WorldCAD Access

The AZS600 touch screen all-in-one computer from Acer

My dad didn't like the all-in-one Acer desktop computer with 23" screen and Windows 8 that I got him a couple of weeks ago. So he gave it to me, and I've had a chance to explore it. Windows 8 is alright, so long as I ignore the metro UI junk, and stick to the Windows 7 look-alike part.I can't always ignore metro, as Windows 8 sometimes insists on shoving it back onto the screen. A real productivity killer. Thanks, Steve and Steve. I described my experience with using AutoCAD and the touch screen over on my WorldCAD Access blog.... Read more →

Touching AutoCAD on the desktop

I inherited a two-week-old touch-screen computer, after my dad decided he didn't like the shininess of the screen. I agree that the screen is annoying, acting like a mirror, instead of the normal matte finish of other monitors. No matter. I put up with it, because it's a 23" Acer touchscreen all-in-one computer running the awful Windows 8. I figured I could put it to use for my writing work; it gets added to other computers I have purchased solely for writing about software, such as the Apple Mac Mini. (This new Acer has a secondary HDMI input, meaning I... Read more →

Your beta invitation to Russia's only AutoCAD clone

Nanosoft of Russia has been quietly developing an AutoCAD work-alike for several years now, improving its abilities with each new release. It appears the next one is due out next summer, for today they sent out an open beta invitation: Nanosoft has started a free beta tester program: http://nanocad.com/news/Be-a-nanoCAD-beta-tester Read more →

Fixing a screwed-up memory card

Using a bad memory card reader can screw up memory cards, such as SD cards. There is little sign that there is a problem, except that Windows is hesitant to recognize it. Windows won't fix the card, whether through formatting it, running ChkDsk, or whatever. I have found a solution involving your digital camera. Digital cameras can format memory cards, and they seem less fussy than Windows. When a poor-quality memory card reader "wrecked" a 16GB SD card of mine, I did the following: 1. I stuck the card into my digital camera. 2. The camera complained that it was... Read more →

David Stein's new book: "Why Your Next IT Project Will Fail"

David Stein sent me a preview copy of his new book, Why Your Next IT Project Will Fail (and what you can do to avoid it). Because it is a mere 41 pages, I read through the whole thing this morning. He writes from experience, and so his pages are filled with practical advice, such as If you automate a broken process, you end up with an automated broken process. Indeed, I shuddered when I read many of his example situations, for they reminded me of the old days when I worked with co-workers in a company for someone else.... Read more →

CAD vendors will be tempted into biasing their cloud pricing

The price you pay for CAD software depends on several factors, including these: The country in which you purchase the software (USA workers get the baseline price, with customers in nearly every other country paying as much as double) Educational status (students and teachers routinely get the software free; other occupations do not -- except for software reviewers) The status of your company (networked licenses cost less; bulk licenses cost less) Whether you are part of a target market (I hear cases of software being seeded, given away free to specific customer in specific cities of specific disciplines; in addition,... Read more →

Why efficient, new languages aren't useful

The Verge reported on a DMV (department of motor vehicles) employee who invented a new language: Naturally-formed languages are messy, and they've long inspired people to search for the perfect, artificial language. It's a quest that a former California DMV employee John Quijada took up as a hobby for three decades to create what he calls "Ithkuil," which has 22 categories of verbs, 1,800 suffixes, and not a single wasted sound in order to make "you say what you mean and mean what you say." A friend is a phonologist, and these are this thoughts on the new language: One... Read more →

I unbricked my All Winner A10-based Android tablet, and I don't know how

After bricking one Android tablet (an ASUS TF101), and bricked a second one, a MOMO8 based on the Chinese-made All Winner A10 CPU. After some fiddling around, I last night unbricked it. But I don't remember the exact sequence of steps. I followed the instructions given at www.androidtablets.net/forum/ployer-momo-tablets/39857-ployer-momo8-probably-bricked-help-much-needed.html, but I didn't use the LiveSuit software mentioned. What is fascinating about this method of unbricking is that it involves hardware: taking apart the unit, and then shorting out pins #7 and #8 on a 48-pin IC, more specifically. The pins of the NAND memory chip are so tiny that two of... Read more →

Three computer repairs this week, two successful

I have been working this week on fixing three computers. MacBook Hard Drive Replacement Daughter #1's Macbook has a small 250GB hard drive, and because she takes many photos, the drive quickly filled up. I read on the Internet that it is easy to switch drives and move the data on Macs (not so for Windows PCs!). I removed the 640GB hard drive from my daughter-in-law's old, broken computer. It took about 3.5 hours to move the data from MacBook hard drive to the external one, and then another ten minutes to physically swap the drives. Well, that and a... Read more →

How to replace the hard drive in your MacBook

My daughter's MacBook has a miserably small hard drive, just 250GB. Being a semi-professional photographer, all those RAW files filled up the drive in no time. I figured she should replace the hard drive, and then we came into a spare one after my daughter-in-law's HP laptop went bye-bye. The CPU was shot, but the 640GB hard drive was fine. After I got all the files off the drive and safely to my daughter-in-law, I realized I had the ideal drive for my daughter. It was ideal because the drive was (a) the right kind, (b) 400GB more capacity than... Read more →

It could be that CAD vendors will suffer from avoiding granularity

Beginning in the 1980s through today, CAD software followed the same trajectory as other desktop software: it began with a modest set of functions, and then over the decades bolted on more. What once fit a 360KB diskette now requires a multi-gigabyte download. Until 2012, feature-bulge was considered the norm in software development: add more functions to software despite having customers who used only a small percentage. Because software companies cannot predict at the per-customer level the functions wanted by each one, the only solution was to give everyone everything, inefficient as it is to present users with software that... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: two more exclusive interviews, with Caustic and Graebert

upFront.eZine issue is now on its annual Christmas break, and so issue #758 will have to last you until early January. For your reading pleasure, we have more exclusive interviews (and guess what, in January we'll have more in the way of exclusive interviews!).. 1. Exclusive interview: Caustic Puts Ray Tracing into Hardware - Q&A 2. Exclusive interview: Graebert Grows CAD, Part 2 - Q&A 3. Out of the Inbox, and our other regular columns. You can read all about the business of CAD at http://www.upfrontezine.com/2012/upf-758.htm Read more →

The Wengerd Report: What I Learned At AU 2012

by Owen Wengerd Attendance at Autodesk University 2012 was up a bit after a few down years. My impression is that Autodesk invested more marketing muscle this year in an effort to attract new attendees. The anecdotal evidence I have seen and heard suggests that a significantly higher percentage of attendees were first-timers this year than in past years. Add that all up, and I think you're happy if you're the AU organizers, but you worry about whether you can get those new attendees back next year. My last-minute request for a press badge was denied by Autodesk PR, so... Read more →

cadTouch looks like Visio, runs like CAD

While Orange Juice Studios of England hopes to ship Cado on iPad in a half-year (which is several generations in today's fast moving world of mobile programming), cadTouch of Italy is already busy reving its CAD software for iPad and iPhone software, now at revision #4. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that cadTouch might be the most advanced 2D CAD package on iOS. By this, I mean that it seems to have the most functions, and I temper my claim by noting I haven't seen them all. (And that's the problem, isn't it? Developers like Autodesk... Read more →

Cado is solving the fat finger conundrum

I am surprised that mobile CAD leader Autodesk hasn't gotten around to solving the problem of drawing on tablets with fingers. The problem, you know, is that our fingers hide what's underneath the finger -- precisely where we need to see what's going on. And so the conundrum is, how d'we see what's under the (relatively) fat finger? The Chinese software company that make GstarCAD MC has one solution: a bird's-eye view (remember those from the early 1990s?) that's offset, and moves in conjunction with the finger. This clever solution provides an enlarged view of what's under the finger. I... Read more →

Objet: We do cheesy cuts, too

Sometimes, marketing departments with too much money try too hard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRC9HfBJGOc&sns=em (hat tip: RT) Read more →

My failed toy: LaCie network drive

I've written before about the dreadful state of LaCie and its line of hard drives. I am slowly getting rid of the ones I have. At one time, I thought that a network drive would solve the problem created by Microsoft, in which they make it difficult to access data on networked computers. Since networked printers had worked well in our office, I got LaCie's Network Drive so that data could be easily stored and shared among multiple computers. Short story: didn't work. The LaCie Network Drive is a beautiful beast outwardly, but inside it is a nasty beast. Because... Read more →

Bentley inspired to go mobile

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com There were 84 of us media types that assembled in the historic Grand Hotel Karsnapolksy in central Amsterdam, where amidst the picturesque canals, "coffee" shops, and a surprising proliferation of Argentinean steak houses, we heard all about how well Bentley is doing. The event started with a Media Day. We were showered with product news (over 20 press briefs and releases), news of the acquisition of two companies, financial status (record revenue of $523M), and forward thinking strategy with lots of attention to mobile devices. (The rest of the event was devoted to finalists in the... Read more →

Social app company Autodesk can hope to retain 5% of downloaders

Vibhu Norby is talking about the flaw in the strategy of software companies looking to profit from running ads on mobile apps. In brief, he says the strategy is doomed, based on his experience and that of other once-popular app makers. How might this relate to CAD? Autodesk at its Media Day last week said it is buying up all kinds of mobile app companies, and hopes to profit from pushing ads to its 95 million new-found users. Mr Norby describes his company's experience at user numbers. It boils down to this: after x number of people download your free... Read more →

My new toy: An Optoma projector that plays back BluRay but not DVD discs

I got a new Optoma HD66 home theatre projector for our entertainment room. Since it was refurbished from a place that specializes in projectors, I got it for pretty much half-price. The image is stunning, compared to my previous projector (Benq MX511, which was suffering from a massive wave of dead pixels after just two years of use.) But after I hooked it up to my Sony BluRay player, I discovered curious problems. The projector showed a blue screen (along with the HDMI Signal Searching message) when the Sony player was not showing a movie; the projector should be showing... Read more →

Autodesk yawns

Press release this morning from Graebert GmbH: GRAEBERT ANNOUNCES ARES COMMANDER EDITION 2013 FOR WINDOWS 8, MAC OS & LINUX with 14 LANGUAGES, IN-PLACE TEXT EDITOR, 64-BIT VERSION, DWG 2013 SUPPORT, AND OPERATING SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS POSE A PRODUCTIVITY AND PRICING CHALLENGE TO AUTOCAD (Emphasis mine.) Read more →

Windows 8 not selling well, and here's why

The release of Windows 8 failed to give Microsoft and hardware makers the boost they were expecting. We knew there was a problem early, when no CAD vendor made a fuss at the launch, and that most haven't bothered certifying their software to run on the crazed-hybrid operating system. You could say 8 is the anti-XP. There are two reason for 8's failure to ignite sales: The touch interface is a FAIL on non-touch computers, and Microsoft's advice to memorize lots of keyboard shortcuts is no solution for those users who haven't even mastered Ctl+C/Ctrl+V. (My neighbour last week got... Read more →

ASCON interviews Nikolai Golovanov, head of C3D kernel development

ASCON provided this interview with Nikolai Golovanov, the head of the company's C3D geometric kernel development team. ASCON is the largest Russian MCAD software company, and is headquartered in St Petersburg. - - - Q: There is not always a clear understanding in the CAD community about where the geometric kernel ends and the CAD program begins. What is a geometric kernel, and what job does it perform in a CAD system? A:We call the geometric kernel the part of a CAD system that makes the mathematical model of real and theoretical objects. Our C3D kernel is an independent software... Read more →

About that blue USB connector on your new computer

My daughter-in-law got a new computer, a 15" Acer laptop with touchscreen. I wrote to her about the special capability of the blue USB plug on her computer: The blue signifies it is a USB 3.0 port, which means that it communicates with other USB 3.0 devices much faster than the older USB 2.0 -- but it is still compatible with 2.0. The main feature is that it is always powered on, even when the computer is turned off. This makes it useful to recharge your phone, etc. I use it on business trips to charge my phone. Some other... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: exclusive interviews with (a) Geomagic Spark and (b) Graebert ARES 2013

In upFront.eZine issue #757 this week we have for your reading pleasure: 1. Exclusive interview: Geomagic Spark Encompasses That Other Cloud - Sparking Bro' Love with SpaceClaim - Demo Time - Q&A 2. Exclusive interview: Graebert Grows CAD, Part 1 - Graebert's Competive Advantage - About That DraftSight Bonanza - Graebert Market for Draftsight - New Features in ARES 2013 - SiteMaster 2013 - Porting to Portable Devices You can read all about the business of CAD at http://www.upfrontezine.com/2012/upf-757.htm Read more →

Graebert ships tri-OS ARES 2013 on Linux, OS X, and Windows

Graebert's ARES software might be better known to you by names like "DraftSight" and "CorelCAD". This company specializes in providing CAD systems to software companies that don't want to write their own -- kind of like a commercialized version of the IntelliCAD Technical Consortium. Last Friday Graebert quietly released ARES 2013, and revamped its Web site, and revised its logo, and issued a new tagline -- "Custom CAD" -- to emphasize that they are foremost an OEM business. ARES 2013 has the usual list of new and improved functions. But there is a bigger change; whereas the original ARES had... Read more →