Category: News

Name in lights (or ginormous LCD)

As mentioned within a previous article, Jeff Ray quoted one of my comments about SolidWorks 2010.  He has been using this quote and others by other bloggers for a few months.  It was an honor to have my particular quote appear at SolidWorks World 2010 on the big screen.

Jeff Ray quoting

I was kinda bummed though.  I didn’t have the camera on my phone ready to take a photo, nor did I think about taking a photo until it was too late.  Well, even if I had been able to take the photo, it wouldn’t have been that good.  Several of us bloggers where sitting in the front row, too close to get Ray and the quote in the same frame.

Yesterday, I put out a call on Twitter to see if anyone had taken a photo of the quote.  Gabi Jack almost immediately tweeted that she might have one.  Within 15 minutes, she send over a picture of my name in lights next to Ray.  Thank you, Jack.

Matt Lorono name in lights

Ray stated the quote during the Monday General Session.  This can actually be seen on the video of the Monday General Session (@ minute 47:35) available at their website here.

SolidWorks World 2010 Presentations are now available online

SolidWorks World 2010 presentations are now available online via the SolidWorks World website.  Details about every presentation can be found there.  Videos are available for many of the sessions.  Where videos do not exist, the PowerPoint presentations are usually available for download.  Anyone can view the basic presentation descriptions.  Viewing of the videos or downloading of the PowerPoint presentations requires the visitor to sign in through the customer portal.  Browsing the presentations may be done with four tabs: Presenter, Title, Category, and Weekday.  If you are interested in just videos, there’s an option to filter for those.  There is no search function, though that isn’t needed as far as I can tell so far.  I’ve been able to find sessions fairly quickly.  Also, fortunately, the SolidWorks World 2009 presentations are still available.

At this website, there’s also a SolidWorks blog portal, photos from SolidWorks World 2010, Partner Pavilion information, a convention highlight video.  Have fun exploring:

SolidWorks World 2010 presentations

DWGEditor is going to be renamed

As part of a settlement with Autodesk, SolidWorks Corp has agreed to cease their use of the term DWG in any products or trademarks.  I personally think this settlement was unnecessary.  SolidWorks Corp should’ve taken Autodesk all the way through the legal process to help Autodesk realize the counter-productiveness of their litigious ways.  That said, Autodesk still does not have any legal claim to the file extension .dwg.  This is their holy grail.  Much like the real holy grail, ownership of .dwg is mythological.

The end result of the SolidWorks-Autodesk settlement is that DWGEditor must now be renamed.  What would be come good alternative names for the SolidWorks editor of .dwg files?  Hmm, I wonder.  Here’s some suggestions:

  • .dwgEditor
  • SolidWorks .dwg Editor
  • .dwgWorks
  • DrawingWorks
  • DraughtingWorks
  • Naughty Draughting
  • NaughtyWorks
  • Old School CAD Tool
  • Run Your .dwg Files Here
  • FlatlanderCAD
  • CADland Editor
  • 2DWorks
  • LineWorks
  • XYEditor
  • AutoCAD SuxWorks
  • InfiniteCAD
  • Almost AutoCADWorks
  • AutomaticCAD
  • NoSoAutomaticCAD

Any other suggestions or votes for any of these?

It should be noted (disclaimer)

As noted in my FTC 16 CRF Part 255 notice on the sidebar of this website, the authors who contribute to this site are sometimes included in events where DS SolidWorks Corp. pays for expenses (such as conference passes or accommodations).  We receive no payments (quid pro quo or otherwise) for any content of this website.  In the case of SolidWorks World 2010, I (Matthew Lorono) received a Press Pass (which gives me access to most areas of Conference, including meals) and hotel accommodations, which allowed me to cover this event.  However, it should be noted that I did not receive compensation for all of my normal experiences.  Chris Saller, who also wrote about SolidWorks World 2010, did not receive anything directly from SolidWorks Corp., and only attended with a Guest Pass that he procured via a third party on his own.  Each contributor is solely responsible for the content they add; at no time are we obliged to others for that content.

I did forget to add this information as a reminder during the SolidWorks World 2010 event this year.  These types of notices are something that are now being enforced per FTC 16 CRF Part 255.  This type of notice will now be integral to any blog postings where disclosure is necessary.  As my long time readers may know, I am a believer in disclosure and I attempt to be almost painfully forthright about these kinds of details.

Victim of my own moderate success

SolidWorks Legion has been under the weather recently. It’s been a victim of it’s own moderate success. It’s not been cyber attacked (that I know of…though I’m sure I would’ve noticed a serious attempt). It’s just been a combination of increased visitors and me adding too many WordPress bells and whistles. So, I apologize to readers who may have come to our site during the many times it was down in the past few days. Hopefully the issues that lead to the crashing of this site are under control for now.