RobiNZ CAD Blog

Goodbye MyFeedback, hello beta.autodesk.com

1,683 days ago I joined the Autodesk beta portal MyFeedback.com. Today MyFeedback goes off-line forever, to be replaced by a new community on a new platform: http://beta.autodesk.com I was just... Read more →

Autodesk license borrowed from... gone! What now?

I had an AutoCAD license borrowed while upgrading the server to a new license file. Handing it back proved to be a problem because the lic had gone. A quick trip to the Autodesk Discussion Group revea... Read more →

Revit User Group "Ribbonisation" presentation links

Last week I presented to the Revit User Group Auckland about "ribbonisation". It was a background to the development of the Fluent User Interface, otherwise known as "the ribbon", based on several presentations I have seen over the years. I suspect it was possibly the only presentation ever given to a Revit User Group with more Microsoft Office and AutoCAD content than Revit! All the content was drawn from public sources, mostly blogs and presentations. I had permission to use it for the presentation and can share those sources here. If you're interested in User Experience/Interface development there is plenty... Read more →

Remembering Korea, Incheon joins the Digital Cities Initiative

This Autodesk press release reminded me of attending a conference in Korea back in 2006 . At that stage it was more about BIM and the new Songdo City , currently in construction. The next logical ste... Read more →

ActiveWord for Wolfram|Alpha

This ActiveWord will query the new Wolfram|Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine. Execute the ActiveWord and this dialog appears, enter the search term, ActiveWords will launch your browser with the query entered in Wolfram|Alpha. It's early days for my use but so far just the city & date searches have been very useful. Create a "Navigate ActiveWord" with this URL in the action field: "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=" UPDATE 2009-05-22: I've added the missing "|" to Wolfram|Alpha in the code but not updated the images Tags: Wolfram|Alpha Read more →

New Zealand Autodesk Solutions Day 2009 (2010 Product Launch)

I'll be at the Auckland June 4th event, see you there! Here's the blurb: The Autodesk Solutions Day 2009 is aimed at professionals' involved in the design, construction and management of government and commercial projects within the Building, Civil, Geospatial and Manufacturing market place. This all day event will showcase the latest products, services and technology. They are happening in Christchurch late May, Auckland early June. Contact your New Zealand Autodesk reseller for details and to register! Read more →

Sum time in Excel

If I ever resovled this in the past I'd forgotten how, so here it is for next time. Thanks to MrExcel for the cell format that makes sense of summed Hour/Minute time values in Excel. By default (at le... Read more →

Stubborn language settings in Office Outlook 2003?

It won't concern US readers but I had a problem where the language in Outlook defaulted back to US English. This was in-spite of setting the default language in other Office applications. The solution... Read more →

Notice of Revit User Group Auckland May Meeting

Details of the next Revit User Group - Auckland (RUGAKL) meeting: Wednesday 20th May Please note Change in Location for this month again At BECA Vincent Street Offices Level 2, 132 Vincent Stree... Read more →

Un-Inventor LT Technology Previewing

I removed the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview from my machine as it expired May 1st. Important announcement for Autodesk Inventor LT users (posted March 1st) Un-installing, via add/remove programs, was trouble free* except for one aspect. I found the file association for .dwg files was still trying to use Inventor when a file was opened from Explorer. Changing the association from Explorer didn't seem to help so I tried a repair install of AutoCAD Architecture which restored it's .dwg association. Now it's not free, would I buy Inventor LT? That's complicated by the rather strange product offer in our... Read more →