RobiNZ CAD Blog

March 2024 - 20th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time. Twenty years since that first tentative post! I really appreciate the connections blogging, and more recently Mastodon, Substack, Discord, & Facebook, has enabled. While the other platforms have taken over much of the day-to-day activity, I still prefer having the content I really value, in terms of wanting to retain, on my ‘own’ platform. It has been a quiet year for the CAD Blog, but that's OK because I have been mostly retro-blogging on the other one about old cycle trips! To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting, reading, and subscribing both here and... Read more →

2023 Blogging Highlights

Happy New Year! Another year has flown by, time to look back from a bloggy/social media (not just CAD blog) perspective at the year: @ a new 'me' on the web Twenty three, and a bit, years after starting a blog I finally got around to getting my own domain for it. It's still published with TypePad it can now be found via www.robincapper.net. [2024-09-01 reverted back to Typepad as the domain mapping has broken] Back to CAD A new role, new industry, meant catching up with some new software. Fun to learn more about Civil 3D, QGIS and more... Read more →

A new home for my blogs, Me Dot Net?

It must be a procrastination record; start a blog in March 2004 and only now get my own domain? Yes, my typepad.com/rcd blogs are now at www.robincapper.net I must credit this toot from NZ IT Journalist Bill Bennett for prompting me to, finally, do it. His article about owning your content resonated, the reason I still author all the content I really care about on my blogs, CAD or Personal, and link to it from social sites. I don't mind having it on TypePad as it is a portable format that can be moved should the need ever arise. Not... Read more →

End of an era, as Autodesk leaves Shaan Hurley

On Tuesday 30 March 2004, I posted this on TypePad: Getting Started This is the first post to see how it all works. Read other weblogs, thought I'd have a go myself. RobiNZ CAD Blog The reason I chose TypePad, then a new'ish (public launch October 2003) hosted platform, is one of the most influential 'other weblogs' was Shaan Hurley's Between The Lines ~ AutoCAD Blog. I'd been thinking about blogging but had no interest in coding or self-hosting. When Shaan told me his pioneering CAD Blog was hosted, authored, on TypePad it was enough to spur me into action,... Read more →

March 2023 - 19th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time. Nineteen years since that first tentative post! I really appreciate the connections blogging, and more recently on Mastodon (since I abandoned Twitter) & Facebook, have enabled. @robincapper on Twitter Won't delete this account but I've made it private and migrated most of my social media attention away from Twitter. See you on the other platforms if you are there. 7:06 PM · Nov 22, 2022 While the other platforms have taken over much of the day-to-day activity, I still prefer having the content I really value, in terms of wanting to retain, on... Read more →

2022 Blogging Highlights

Happy New Year! I usually begin this post with "Another year has flown by..." but 2022 was a strange mix of COVID-19 impacted lockdown time dilation—where it both flew and dragged simultaneously—and a (temporary) change of lifestyle for me. I spent most of it—January to August—travelling New Zealand and then started a new job (still design software related) in a different industry! Time to look back from a bloggy/social media (not just CAD blog) perspective at year: Best social media related event(s): While riding I've been contributing, in a small way, to a few episodes of Walk The Pod podcast.... Read more →

upFront.eZine CAD industry legend Ralph Grabowski retires

The final upFront.eZine #1.138 This email, the final upFront.eZine #1,138, marks a significant event in the history of the CAD industry and media. I don't remember when I first read Ralph Grabowski's eZine but it long pre-dates meeting him in 2003. He presented at a CAD Productivity Conference in Auckland NZ and I have stayed connected, as a reader/commenter and meeting occasionally at US cad conferences, ever since. Ralph's in-depth coverage and straight talk about the CAD industry, often deep into the core technologies sitting under the end user products we know so well, is second to none. I was... Read more →

March 2022 - 18th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time. Eighteen years since that first tentative post! I really appreciate the connections blogging, and more recently Twitter & Facebook, have enabled. While the other platforms have taken over much of the day-to-day activity, I still prefer having the content I really value, in terms of wanting to retain, on my ‘own’ platform. It has been a quiet year, especially for the CAD Blog, but that's OK because I have been mostly cycling! To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting, reading, and subscribing both here and the other platforms! Photo taken March 31 2022 on... Read more →

2021 Blogging Highlights

Happy New Year! I usually begin this post with "Another year has flown by..." but 2021 was a strange mix of COVID-19 impacted lockdown time dilation—where it both flew and dragged simultaneously—and a (temporary) change of lifestyle for me. Time to look back from a bloggy/social media (not just CAD blog) perspective at another strange year: Best social media related event(s): With so much going on-line this year, including work for about 3 months, it is hard to single out one event but these come to mind: Richard Herring's RHLSTP video live recordings | For a modest fee, which supports... Read more →

March 2020 - 16th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time. Sixteen years since that first tentative post! New Zealand is a long way from everywhere and social media eliminates that gap. What makes this anniversary strange is due to the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown even connections with local family, friends, colleagues are virtual. I usually put a blog related photo from the year in these posts but this is a favourite view, just 20km away on Auckland’s West Coast, which currently might as well be on the other side of the globe! I really appreciate the connections blogging, and more recently Twitter & Facebook,... Read more →