RobiNZ CAD Blog

iPhone sync to iTunes, no, no, no, yes! No

This solution from Get Satisfaction worked for me. I had a total refusal to sync until some direct to phone downloaded podcasts were deleted.

my iPhone won't sync to iTunes - getsatisfaction.com

In the end my issue was related to podcasts that I downloaded directly to the iPhone. This created a glitch of some sort. Once we removed the podcasts then the iPhone would be recognised in iTunes and would sync.

My iPhone then sync'd successfully, wirelessly even, for about 3 days before the inevitable iTunes Sync Error.

Apple iTunes, it just doesn’t work!

Heidi missing? But I can see her!

My desktop background is a random selection from my Flickr photos and changes hourly. Today I ’switched users’ to another account, to check something, and upon returning to my original logon found this AutoCAD error dialog.

Perhaps you have to be an AutoCAD Insider to know why I found the message + current desktop image amusing. The fix was as simple AutoCAD restart.

On Shaan’s 14 Years at Autodesk

Seeing Shaan’s post & photo montage celebrating his Autodesk anniversary also brought back many memories for me. Curiously I’ve also been at TWL about 14 years, also having previously spent 3 years max in a role, so can relate to how that feels.

14 Years 98 in Dog Years - Between the Lines

Today marks my 14th year with Autodesk. I really never thought when joining Autodesk back in 1998 I would be here 14 years later…

I don’t remember when I first ‘met’, virtually, Shaan but it must have been a not long after he started at Autodesk through his beta role. I suspect many outside that world really got to know Shaan after he started blogging in 2003. My blogging was inspired by Shaan and many of my bloggie experiences have been supported by him. For that, and the chance to meet him in person, I’m truly grateful. Of my many Shaan photos I think this captures his mix of dedication, adventure and geekness:

This is not your typical tourist - RobiNZ CAD Blog (2006)

If you visit the world famous (in New Zealand) Huka Falls you’ll see lots of tourists. Typically they will have a camera, maybe a camcorder, but it’s rather unlikely they will also be blogging with a Blackberry…

I spent the weekend showing Shaan Hurley, Autodesk Blogger, part of the North Island (between Auckland – Taupo) and snapped him blogging from Huka Falls.

Congratulations on the anniversary Shaan, may there be many more.

2011 Blogging Highlights

Wow, where did 2011 go? It seems like the months flew past like weeks and now its nearly 2012. Time, just, to look back at the past year from a (not just CAD) bloggie perspective:

Best Blog Event:

Autodesk University is always an awesome event, a chance to meet fellow bloggers and readers. However, this year I was impressed with a couple of local events hosted by AEC Systems & Salesoft CAD Solutions. Although the format differed both featured applications (mostly Autodesk 2012), customer stories with and a chance for the local CAD community to mix. It gave Kiwis who cant get to AU (which is a big commitment) a taste of what they are missing

Best Comment:

I didn't pick one this year but appreciate seeing the likes of Guy Robinson, Scott Sheppard, Phil Bernstein, Shaan Hurley, Lynn Allen & Earl Kubaskie contributing. I don't get many real comments (you should see all the spam TypePad handles) but appreciate them all.

Best Podcast:

I only recently discovered Oh No, Ross & Carrie! They are L.A. based and investigate topics of interest to skeptics by experiencing them. The resulting podcasts are entertaining, informative and thought provoking.

Oh No, Ross and Carrie! - www.ohnopodcast.com

Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on spirituality, fringe science and the paranormal (from a scientific, evidence-based standpoint), but dive right in by joining religions, attending spiritual events, undergoing “alternative” treatments, partaking in paranormal investigations, and more. At Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, we show up, so you don’t have to.

Biggest Surprise?

A few of my AU 2010 images were used by other publications but I was very happy to have this photo, taken in Sydney on the way to AU, appear on the July 2011 AUGIWorld Cover.

    

Busiest Month:

March was the busiest month but only marginally as traffic was pretty constant over the year. One milestone (kilometrestone?) was seeing the millionth page view on my CAD Blog. In fact my CAD & Personal blogs are approaching 1.4 Million page views. If you told me that when I started back in 2004 I wouldn't have believed it could ever happen. Its been an amazing and surprising journey.

Blog Related Concern:

Sadly it is SAYmedia.com. Videoegg acquired TypePad’s parent company Six Apart in 2010 forming “SAY Media”. While they promised to maintain and enhance TypePad there hasn’t been much sign of enhancement. I have no problems with the service, performance and support but would like to see more development. TypePad is getting pretty stale with little change to the tools (other than templates). After they shut down Vox I had hoped to see some of its media features (integration and galleries) appear in TypePad but no sign of that yet.

Best Blog Tool:

After considering getting an iPad I opted for a netbook and have been very happy with it. The main reason is it fits into my Windows based workflow. Posts are composed in Live Writer, local drafts and resources are sync'd between my desktop & netbook with Live Mesh and have all my ActiveWords for folder shortcuts, web navigation and text substitution.

It means “heavy” stuff like cad screenshots, screen recording can be done on the desktop, with posts composed there or on the netbook. You could do this with cloud based storage but the Live Mesh local/cloud mix means offline writing is no problem. I wrote some of my AU posts on the aircraft over the Pacific far from a web connection!

After looking at HP, Toshiba & Acer I went for a Samsung NC110 machine. They were similar but the main reason was it came with 2GB ram (vs. 1GB) and I liked the keyboard action & layout. I used it, in combination with my iPhone, at Autodesk University and found the performance and battery life (up to 10 hours real world) more than adequate.

“Doh!” of the year:

Some may think it was the 8.16 launch but for me it was an AutoCAD 2012 feature and the resulting post. I nearly, very nearly, submitted a bug report related to the AutoCAD text window missing scroll bars which were there!

Happy New Year!

Thanks for visiting, reading and coming back. Happy New Year, lets see what 2012 brings!

 

Boring Blog Stats (for me!)

TypePad Community: 74 [74] Following | 153 [106] Followers          [ ] = 2010 figures

Twitter: 356 [281] Following* | 981 [824] Followers | 93 [88] Listed
* I’m also following another 1,200 or so just using lists.

RobiNZ CAD Blog

Posts: 1899 [1811] | Comments: 1515 [1440] | Pages: 8 [8]

Page Views: Total: 1,043,433 [906,273] | Average Per Day: 369.36 [368.10]

FeedBurner Subscribers: 6567 [4023]

Most Popular Post from 2011: AutoCAD Stacked Dimension Override Text – Popular in spite of the new AutoCAD 2012 dimension text editor making the old cheat codes history.

Most visited post of 2011 was from 2008: Revit and AutoCAD's Visual Styles - A SketchUp alternative? – Same as last year, still no idea why although I wonder if all the product names in the title pick up lots of searches?

RobiNZ Personal Blog

Posts: 1858 [1777] | Comments: 965 [921]

Page Views: Total: 340,827 [294,119] | Average Per Day: 136.99 [138.41]

FeedBurner Subscribers: 109 [158]

Most Popular Post from 2011: The Ferrari Pinin Sedan Concept Car for sale (without my interior) – An old concept car sale and my old school project got a few views.

Most visited post of 2011 was from 2005: Auckland City for Microsoft Flight Simulator - Real New Zealand – Same as last year. Again it’s either lots of Flightsim fans or, more likely, searches because of the Auckland City/Super City elections.

Happy Holidays, and a new Blog Banner

One of the stranger aspects of attending Autodesk University, with its early December timing, is seeing the Casino decorations. They deploy most of the traditional Christmas themes without actually mentioning it. Although fabulous the idea of “Christmas” in Vegas, even the “Happy Holidays” version, seems rather strange given it’s usual reputation! Anyway, a shot from the Bellagio lobby (below) makes for an interesting banner.

After a hectic year, especially since getting back from AU, it will be good to relax a bit, enjoy the summer weather and get a chance to finish some of those posts lurking in the draft folder.

Happy Holidays readers, enjoy your break (if you get one) and thanks for visiting!

 

PS: You may have heard the poor folks in Christchurch had another round of major earthquakes today. Awful experience but glad to report AFAIK that family, friends and colleagues in the area all ok. The Warehouse Limited are posting updates to the Earthquake page on the website. A page we all hoped would never be needed again.

Autodesk University 2011 Day 3 – The art inside design #AU2011

My Day 3 began with a session by Autodesk’s Guillermo Melantoni’s. “Show Me the Money: Impress Your Customers with Great Presentations“ was a great introduction to applying Autodesk Showcase to AEC presentation. As I own/use a Building Design Suite with Showcase it was very relevant as I’ve only had time to play a little with sample files. Guillermo’s class gave me plenty of techniques to try and inspiration to do it!

“Adopting Lean Processes in BIM” was a presentation on the application of project and process management techniques to a BIM project. It was an interesting approach based on management techniques more often seen in industrial or IT projects.

A meeting meant I missed the mass AU lunch so I set out to find some of my own. Desire for coffee which tastes like coffee took me back to the Ily shop in the Palazzo. It was also a great chance to catch up with Phil Read, and later Lynn Allen who I met while wandering the halls between sessions.

My afternoon resumed  with Pixar Designer Jay Shuster’s session: Life in the Art Department. It was a brilliant tour of his career, work and an insight into the creative design process in movies like Cars. Although an accomplished analog artist Jay now uses Sketchbook Pro on a convertible tablet PC for his design work. He mentioned having an iPad but specifically not using it for production work. I loved his drawing style, mostly monotone sketches and found it reminiscent of Syd Mead’s Bladerunner & 2010: A Space Odyssey production sketches. I must start drawing again…

For me the dreaded last session of AU, before the mixer, was Damian & Scott’s “The Interior Side of Revit: Documenting Interior Design Projects”. It was interesting as they presented totally different, yet equally valid, approaches to documenting interiors in Revit. I picked up some new tips but also validated some of the existing approaches to thorny items like signage details. It’s often not learning something new but just finding you have developed similar solutions which gives value from an AU session.

Autodesk University wrapped up with the AU Mixer in the massive Palazzo Ballroom (below). It was the last chance to see everybody in the same space an gave an impression how big this conference is. What recession?

Autodesk University 2011 Day 2 – Astounding Mix #AU2011

Part of the morning was spent on some secret stuff which will have to wait for a future post. It was also my first chance to take a good look around the exhibit hall.

The Autodesk Gallery had an awesome display. I was impressed Carl Bass (right) was present whenever the exhibit hall was open, in 123D Catch, 123D Make cardboard cut-out form if not in person!

For lunch I tried & failed to meet the folks from the “BIM Connect Community!” (couldn’t find “the” table in the vastness, see below) but ended up sitting with an Automotive Designer from the U.K. and Infrastructure Engineer from California. It’s often the totally unplanned meetings like this which make AU interesting & worthwhile.

I spent the whole afternoon in a Design Computation Symposium which was just astonishing. Topics ranged from self sufficient buildings, 3D printing in zero gravity to a web service for genetic engineering!

It was followed by the Technology Main stage discussion which featured some cool near future technology but, to be honest, seemed a little bit staid after the astounding afternoon session. From there it was on to the AUGI Annual Beer Bust and another chance to see the exhibits while meeting up with friends old & new on the floor and AUGI stand (below).

Autodesk University 2011 Day 1 – Innovation explosion #AU2011

AU 2011 was a total mind blowing overload of fun, meetings and intellectual challenges. Add to that a few kilometres walking each day, the dehydrating low humidity of the Vegas atmosphere plus a bit of jetlag made it physically challenging as well (or I’m getting old!). I’m going to summarise my experience per day and then revisit aspects in the detail they deserve as separate posts.

The first real day of Autodesk University 2011 kicked off bright and early with the Welcome Address/General Session Keynote. This is the only formal session attended by everybody and seeing ~8,000 in one room is impressive. Also impressive was the 60 x 8 metre seamless screen which spanned the entire space. The panoramic image below attempts to convey the scale but you’ll need to think “big” while looking at it (or click through to the full image on Flickr)!

General Session Keynote

The keynote set the tone for this AU which, from what I saw at least, heavily featured both cloud, technological innovation (nano to macro) and personal manufacturing as major themes. Jeff Kowalski, Autodesk CTO, detailed his “Five Waves of disruption” which are changing concepts of ownership (to accessing experiences), Business Unusual, Digital Fabrication, Ambient Intelligence (sensors everywhere) & Infinite computing. Coping with this disruption will, it seems, take a combination of The Cloud + The Crowd.

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, WIRED, spoke and compared his grandfather’s experience inventing, developing, patenting and ultimately surrendering his automatic garden sprinkler product when the old tech manufacturing and marketing engine took control. He contrasted this with his own digital automatic sprinkler based on cheap open source hardware, manufactured without a vast corporate infrastructure and released as an open source system for future improvement. Chris also pointed to examples of Ambient Intelligence in his life where personal sensors monitor weight, exercise and other factors often linked to web services. Perhaps the most important concept was  that the physical and biological manufacturing will see the sort of revolution we have seen in IT:  

“Atoms are the new bits”

Carl Bass, Autodesk President & CEO, demonstrated the evolution of tools, process and design. He cited examples from the Architecture (Shanghai Tower, the Automotive Industry (Peugeot 404 to 2011 concept) and movie production (Avatar). He emphasised Autodesk’s commitment to the Cloud, both it’s recent “Autodesk Cloud” ecosystem and forthcoming Autodesk 360 cloud based PLM system. Some comments pointed to Autodesk’s present & future: “an owning software model is out-dated”, “Cloud based access to services” and a new philosophy of “Software everywhere” (irrespective of platform). The Las Vegas region gets little rainfall but AU proved to be very cloudy!

There were also some awesome customer/partner presentations ranging from “Moon Express” Lunar Rovers to “Because We Can” who do Revit>CNC Interior fit-out manufacturing and TechShop, the rental factory. More on them in a future post

Innovation Forums:

AU 2011 replaced previous years industry specific keynotes (AEC, Manufacturing & AutoCAD/Media) with a new set of sessions: “Innovation Forums”. They varied in format & approach but explored the conference themes in more detail. Those I attended were popular with the big rooms often filled to standing room only (below) and I can see them becoming a feature of future AUs.

Each deserves it’s own post (coming) but in summary:

The Promise of the Cloud

This was a Q&A discussion with Autodesk clients (from AEC, Manufacturing and Entertainment) on how they are using Autodesk’s current cloud solutions. It was an interesting real world look at the opportunities, potential perils and benefits of cloud implementation.

Everything Changes: The Future of Managing Innovation

I missed the first half of this, due to some meetings, but the portion I saw detailed the problems with “traditional” PLM and introduced Autodesk’s approach to resolve them. Autodesk 360 unites Buzzsaw, Vault with a new platform component “Nexus” to bring PLM to the Autodesk Cloud. It was rather short on detail (Nexus is due Q1 2012 & I couldn’t attend the following days demo session) but looked rather interesting. Although PLM is primarily a manufacturing term Autodesk seem to be building a system applicable to any industry where the life of data extends beyond the design stage.

Creativity 2.0 & the Innovation Cage Grey Matter Smackdown

Creativity 2.0 shared inspiring speakers including Sir Ken Robertson, Architect Mark Foster Gage, Anthropologist Louise Leakey, Production Designer Alex McDowell and alternative technologist Saul Griffith. This was followed by the “Innovation Cage Grey Matter Smackdown” which brought intellectual debate into a fun “idea” cage-fight arena (below). While some of the competitions got heated only neural connections were bruised in these conflicts!

I also had a couple of chances to meet other virtual community members in the flesh.

The first was with the AutoCAD Blogger Council and it was also a chance to learn about a project which combined the resources of an Autodesk Reseller, Autodesk and Lenovo to reinvigorate a design practice.

From that I went to an Autodesk Labs Customer Council at lunch in the Venetian’s, perma-sunset, St Marks Square where even at midday it is dusk. It was cool to make real connections with those who were formerly met as text/voices in virtual meetings.

For dinner it was back to, still dusk, St Marks Square to meet some other media/bloggers and a few members of the Autodesk Cloud & AutoCAD WS teams. It was another chance to meet previously virtual friends for real.

That wrapped up Day 1, it seems hectic when written down but was more so in reality. Every trek between sessions was pleasantly interrupted by meeting fellow AU attendees, friends and other distractions which make AU such an overwhelming event. On to Day 2!

Autodesk University 2011 Day 0 – The Media Day #AU2011

The “day before Day One” kicked off with a media session packed with information. I’ll post in more detail when time allows but an overview will give some impression of the material covered:

• Chris Bradshaw (SVP and Chief Marketing Officer) covered Autodesk’s approach to traditional markets and the emergence of cloud and consumer markets. From small beginnings in the days of mainframe, minicomputers design technology has grown enormously as PCs brought computing power to the desktop. Cloud computing, storage will accelerate that to the point where computing & mobile devices could outnumber their human masters. If that sounds extreme consider how many you own now?!
• Steve Blum (SVP Worldwide Sales & Services) outlined the Autodesk customer base and how it is changing. Formerly mostly business and professional (from 1-5000+ employee companies) recent years have seen the growth of a consumer market. It is now the largest in terms of installed users, if not revenue. "Business as usual" is changing as mobile & the cloud drive organisations to change their customer interactions and, maybe, even their own business model. Emerging Countries (in particular BRIC) are evolving rapidly from just Manufacturing to Design and are investing heavily in infrastructure. This impacts within their economy, but also is a focus for ‘first world’ economy firms targeting growth.
• Amar Hanspal (SVP Platform Solutions and Emerging Business) talked about Democratising Design and coined a new, to me at least, acronym. He described how CAD — Computer Aided Design — has evolved into CCAD: Computer + Cloud Aided Design. The cloud is enabling design data to follow designers from desktop to mobile, connecting designers and clients, sharing design data & intent for little cost. Infinite Computing is making live render & simulation a realistic option, not a dream. The future is now as Autodesk Cloud Applications (including iOS & Android apps) already get 1,000,000+ visitors per day.
• Brian Mathews (VP Autodesk Labs), as usual, presented a vast array of potential technologies which will change the design, manufacturing and commercial landscape. His presentation “Confluence of disruption” used a music Rip, mix, burn analogy but applied it to atoms and manufactured goods. It will get a post of its own but ranged from Nano to Global scale design, reality capture and 3D printing from DNA to building scale!
• Carl Bass (President & CEO) stopped by for a Q&A, discussions ranging from Cloud implications to business issues and more.

I then went on to the AEC Q&A (a manufacturing one ran at the same time) and finished the day at the Media/Blogger mixer. It was great to catch up with fellow bloggers from around the world, and a few US based ones too, before heading back to write this.

It stops now because I have to be up for the 8:00am main stage. I hear the mega-screen (which is 100’something feet wide) even makes PowerPoint look awesome!

(I’m posting more images to my Autodesk University 2011 Flickr Set)

And so it begins... #AU2011

Picked a beautiful sunny Sunday evening to leave NZ. Waiting to board my flight to L.A. it finally seems like AU 2011 is happening.
I arrive, all going to plan, Sunday afternoon (love that dateline). Can't wait!