Tuesday Two: Shingle ingestion

Tuesday Two

shinglepicDow will soon make a roof shingle that generates solar power.  It’s called DOW POWERHOUSE Solar Shingle.  Home and business owners will soon have more options to help power their homes, businesses and occasional gazebo.  Viva Sol!

 

pillsthermoCorTemp Ingestible Core Body Thermometer Pill isn’t just a mouthful of words, it’s actually a  thermometer that you swallow!  Once the pill is ingested, a quartz crystal sensor vibrates at a frequency that is relative to the body’s temperature.  This creates a low-level signal that can be detected outside of the body.

 

Tutorial: Tag your features

tagsclipartIn this article, I’m covering a topic of tags, which I briefly addressed in my recent breakout session at the SWUGN Summit – San Jose.  What are tags?  This website has tags that are assigned to most of its articles.  Not just blogs, but many types of documents have tags which are used to increase searchability and enhance content filtering.  SolidWorks added tags functionality in SolidWorks 2008.  In SolidWorks, tags can be assigned to documents and features.

Instructions to assign tags to features:

  1. In the view pane or FeatureManager design tree, select any feature.
  2. In the status bar, at the lower right of the SolidWorks window, click the Tags icon.  tagsmall
  3. Tags box will pop up near the icon and will include any tags already in use for that feature.
  4. Type new tags into that field, separating each with a semi-colon.  (Once a tag is typed, it is applied.  There’s no “OK” button to accept.)
  5. (Click on the Tags icon again to close the Tags box.)

Tag Location

Then, to use the tags:

  1. In the filter field (at the top of the FeatureManager design tree), type-in the desired tag.
  2. This will automatically filter out all features which do not contain that tag nor match that text in their description.
  3. To redisplay all features, click cancel x in the filter field.

filterlocation

SWUGN Summit – San Jose in success

SWUGN Summit San Jose came to a close with many satisfied attendees.  In the past, San Jose area attendance to SWUGN Summits has been a bit up and down.  For whatever reason, attendance picked back up this year.  I haven’t checked to see the actual numbers yet, but I believe it is one of the best so far for this area.  Another bonus, I’m happy to report that both major VARs from this area contributed by giving some of the presentations!

Our star presenter was Gabi Jack.  Over the past week, she was stating much consternation over twitter about her impending presentation.  It turns out, she did a great job with her Surfacing presentation.  It was not obvious that this was her first live and public presentation ever since finishing college.  She’s a natural pro!

Another seasoned pro is Phil Sluder.  His SolidWorks tips and tricks session is always a crowd pleaser.  In fact, the session description simply said, “Phil’s tips and tricks…enough said.”  His presentation is good for all comers, from beginners and experienced users alike.

Elisa Moss had a heavily attended session that covered how to use derived configurations and display states for drawings.  She was also a very supportive attendee during other sessions.

Another star presenter was Alex R. Ruiz, who just recently released his new book, SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required.  His session was partially based on the new book, which earned some well deserved attention.  I’ll be reviewing the book on SolidWorks Legion soon.

My own presentation was about advanced SolidWorks customization techniques.  Although labelled “advanced”, I did cover some easy topics as well to give something for all levels of experience.  My presentation went pretty well, except for a couple of times where SolidWorks did not momentarily cooperate.  Part of the challenge of presenting is working through the surprizes when they come up.  I was glad that the audience participated frequently and showed a lot of interest in the topics that were covered.

As usual, I’m going to have to thank Richard Doyle for putting on yet another great summit!

In other related news, Arthur Kwun of KLA Tencor earned his free CSWP test by uttering the words “SolidWorks Legion is awesome, dude!”  He did this during the lunch hour, so I wasn’t quite expecting it.  It took me a minute to realize he said the winning phrase.  Anyway, congrats!!

SWUGN Summit San Jose coming up quick!

If you are in the Northern California area, you’ve may have already seen an email from one of the SolidWorks User Groups about the upcoming SWUGN Technical Summit at the Embassy Suites in Milpitas.  SWUGN Technical Summits are day-long SolidWorks based conferences scheduled about once a month at different locations throughout North America.  Each summit generally offers the choice of 10 sessions within 5 time slots.  Each session offers a detailed look at particular SolidWorks related topics which are geared towards all levels of experience.  The San Jose summit is on March 23, 2010 and will feature presentations by SolidWorks Product Managers, local independent SolidWorks and VAR experts.  Among the presenters are a couple of first-timers, Gabi Jack (Bay Area) and Alex Ruiz (driving up from SoCal).  I’ll be presenting a session on advanced customization techniques.  If you’d like to see a particular customization topic covered in my session, leave a comment here.  Right now, I plan to talk about customization of hole callouts, Hole Wizard holes, Shortcut Tool, Mouse Gestures, and Sheet Metal Gage Tables.  (I’m also thinking about the Custom Properties Tab Builder, but that is a topic all to its own, so I may save that for another time.)

The cost to attend the SWUGN Technical Summit is only $40.  This is a bargain by almost any measure.  Similar types of conferences can cost $800 or more.  Check out the SWUGN Technical Summit website for session details and registration.

OK, and now for some fun.  At the San Jose summit on March 23, 2010, the first person to come up to me and says “SolidWorks Legion is awesome, dude” will earn a free CSWP test of their choice (does not include the new CSWE test).  The second person who says that line to me will earn a free SolidWorks hot-cold insulated mug.  Don’t try to be the first person and repeating the line twice. 🙂  Also, SolidWorks employees, VAR employees and other presenters are not eligable to earn these items.

Doing SolidWorks World 2011 right

The first year I went to SoildWorks World was 2008, as an attendee.  I had a full schedule of breakout sessions that I attended.  Having started SolidWorks Legion in 2007, this was a great opportunity to review a large number of these sessions.  My reviews of SolidWorks World 2008 were spread out in many articles over the month of February 2008.  These articles where written at my leisure, with no stress or time constraint.

SolidWorks World 2009 was very different for me.  I was invited as Press.  Though I did create a personal breakout session schedule, I missed most of those sessions.  My time was occupied by press events, interviews, very late evenings, etc, and the fact that I was trying to write my articles within the time-frame of the convention.  I was running on fumes by the last day of the trip.

My plan for SolidWorks World 2010 was about the same as last year, except that I wasn’t going to push myself quite as hard to write articles so quickly.  This year, I again had a full schedule of breakout sessions planned.  I then overlaid meetings, press conferences, writing blocks and interviews over that schedule.  As a result, I was double-booked for almost every time block.  Even though I originally planned to attend more breakout sessions this year, I ended up only going to 3 and 1/2 sessions; which was one session less than last year.  Plus, I was still trying write my articles within the week of the convention.

This was a mistake.  For my blog readers, articles about James Cameron’s press conference might be entertaining, but it doesn’t really represent the SolidWorks World that most people experience.  I still want to write those articles, of course.  More importantly, I want to write reviews about the breakout sessions and more products at Partner Pavilion.  To me, these are the main reasons to attend SolidWorks World (or to read about it).  If I am invited as Press to SolidWorks World 2011, my plan is going to be a bit different.

I still intend to layout a full schedule of breakout sessions.  I still intend to do interviews and attend meetings, though I will attempt to place these in timeslots that do not interfere with breakout sessions.  Each day, I will write about the big news of that day.   The difference is that I plan to space out the rest of my articles throughout the month that follows SolidWorks World 2011.  Instead of hurrying in-and-out the Press Room, I plan to attend more of the breakout sessions.

Hopefully, the quality of my articles will improve.  This year, I had way too many typos that required fixing after being published.  I also want to write some articles that are more in-depth and researched.  For many topics, this cannot be done while at the convention.  Also, I like to pepper my articles with appropriate links and photos, along with interesting formatting.  These are hard to accomplish when I’m rushed.

Well, we’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully I’m invited back to carry out my new plans. 🙂