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Inside this Issue
Note from the Editor
A brief issue this week because of a tight book deadline. Speaking
of books, my updated book on CAD management is available from
OnWord Press, an imprint of Thomson/Delmar.
"CAD Manager's Guidebook"
by Ralph Grabowski
I wrote the first edition of this book in 1993 under the same
of "The Successful CAD Manager's Handbook." At the time,
DOS and Unix were the primary operating systems for CAD software
because Windows was considered too slow. Several of the CAD packages
discussed in the first edition are no longer available, and pen
plotters are no longer the most popular way to plot a CAD drawing.
The first edition was typeset using WordPerfect v5.1 for DOS,
and output on a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III outfitted with a
LaserMaster board that juiced up the resolution from 300dpi to
800dpi. The 100KB worth of files were sent to the publisher on
a diskette by courier.
This time around, the "CAD Manager's Handbook" was typeset
on PageMaker v6.5, with the output going direct to the publisher's
2400dpi typesetter. The 275MB worth of files were sent to the
publisher by high-speed email, FTP, and burned on a CD-R.
"CAD Manager's Guidebook"
by Ralph Grabowski
The contents of this 320-page book are:
1. The Role of the CAD Manager
2 Naming Drawings and Creating Symbols
3 Layer Names and Conventions
4 Assigning Colors
5 Fonts and Patterns, Linetypes and Widths
6 Scale Factors and Dimensions
7 Standard Drawings and Templates
8 Writing Your CAD Standards Manual
9 Working with Paper Drawings
10 Outsourcing and Extranets
11 The DWG Format and Its Future
12 A Recent History of CAD
Appendices
A Resources for CAD Managers
B Color-Pen Table
C The CSI Layer Standards
For more information, or to purchase on-line:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0766838897/XYZPublishingA
Trying Other
Software
In the last couple of months, I've tried alternative (to Microsoft)
software. I did a mammoth 1.2GB download that took about seven
hours for the free version of RedHat Linux v7.1 <http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html>
based on the latest v4.2 Linux kernel. It is much better than
the Corel Linux v1.x I had given up on a year ago. Despite the
improved installation and hardware detection, I found that --
as pundits have been saying -- desktop Linux isn't here yet.
With the future of Netscape in doubt, as recently voiced by its ceo ( v4.x is aging, and v6.0 was a flop), I use Opera v5.x most of the time (the US$35 price is worth paying). Last week I downloaded Mozilla v0.9.1 beta (the open source rewrite of Netscape) from <http://www.mozilla.org/releases>. After having found an earlier beta painfully slow, I gotta say that 0.9.1 is pretty good!
And I downloaded Atlantis Ocean Mind 1.0 from Rising Sun Solutions <http://www.rssol.com/en/html/export/downloads.htm>. I had been keeping track of Atlantis since beta 0.7, and last week paid US$27 for the full version that includes the spell checker. It reads Word, RTF, and text formats. No support for tables or reviewing, yet, but v1.x includes the useful rectangular block feature dropped from Word 2. For me, though, Atlantis is not yet ready because it cannot save in Word format, nor does it have real-time spell checking.
Below the Radar
A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere:
During a keynote address at the 'InfoWorld' CTO Forum, Microsoft ceo Steve Ballmer and Alibre ceo J. Paul Grayson together demonstrated Alibre Design using Microsoft Passport authentication and HailStorm notification.
ManufacturingQuote launched Market Watch as a free try-before-you-subscribe
service for suppliers of custom manufacturing services http://www.MfgQuote.com,
which says it has now over 2,000 members and hosted over US$50
million in RFQs.
"ParallelGraphics,
a leader in the field of Web3D technologies has developed a range
of applications that take 3D CAD data, which almost all Fortune
500 industrial companies have in abundance, out of the hands of
the engineers, and make it available throughout the organization."
[Whoa, "out of the hands of engineers"? Sounds threatening!]
New Software
Releases
Moldflow added cavity pressure
control technology to its Plastics Xpert 3.0.
Informative Graphics plans to ship MYRIAD 5.1 document, drawing, and 3D model view and redline program on June 30. Download a free eval at http://www.infograph.com/products/Myriad/MyriadEvalDownload.htm
Bill Gates last week christened the server edition of Windows XP "Windows.NET Server," which is due to ship next year. The goldfish in the marketing department apparently forgot that Microsoft had already christened the product "Windows 2002 Server" a little over a month ago. - The Register
IMSI says its TurboCAD is outselling AutoCAD LT in retail markets.
Advances in Hardware
Palm may be considering using Intel processors to power their
next line of PDAs based on the Palm OS 5.0, which will be available
in the second half of 2002. - Palm Infocenter
VIA, the largest motherboard maker in the world, has pledged to beat Intel by 10-20% on price when it ships its Pentium 4-based DDR SDRAM chipset. - Economic Times
People/Companies
on the Move
A/E/C SYSTEMS presented the 2001 Ed Forrest Award for Excellence
in Design/Construction Automation to Kristine K. Fallon.
The WorthWhile
Web
http://www.enr.com/aec/AEC2001.asp
http://www.enr.com/aec/AEC2001a.asp
'Engineering News Record'
Reports on AEC Systems '01.
http://www.spynumbers.com/index.html
Spy Numbers
A Web site dedicated to archiving numbers transmitted by spies
over radio.
http://www.engrish.com/
Japanese English
"English" seen on consumer products in Japan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/
BBC Online
Dr. Who returns online to BBC in 18 days.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/photonovels/fury/one/05.shtml
Early episode of original series.
Spin Doctor of
the Moment
"But if you say to people, 'Do you understand the GPL?' (then)
they're pretty stunned when the Pac-Man-like nature of it is described
to them."
- Bill Gates, quoted in CNET. Add that to Microsoft's description
of GPL as a cancer, un-American, a virus, and communism.
Notable Quotable
"They simply troll the Internet, grab what they want, and
write a story. This isn't good journalism. This is Internet journalism."
- Paul Thurott
Contact!