009), as there are Intel CPU-versions of Android. See pcmag.com/how-to/3-free-ways-to-run-android-apps-on-your-pc for some examples.

As a result of Apple Devotion, we were fed a lot of misinformed Android Development articles.

- - -

What the tech media instantly understood, however, was the change to BSOD. The blue screen, reminiscent of MS-DOS days, covers over your not-yet-saved work when Windows crashes. Today, it was announced, Microsoft is changing the color to black in Windows 11.

In some of headlines reporting on the change (all re-reported from the original article in Verge), you can sense the writers' relief at an easy-to-understand change, like this headline: "Microsoft made a huge change to the Blue Screen of Death in Windows 11."

- - -

Here are the best tweets that I collected from Tech-meme:

Black is the new blue. Microsoft's notorious Blue Screen of Death, that's been around in one form or another since Windows 1.0, is going black. One proud employee, Raymond Chen, claimed authorship of the original #BSOD.
     - Ami (@switchshot)

At least we get to keep using BSOD. Microsoft once again delivers on backward compatibility.
     - Sriram Karra (@skarra)

Finally true innovation.
     - Patrick Beja (@notpatrick)

The real Windows 11 story.
     - James Randall (@jamesdrandall)

The sheer vision. They have brown, burgundy, beige, bronze, brass screens of death to go. With a new Windows every five years, they have the next three decades of failures covered.
     - Rahul Gaitonde (@RahulGaitonde)

It's like losing an old friend. A really shitty friend.
     - @datnofact

Looks like Apple will need to update its snarky Windows PC icon in macOS.
     - Tim Hardwick (@waxeditorial)

It's more appropriate, really.
     - Varad Mehta (@varadmehta)

 

 

 

 

Best Tweets: Facebook Ad-ifies Oculus

Facebook destroys what's left of VR

 

It's all a game. Advertisers lie to themselves that we can't get enough of their ads, while we bob and weave to avoid them like a goalie at the World Cup. (Of hockey. Which game did were you thinking of?)

The goal always has been to figure out how to best force us to view ads. With radio, we switch to another station. On tv, we go to the bathroom. In magazines, we flip to the next page. On Web sites, we install ad blockers. 

But what if there were a technology that could put our heads in vises, clamp pairs of rather tiny tvs to our foreheads, point each one directly at an eyeball, and then to force us to watch ads, A Clockwork Orange-style? Now that would be technology worth paying $2 billion for.

With Facebook's announcement that it will start feeding ads to people who had paid already $500 for Oculus VR headsets and had already paid for the games they were playing in it, the virtual reality industry began mourning its now-inevitable death.

Image from Slashgear of what ads in Oculus will look like -- like the boards in a hockey game

I, for one, had long predicted the collapse of VR, as surely as the collapse of 3D tv. Technology cannot be mass-marketed for technology's sake, and after 30 years of VR being prophesized as inevitable and now today as popular as Linux on the desktop, Facebook deserves our gratitude for nailing that particular coffin shut.

But before the hammering starts, Facebook is acknowledging its oncoming failure with this hedging statement (my emphasis): "You can manage what ads you want to see and we're including controls to hide specific ads or hide ads from an advertiser completely. Ads in VR will be different from ads elsewhere and this is a space that will take time and people's feedback to get right."

(I seem to recall a certain fruit-themed computer company promising the same about its upcoming ads, which turned out exactly the same as every other ad. Adz iz adz. There is no different way.)

PS: My wife's reaction, after I told her about what's happening with VR goggles: "People still use those?"

- - -

Meanwhile, the people's feedback has been right, even priceless, worth more than that $2 billion Facebook paid for Oculus:

"Hell yes ads in my eyeballs grim meathook future let's go."
     - Matt Weinberger (@gamoid)

"I told everyone FB RealityLabs would put ads in the headset, they were already planning it. Meanwhile @thedextriarchy reported in January @boztank [Andrew Bosworth, vp Facebook Reality Labs, and former vp of ads] lying, 'We're not really focused on business model.' We are all getting slowly boiled in a pot by Facebook."
     - Cix (@cixliv)

"Oh look, the reason people jumped ship on Oculus years ago."
     - Geoffrey (@t3hero_)

"Oculus says in a blog post they 'have no plans to use movement data to target ads,' but yet nothing in their privacy policy prevents them from doing so."
     - Kent Bye (@kentbye)

"Aaaand that's why I sold my Quest when they got acquired. Yay, delayed gratification."
     - Glytch (@glytchtech)

"This is definitely what VR was missing for mass adoption."
    - Aaron Levie (@levie)

"You can escape reality. But you can't escape ads. That's the reality."
     - Subrahmanyam Kvj (@sub8u)

"They also 'have no plans to build a facial recognition database.' These statements are as hollow as their so-called 'responsible innovation principles' that deliberately ignore to 'protect identity of minorities (humans).' Blabber blabber blabber..."
     - Kavya Pearlman (@kavyapearlman)

"Gross. Seriously, super gross."
    - @thelinuxexp

 

 

Siemens PLM Media Q&A

CAD? We've heard of it

 

Siemens Digital Industries Software last month held a user group meeting online, and then invited the media to a Q&A with execs the following day. The few times I have interacted with ceo Tony Hemmelgarn, I found him to be a realistic leader who doesn't do the painful-to-hear isn't-everything-amazing?, we're-really-excited! marketing schtick. 

There was, however, one embarrassing moment when during the keynote he referenced Lordstown Motors using Siemens software to design their electric pickup truck -- the day after Lordstown announced it was cutting this year's production from 2,500 to 1,000 pickups. Research had earlier shown that most of its 100,000 pre-orders were unlikely to materialize. Subsequently, the company announced it would produce 0 trucks for the rest of the year, and its CEO left. 

Here are some of the notes I took during the Q&A held with us in the CAD media:

- - -

Since 2007, Siemens has spent e10 billion on 30+ acquisitions. Reaching all the way  back to 2007 is the year Siemens acquired UGS for its NX, Solid Edge, and TeamCenter software. The total does not not include spending on R&D. 

While Siemens is one of the sensible CAD firms knowing that MCAD belongs primarily on the desktop, they are nevertheless pushing their Xcelerator Cloud Platform so hard that MCAD got no mention, to my disappointment. Nevertheless, Siemens could use the tagline, "Cloud Your Way," as it runs on public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise. 

Electrical and electronic CAD is now 1/3 of the biz and over the last 18 months as been the fastest growing part of Siemens PLM. This due partly to acquisitions; indeed, most of the press releases I get  these days from Siemens have to do with ECAD, which I don't cover.

We can’t have digital twins today without electronics, and Siemens has three of the pieces:

• IC integrated circuits
• Electrical systems, like harnesses
• PCB design

"There is a great need for it, as we see in the chip shortages and number of car companies wanting to design their own electronics, rather than using off the shelf parts," said Mr Hemmelgarn. He said he wants his company to make the digital twin the most comprehensive it can be. He has, of course, internal incentive, given that the rest of Siemens is a giant industrial firm that eats its own dog food.

Q&A

Q: TeamCenter X was announced a year ago, how it is going?

A: Going better than I expected. TeamCenter X lets Siemens target small organizations. We replaced some Teamcenter components to make X more agile and flexible. TeamCenter is #1 PLM solution on the market today, with customers such as SAP, IBM, and US Air Force globally. Fujitsu has its own PLM, but decided to offer TeamCenter in Japan. 

Mendix is for customers to personalize services without having to be a software developer. We have 200,000 third-party developers around the world.

 

Q: How does Xcellerator fit in?

A: Xcellerator is one common architecture, packaged business components to build applications. It puts all services in the cloud. Customers want the cloud for collaboration, sharing, and integration -- on-prem, public (Amazon), or private cloud.

 

Q: Do you expect all customers to move to SaaS?

A: We will have more info on SaaS [software as a service] for you in the future. We are not going to force our customers, one way or another, onto business models that don’t make sense to them. However, there is value in SaaS to our customers, such as us taking care of things for them, or high-performance computing. I think that the worry about IP [intellectual property] on the cloud is going away. I think the transition to SaaS will happen faster than we expect.

Just because you put something on the cloud doesn’t mean it is more integrated than anything else. What do we mean by integration? Data flowing from application to application, to make decisions faster -- that is true integration, that’s not the cloud. Integration is work, and we work at it. BTW, we are never finished with it and so we keep making acquisitions to keep building out integration modules.

 

Q: Which manufacturing techs are generating hype, which are actually valuable?

A: Additive manufacturing was overhyped five, six years ago. "Everyone" is going to have a 3D printer at home: if your coffee cup breaks, you don’t run to Wal-Mart, but you print your own. That was the hype. The reality is that additive manufacturing is a new business model, in the the flexibility it brings to businesses.

Low-code, like our Mendix, had a lot of hype early on, but now is experiencing rapid growth due to the demand for applications without needing to involve the IT department. We can call it “citizens’ development.” We went from “Mendix can build the perfect application if we all contribute to it,” to me copying someone else’s low-code, adding a couple of buttons, and having something that works for me.

IoT [Internet of things] had a lot of hype, it still does, but slowly it is being integrated. It was initially a lot like AM.

 

Q: Why do you continue to sell Parasolid to competitors?

A: Open is one of our three strategies, as I don’t think closed works. Much of the success about Teamcenter is its openness. There are over four million users of Parasolid, with the same math behind them. We add three or four new customers a month who license Parasolid: I think of the value behind that. There is no data loss for our customers in the geometry; there is, of course, some data loss in the intelligence attached to geometry.

 

Q: How is your business doing?

A: We can’t say much about our financial results. Last quarter we had double-digit growth in our software business, although PLM is not growing as fast as our EDA business.

Our toughest customers are inside Siemens. We get beat up by the: "Why can’t it do this, do that?" We use our software to design our products, to design our plants.

https://www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/

 

 

 

Best (and funniest) headlines from Android Police

www.androidpolice.com

 

Android 12 Beta 1 has colorful new charging animations: I'm too tired now to come up with a funny subtitle. Please laugh.

The overpriced Pixel Stand is 50% off its retail price, today only: Maybe even cheap enough to justify buying it!

Android 12 Beta 1 changes the way you'll set your alarms for the next day: All 30 of them, to make sure you get out of bed on time.

App hibernation is live in Android 12 Beta 1: You can try it out now, and by 'now', we mean in a few months.

Android 12's dynamic theming will still let you choose your own awful colors if you insist: For optimal Demon Chocobo vibes.

There are now three times more Android devices than Windows PCs: Still way more ants than both, tho.

Google Phone will announce callers like you've got a fancy secretary: But you ain't fancy. Stop playing.

Netflix teases N-Plus: A new way to get attached to your favorite Netflix shows before they're cancelled.

Google Assistant continues to mean well with socially relevant, utterly cringeworthy songs: I'll take it, if you promise never to never sing again, Google

Twitter is killing Nuzzel and it's ok if you have no idea what that means.

Box finally has a dark theme, but not without one annoying limitation: 2 years of user demands have come to this.

Amazon Echo Frames review: About as useful as an Echo Dot taped to your forehead.

 

 

Two core weaknesses of Onshape

Kernel and browser

I've come across a couple of Achilles' heels for PTC regarding Onshape. The two weaknesses are inherent to what makes Onshape Onshape.


Kernel Incompatibility. At the kernel level, Onshape is incompatible with PTC's CAD software. Onshape runs Parasolid (licensed from an arch-competitor to PTC, Siemens), while PTC has its own Granite geometric modeling kernel.  I wonder how well Onshape and Creo work together; I have not heard PTC address this problem.

The drawback to any translation is, of course, that data can be lost or, worse, mangled, and so it helps when two CAD programs share at least the same kernel.

Onshape uses the same Parasolid kernel as Solidworks, one reason being that Onshape was designed pre-PTC to take customers from Solidworks. Even so, sharing kernels is not nirvana: importing Solidworks models into Onshape can be a surprisingly difficult process, as was demonstrated at Onshape's user conference last month.

Onshape and Creo do have import-export capabilities, ones that even preexisted PTC's acquisition of Onshape. Pro/E-Creo 2000i thru v7 files are the list for Onshape imports, while a neutral file format like STEP is available to copy models from Onshape to Creo. 

The problem becomes significant now that PTC wants Creo run on the same Atlas-cloud platform as Onshape. Users will expect transparent data exchange between all apps on Atlas. How to fix the problem:

• One solution may be that PTC stores cloudCreo data in the same MongoDB database format as Onshape, and then cloudCreo acts as the translator for desktop Creo.
• Another solution could be that PTC replaces Parasolid with Granite; CAD companies have done that kind of kernel swapping before.
• A third solution is for PTC to eliminate Onshape. A second CAD program that's incompatible makes little sense.

Browser Incompatibility. During the Onshape user conference, PTC execs revealed that staying abreast of changes to Web browsers is key to Onshape's future survival. A new release of a significant Web browser could introduce incompatibilities that prevent Onshape from running properly, at least for a time. To avoid surprises, PTC runs Onshape on betas of browsers.

Onshape is, nevertheless, at the mercy of directions in browser development. For instance, Apple is not keen on making its homegrown Safari Web browser work particularly well, as that would allow third-party developers to avoid Apple's App Store by instead running Webapps in Safari.

This article on Apple details how the problem could affect Onshape: "In almost every area, Apple's low-quality implementation of features from [Apple's own] WebKit [browser engine] already requires workarounds." A Google researcher notes that "Safari is now something like 1,000 APIs behind Chrome, double the gap measured in 2016...".

Worse, Apple requires that all third-party Web browsers be built on top of Safari, even Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. While some argue that Google is, with this research, slamming Apple because it wants to run its Chrome engine as spyware on Apple hardware, the point is still valid: Apple is fearful of apps that could run well in Safari; so it makes its browser lackluster.

(Onshape runs as native apps on Android and iOS.)

 

PTC Describes Its Plans for Generative Design

Upselling

 

Gal Munda (financial analyst): I just had a question around the generative design -- and the exciting news that you basically announced a couple of years after you first acquired [Frustum] -- you launched it as part of a Creo [desktop MCAD] extension now. What I'm thinking about is, how did these modules effectively increase your addressable market in terms of the pricing, maybe how you're thinking about what proportion of your customers are realistically potential customers of it?

Image from a PTC video of GDX (generative design extension) 

 

And do you think that there would ever be a cross-sell into competitive CAD environments as well? Or do you think that's more of a view into kind of potentially getting replacements into, say, existing Solidworks customers?

 

James Heppelmann (ceo PTC): There's a couple of different things happening with generative design.

Just to be clear, we first released it as part of the desktop application and for compute horsepower used the graphics card. That gets you quite a bit of compute horsepower for certain types of compute-intensive codes like generative design.

But what we've done now, in the second iteration, is put it on Atlas [cloud platform], where there's elastic compute. You can have the biggest computer in the world running your generative analyses for you [You might not afford the computing bill. - Editor]. 

Let me also say, one of the next steps will be to pipe that generative design capability into Onshape [cloud MCAD], because it's actually running on the same platform as Onshape now. We just got to build it out into the UI [user interface] and the functionality of Onshape.

So what we'll do with generative design is, for sure, will go back to the Creo base. And we will upsell this new module. It's a purchase you add on. And then we'll go into the Onshape base, and we'll do the same thing. I think that generative design is a brand-new idea [Generative design has been around in one form or another since the 1980s. - Editor].

It's a transformational idea, but some of these ideas started a little slow and then really take off once people understand what they can do. So I expect we'll see that pattern. I do think it will give us more competitive alternatives, because I think what we have is unique and special. [Several BIM, MCAD, and independent vendors also provide generative design, also usually in the cloud. - Editor].

I think that if somebody is thinking about switching off Solidworks, if they want to go to a high-end product, they'll be impressed by Creo. If they want to go to a simpler product that's simpler to own and so forth, they'll look at Onshape and say, Wow!

- - -

Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4422268-ptc-inc-ptc-ceo-james-heppelmann-on-q2-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript

The SaaS-ification of PTC's Software

Moving from dark green to light green

 

Saket Kalia (financial analyst): I'd love to zoom in on slide 20 a bit [see figure below], very useful slide. Understanding that diagram is a vision and not guidance per se, I'd love to hear how you  envision PTC's move to SaaS [software as a service].

Chart showing some aspects of some programs starting to run on Atlas; the lighter the shade of green, the more of the software is on the cloud

 

It looks like you'll have all your products available in a SaaS form -- well, the major products available in a SaaS form factor by fiscal '22.

And so the question is, is this something you perhaps drive your customer base to or encourage them to adopt? Or is this something that you're going to let happen naturally?

James Heppelmann (ceo PTC): There's a lot you can read into this slide. But if you notice that the logos, other than Onshape [Web-based CAD] and Atlas [Web-based platform], start a darker greener color and as they move to the right become more or less the same color as Atlas. That's because we call this strategy "an insidious SaaSification strategy," which means it happens step-by-step.

And it's already started. Vuforia [augmented reality software] already has the first offerings on Atlas, like expert capture. Which is one of the biggest ones. We're about to ship the second Vuforia product on Atlas, which will be called Vuforia Instruct coming out later this quarter.

We mentioned that Creo [MCAD] is shipping a capability on Atlas now for generative design called Creo GDX [based on Frustum]. And you'll start to see [capabilities] coming from Windchill [PLM] and coming from Thingworx [Internet of things].

So what we're going to do is begin to offer incremental or, in some cases, replacement modules on SaaS. And then over time, the whole suite of each product line will become available on SaaS. A customer could begin adopting a part of it, get comfortable with the idea, start to generate some incremental revenue for us. And then in year 2 or 3 or 4, [the customer could] even flip the switch and go 100% to SaaS.

So that's what that diagram intends to show you: that these products are all climbing on board, but it's not an all-or-nothing. It's step-by-step moving toward that all-state where they're fully based on Atlas, and we have really a dream, a unified SaaS portfolio.

I'm so excited about that, because a lot of these products have divergent heritages and they're on different architectures today, integrated together but still on different architectures. And we have like a spring cleaning opportunity here, thanks to the power of Atlas to unify on a single platform.

Everybody at PTC is aligned behind this. So we're making great progress. And if you think in a year or two, Windchill and Creo will have $1 billion of ARR [annual recurring revenue], if we can get some even modest degree of penetration on a 2-for-1 ARR uplift [making twice as much from subscriptions], it's a lot of growth in those businesses.

Our original thinking on SaaSification was more all-or-nothing, and then we decided that this so-called "insidious strategy" is much more interesting for everybody -- customers and PTC. The real big impact is farther to the right even in years yet to come on this chart.

Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4422268-ptc-inc-ptc-ceo-james-heppelmann-on-q2-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript

 

Fixed: Denon Tonearm's Failure to Lift

Mechanical error

 

When I finally bought a turntable, it was September 1980 and it was last stereo component I bought while still a university student. I decided on Denon's direct-drive semi-automatic DP-30L model, which cost me $400 -- about $1,000 in today's inflated dollars. Forty years later, this model today sells for $200-$300 on eBay.

 Names of parts and functions from the original owner's manual

For the model name, I am guessing that 'D' is short for direct-drive, 'P' for phonograph, and 'L' for lifter.

• Direct-drive means that the motor is attached directly to the spindle. The controversy at the time was that direct drive could introduce rumble noises from the electric motor turning; the alternative was the belt drive, which eliminated the rumble, but could cause imprecise speeds due to stretching of the belt. I never heard any extraneous rumble, and given that belts deteriorate over time, I am today glad I went the route I did.
  
  
• Semi-automatic means that I have to land the stylus (needle) on the record manually, but that the tonearm lifted off the record at the end of play automatically.
  
  Fully-automatic turntables place the needle on the record for you; this was considered gauche.
  Fully-manual means you have to lift the tonearm yourself when the record comes to an end; this was considered seriously-audiophile.
  Semi-automatic was a compromise, as it minimized the time the needle spent on the vinyl.

(Back then, there were even disagreements whether tonearms should be curved, like on my Denon, or straight.)

 

Lifter Stops Lifting

A couple of decades ago, the automatic lifter stopped lifting. At the time, it was no big deal to me as CDs and MP3 players were replacing turntables and cassettes. I stopped using the turntable, leaving it on display to show off next to the rest of my stereo system, which I still used.

As records came back in vogue, I wanted the Denon to be fully working again. I checked with a couple of local repair shops, who wanted to charge me $65 to $85 just to have a look at it. I decided to try on my own.

I found the www.vinylengine.com Web site (free registration required), which hosts repair and user manuals for vintage audio equipment. But, as I found with other repair manuals of the era, the instructions are so curt as to be ultimately useless.

Badly written repair instructions

So I decided to have a look myself. As Denon boasted that the turntable featured a "Non-Contact Record-End Sensor" I assumed that perhaps a light bulb had burned out. I did not, however, relish the thought of desoldering/resoldering in possibly tight quarters, let alone finding the correct replacement bulb.

 

Easy Fix

So I flipped it over, and removed seven screws (four are in the feet). The picture below shows what I found inside, compliments of liquidaudio.com.au/denon-dp-30l-direct-drive-turntable-service-repair (my annotations):

Inside the Denon turntable (front is at the bottom)

Once I oriented myself, I recognized the tonearm mechanicals in the upper-left corner. As I looked around, I noticed that the flat metal arm attached to a white plastic thingy was swinging free (outlined in orange below).

The copper coil is the tonearm lifter motor

The white plastic thingy had an axle (circled in green) sticking below it, so it was obvious to me that it belonged in a hole. But which hole was not obvious to me -- there are seven in the immediate area. Fortunately, most holes were too small for the axle, and so I found the right one in which to plug it. I reassembled the turntable.

It worked!

The puzzle to me is, of course, how the heck did it get disengaged in the first place? Never mind, I was so pleased to have saved the $65 repair bill that I played several records just for the pleasure of watching the tonearm lifting itself as it reached the end of each LP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ITC vs Gstarsoft Ends in Settlement

No one lost

 

IntelliCAD Technical Consortium had launched its lawsuit against Gstarsoft about a year ago, claiming that the Chinese software vendor was misusing code from ITC's IntelliCAD. The issue was that Gstarsoft was no longer a member of the ITC, yet is appeared that some items unique to IntelliCAD were in the GStarCAD software. 

Today the results of the suit were announced; I'll run the English portion of the bi-lingual press release as it is concise:

“The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium” (the “ITC”) and Suzhou Gstarsoft Co. Ltd. (“Gstar”) are pleased to announce that they have reached a full and final global settlement resolving all disputes stemming from the parties’ prior business relationship, including a lawsuit filed by the ITC against Gstar pending in United States District Courts for the District of Oregon, and a lawsuit filed by Gstar against the ITC pending in the Intermediate People’s Court of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China.

In the United States lawsuit, the ITC had alleged that Gstar misappropriated and improperly used the ITC’s intellectual properties. Gstar denied the allegations, and maintained that it independently developed its products and has independent intellectual property rights. In the Suzhou lawsuit, Gstar sought a declaratory judgment of non-infringement.

The parties’ global settlement fully and conclusively resolves their disputes. No party has admitted any wrongdoing or liability, and there has not been any court finding as to the merits of the parties’ lawsuits. However, in order to resolve the disputes completely and avoid any future misunderstandings, the parties entered into a confidential settlement agreement.

The parties appreciate each other’s efforts in resolving this matter amicably.

https://www.intellicad.org/articles-and-press-releases/joint-press-release-of-the-intellicad-technology-consortium-and-suzhou-gstarsoft-co-ltd

Optimizing the news for a "we want it free" culture

The legacy fails

 

Newspapers remind me of stores that used to carry music CDs. As customers bought fewer CDs, stores carried fewer CDs, and so customers had fewer reasons to come to the store. The only stores today that still sell CDs in my hometown are Walmart and the independent Christian bookstore. The  CDs that remain are not to my taste, so iTunes is my A&B Sound (western Canadian version of Tower Records). 

Our local newspapers went the same route. We had two, each with two issues a week. One publishing chain bought the other, shut it down, and cut the pay to newspaper carriers to 9 cents per house. Last year, it used the coronavirus pandemic to reduce to one issue weekly, fat with advertising flyers.

Prior to the pandemic, it had eliminated the Letters to the Editor section; with the pandemic, it begged for donations to keep going, calling itself "your community paper," which it no longer was. With woke youngsters at the helm, the front page splashed one too many hit pieces on prominent local men and women, whose primary crime appeared to be their Christian faith. So, even though it is delivered free to my front door, I no longer read it, although I do use it to line the compost bucket.

- - -

In an important article on the future of news, Martin Gurri talks about Andrey Mir's new book, “Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers” at discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2021/04/13/post-journalism-and-the-death-of-news.

In short, the news used to be distributed by the elite, whether as newspapers, magazines, tv, and even state-run radio. Then in the 1990s, the big shift occurred as the Internet allowed us with small voices to speak up. Now four billion people compete with the mainstream media over what is news, through forums like Facebook, blogs (like this one), email newsletters, Twitter, YouTube, and so on.

What Gurri and Mir say will help you understand the news business today and why it is so awful. For instance, they note that all news is a form of fiction, because it is presented from one person's point of view.

- - -

What these sorts of discussions seem to be unaware of are specialty publications, like the ones I produce. I think specialty publishers aren't suffering the problems of mainstream newspapers because we got certain things right:

• Adapted to new publishing technologies
• Targeted niche audiences
• Operated on sustainable budgets

We understand the new publishing technologies, and so we made use of the Internet early. I abandoned my print newsletter for an email one in 1996.  I published by first ebook in 2000 and abandoned print books by 2013. This blog has been operating since 2003. 

We target niche audiences, and so have a product that readers want. Being small, we cater to our readers and can afford to interact with them one-on-one. This ties in to an important point that the Internet revolution enabled: people want to know they are being heard -- whether Arab Spring or the bad state of BIM. 

We operate on a sustainable budget, and so we survive when large publications with huge staff, and expensive printing and distribution models flounder. As I am fond of saying, it was the computer (and then the Internet) that allowed me in 1991 to become a one-man publishing company and handle every task this job involves: subscriptions and advertising; research, writing, and editing; design, publishing, distribution, and marketing; and feedback. As I don't have a lot of expenses, I don't need a big budget.

While I agree that digital-everything is annoying, it is the primary way to survive in this the-Internet-makes-everything-free culture.

- - -

I must add my appreciation for those who gave me advice along the way, just as I was able to help others to get on their way.

 

 

 

Laptop wars! Dell vs HP

 

I've been arguing for a decade now that CPU speeds slammed to a stop around 2010, and as proof my primary desktop computer, on which I get most of my paid-work done, is indeed from 2010.

That just might make me a hypocrite after buying a new laptop last month, to replace one I got five years earlier. As I explained to my wife, there are three reasons to buy a new computer:

• Specs - there are sufficiently improved specs; the subject of this article
• Pricing - the laptop is on sale and so is reasonably priced; I look for machines in the $1,500 price range (cheap laptops just aren't worth it)
• Timing - as the laptop is a business expense, it has to fit in with my company's tax planning

My five-year-old laptop was (at the time) the top-of-the-line HP Spectre 2-in-1 (hinges fold all the way back), which still works well. Well, one of the 360-degree hinges is getting wobbly and it concerned me that a Windows 10 update was delayed for a year due to Microsoft having problems with the computer's audio driver. Also, the silver-colored keys drove me nuts, as they were hard to read, whether or not the back-lighting was on. Imagine lit-up letters on a light background; HP still sells laptops with that dreadful combination.

 

Ordering a New Laptop: Not So Easy

I initially ordered a new HP Spectre from Best Buy, but Best Buy had only two pix of the device, so then to my horror I later found it had silver keys. I cancelled the order. I found one on the HP Canada site with black keys, and ordered it ($1,550). 

Then I recalled that my son-in-law had bought a Dell over an HP. Dells tend to be invisible, as they are sold only through Dell's Web site and so make no appearance on regular outlets. I took a look at the Dell Canada Web site, and I found an equivalent model to the HP for $1,250 (incl. tax), and -- even better! -- I could pay with PayPal. I bought the Inspiron 2-in-1, sat back, and waited for it to arrive. 

A phone call from Dell told me I needed to re-order it, as they could not process my payment through PayPal. Odd, given that PayPal from my end had no problem with me. Maybe Dell didn't want to pay the PayPal fees for a laptop that was on sale ($200 off). So I reordered it.

PayPal still waiting on Dell to complete my order, six weeks later

 

With that done, I got back to HP the very same day to cancel my order for the Spectre. The nice lady on the phone reassured me the order was cancelled. A few days later, I received an email from HP telling that the laptop was... on its way to me. Back on the phone to HP: even though I had been told the order was cancelled, it nevertheless shipped the next day. No worries: HP has free return shipping, complete with paperwork that the UPS shipping office signs as proof I had dropped it off. Once HP gets back the laptop, they take "20 bank days" to refund the credit card.

The laptop arrived from HP, I checked with friends in case any wanted to buy it off me (none did), and by week's end returned the unit, unopened. In the subsequent weeks, HP sent me four more emails letting me know the exciting news that the laptop had shipped and was on its way to me! All fake news, of course.  The refund, eventually, showed up.

The Dell Inspiron 14 7405 2-in-1 that I ended up with

 

New Dell vs. New HP

So, by paying $200 less, what did I get for my money? All of the main specs were similar, such as 14" touch screen, black backlit keys, 16GB RAM, 512GB solid state drive, and Webcam shutter. Here are the primary differences: 

CPU

• Dell: 8-core AMD CPU with AMD discrete graphics
• HP: 4-core Intel CPU with Intel integrated graphics

Dell wins: The eight cores are useless for CAD and word processing, but double the speed of processing video files over four cores.

 

SD Slot

• Dell: full-size SD memory card slot
• HP: microSD slot

Dell wins: It can take both sizes of cards, with an adapter.

 

Metal Body and Color

• Dell: plastic bottom, rest of the body is metal; color is different, a dark brown called "Sandstorm"
• HP: the entire body is metal; color is the standard silver

Dell wins: no more freezing cold laptop on my lap! And the brown body is a nice change from corporate conformity.

 

Stylus

• Dell: stylus is an optional extra
• HP: stylus included

Tie: I find I don't use a stylus, so its presence or lack thereof is irrelevant.

 

Microphone Icon

The Dell shows a microphone icon in the taskbar anytime a program runs that can record, such as Zoom. This acts as a nice warning and lets me toggle off the mic easily. Not having opened the new HP, I don't know if it does the same. 

- - -

Overall, the trade-off was, for me, worthwhile. Also, I found the styling of the new HP r-e-a-l-l-y ugly. I don't know how long I could have stayed with that black and gold scheme.

The grarish styling of the HP Spectre that I ended up not buying

 

New Dell vs Old HP

So, Ralph, if you claim there is no need to get new hardware, why did you get new hardware? Well, Ralph, allow me to explain.

The biggest bugaboo of the five-year-old HP Spectre was its (lack of) battery life. I only ever got four hours out of it. Normally, not a problem, but when I was at a conference where conference organizers forgot to provide power outlets, the frustration level reached ten zillion percent.

The latest CPUs double the battery life and laptops now sport the oval-shaped USB-C ports, which I found from my Acer Chromebook to be very useful.

Here is what the new Dell does that the old HP doesn't:

• Battery lasts twice as long (about eight hours)
• Twice the RAM: 16GB vs 8GB
• USB ports charge devices really fast, unlike the old HP whose frustrating charge rate was more like a trickle
• Keyboard has black keys, so I see them now in any lighting situation
• The USB-C port takes a universal dongle (purchased earlier for the Chromebook) that lets me attach ethernet, additional USB devices, and yet another monitor.
• The old HP made it very difficult to turn off the mic; the new Dell shows a mic icon for easy access.
• Plastic bottom!

So that's what my $1,250 gets me. The old HP is stored away as a backup laptop.

There is one drawback to the new Dell compared to the old HP. The old HP had both full-size HDMI and mini-DisplayPort outputs, so I could attach two monitors easily. The Dell has the full-size HDMI for one external monitor, but I would need to use a dongle to attach a second one (thru the USB-C port). In reality, this is not a drawback, as I never use two external monitors, except to prove that I can.

- - -

A Final Oddity: I cannot find my laptop at the Dell Web site searching through the Dell Website's Search function. I can find it only by using Bing search externally to Dell.ca.

- -

Final Oddity II, to quote Final Fantasy: I never knew Dell gives out Dell Bucks (well, they call it Dell Advantage), which is 3% towards your next purchase. What could I do with $33? I perused the site and found the Dell twist mouse: $25 off on sale, plus $33 off from my Dell Bucks. You twist it one way to flatten it out for travel, twist it 180 degrees the other way for use, and to turn it on. 

 

  

 

Understanding the Divide

Centers vs Borders

---

What the Center was telling the Border, one year ago

---

 

Martin Gurri's The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium (2018 edition) is the textbook for explaining the discombobulation that we peoples of the world feel today. We want discord to go away; he says it can't. Here's why.

Gurri divides the world into two: a Center made of elites (gov’t, media, academia, corporations) directing their decrees and products at the Border, which is made up of all others. In the past, Border people tended to accept what was pushed at them -- limited policy options, limited news, limited job possibilities -- so much so that they became to be known as the Silent Generation. Then technology came along.

Technology allows the Border to think and act and produce independently of the Center. The Center is furious at its diminished power, and so we hear it lashing out, accusing us of being fascists, bitter clingers, deniers, and deplorables. In turn, the Border sees the Center as inept, thieving, self-obsessed, unaccountable, and hypocritical.

A second key to understanding the split is that it is not between left and right; we see the Border and the Center on all sides of political thought. In the USA, for instance, we have seen Socialists fighting their Democratic party and Tea Partiers fighting their Republican party. My wife notes that Trump may well have came to power by taking advantage of the Center-Border divide: he is a Center person who made his appeal to people living on the Border. It explains Brexit, which was not so much a desire to leave the ultra-Center EU but a revolt against the Center in England.

 

No Winners

Gurri’s further point is that even though the Border now has power, it is unable to replace the Center, because only the Center is organized enough to run things, no matter how ineptly. As for the Border, it is too diffuse to develop and implement policy with sufficiently broad appeal. Both need each other, even as they despise each other.

The lack of cohesion is due also the the inability of the Center to receive feedback from the Border. Even when it does, the near-unlimited variety of demands made by the Border overwhelms the ability of the Center to respond.

Closer to home, this explains why large CAD vendors are tone-deaf to the concerns of users, whether the Revit-Autodesk conflict or the Solidworks-Dassault disconnect. 

The solution? There is none. Gurri thinks the current discontent is unresolvable, and may well carry on for decades. There is no unity to be had. He hopes that a new form of democracy will eventually emerge, but he (like me) says we can never predict the future, not even tomorrow.

 

Women vs. Government

An excellent Border vs. Center example took place this week. The political and medical elite of the Center in Canada's province of British Columbia announced that 55-65 year-olds could get the AstraZenica vaccine from local pharmacies. My wife and her friends in the age range were conflicted, because other elites at the Center (primarily from Europe) has been declaring AZ ineffective, dangerous, age-restricted, and the cause of blood clots. 

It was the death-by-blood-clot that concerned the women the most, as women are affected by them more often than men. Their conflicted choice was between suffering from coronavirus or from a blood clot. So these people on the Border used technology to confer through their smartphones and texting apps to make a consensus decision, independent of the Center.

(In the end, they decided that it was more likely for them to catch the virus than a clot. With the decision made, they then learned that just 13,000 doses were available for the 490,000 persons who are in their age group.)

 

 

Our Cloud Development for 3D BIM

by Alexey Ershov

 

Viewing 3D models in Web browsers became popular in the mid-2010s with the introduction of WebGL that allowed the display of sophisticated graphics. New Web protocols and JavaScript then made it possible to build 3D Web applications with advanced logic and interactive user interfaces. 

Cloud-based BIM (building information modeling) became a primary target for development, thanks to the big data volumes that are typically generated by BIM projects. Big data requires big storage. As well, BIM involves collaboration between designers working on specific areas and layers of buildings, bridges, civil, and industrial projects. These requirements correspond well with the capabilities of the cloud from established large-scale platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS),  Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Added to this, there are only a small number of competitors in the BIM software market (as compared to the MCAD market). All this propelled interest from established companies and startups to develop brand-new BIM-in-cloud software services and platforms.

LEDAS immediately became involved in complex 3D Web projects. Our first client asked us to develop a BIM cloud product that combined architecture, structures, mechanical, engineering design, and related modules. The product focused on providing wide support for BIM entities typically found in Autodesk Revit and Solibri Model Checker, an IFC-based quality control solution. By using a 3D modeling kernel, we made it possible for the BIM product to have all the capabilities needed for users to create and edit sophisticated shapes. 

To meet additional requirements, such as fire prevention, ventilation, and accessibility, we developed a dedicated BIM verification module for the 3D BIM application. The verification module also took care of collision detection. Thanks to integrated 3D scanning and point cloud data management, we covered the later stages in a BIM lifecycle, including dynamic construction control and maintenance of buildings and constructions. 

The solution we developed was a fully functioning 6D BIM application, with detailed planning for costs, resources, tasks, workers, and dates.

 

Our Platform for 3D Web Projects

Following this, we decided to meet the need of the contemporary CAD market by developing our own 3D browser platform, with BIM and MCAD as the primary targets. So we created LEDAS Cloud Platform (LCP), a multi-user 3D-on-Web system that includes collaboration and supports many files formats. You can get more details about LCP on its dedicated page.

Since then, several companies have licensed LCP to speed up their Web BIM product development. Some of them are focused on civil BIM projects in the cloud, while others were more interested in using the 3D Web for industrial systems and applications. 

LCP is just a good start for the licensees. As most of them want to provide a richer set of functions to their customers, they ordered additional 3D Web development services from LEDAS. The goal for them is, by adding new functions and features, to shape the BIM products according to their vision. We fulfilled their requests by writing code in Javascript on the client side, and in C++ and Python code on the server side. 

For example, one of the products is focused on large industrial models that are hard to visualize in 3D Web environments due to memory limitations. To solve this problem, we at LEDAS added LOD (levels of detail) technology to our 3D Web offering. 

 

Alexey Ershov is CEO of Ledas Group

 

 

2 men who influenced my professional life

Kneiling and Hirsch

 

Each of us have our ways by which we navigate the world. Sometimes, someone comes along who influences us in a better way. For me, there were two men who I appreciated in my teen years, whose thoughts went on to influence my work in engineering and technical publishing. 

Neither of them knew me, as I lived in northern Canada and they were columnists in American magazines. Over time, as I read their work, part of their worldview become part of mine.

 

Trains Magazine

I was a model railroader during my teen years, and I say that model railroading kept me sane during those years that are tumultuous to many. I faithfully read Model Railroader and Trains magazines, both published by the very fine people at Kalmbach Publishing. 

Among the regular columnists in Trains magazine was The Professional Iconoclast, John Kneiling (d. 2000). Little did I know that the word meant "icon smasher," nor, as a young teenager, did his columns made any sense to me. I ignored them. I couldn't, however, ignore the letters of outrage that appeared every so often.

People were having their oxen gored and I eventually forced myself to learn why. It was tough going, but in my later teen years I finally comprehended what he was saying. Mr Kneiling advocated new ways of doing things that went against the popular grain of thinking.

 

Those were terrible times for railroads in the early 1970s. They were going bankrupt, being bought up, and in the USA! were even nationalized (Conrail and Amtrak). For the first time in my life, I vicariously experienced in real time a fast-moving shift from an assumed monopoly to weak wannabe.

Naturally, the railroading community was trying to stay optimistic, but he punctured their wishful thinking. "Wow!" I thought as I finally caught on to what he was saying. For instance, he advocated that railroads adopt a new concept he called "unit trains." They would have just one kind of car (oil or coal or grain cars) and travel only between A and B. Standard methodology today, but in 1975 it was an iconoclastic idea.

From him, I learned that it's okay to be right when everyone else is wrong.

 

Stereo Review Magazine

In my university years, I wanted to know all there was to know about stereos, and eventually became a no-charge consultant helping fellow students buy the best stereo for the money they budgeted -- typically $400 to $800, or about $1,200 in today's money. (Met one of my girlfriends that way.) In the late 1970s, this meant a receiver (pre-amp, amp, tuner), record player, perhaps a cassette deck, headphones, and a pair of large speakers.

I read Stereo Review magazine religiously, absorbing all there was to know. The technical reviewer, Julian Hirsch (d. 2004), impressed me. He had created a standard set of tests for equipment, and then dispassionately reported the results. Mr Hirsch took no guff from furious advertisers.

He was anti-subjective. I remember Bob Carver's outrage at Mr Hirsch's statement there was no effect to be detected from Carver's new holographic amplifier -- an early attempt to create surround sound. (Later, in 1980, I nevertheless bought the Carver M-400 amp, just because its cube shape was so cool.) 

Mr Hirsch's dedication to reporting on the results from consistent equipment testing impressed me no end, and that a single man could stand up to the combined forces of an entire industry. For him, the user came first.

When I became technical editor of CADalyst magazine, I adopted his methods, and even managed to get a couple of advertisers angry when my results contradicted claims in their full-page color ads. For me, the user came first.

- - -

There are, of course, others who influenced me in good ways and, sadly, sometimes in bad. But these two men are two of my early heroes, whose writings influenced me to this day.

 

 

3 amazing functions in Opera Web browser

Nifty 

 

I've been using the Opera Web browser since v4, back when its boasts was that it could fit on a 1.44MB floppy disc. In addition to being not-Internet Explorer and not-Firefox (the two browsers with the largest market share back then), it had a developer mode that displayed all the text of a Web site. This was especially useful for reading sites that otherwise required one to sign up.

After v12, Opera had a split inside the company, with the founder going off to start up the Vivaldi browser, saying he wanted to return the browser to its Opera roots. Vivaldi is still around but I find it sluggish compared with Opera, and so use it only when I need a not-Opera browser.

Following the split, the Opera company needed new engine for displaying Web sites, and settled on Blink, the Web rendering engine developed by Google for Chrome; later, Microsoft did the same with its Edge browser. Blink is kind of like Parasolid or C3D: it is the kernel that does the basic work, with developers adding features on top.

Which gets me to the the point of this post: Opera has developed some pretty nifty stuff on top of Blink, most of which I don't care about. It does, however, have three functions that I find invaluable. Here they are:

 

Copy and Insert

Back when travel was common, I would blog CAD conferences live. One onerous task is inserting photos and other images into the blog commentary. Opera makes this easier by recognizing the most-recent image I've copied to the Clipboard during the Insert Image operation.

Here is how it works:

1. Copy an image to the Clipboard. I use Windows Snapshot Maker v3.5, an old version, because the newer ones are overladen with features. (Do you know how hard it is to make a screen grab of screengrab software?)

 

2. In the blogging software running on Opera, click the Insert Image button (or equivalent in your software).

 

3. In the Insert Images dialog box, click the Choose Files button. Notice that Opera displays the image in the Clipboard, as well as the three files that it downloaded most recently. (To choose any file on your computer, click Show All Files to access the File Manager.)

 

4. Chose the Clipboard image, then click Insert Image(s) (or equivalent in your software) to place the image in the blog posting.

What this means is that I no longer have to save an image as a PNG file to disc before inserting it into the blog. Saving steps means faster blogging.

 

Editing Speed Dial Images

This feature is really obscure, but if you are as heavy user of Speed Dial, then it can be handy. Speed Dial displays large icons on the "desktop" of Opera. Think of it as a visual bookmark. Here is part of mine:

 

Notice that some bookmarks show as words, some as images. Images are really handy, such as in the third row, to identify the highway cam locations. For most others, though, I prefer the name of the site, as too many images become conflicting.

I was setting up a new laptop with Opera and found that every Speed Dial image came up as an image from the associated Web site. Some of them were pretty annoying to look at  day after day. It turns out that Opera lets you customize the image for each Speed Dial entry. (I just learned this last week.) Here's how:

1. You add a site to Speed Dial by clicking the heart icon.

2. Notice the tiny arrows on either side of the image, the Wikipedia logo in this figure. Click the arrows to walk through the images Opera found on the Web page. Opera lets you use any of them as the Speed Dial icon.

3. Click the left arrow to go immediately to the text version.4. Click Done.

 

Revealing Passwords

Okay, this last one is somewhat controversial. We all know what a pain passwords are, and given the controversies surrounding password software that keeps track of them for you, I use the tried and tested method of maintaining passwords in an old-style address booklet.

 

It works pretty good, except for the times a Web site demands that I change my password and then I forget to update the address booklet. Or I sign up at a new site and forget to update the address booklet. Taking the Web site's offer to reset the password is a pain, because then I need to invent yet another  new one. Et cetera.

Like all other browsers, Opera records passwords (if you allow it to), but then also permits you to see them. Here's how:

1. Click the big-red O, and then from the menu choose Settings.

 

2. In the Settings dialog box, look for the Search Settings field on the upper right, and then enter 'password'. This is a speedy way to get to the settings that involve passwords.

 

3. Click on Passwords. Notice the Saved Passwords section. All of your saved passwords are listed, and are all blanked out with a row of dots. Notice that each password has an eye icon next to it.

 

4. To reveal a password, click on the eye icon.

 

5. Click the ... overflow menu button to reveal several options, such as Copy Password, which copies the word to the Clipboard.

 

6. Final trick: click the ... overflow menu across from Saved Passwords. The Export passwords option saves all passwords as a CSV file (short for 'comma-separated values'). 

 

7. You can open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program like Libre Calc. 

 

There is, unfortunately, no option to import this file into Opera running on another computer.

 

People tracking is so insidious

Enuff already

 

It was bad enough to see how many corporations track us by doing something as innocuous reading just the headlines at a government-funded Web site like Deutsche Welle (the German international broadcaster). The list I show below (found at dw.com/en/european-union-general-data-protection-regulationgdpr-valid-may-25-2018/a-18265246) is about 2/3 of the data skimmers DW employs.

It got worse when at a trial last week we learned that Google still tracks us when we run its browser in incognito mode -- never mind what it states: 

It's what Google doesn't say in its incognito statement that's alarming.

- - -

It is the nice things that hit me the most. Here are some of them.

Web sites switched from asking us to provide a username to our email addresses as the login. Great innovation, as it was one less thing for us to remember. Except: by using our email address, data skimmers can match which sites we visit.

Facebook was thrilled to announce it has now scraped one billion images uploaded by us to Instagram to feed the hungry maw of its AI image recognition code -- automatically, with no human intervention needed or wanted. 

When  Google and others helpfully suggest that we sync our data between browsers, it's so that they can continue skimming our data as we move from one device to another. They want to match who we are on our home computer with what we do on our mobile devices, and back again.

When Google and Apple suggest we go onto their family plans for sharing Android apps and iTunes music, it's so that they can tie together members of families in their data skimming code.

Google's latest is to make cookies more private by placing each of us into similar-interest groupings. It will still feed our data to advertising agencies. Privacy groups are still working out what the scam is, as Google is focused only how to increase the data it collects from us to sell on to others.

 

CAD for ChromeOS is Possible in 2021

More popular than MacOS

 

There are no native CAD applications for ChromeOS. 

This need not be the case, as proven by Krita, a native Android program meant for tablets that runs as well as a native program on Chromebooks. Here's the point I want to make: Krita for Android is not a reduced-function version of the one that runs on Windows and MacOS. It is full-function.

CAD software written for Android, iOS, and Web browsers are all reduced-function versions, even from leaders in this field like Graebert and Autodesk. 

ChromeOS was originally envisioned as a browser-based operating system, and I found the original Chromebook (from Samsung) pretty lame. I gave up on it, and so did major software vendors.

More recently, Google make the big breakthrough by allowing non-browser-based and Android apps to run like native programs on Chromebooks. it has become a viable operating system for professionals.

- - -

Android tablets have suffered in the market, as manufacturers churn out lame, under-powered models. The high-end models are over-priced for what you get. This problem does not exist among Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

Here, you get hardware with strong CPUs (think Intel i5 and i7) and large amounts of RAM (think 8GB) all for under $1,000 -- complete with 14" high-resolution touch screen (think 2256x1504); full-size, backlit keyboard; and interactive stylus. I paid $700 last year for such a model. This kind of high-end device is not available from Apple, at any price.

The best part is that these Chromebooks/boxes run Android flawlessly, despite the naysaying from the Applephilia tech media.

- - -

So my suggestion is that we could run full versions of ARES Commander or BricsCAD Pro on Chromebooks by porting the Linux version to Android. This works, because Android is based on Linux. Autodesk, on the other hand, lacks a Linux version of AutoCAD, and so cannot be part of the party. But it has the resources to make one, should it so be inclined. 

In theory, the Linux versions of BricsCAD and ARES can run on recent Chromebook models, but in practice I have found that it is a dog to get Linux running (hello command-line!) and then programs run too slowly to be useful.

The primary problem, it turns out, is 3D, which tends to be supported weakly by the hardware and software in portable devices. Tasks like rendering and ACIS solids modeling are usually farmed out to the cloud.

On the other hand, Google has committed to upgrading ChromeOS monthly, and new CPUs from new foundries are arriving on the market to dramatically strengthen the software. Perhaps 3D graphics in portable CAD will follow the transition cameras made on smartphones, where the processing of images has moved from hardware to software. 

The year 2020 was the year ChomeOS outsold MacOS. But Chromebooks suffer from the Android-customer problem: the laptops tend to be cheap and, as a result, so are the customers. Apple sells less product but charges more, resulting in a customer base that spends even more to accessorize their iBling.

CAD vendors are keen to make customers-for-life out of school children. With classrooms and school-from-homes filling with Chromebooks, 2021 is the year for CAD software vendors to review their product lineup and see how ChromeCAD fits in.

Now take a look at Krita.

I never bought the ZX81

$99 proved too expensive

 

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Sinclair ZX81, the second generation of the earliest affordable home computer -- and a distance cousin of our smartphones.

The computer I never bought (image credit oldcomputer.info)

 

Inventor Clive Sinclair specialized in small devices. I recall picking up a brochure of his diminutive calculator while in England in 1974. He also designed a tiny, unsuccessful automobile.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I watched the personal computer scene with its confusing array of standards -- S-100, CP/M -- making me hesitant to take the plunge. Part of the problem was that the prices were not personal; a typical desktop computer (as we call them now) fitted out with all the kit came to over $10,000 in today's dollars.

Timex brought the British-made ZX81 to North America, the idea being that the maker of low-cost quality-made watches would be just as successful with low-cost home computers. The problem ended up being that the ZX81 was not quality-made.

Nevertheless, I was desperate for my own computer. For a couple of years I had been programming my HP 41CV calculator (even got the overpriced card reader for it!), but was bumping up against its limitations.

For a time, I considered the ZX81, as it was just $99 in Canada. But then I added up all the stuff I would need to add to actually make it work, such as the 16KB RAM module. For instance, I did not own a tv, so I'd have to buy one. The final tally came to $500 for a computer that only displayed monochrome uppercase text and used a membrane keyboard. I decided against it.

Six months after the ZX81 was released, IBM shook the industry with the release of its PC for $1,500. It de facto established the technical standards still in use today. But that price tag also got you just the box and motherboard: no floppy or disk drives (you were expected to supply your portable cassette recorder, no monitor (you were expected to supply your home tv set), and only 64KB RAM. Fully kitted out, it came to $6,000 at time when a starting engineer's wage was around $10/hr -- so, four months salary. (Last week I bought a new high-end laptop for four days wages.)

Then in early 1983 a local computer dealer put their Victor 9000 kind-of-compatible-with-IBM personal computers on sale, and I took a loan from my parent to acquire it. Buying the Victor helped get me the job at CADalyst magazine and launch my lifetime writing career in CAD.

- - -

The link to our cell phones?

The success of the ZX8x-series in England caused the BBC to commission a company called Acorn to produce the BBC Micro home computer for viewers to purchase and follow along how-to-use-a-computer series broadcast at the time. Acorn was the company that later produced the ARM CPU design, used today in every single smartphone, except for some older ones that used CPUs from Intel and nVidia's unsuccessful forays into handheld computing.

 

Why Apple is taking on Facebook

Paid vs. free

 

Apple and Facebook are in battle with each other. As Techmeme editorialized a Wall Street Journal headline this morning:

Sources shed light on the increasingly personal battle between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg, who in private reportedly said “we need to inflict pain” on Apple.

There are the overt reasons:

• Apple is increasing the privacy of its customers, blocking Facebook from harvesting data
• And so conversely Facebook is increasingly being blocked from profiting from Apple customer data

There are the covert reasons:

• Apple doesn't need advertising revenues, as its BMW-priced products and service bring in more revenue than it needs
• Facebook needs advertising revenues, as it is an otherwise free service

Reasons Facebook gives are nonsense, that Apple users won't "benefit" from targeted ads, and that small business will suffer.

Left unsaid is that Apple continues to harvest data on users. We don't know what it does with it, as its ad system is not widely lauded.

We can understand Facebook's desperation. While Apple has less than 10% worldwide marketshare in smartphones (50% in USA), its user base is wealthier than the Android user base and so Apple customers spend more. 

Even as Apple cuts off Facebook, Google could do the same to Facebook (and Apple to Google), never mind the secret Facebook-Google agreement to favor each other. Basing your business model on free is precarious.

So why is Apple taking on Facebook? Being pro-privacy looks good in today's surveillance society. As Matt Mireles (@mattmireles) put it, "Tim Cook might be the biggest weapon we have in trying to save our democracy."