RobiNZ CAD Blog

March 2018 - 14th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time. Fourteen years since that first tentative post! New Zealand is a long way from everywhere and social media eliminates that gap. I really appreciate the connections blogging, and more recently Twitter & Facebook, have enabled. While the other platforms have taken over much of the day to day activity I still prefer having the content I really value, in terms of wanting to retain, on my ‘own’ platform. Given recent events it is nice to know you could leave a social media platform and not ‘lose everything’. It was also great to see... Read more →

The forgotten 13th Anniversary?

It’s the middle of April and, thanks to a blog anniversary post from Scott Sheppard, I realised I overlooked my own March 31st blog’iversary! It is now thirteen years since that first tentative post. I must have hit dismiss (not snooze) on the calendar reminder when it appeared a week before! It has been a pretty quiet year blog’wise but now, working back at The Warehouse, I will be able to post a bit more. I have been playing with some exciting technology recently and look forward to sharing that when things have progressed a bit more. I still find... Read more →

March 2016 - 12th Anniversary!

The end of March means it is blog’iversary time again. Twelve years since that first tentative post. A new job has kept me busy and has given some interesting new perspectives(see photo). That has been reflected in a relative lack of activity here and almost no participation in the software beta programs which make release related posts easier. I can’t write about software I haven’t seen or used yet! As I wrote last year, in spite of the plethora of social platforms — or perhaps because of their proliferation — I still think blogs are important. While much more comment... Read more →

11th Anniversary, blogging to the roof of the world

The end of March means it is blog’iversary time again. Eleven years since my first tentative post. If anyone is to blame, and thank, for all this it is Shaan Hurley. I read his Between the Lines AutoCAD blog before I really knew what a blog was. It prompted me to think about doing my own and he suggested trying TypePad. It made blog management & hosting simple. I’d looked at other alternatives at the time and found them too limiting or complex. I love not worrying about hosting, running servers, ‘web page coding’ or managing plug-ins and having support... Read more →

10th Anniversary, a decade of blogging!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time again. I find it hard to believe a decade has passed by since that first tentative post. It was rather special to spend a few days last week with the Shaan Hurley (on the left wearing a cap below), who inspired me to blog, and other CAD bloggers. Amazing that thanks to this hobby I have made, and in some cases met, many friends around the world. To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting, reading and subscribing! Some annual stats follow in the extended post Statistics: In spite of less than prolific posting from... Read more →

The joy of a hosted blog

TypePad was briefly off-line this week but was pretty much fixed by the time I saw this tweet: We really appreciate our bloggers - through this frustrating downtime you have been gracious, witty, and tenacious. Thank you very much! — Typepad (@typepad) March 5, 2014 They were subject to a distributed denial of service attack (and were not alone*): Update on Recent Typepad Downtime - Everything Typepad On Wednesday from approximately 1:15 to 3:45PM Pacific Time, we experienced downtime which prevented the Typepad application and blogs from loading, and we are truly sorry about that. The downtime was due to... Read more →

Kiva and RobiNZ Blog team milestones

The video shows what Kiva microloans are about and some of the proceeds* from this blog are allocated to a Kiva Lending Team. 2013 was a big year for Kiva and closed with a significant milestone for the blog team. Thanks for your support 10,000 times over. Kiva Lending Team: RobiNZ Blog A team since Dec 10, 2008 This team shows loans funded from Supplier Donations, TypePad crediting hosting costs and additional Advert income. The 'Amount Loaned' is a total of donated funds + reinvested loan repayments. * The balance goes towards one off donations to other Charitable organizations. Read more →

9th Anniversary!

March 31st means it is blog’iversary time again. I find it hard to believe nine years have flown by since that first tentative post. To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting, reading and subscribing! Statistics: Last year broke the million visit mark and in spite of reduced posting from me this year, this is a hobby!, visits held up. Visits & Subscribers: The weekly “blog beat” is fairly constant apart from a blip caused by over 300 visits to one post, of only two I made, in April. In spite of RSS and feed technology not being talked about much and,... Read more →

Windows Live Writer - Changing the Drafts/Recent Posts folder location

I’ve been using Windows Live Writer to create drafts for this blog for several years. The, recently decommissioned, Mesh/Live Mesh sync service to enabled me to blog from my PC or Netbook. When I fired up Windows Live Writer all the post drafts, images and other resources would be identical. SkyDrive, nearly but not quite Mesh Microsoft SkyDrive is the Mesh replacement. It is nicely integrated in Windows 8/Office 13 but it has one (for me) crucial missing feature. Mesh allowed you to sync any folder, anywhere, to any chosen location on the other machine. I could use Mesh to... Read more →

8th Anniversary!

I’d like to say it is blog’iversary time again but I’m about a month late posting this as the anniversary was back on Saturday March 31st. I knew this post would be late but will never forget why. I was on a bicycle heading for Cape Reinga, New Zealand’s northern tip, and was happy to complete that with a bicycle circumnavigation of the iconic (in NZ at least) lighthouse. Things have been a little slow here recently due to the travel but it’s time to finish a whole bunch of Autodesk University (yes still), 2013 Release and Autodesk 360 draft... Read more →