WorldCAD Access

Loyalty

by Owen Wengerd Let me tell you a story about loyalty. For many years, I've used a popular and highly regarded tax form preparation software from a well-known company. As a small business owner in the United States, I have to fill out the dreaded Schedule C form. In the early years I used "interview" mode to guide me through. I'm a hands-on kind of person, so once I gained some experience, I liked that the software gave me the option of filling out the forms manually by entering numbers right on the tax form. Meanwhile, it kept related forms... Read more →

This is how much more you'll pay for Autodesk software

More revenue from subs Autodesk is thinking about eliminating perpetual licensing within the next two years (starting first with AutoCAD LT). Paying repeatedly is more expensive than paying once, of course. As I remind my kids, by buying a $70 high-gain antenna and never paying for cable tv, our family so far saved $27,430 -- and counting. With the elimination of the perpetual license, how much more will Autodesk programs cost you? Owen Wengerd did the research, and found the following ratios: 40% -- Annual subscription becomes more expensive (than perpetual) after 2 years and 5.5 months 12.5% -- Monthly... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: US copyright extended to drawing files intended to be printed

by Owen Wengerd, ManuSoft Among A&E firms that produce CAD drawings, it is common practice to maintain ownership of the drawings they create. In theory, this ownership is predicated on well-established contract and copyright law. In practice, however, it can be difficult and expensive to enforce. But earlier this month, a US federal court in Florida made a noteworthy ruling. It provides a new angle of attack for copyright owners going after infringers in court. So, if you're a consumer of drawing files created by others, you should be aware of the implications: The dispute is about a company that... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: AutoCAD 2015's EULA

by Owen Wengerd Each year, I track how AutoCAD's End User License Agreement (EULA) grows. After a big rewrite in AutoCAD 2012, the EULA stabilized somewhat: AutoCAD 2013 brought only a few minor tweaks, and AutoCAD 2014 introduced no changes whatsoever. The hiatus didn't last long. I guess lawyers have to eat too. Here's a rundown of the changes I noted in the AutoCAD 2015 EULA: "Subscription" is now recast as "Relationship Program" and "Services". Removed section 2.3, Exceptions to Prohibitions, which was irrelevant and contained a ridiculous attempt to place a burden of proof on the licensee. Minor tweaks... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: The fat-finger problem solved

by Owen Wengerd I enjoy riding my bicycle for exercise and recreation. The open road is a great way to escape the humdrum of home office life, clear the mind, and enjoy the world at 18 miles per hour. When I'm riding solo through Amish country dodging potholes and horse droppings, sometimes inspiration strikes me. Like the other day, when it dawned on me that the solution to the touch screen problem of not being able to see what's beneath your fingers is simple: put the screen in front of the fingers. [Owen Wengerd writes about AutoCAD programming at his... 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 →

The Wengerd Report: Time-sliced CAD models

by Owen Wengerd The CAD pundits and CAD companies talk all the time about the next big thing. Much of the chatter is based on marketing hype and wistful thinking, with an occasional bit of reality thrown in. The hot topics du jour are "cloud" anything and massively parallel processing, aka "infinite computing". Now cloud computing might some day change the world as we know it, but that's not the topic of this post and I don't want to open that can of worms. Oops, my bad, I guess I already did. Big Changes vs Small I think it's likely... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: What are friends, today?

by Owen Wengerd Much has been written about how social networking is shaping the future. I'm totally on board, but I'm not quite ready to sell my soul. I still think before I post, and I scrutinize every privacy setting to make sure I have maximum control over who can see what I post. I also take care about who I "friend". To me, a friend is someone that I know personally - not necessarily "in person", but at least someone I have interacted with one-on-one either professionally or personally. The thing is, modern social networking vernacular, or "text patois"... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: New isn't always better

Remember modems? Now we complain when there's no wi-fi available. I'll give credit to the smart phone, and even begrudging credit to the iPhone in particular, for improving the way we communicate and the way we work on the go. There's no denying that we've made real progress. But what if sometimes the old fashioned way really was better? Remember the digitizer vs. keyboard debate? Well old-timer, say hello to the ribbon. Remember when HTML was invented to encapsulate content and relationships in a view-independent way so that consumers could decide how to format it? Step right over here, and... Read more →

Owen Wengerd is programming Bricscad on Linux

Over on his Outside The Box blog, Owen Wengerd has started a tutorial on how to write BRX programs for Briscad using Linux: The next order of business was to build and load a BRX module. I started by installing Code::Blocks, an open source cross platform C/C++ IDE that can be used in both Windows and Linux. The IDE installed fine, but then things got interesting. Read it all at BRX on Linux: Getting Started. Read more →

The Wengerd Report: AutoCAD 2012's EULA is now 60,000+ characters. Be sure to read them all

by Owen Wengerd One of the less heralded new features of AutoCAD 2012 is the redesigned End User License Agreement (EULA). The EULA generally evolves (or devolves, as the case may be) from release to release, but AutoCAD 2012 sports a completely redrafted EULA. Not only is the EULA new, it's bigger. A lot bigger: If the EULA continues to double with each release, and releases continue to ship every year, then the EULA for AutoCAD 2020 will contain more words than a dozen copies of War and Peace! Despite its heft, this EULA has clearly been rewritten to a... Read more →

What the effect of Autodesk's registration of DWG as a trademark means

by Owen Wengerd Trademarks are interesting creatures. They serve a very specific and very limited purpose: to identify the source of a good or service. Trademarks are intellectual property, but unlike other types of intellectual property, the status and strength of a trademark can and often does change over time. Identical trademarks can be used by different entities as long as this does not result in source confusion, so infringement is often not straightforward. If a trademark is abandoned, it eventually loses its status as a trademark. If a trademark becomes generic (like "aspirin" and "thermos"), it also loses its... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: The meaning of Q?+:$$ &9*^0E#1@2AF5+_R)!/&#<*

by Owen Wengerd Handles are those 16-digit unique keys attached to every entity within an AutoCAD drawing file. They are commonly exposed and displayed as strings, but they are really 16-digit (64-bit) hexadecimal numbers ranging from zero to more than 1.8e19. That's 18 quintillion for US readers (18 trillion for the rest of you). Or if you prefer, that's just under 1/5 of a googol. No matter how you count it, that's a lot of handles! Handles are never recycled and persist in a drawing file for the life of the entity, so every new handle must be guaranteed to... Read more →

The Wengerd Report: AUGI forum posts go missing

by Owen Wengerd [This is the first time Owen Wengerd has written for WorldCAD Access, with plans to write more about user-oriented issues here. He'll continue writing about AutoCAD programming at his blog, Outside the Box. More about Mr Wengerd at http://otb.manusoft.com/about ] - - - Visitors to the revamped web site of AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) wouldn't know it from reading the glossy ad-adorned main page, but there's been trouble brewing. The official AUGI blog had proudly proclaimed that the new site will "contain more information than ever before," but it turns out that in fact the treasure... Read more →