Another year has flown by and it is 2016. Time to look back at 2015 from a bloggy (but not just CAD blog) perspective:
Best Blog Event:
I didn’t get to any physical blog specific events this year but had some great on-line calls and sessions with several vendors. One of the best was this one on point clouds and BIM by SSOE Group, part of a Reality Computing Webinar Series.
Best Comment:
A comment from Earl Mardle, after I noted how trees I remember being planted — in a park I played in as a kid and hadn’t visited for decades — had changed…
“Relax mate, I bet the trees don't feel old. Think of it as an achievement. And if you want to feel young again, plant a tree. One in the shade of which you will never sit.”
Best Podcast:
A tie between BIMThoughts and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint for Armageddon”.
BIMThoughts , unsurprisingly, bills itself as “a podcast about BIM technology and techniques”. True enough, but it is really a podcast about Building Information Modelling people. Imagine sitting down to chat with pioneers, visionaries, experts and everyday users of BIM. That is what you get from BIMThoughts - bimthoughts.com
100 years ago the world changed thanks to a war of (then) unprecedented scale. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint for Armageddon” is an impressive, engrossing and enlightening look at World War One. Not sure if it was because of the centenary events or a family connection but I found this an interesting, if at times confronting, listen.
There are six episodes, each three to four hours long, and although a free download I was happy to support them with a donation.
Dan Carlin.com - Hardcore History
Blog Surprise?
I still like using Microsoft Live Writer to compose posts off-line and last year worried about its future. After years of ignoring it — last update was 2012 — Microsoft recently open sourced it thanks to some great volunteer work.
Open Live Writer seems to be a port of Live Writer with tweaks to make install work (separately from the defunct Windows Live Essentials bundle) and modernised API support for some platforms. Hopefully it will develop further as, although old, Live Writer was a great editor.
Best new blog tool:
Another tie between TypePad and Windows 10.
TypePad introduced support for custom design with responsive blog layouts. This enabled my blogs to maintain their long established styling while adjusting for any size screen. Given readers screens range (according to stats) from 2560x1440 down to 320x480 this has been quite handy!
Might seem odd to think of an operating system as a ‘tool’ but this year the thing which has most impacted my blogging is Windows 10. I’m one, of the few it seems, who liked Windows 8.1 but have been happy with most of the changes made in Windows 10 across desktops, tablet and (still on the preview) phone.
Happy New Year!
Thanks for visiting, reading and coming back. Lets see what 2016 brings!
Boring Blog Stats (for me!)
[ ] = 2014 figures
TypePad Community: 74 [75] Following | ## [95] Followers
Twitter: 22,831 [20,581] Tweets | 2,000 [1,286] Following* | 1,677 [1,472] Followers | 3,013 Likes
* Following increased as I moved away from reliance on lists as a way to follow. Mainly because Twitter seem to be depreciating lists in their app.
Posts: 2,053 [2,015] | Comments: 1,780 [1,768] | Pages: 8 [8]
Page Views: Total: 1,463,716 [1,408,029] | Average Per Day: 341.35 [355.56]
FeedBurner Subscribers: 332 [10,117 or 395 which leads me to doubt FeedBurner is of much use]
Most Popular Post from 2015: Revit 2016 R2 update
Most visited post of 2015 was from 2007: Align, the forgotten AutoCAD hero – Seems AutoCAD still generates lots of blog visits
Posts: 2,107 [2,040] | Comments: 1023 [1021]
Page Views: Total: 426,551 [418,012] | Average Per Day: 107.96 [115.38]
FeedBurner Subscribers: 30 [34]
Most Popular Post from 2015: Pedalled for Plunket and some cycling karma?
Most visited post of 2015 was from 2014: Adventure South 2014 Lhasa (Tibet) to Kathmandu (Nepal)