Mike Puckett's Blog

Solidworks 2009 Beta Update

Last week I Mentioned that the Beta program for Solidworks 2009 had some activity.  I have received confirmation that an Alpha version is floating around among Solidworks employees already.  While there is no officially set date for the Beta program to launch, late May is what I was directly told.

So whats the best way to find out when the program will open, my advice would be to follow the Various Solidworks Blogs, as that normally tends to be the place where news 'breaks' first!

nVidia Contest Wrap-Ups...

At the last meeting of the Los Angeles area Solidworks User Group, we voted on, and announced the winner of the nVidia Quadro FX1700 that we were giving away.  There were a total of five submissions and the winning entry was top notch:

Chris McAndrew who is a project Manager for Ash Industries, was the winner of the contest and took home his brand new nVidia Quadro High End Graphics Card.  Also included in the prize package was a 3-D printing of the model graciously donated by Bill Craig from 3D Rapid Prototyping.  Here is Chris with the actual part he modeled, and his new card:

A couple of months ago I wrote about the NVArt Contest that nVidia was hosting.  The winners have been announced, and the submissions were outstanding to say the least.  You can see all the winners at this link.

I really want to thank both Bill Craig at 3d Rapid Prototyping, and Kelly Dove at nVidia for their participation in the contest, and for supplying such great prizes.  They help make Solidworks User Group meetings that much more fun!

Who Want's Solidworks 2009 ???

Well if you work for Solidworks, word has it you will be receiving your copy sometime next week.  So what about those of us not in the Solidworks inner-circle?  Well that same word has it that the beta program will launch in late May.  I will be sure to hunt down the answer when I arrive in Concord in a few weeks.  For those keeping score, thats about two months later than the beta release of 2008. 

So I will let everyone else chime in on why the time difference is, because there are quite a few of those in the black helicopter crowd who will undoubtedly start to muse as to why things are happening along the current time lines!  All I know is I can't wait to get my hands on all the new eagerly anticipated Solidworks 2009 Enhancements that are on the way!

Solidworks.com Gets a Facelift

You can chek out the all new look Here

Post #200

It all started back on February 21st 2007, and it's been a load of fun since.  I have been watching the post count for a while to see when I would hit #200, and here we are!

When I first started this last year, I had no clue it would grow to what it has, and I had no idea that I would have the opportunities that I have had along the way. 

Along the way there have been some pretty memorable moments.  Among them are:

Breaking the news of the Solidworks and Autodesk merger

Releasing graphics card info about SW 2008 from the Beta program, and not getting in trouble!

Counting down the 23 or so top reasons to attend Solidworks World 2008

Interviewing Lynn Allen at Solidworks World

Potentially getting myself uninvited to Solidworks World 2009 because of three pictures!

Posting 25 blogs in 4 days at Solidworks World 2008

Discovering that according to a CEO of another cad company that Solidworks wasn't parametric

Those are just a few of the highlights!

The blog has opened up lots of opportunities for me also.  Contacting many people at Solidworks at all levels is just an email away making it easy to get answers and find out about things readers want to know.  Having the ability to pass along what users tell me to the people at Solidworks is also a big advantage.

There are some people that I want to take a moment to thank for their help, professionalism, support, and all around input.

Patrick Cook who is in the Internet marketing department at Solidworks is the person responsible for all the behind the scenes technical stuff.  Without his expertise, I wouldn't have a profile picture, and you would still be finding me at some impossible to remember web address.  But more than that, he insures that all of the Solidworks supported blogs stay running like clockwork.

Richard Doyle who is the user group community manager is the inspiration for not only myself, but for many others to do what we do.  His passion for the community inspires a lot of the bloggers and user group leaders to do the best job we can.

Nancy Buchino and Laura Kosikowski from Solidworks PR who made my trip to Solidworks World 2008 the most memorable World to date.  Their tireless efforts insure that all the uppity press people have everything they need for those four days every year at World.

The Solidworks Blog Squad who spend their free time creating posts with information about using Solidworks better, running contests with cool prizes, and running online forums to help disseminate information.  Without these guys leading the way, I would have had no clue what to babble about here!

And finally most important, you the reader.  I know there are a few hundred of you that check in on a daily basis, and I thank you.  With out you, I would be talking to myself, and my cat. 

The future.  Well I guess that begins now.  In the immediate future, there are some very exciting things happening.  I will be conducting my very first official hardware review for Product Design & Development Magazine next month.  We will be heading out on the road yet again for work, most likely making our way to Oregon, Reno, and Norther California. 

Also next month is a very exciting trip I am taking back east.  I have been mentioning it from time to time, and now here are the details.  I have been invited to attend the Solidworks quarterly meeting at their headquarters in Concord Mass.  Not only that, I have been asked to speak in front of the employees at their meeting to discuss my experience with Solidworks.  Having the opportunity to address so many people from Solidworks and Dassult is exciting.  I thank them for giving me the opportunity, and I look forward to visiting next month.

So for now, that wraps up the 200th post on the blog.  Again, thanks for following along, and heres to the next 200!

Is It Time For SW 2008

Just a little over 7 months since its release, and over 2 months since the last significant service pack, has Solidworks 2008 finally come of age?  For our shop, we switched over as soon as the DVD's arrived in late September, and never looked back.  Along the way we had two bugs that really messed with us, and they were minor.  Those bugs were solved by service pack 3.0, but were never really significant enough to effect our work.  Granted we were prepared on all our workstations with graphics cards that were certified, and all of us had exposure to all the new features through the roll out presentations, and user group meetings.

Historically Solidworks usually reaches the 5.0 service pack level before the next release makes its way to the world.  So being that we haven't seen any service pack activity for a while, is it now time for the hold outs to join the ranks of those of us courageous enough to have already made the switch?

There are a lot of polls and informal surveys that a lot of blogs talk about, and there is also the 'official' migration number given out by Solidworks.  Neither one though give an accurate representation of whats really going on.  At Solidworks World, Solidworks C.E.O. Jeff Ray wouldn't divulge the number they had, but he seemed happy with whatever that value was.  I have no clue how they collect that information, but one obvious way would be to count the activations that are completed online.  The problem with that way of collecting information is that someone could simply install 2008, activate it, and then continue working in 2007 on the same machine using a side by side installation.

Informal polls on blogs, and surveys of members at user group meetings wont give you an accurate snap shot of whats going on either.  Who is answering those polls online?  How many times and from how many different computers are they voting from?  There simply aren't enough people attending user group meetings either to get a real accurate picture of migration to 2008.  If your meeting has 20 people in attendance, and only 5 have switched, is it fair to say 75% of Solidworks customers are still using 2007?

The problem with these polls, surveys, and press releases is that they can be skewed in any and every direction.  Heck, here in California in 2003 when the voters recalled the Governor, the day before the election, many polls had the recall failing by double digits, and everyone knows how that went.

So while personally I think you should have switched over back in October, when will the time be right?  In our case, there are way to many new features that simplify the way we do things in Solidworks to not be using 2008.  Is the software stable?  I would say so, but that depends on what you do.  Someone thats working with assemblies that contain hundreds of thousands of parts, is going to have a totally different experience than someone whose assemblies are less than 500 parts.  Solidworks, like just about every piece of software will never be finished, and thats a good thing.  Imagine if Solidworks 99 or 2003 was the final version.  Even if 2007 was the final version we would all be missing out on some great new features.

A lot of people would argue that Solidworks should just release one final version, and skip all the in between.  Now put that in perspective, how do you build a program that you can insure will work on every computer, is multiple languages, and being used for multiple industries?  Its impossible.

So if you are using 2007, and those 2008 DVD's are sitting there acting as a cup coaster, stick that DVD in, and never look back, I'm pretty sure you will be glad you did! 

Leaving New York

We have been in New York since early Saturday morning, and we have a had a productive, and fun trip.  Due to a scheduling issue, we ended up having two days to explore Manhattan.  In those two days we were able to visit Time Square, the World Trade Center, Wall Street, Staten Island Ferry, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and the museum of natural history.

Of all the places that we went, seeing the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center were the most memorable.  We rode the subway all kinds of places, ate in a few local pubs, and talked to some very interesting people.  As usual I took a ton of pictures which I would post, but I didn't bring the cable to connect my camera to my laptop!  No worries, we are heading home tonight to some much needed rest.  Next trip:  Early May heading back east once again.  Here is a hint: The city has the same name as a now retired passenger jet!

Pictures From Europe

We start our long trip home at 4:45am tomorrow morning after being here for a week. Today we took a boat up the Danube River to Bratislava which is the capital of the former Soviet state of Slovakia. Here are some pictures from the past week:

First off thanks to the people at Arburg Molding Machines for their hospitality:

This is the employee lunch room complete with cold beer on tap. They don't start pouring until 10:00 a.m. however!

Other than that, we were not really allowed to take pictures inside the factory. They are going to send me some press photos that I can upload later. Here is the view from my hotel room balcony:

This is a view down the street from our hotel:

On Saturday we took a day trip to Stuttgart which included a trip to the Mercedes Benz Museum:

After Germany we headed to Vienna Austria where we have been for the past few days:

The same church at night:

We were in Vienna to visit Wittmann Robots for a factory tour:

Today we headed to Slovakia to tour the city:

That's it for now, thanks for checking in.

 

Last Night In Deutchland

Well the wireless Internet at the hotel down the street finally came back online, and I am able to once again be connected!  It's funny how much of your life becomes dependent on the internet without even knowing it!  When I signed on, I only have about 15 emails from the past two days, but my RSS feed had 96 new items!

Anyhow, tonight is our last night in Germany, tomorrow morning we board a bus for Frankfurt airport, and then its on to Vienna Austria for 4 days.  Today we took a bus trip to the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, and then had diner with the entire U.S. group of attendees to this years event here in Germany.  We are here attending Technology Days at Arburg.  We are staying in a small mountain town named Baiersbronn.  Think of a local community of less then 2,000-3,000 and thats where we are.  The Tech days involve two whole days at their 1.5 million Sq Ft state of the art factory.  Each night they take us to dinner, and today was the tour to Stuttgart.  I have plenty of pictures from the Museum from today, and I will post some when I can get to them.

Vienna will be for work also as we are going to a robot manufacturer of robots that we are looking to use on some upcoming projects.  Being in Europe is fun, but home starts to sound awfully nice after a few days here.

Germany Travel Update

We have been here for a few days now, and it's a completely different world. The hotel we are staying at has no wireless, so that is why I have not been able to post anything. The factory we are at during the day has one public computer, and two Ethernet connections available to the over 3,500 attendees, so getting online time is hard! Not to worry, I am taking lots of pictures, and when we get to our hotel in Austria that has in room internet access, I can post some pictures. For now all I can say is the weather is nice, the women are gorgeous, and the beer is nice and cold!

Working On The Go

For anyone that travels for a living, you will know that work is never that far away no matter what country you are in. Such is the case this week. A month or so ago we completed some optical inserts for a customer. The product was an existing design, but the resulting optics from the molded part was barely acceptable. The design of the inserts was from a different tool maker. We had the opportunity to re-engineer the inserts to help fix the problem. Well after using Cosmos and FlowXpress to redesign the inserts, the parts we built produced optics that were more than twice as good as what was necessary. So now with optics that are better than any of their other products, we are being directed to quote and redesign the next product line for them. That means they need a quote right away, and the sales guy needs my input to see what is involved.

The customer sent us old 2D autocad drawings which is all they had. I was able to connect to the internet (not an easy task in the middle of the forest in Germany), and download the files. Being that I'm travelling with my 'throw away' laptop, I have no CAD software. So I went to the Solidworks site and downloaded eDrawings, and I was able to open and view the drawings. After determining that the change was feasible I sent an email back with my stated needs for time, and now we can deliver our quote to our customer in time. We are never too far away to still get stuff done!

Autodesk CEO Wins CAD Award?

Well it certainly wasn't an Oscar for his finger flashing performance detailed here.  It was an award for some eco-friendly stuff.  All I know is that the word society is mentioned over and over in the press release which usually translates to stuffy yawn inducing information, give me a minute while I pat myself on the back sort of stuff. Again, see the difference in C.E.O.'s from company to company?

Off To Europe

Well its about time to head to the airport for that long 12 hour flight to Germany (good thing I'm not Richard Doyle heading to India for a 20+ hour flight!).  Our schedule has us there untill Sunday and then we head to Vienna Austria for three days and arrive back here next Wednesday.  Then its a SW user group meeting on Thursday night, and on board a flight on Friday to head to New York for 4 days. 

The internet connection in Germany is limited at best, so I will try to get some pictures posted if possible.  Once in Vienna however we should be back in the connected world!

Los Angeles area Solidworks User Group To Hold Joint Meeting With Autocad Group...

Planning is underway for what will be the first ever joint user group meeting between the Los Angeles area Solidworks User Group, and the So Cal Autodesk User Group.  The meeting will take place in May.  Tentatively scheduled to speak in a joint tips and tricks session are Richard Doyle from Solidworks, and Lynn Allen from Autodesk.  Together they will show how using 2D and 3D together produces an emerging technology known only as 5D.  Scheduled to give opening remarks is Dr. Don Normam who will discuss his emotional journey to Solidworks World this year. 

Also planning to attend is Solidworks guru Matt Lombard who will be on hand to unveil his new 29 Volume set of Encyclopedia Solidworks Britannica which will be sold in your local supermarket for $29.95 with a new volume arriving each week.  Other topics to be covered are:

Photoworks: Make me a super hero.  Users will get the chance to take a 3D model of Rob Rodriguez and turn him into a super hero in photoworks.

Are you talking to me punk?: A how-to session on designing long range missiles, and the methods available to sell those designs on the black market by Ricky Jordan

PDM, what is it?: Devon Sowel will be on hand to reveal PDM actually stands for "production doesn't matter, and describe how simply throwing around big words, and terms will get you raises, and promotions.

Living in an electronic bubble: Josh Mings will show attendees how with a laptop and an Internet connection you too can find anything possible on the Internet including pet q-tips, and alarm clocks that will make you a cup of coffee all in the space of an organic display.

The final guest on hand will be Jeremey Luchini from Solidworks who will be on hand to showcase the newest Solidworks Certification test: C.S.W.P.A.L.I.K.H.T.L.T.P. (Certified Solidworks Professional At Least I Know How To Launch The Program)

The entire day will be video taped and produced onto dvd for all attendees by video master Ben Eadie of Solidmentor.  Ben is best known for inventing the next level of HD known as 60,876 PHI High Definition.  Rumor has it that at full resolution, the image can actually burn out your eye balls!

So join us for this fun filled day of activities, and don't forget to arrive early to register for your chance to win a Solidworks 8-track Walkman loaded with tons of Solidworks information!  If you aren't able to attend, be sure to join us at the website below for the live webcast feed produced by Patrick Cook who is setting up a process that will allow you to receive the feed on your internet enabled wrist watch!

Web Feed: www.happy-april-fools-day.com/.org/.net/.edu/.ca/.gov