WorldCAD Access

Live from Vectorworks Design Day in Vancouver Canada

Deep underground in Robson Square Prepping the skating rink at Robson Square, with steps leading up to the Vancouver Art Gallery Keynote Address Dr Biplab Sarkar, ceo of the Vectorworks company, flew here to Vancouver Canada to give the keynote address at Robson Square. Vectorworks Canada is three years old, and copies the modol of Vectorworks Great Britain. He gave unusually detailed sales figures, such as selling approximately 20,000 new licenses a year. (I am interpolating off graphs). In Canada, the company has about 140,000 users, with Vectorworks Canada selling around 350 licenses a year and roughly $3 million annually,... Read more →

Ark vs Matidor

The clearcut is murky Law suits between companies accusing the other of stealing technology are not uncommon. I’ve been involved in a couple of them as an expert consultant, such as Intergraph suing HP over using CPUs containing technology that the courts had earlier found had been stolen by Intel; a refrigeration company suing a startup after an employee left with DWG files; and so on. In all cases, the offending party apologizes, or is found guilty and/or pays monetary compensation. Here’s a story that goes one step further: it asks whether industry recognition ought to be stripped from the... Read more →

Why Creo Is Unlikely To Be PTC’s Next Onshape

Melt the boat I've made the statement that I doubt PTC will be able to turn all of Creo into an Onshape-like online app, as executives have been telling financial analysts. PTC spent over half-a-billion dollars buying Onshape from venture capitalists who had funded the ex-Solidworks staff who programmed it, and a few short years ago promised an Onshape-like version of Creo in five to ten years. We’ll see. In recent conference calls, PTC execs stopped talking about Project Atlas. Autodesk has, after all, been plugging away at the problem for more than a decade, starting when it bought a... Read more →

Q&A from ODA Summit 2022

Live on the desktop The Open Design Alliance held its annual conference this year online again, and during it attendees asked questions, which I reproduce here. You can watch the replay of the event at youtube.com/watch?v=6P93f4IVZJA&t=3266s. A few days later, I interviewed ODA president Neil Peterson. Here are the two Q&As. - - - Q: Will we be able to join [two or more] IFC [industry foundation classes] models in order to have a [single] federated IFC model? A: Federated models are planned for later this year. Q: Does the Scan-To-BIM roadmap includes the generation of cloud points using photogrammetry?... Read more →

Twitteratti Dump On Horizon

Metaverse eats Facebook Facebook is spending ten billion dollars a year developing its VR environment. Now, it turns out, its own staff won't use it barely: “For many of us, we don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly,” wrote Meta vp of Metaverse Vishal Shah. Here are some of the best reactions to the statement from the Twitterverse. - - - Alex Heath (@alexeheath): Meta's flagship metaverse app Horizon is too buggy and barely used by the employees building it, per leaked internal memos from last month I obtained. theverge.com/2022/10/6/23391895/meta-facebook-horizon-worlds-vr-social-network-too-buggy-leaked-memo Will Oremus... Read more →

October Update From Inside Russia

Slowly switching over Helicopter designed with T-Flex CAD from Top Systems Getting information about the current state of the CAD industry in Russia is somewhat delicate, as the Russian government jails those it thinks have been talking negatively about its war against Ukraine. My contacts there won't speak; when they do, only in positive generalities. I’ve gleaned additional bits of info this month from the isicad CAD news site, from business and politics daily Kommersant, and from an anonymous contact. Replacing Autodesk Following Autodesk closing its office in Russia, “licenses have not been updated or sold since the end of... Read more →

What Happens When You Get That Letter from Autodesk

EULA on the attack When it launched AutoCAD, Autodesk was lauded for the cheap price ($1,000), the ability to run on many different kinds of personal computers, and being customizable -- rare at a time when traditional CAD software could cost $100,000 a seat, ran on proprietary hardware, and could not be customized by users. Also, making copies of it was easy. So with version 2.5 in 1986, Autodesk began its decades-long (and unsuccessful) crackdown on copying by initially adding a hardware lock. The lockdown was a near-instant disaster, as (1) the hardware made it difficult to print drawings (due... Read more →

What it's like to use a $200 Chromebook

$150 cheaper than 11 years ago For the most part, the tech media ignores Chromebooks, given their obsession primarily for products whose names start with i or Mac. In contrast, I've been continually amazed by the high-end Chromebook I've been using for three years now, the Acer Spin 13 with its metal body and fast CPU. The icing on the cake for ChromeOS is its ability to run Android apps, which is a significant advantage Microsoft is trying to copy but makes less sense in the Windows environment. (I had bought the very first Chromebook by Samsung a decade ago,... Read more →

What's happening with Vectorworks 2023

Shipping in September Perhaps the biggest -- and saddest -- surprise from yesterday's interview with Vectorworks CEO Dr Biplab Sarkar is the news that the company is switching to selling only subscriptions to customers, as of January 2023, in English-speaking countries. If you have a permanent license, it'll keep working as long as your computer's operating systems supports it, either on Windows or MacOS. When I suggested that permanent licenses are an advantageous marketing tactic, Mr Sarkar agreed that Vectorworks also used to promote that, but that it is easier on their back office system to deal with just one... Read more →

Why Tech Companies Sell Complex Ideas

CAD isn't a cell phone, yet In his DeZign Stuff blog, Matt Lombard explains why we can't understand the marketing jargon of some CAD vendors (*koff*Dassault*koff*). The tl;dr explanation is that these companies aren't marketing to end-users but to upper management. Read his article here, please: https://dezignstuff.com/why-technology-companies-have-a-hard-time-selling-complex-ideas. It’s certainly always fascinating for me to watch the blank looks of Solidworks users at Solidworks World 3dexperience World as Dassault execs ask in vain for applause for their high-level pronouncements. If they were politicians, they might be tempted to ask for a better class of attendee. Mr Lombard mentions how terminals-attached-to-mainframes fell... Read more →

Twitteratti dunk on Zukerberg's interpretation of France

Non, non When Facebook-Meta yesterday expanded its metaverse with cartoon versions of France's Eiffel tower and Spain's Basílica de la Sagrada Família, people pounced. Here I collected some of the best tweets: @ordinarytings: Mark Zuckerberg launches Horizon Worlds in France and Spain with an eye-gougingly ugly VR selfie. Meta's metaverse ploy is surely dying in the dark. Steve Kovach (@stevekovach): This literally cost $10 billion. Michael Gartenberg (@gartenberg): There's a reason why people call Zuckerberg a two dimensional character. Robert Evans (@iwriteok): Tragic that every airline and tourist economy in the world is about to collapse now that Facebook has... Read more →

Dassault Explains Solidworks’ Q2 Drop in Sales

Not all China's fault Sales of Solidworks fell in Q2 of 2022, which is an unusual event for Dassault Systemes. Here to explain it is an executive from Dassault, who spoke during the company’s quarterly conference call with financial analysts. The text has been edited for clarity and brevity. - - - Q: Was the Q2 drop in new Solidworks CAD licenses due mostly due to China? A: Yes, you're right. But something [else] happened this year, as you may know we increased prices. It was aligned in some countries with the level of inflation. Many of our resellers anticipated... Read more →

How my Dell Inspiron is doing, 16 months later

Quirks and good stuff I'm pleased to report that for the most part, the Inspiron 7405 2n1 laptop I bought 16 months ago for $1,100 has been proving its worth. "Inspiron" is the third level of laptop, so not top-end. Dell's caste system is XPS at the top end, followed by Latitude, then Inspiron. "2n1" means it has the 360-degree hinge, so it can transform into a tablet. I got mine in the dark-brown color, which looks pretty nice and is pretty different from everyone else's. Basic specs are... 14" touch screen with narrow bezels 2.0HGz - 4.2GHz 8-core Radeon... Read more →

PTC Feels Good Leaving China

PTC ceo James Heppelmann explains how his company came to have a lowered profile in China. He was responding to a question during PTC's quarterly conference call with financial analysts. I’ve edited the text slightly for clarity. The original transcript can be read at Seeking Alpha: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4526704-ptc-inc-ptc-ceo-jim-heppelmann-on-q3-2022-results-earnings-call-transcript. - - - James Heppelmann: I think the key thing in China to know, if you don’t know this now, is it’s now 5% of our business. So we have very little exposure. It had previously been as high as 7% or 8%. But when President Trump was in the office, he went... Read more →

The Twitteratti snarks on Facebook's revenue decline

Even Walmart is down this quarter @devilslayer1802: This is the first time EVER Facebook has had a quarter year-on-year revenue decline. Anthony DeRosa / @anthony: Facebook parent Meta posted its biggest drop in daily users and its first decline in revenue as the company struggles to adjust to macroeconomic forces and growing competition from rival TikTok. @infographx: Gen Z is literally ditching all the other social apps, except TikTok. Chaotic Goode / @laurengoode: “Meta shares have lost about half their value since beginning of the year, underscoring investor concern about the health of the co's advertising business. That unit has... Read more →

The State of the Smartphone

Peaked and plateaued I was thinking the other day that I should get a spare smartphone, just in case mine gets crushed, disabled, or lost. I’d want to be back in business the same day. Looking around for a spare, I came to the realization that smartphones had peaked back in 2019. That year, CPU speed plateaued at just under 3GHz. Since then the emphasis has been on non-phone functions like cameras, software that processes photographs, and screens that fold. I got the idea for a modern spare from reading about the low launch price for the newest phone from... Read more →

Canada proves the folly of single-source tech

Rogers goes oopsie In July, the entire Rogers system collapsed for a day. Rogers in Canada forms an oligopoly in communications services, along with Telus and Bell -- landline telephone, cell phone, cable tv, Internet access, and commercial data flows. People who were signed up with Rogers could not phone 911 to access emergency services or get work done remotely or text their friends. The outage impacted the economy, as stores could process no debit card transactions and in some cases not process credit cards either. Some hospitals were reduced to contacting staff by announcements made through local AM radio... Read more →

Life of Pei

Encore Carl Pei is the antithesis of Steve Jobs. Both are/were brilliant at marketing, but whereas Jobs told his customers what they would get from Apple, Pei asked them, nicely. He did such a good job at guerrilla marketing that to this day there still are tech journalists who think of OnePlus as a plucky indie smartphone shop. It's not. OnePlus is a brand of Chinese giant BKK Electronics, which sells smartphones and other electronics under brand names like Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Imoo, and iQOO. Combined, it is the second largest seller of phones in the world, after Samsung. (As... Read more →

Achieving my three goals

Three out of three In my late teens or early 20s, I came up with three goals, as I looked ahead to my life post-university. Maybe it was because goals and such were trendy at the time, but after some reflection it came to me that my three goals were Become a millionaire (a.k.a. be independently wealthy) Own my own radio station Be the world's best-known transportation engineer Disparate yes, but reflecting my state in the late 1970s. At the time, I aimed to become a transportation engineer, and so was working my way through engineering at the University of... Read more →

Scanning Old Film Slides

Slide'n scan After I bought my own 35mm SLR camera in 1976 (a Minolta XE-7), I made the fortuitous discovery that our local major pharmacy chain sold 24-exposure slide film for just $3, processing included. That was so cheap that I went on a photography binge with my new camera, and to this day I have a filing cabinet box filled with plastic boxes holding 24 and 36 slides. How to digitize them? While my kids were still young, I paid them 10 cents a slide to run them through an Epson flatbed scanner. It could hold six at a... Read more →

Benchmarking the M1 vs Pentium

Slowing, slower There was a lot of hype generated by Apple's marketing department and echo'ed by the in-love-with-Apple tech media over its new in-house CPU, the M1. The specs were so amazing that excitement ran high over what subsequent CPUs would be able to do, M2, et al. To infinity and beyond, to quote a cartoon character. I was relieved to hear it would be amazing. The first Mac mini I bought was pretty good. (See figure at left.) It still had all the accouterments that Apple, in its need for every higher profits, stripped out of subsequent models: DVD... Read more →

Solving Eudora's June 2022 problem with GMail

Double authentication Google in June 2022 increased the security level needed to access its Gmail service, and as a result some Eudora email users can no longer access their accounts that run through Gmail, such as the Telus and Shaw ISPs in Canada. The error message may read similar to this one: ERR [AUTH] Username and password not accepted. The error message tells us that Eudora has a problem with authenticating who you are to Gmail, and that the username and password are unacceptable to Google. Google had been warning that this would be occurring, but it is not always... Read more →

I don't like Bluetooth earbuds but this Soundcore model I do like

Life A2 NC My ears are not suited to earbuds. The internal shape of them causes earbuds to slowly slide out. So I look for models with earwings to fit behind my ears' antitargus, which keeps earbuds in place. But this style of headphone is rare. I don't like Bluetooth headphones. The BT spec requires added compression to the music being wirelessly transmitted over the relatively slow data link. And it's always more annoying to connect a Bluetooth headphone than just plugging in a wired one, whether to the audio or USB-C connectors. Nevertheless, going wireless is convenient in some... Read more →

How to Decode Android WiFi Password QR Codes

Plain as day I was faced with the problem of my Windows laptop not connecting to a relative's WiFi. He had given me the password to my Android phone through QR code, and that worked. But when I typed in the password he gave me into my Windows laptop, the router refused to allow it. Andorid normally hides WiFi passwords with texts that reads "(unchanged)". I wondered if I could get the password from the QR code, translating the array of small squares into English. I could. Here's how. This method uses a second Android phone: On the Android phone... Read more →

Spatial's 3D Insider's Summit conference 2022

Live from Munich Alright, here we are in Munich, my first trip overseas in 2.5 years. For a decade or two, it was normal for me to commute to Europe and other fascinating places in the world several times a year. Heck, I timed my shopping trips in Europe to replenish those things that aren't available or are more expensive in North America. So, I am in Munich for the Dassault Systems Spatial conference, while most of the rest of the CAD media is in Detroit. Dassault Systemes (Spatial) and arch-rival Siemens planned conferences for the same day, coincidence, I... Read more →

Practical Help for Ukraine

Mission Without Borders Back in upFront.eZine issue #1,126, I wrote... "If you would like to donate to an agency that has already been helping people in Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania for decades now (“boots on the ground”), and which upFront.eZine supports annually, then I would like to suggest Mission Without Borders at mwbca.org/ukraine. We did. Donations are used to provide emergency aid and food packages for people in eastern Ukraine. (Tax receipts available for Canadian donors only.)" Late last week, Mission Without Borders provided this update on their activities in the area: Inside Ukraine: Our Mission Without Borders team in... Read more →

I found an international debit card

Killing the exchange rate The only benefit to the EU was its original function: a single currency for many countries. Never mind that my German relatives were disgusted by stores switching DM to Euros, leaving the numbers unchanged, meaning everything doubled in price, overnight. For us non-European travelers, having a single currency is so-o-o convenient. Unless, of course, we also went to England. Or to Switzerland. Or to Sweden... Over the years, I employed a variety of ways to pay for things with our Canadian dollars in Europe: American Express travelers cheques -- remember those? Withdrawing Euro cash from European... Read more →

Why we love not flying

It is Cancel culture, but in the real world With all my international travel over the decades, we actually got to the point we were planning shopping trips in Germany: "No point buying it here [in Canada], we'll get it next time we're in Germany." Then the WHO shut down the world, but after 2.5 years we are finally booked for Germany again. Quite frankly, as much as we love travelling overseas, we found not-flying a rather pleasant experience. But, as we have family in Europe, it was time to see them again. When it comes to flying across oceans,... Read more →

Update 3: The Impact of CAD Vendors Leaving Russia

Cold War II CAD vendors who are shutting down their businesses in Russia (that I know about, so far): Autodesk PTC Siemens Graphisoft Dassault Systemes Altair Nemetschek Group Hexagon AVEVA SAP As well, these twenty 3D manufacturing firms and publications: 3dprintingindustry.com/news/the-additive-manufacturing-industry-supports-the-security-and-foreign-policy-course-of-the-german-federal-government-european-union-and-nato-205472. For its part, Nemetschek Group is doing the following actions: Organizing visas for local employees Providing refugee housing Donation matching for the humanitarian crisis in the Ukraine Suspending new business in Russia Suspending existing business with sanctioned individuals and organizations for the time being Update 3 (Apr 27/22): We had indications that CAD vendors do not get a lot... Read more →

Apple dangles Facebook

Live by the ad, die by the ad Facebook was this week kneecapped for being a one-trick revenue pony in pretty much only selling ads based on skifing (local slang for taking things without permission) our personal details. Facebook's underwhelming financial report was due to Apple increasing privacy in its products, making Facebook less attractive to ad agencies. One estimate* is that 70% of the loss of ad revenue was due to Apple's hardening of privacy, which, over time, Apple will make more stringent. And so for Facebook, this will not be a one-time drop, which the stock market noted... Read more →

Best tweets on Zucker's recent disinvolvement

Cuomo blast radius (@benyt) As the head of CNN leaves the network following a sexual relationship scandal, Twitter voiced its opinion: "Breaking news from the Caligula News Network. CNN could completely solve their ratings problem by turning their studio cameras 180 degrees in the opposite direction." - @iowahawkblog "Over the last year, CNN has made more news than they have reported." - @KateHydeNY "Jeffery Toobin is the only person at CNN that keeps his hands to himself" - @Richard_Harambe "congratulations to jeff zucker for his new show on CNN+" - @SaysSimonson "CNN blames Russia for Zucker's illicit relationship" - @zerohedge... Read more →

Driver-less taxis isn't a problem needing solving

Dystopia through technology We used to have two young men riding the back of the garbage truck roaring down our street once a week. They threw off the lids, grabbed the cans, hurled the contents into the back of the truck, and back onto our driveways again -- in a smooth fluid motion that was a joy to watch. On special occasions, like Christmas or April Fools, they'd wear funny hats, and always give a cheery hello to onlookers. Sometime they'd stack the empty cans in artistic ways. Then the city went automatic. Garbage trucks are outfitted with claw-like devices... Read more →

Why people left the workforce

Rat race status: no longer normal One of the puzzles of our era is over the large numbers of people who didn't go back to work. As someone who was laid off (during a recession in 1984) and quit a regular job (to become self-employed in 1991), I find the puzzle fascinating. Of those not returning to the workforce following the Great Coronavirus Lockdown of 2020 Why did they not go back? What are they doing instead? - - - GCL'20 was a disrupter, an event in history so significant that it dramatically changed human behavior for good: what once... Read more →

When the replacement SSD won't boot

Time to panic! Over the years, I've switched all our computers and laptops to solid state drives (SSD), after discovering just how fast they are compared to regular hard disk drives (HDD). The process is simple, usually: 1. Use software or hardware to clone the content of the old drive to the new one. The cloning process makes an exact copy of everything, including the operating system. You pay for cloning software or get it free, such as Macrium Reflect Free. Cloning hardware is a device that holds two drives, and clones the content from one to the other; see... Read more →

About this 80% keyboard

Clacking is the best typing The IBM Selectric typewriter was the Bugatti of typewriters. It was heavy (so it wouldn't bounce around or be stolen easily by employees), it struck the paper with a single ball (so it couldn't jam; see figure at left), and the keyboard was lux. You just felt good typing on it, it attained 75% of the office typewriter market, and it became the standard for the clacky keyboard shipped with the original IBM PC. Most computer keyboards today, however, are mushy. And so it was with great joy that a reader a few years ago... Read more →

The reality of homelessness in cold weather

Only as grim as the media wants to portray it The CBC headline "Homeless people left to fend for themselves amid extreme-cold warning, advocates say" is not warranted by the content of the article. The writer seems to confuse people who don't/can't live inside four walls year-around, with the number of cold weather beds. I volunteer at a cold weather shelter in our downtown, and it is never full. We have room for 30 men and women, and on the coldest nights of last week (wind chill down to -26C/-15F), we had at most about 25 places filled -- even... Read more →

How to make a smartwatch last a week

Don't buy Apple. Or Google. My first smartwatch was the first smartwatch to look like today's, the LiveView put out by Sony in 2010 (battery life 4 days). It was appalling, and I soon gave up on it. Next was the Nike Fuelband in 2012 (battery life also 4 days), one of the first fitness trackers -- handed out by Autodesk marketing to us members of the press for free -- whose rubberized (and unswitchable) band irritated my skin. Then came the winner, the Pebble Steel. Its claim to fame was to use digital paper for its display, so that... Read more →

When your Logitech mouse won't connect

Press real hard So in an earlier post I waxed eloquent about mice from Logitech that handle two (such as the M585) or three computers (the M720). In my case, these mice are ideal as I have a Mac Mini that shares an ultrawide monitor with my Dell laptop. One mouse for two computers. However, in the last week, I've not been able to get the mice to work with either computer -- neither with the transmitter or by Bluetooth. Lots of generic advice out there that is really unhelpful ("Try turning on Bluetooth") or downright dangerous ("Erase this file...").... Read more →

Working with a multi-computer mouse

One, two, and three Logitech has several mice that work with more than one computer. To use the two-computer mouse, you plug the transmitter dongle into one computer, and set up the second computer with Bluetooth. Then, you press the 1-2 button on the mouse to switch between them. Button 1 relates to the dongle, button 2 to the computer with the Bluetooth connection. The Logitech M585 is a mouse like that. I was able to set it up for a Windows laptop and an M1 Mac Mini. Logitech M585 mouse for use with two computers Another mouse handles three... Read more →

Using your iPad as a portable second monitor for Windows

Luna does it The folks at AstroPad figured out how to make an iPad a second monitor for Macs, wirelessly, with the Luna dongle. Then Apple did a nasty by integrating the tech into MacOS, leaving AstroPad scrambling. What Apple taketh away, Microsoft giveth. Luna still works with Macs and iPads (such as a display for a Mac Mini), and now works with Windows computers and iPads. I bought one of the magenta-colored dongles at the launch sale price of $100 -- the USB-C model. Probably expensive, but I figured I was supporting a scrappy developer done bad by Apple.... Read more →

How much does a mouse cost?

$40, or $487 (with free shipping) Of all the hardware I use in my job as a freelance writer, it's the mouse that gets worn out the most often. I thought I'd stock up on some spare ones, and came across an intriguing model from Logitech on the Best Buy Canada Web site. The M720 is both wireless (using the Logitech dongle) and Bluetooth. I liked that, because I prefer using the dongle for speed, and Bluetooth is there for when the laptop runs out of available USB ports (happens to me sometimes). In addition, it works with up to... Read more →

Why you might want to make that next CD an MP3

LP CDs These days I purchase most of my music from iTunes. I don't like rewarding Apple with 30% of the musician's pay, but... When we here in Canada want to be legit in our music acquisition and reward musicians for their hard work, we have little choice when it comes to downloading tunes. After downloading a new album, I burn it to a CD. To do this in iTunes, you need to make a playlist of the downloaded music, right-click the playlist name, and then choose Burn to CD. I burn new albums to CDs because of the visceral... Read more →

Sandboxing: How to test unfamiliar software securely

Sandboxing Windows Sometimes I need to test new software or I am looking for a utility program to handle a task, say, converting the formats of audio files. Reviews are no longer reliable, so it is a matter of downloading a bunch and try them out. How unreliable are reviews? On Amazon, reviews can appear from customers who were paid $10 by the seller to write a positive one. Software companies buy up review sites to maintain a facade of neutrality, or else write blogs that mention no negatives of their own products. Product descriptions themselves can be misleading, such... Read more →

How to get Eudora running on Windows 10 real quick

Copy'n paste I had been hanging onto my 11-year-old Windows 7 desktop, because I couldn't get one of my most important programs -- Eudora -- running on Windows 8 and so assumed it wouldn't work on Windows 10. But then I heard from people that Eudora does work on Windows 10. Yesterday, I made it work, and it was laughably easy. But keep in mind, it involves this prep work: Make sure that Eurdora is running on your older computer with the latest patches, as I describe in How to make Eudora 7 work with Gmail servers at https://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2020/12/making-eudora-7-work-with-gmail-servers.html Here... Read more →

Online Conference Burnout

The more we get the less we want Attending CAD conferences in-person is a costly affair. There is the $$$-cost, which can amount to thousands of dollars for something lasting just a couple of days; and there is the time-cost of being away from productive work. Never mind the cost to the body from jet lag (twice, once each way!), food poisoning (happened to me at a hotel in Disney World), trudging for miles from hotel room to conference center, whether within a Las Vegas monster hotel or in new city, losing a laptop (in Stockholm), waiting days on lost... Read more →

Updated: Solved: Why the new Mac Mini Won't Work With an Ultrawide Monitor

...and how to fix the problem This article has been updated with corrections and new information, thanks to readers ZinZ and infeeee. Second update: An article in The Register explains the reason these computers have resolution problems is because of a shortcut Apple took to rush out its new hardware: "ARM-based Macs use graphics driver code based on iOS and iPad OS, which do not need to support that many displays." Read the full article here: theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/ A few weeks ago, I got the CB3 ultrawide monitor from Acer. It is gloriously 32" wide and makes my video tutorials (of... Read more →

In Which I Explain Media’s Confusion Re: Facebook

Not vis a vis The tech media is salivating over Facebook's latest public relations disaster, and has much to say on the matter. Some are, however, puzzled by Facebook's machinations, and so to them I offer explanations. - - - Matthew Yglesias asks, “It is a little odd that Facebook would bother to research whether or not their product is harmful given that the answer obviously isn't going to alter their decision-making. What was the point?” Me: It is a tactic to get ahead of the critics. If Facebook knows the flaws of in its product (as tobacco companies did),... Read more →

Using Asynchronous Communication in CAD

Guest editorial by Cedric Desbordes More than any other DWG vendor, Graebert of Germany has done more to connect the primary design platforms with one another -- desktop/laptop on Linux/Mac/Windows; tablet/phone on Android/iOS; and Web browsers. The name of the company may not be familiar to you, as they tend to sell white label CAD. Companies like Corel, Dassault Systems, and Onshape use Graebert's "ARES" code for their DWG editors. Here, business development manager Cedric Desbordes describes how this trifecta of CAD platforms is useful for today's WFH environment. Asynchronous communication means that all parties don't have to be online... Read more →

The best reactions to Facebook's new surveillance sunglasses

All Your Face Are Belong to Facebook I once met the head of a design firm for lunch. As we headed out, he showed me what had just arrived in the mail for him. He was pretty excited about the pen with its built-in camera. He took it with us as we walked to the restaurant, looking around for what to photograph. I think he began to realize that pointing a pen repeatedly at people was a bit weird-looking. During lunch, the pen rested awkwardly between us. Google Glasses failed. Snapshat Spectacles failed. And now Facebook has its surveillance technology... Read more →

My 137 ebooks & 233 training videos

The List, part ii These are the 137 ebooks I worked on beginning in 2002 and going through to 2020, an average of seven per year. Many of these can be purchased from https://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/ebooksonline/. When added to my 108 print books, that represents 245 books in 31 years. The advantage of ebooks over print books is that I eliminate the publisher and make 97% of the cover price of a book. The publisher typically handles editing, printing, distribution, and marketing -- in exchange for paying me an average of 7% of the cover price. How I Began in eBooks I... Read more →