RobiNZ CAD Blog

Symbol Man Tells All

You probably see him every day, now he speaks out in this exclusive interview. The International Symbol for Man Tells All : Design Observer “My wife, Popsicle Stick Lady, doesn’t see me as being “iconic” Read more →

Building Information Modelling takes off around New Zealand - The Salesoft Autodesk "Building Ideas Roadshow”

Is this a first for New Zealand? Wellington has seen a 3,500 tonne building on a train but taking a Building Ideas Show on the road is an unusual solution for a problem posed by New Zealand’s geography and population distribution. Faced with the challenge of presenting BIM Concepts and demonstrating the latest Autodesk AEC Applications throughout the land the team at Salesoft CAD Solutions have found a novel solution; take the Building Ideas Show on the road! How do you move a BIM Road-show? You may have recently seen the Microsoft X-Box Bus touring New Zealand. The Building Ideas... Read more →

Google SketchUp, free for personal use!

Wow, Google have released a free version of SketchUp (for personal use) + 3D Warehouse, a web repository for 3D models. Read Randall's great post for all the details on this exciting move to make 3D CAD for everyone. Google Releases Free SketchUp and 3D Warehouse Google today opened the doors to a 3D revolution on the Web by releasing Google SketchUp, a free version of the popular 3D CAD program Google acquired last month… Read more →

Office 2007 Mind Map

Don Campbell (Office Evangelist) has created a MindManager Map of Office 2007 resources. It’s an excellent reference which also demonstrates how good the map format is for this style of document: This map has 69 Topics (with 48 Hyperlinks) you can review in a glance. It generates 5 pages of Word doc or an 11 Slide PowerPoint. I know which I’d rather read! doncampbell's Weblog : Mind Map of Office 2007 Resources This mind map is my attempt to bring together many of the great new resources surrounding the Office 2007 launch…. Via The Mindjet Blog Read more →

Which flavour of Windows Vista for you?

There will be six versions of Windows Vista. That seems a lot but I was surprised to learn there are actually seven versions of Windows XP! Ed Bott offers a nice summary & a table that compares XP & Vista versions. Ed Bott's Windows Expertise » Vista versions: maybe not so confusing after all Read more →

Tablet PC use in Auto racing and Commercial Aircraft

A couple of posts about Tablet PCs in my other blog may be of interest: Target Indy Race Team Technology - Scoble's behind the scenes video Air New Zealand's Flying Tablets Read more →

AutoCAD/ADT 2007 and Zone Alarm

I just completed my installation Architectural Desktop 2007 at home. I started it up and it all worked fine until I tried to close a drawing. Hitting the X caused the processor to hit 100% and after about 30 seconds a fatal error. Thinking maybe it was a bad install I tried again after a re-boot, then re-installation but got the same result. Perplexed, I started Sysinternals Filemon and watched it while recreating the crash. That was not hard as it happened every time I closed a document. Filemon revealed furious activity by "vsmon.exe" just prior to the launch of... Read more →

Wwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeee OK?

Since most visiting this blog run larger than the average screen/resolution I’m trying a variable width post column. It should adjust to your monitor rather than the old fixed 500 pixel width. Interested in any feedback, positive or negative as it may cause layout oddities. What does it look like at 1920x1200? Read more →

MindManager 6 Service Pack 1 Released

Mindjet have released Service Pack1 for MindManager 6 which has fixes, performance improvements and even a few new features. A couple of the new features are now ticked off my wish-list. When you export a Topic/Branch with “Send To > New Linked Map” the new “child” map created now has a link on the central topic back to it’s parent. I used to add these links manually as they are great when you have an “Index Map” referencing other maps. One click gets you back to the Index. MindManager Alerts linked to Outlook now show the source map in the... Read more →

Will Recycled Airplane Buildings take off?

Neat concepts for old aircraft parts. The house claims to use all the components of a junked 747 but it’s not cheap! Treehugger: Building A Library From Recycled Airplanes Inhabitat (Have Interior Pics) A Welsh View: 747 Home Read more →