RobiNZ CAD Blog

Farewell to The Warehouse, Hello Auckland International Airport

It isn’t unusual to look forward to a long weekend but Easter 2015 will be particularly memorable for me. Last Thursday was my last day working for The Warehouse Limited (TWL) after seventeen, would have been eighteen in July, years. Tomorrow, the first day of a new adventure. Leaving The Warehouse, more than a job TWL was well established when I joined in 1997 but had, still has, a ‘big small company’ feel. They’d not long been in the new Store Support Office. It was extended twice over the years I worked there, most recently the 4 story addition seen... Read more →

MS-DOS Mobile, the future is past

I’ve really enjoyed testing Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system: MS-DOS Mobile. It runs incredibly quickly on my Lumia 1520, once the boot sequence is finished. Typing commands is quick, v1.0 even supports a swipe keyboard which is something Apple didn’t get until iOS 8. The camera app — C:\Camera of course — offers ASCII, B&W or VGA CGA Colour! I tested the ASCII mode with a shot of The Warehouse Sylvia Park store front. Amazing resolution for a mobile device! Sadly Autodesk’s app support for MS-DOS Mobile (none) almost matches their Windows Phone app portfolio! Today (31-3-2015) Microsoft launch MS-DOS... Read more →

Autodesk gets a new look

Since I’ve been a customer I can only remember a couple of changes in Autodesk branding. They recently they announced a new logo so it is goodbye to the old: Hello to the new: Autodesk, autodesk, Autodesk, AUTODESK? I like the new logo but wonder about the uppercase text. There was a brief flirtation with lowercase in the early part of this century (see photo below) but now ‘Autodesk’ has become, the little bit shouty, ‘AUTODESK’. I’m glad this seems to be confined to the logo unlike some brands which carry their case sensitivity into normal text use. I’m thinking... Read more →

A swell battery no more

The elderly (work) HP 2710p Convertible Tablet PC got a bit fatter today. It’s about 5 years old and had a slim extra battery pack which clipped on the bottom extending battery life from a couple of hours to about eight. I picked it up from the desktop dock and it felt a bit thicker than usual. Then I noticed the battery had expanded, nobody near it noticed any smell or sound so it didn’t ‘explode’. Fortunately the machine and desktop dock it was sitting in are both ok. I wonder what would have happened if it was left for... Read more →

On Shaan’s 14 Years at Autodesk

Seeing Shaan’s post & photo montage celebrating his Autodesk anniversary also brought back many memories for me. Curiously I’ve also been at TWL about 14 years, also having previously spent 3 years max in a role, so can relate to how that feels. 14 Years 98 in Dog Years - Between the Lines Today marks my 14th year with Autodesk. I really never thought when joining Autodesk back in 1998 I would be here 14 years later… I don’t remember when I first ‘met’, virtually, Shaan but it must have been a not long after he started at Autodesk through... Read more →

iOS Auto-Incorrect and the CAD user

A text telling a user to try a generic “caduser” logon on a spare machine* is foiled by iOS Auto-correct. I suspect it will forever be the Cashew workstation from now on. * It was logon specific network problems preventing access to a shared folder so cashew worked fine. Read more →

@ AU, are you? Autodesk University 2011 #AU2011

As I write, according to the countdown on Shaan Hurley’s blog, it is a mere fifty six days and five hours until Autodesk University 2011, Las Vegas, begins. However another deadline is approaching rapidly if you are thinking of attending and haven’t registered yet. General Registration opened mid September but if you register by October 11th you can save up to us$500 on the 3 Day pass. Although I love attending AU it seemed a remote possibility this year. However that changed last week with some assistance from Autodesk Public Relations, via the AutoCAD Blogger Council, in the form of... Read more →

Info-graphic meets Mind Map?

I don’t often post about work, non-cad stuff, here but this info-graphic from The Warehouse 2010 Community and Environment Report appealed to my mind mapping aesthetic. Read more →

New Zealand Earthquakes and CAD - How you all have helped Christchurch

New Zealand has been described as 4 million people living along a fault line and last Saturday was literally shocking for the Canterbury Region. At 04:35 there was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand’s second largest city (pop about 372,000) & the South Islands largest. I wasn’t affected (as live in Auckland, North Island) but like just about everyone in New Zealand have family & friends in the area. I first learnt of it via text from my Sister & family from outside their home in Christchurch. I couldn’t get them on the phone but later found out,... Read more →

Thirteen years, where did they go?

According to Outlook, today marked thirteen years since I joined The Warehouse Limited. Coincidentally, yesterday a question regarding the area of a long closed store had me ferreting through an old plan* (below left) which represented TWL store design at about that time. Since then we have evolved from 2D CAD to BIM with tools that seemed like science fiction not much more than a decade ago. Although technology, and the world, has changed the reasons I decided TWL would be a good place to work remain. So, it’s back to work tomorrow! * This plan was a trace of... Read more →