...isn't that they're made in America. Honda makes fantastic minivans in Alabama. BMW makes head-turning sport cars and SUV's in South Carolina.
More to follow...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
CTRL + Z
Sorry Eddy - you'll have to pick a new cause. Turns out that all the hysteria over global warming can be ignored now that Hades has frozen over. Both my proposed sessions for AU have been re-approved. It's all part of a long (and not promised to be interesting) story and I'll gladly share it with anyone that'll buy the beer.
Anyway - stop threatening to key Jim Balding's car. ;)
So please email pictures of complex and interesting railing and stair conditions that you happen across over the next few months. While you're out and about just snap a couple of photos with your iPwn, Crackberry, etc. and email ASAP. Just remember to put "AU2009" in the subject line.
Why go through all this camera-phone-taking-picture-emailing hassle? Because according to a yet to be determined and entirely subjective, unscientific method the best image of a stair or railing used in the session wins an unlocked and lovingly cared for 1st generation iPhone. It should work with any carrier that uses a SIM card.
See store for details. Additional restrictions apply. And I'm pretty much still sold on T-Mobile. Great customer service.
Thanks all for the factory focused email and phone calls. Very much appreciated.
Anyway - stop threatening to key Jim Balding's car. ;)
So please email pictures of complex and interesting railing and stair conditions that you happen across over the next few months. While you're out and about just snap a couple of photos with your iPwn, Crackberry, etc. and email ASAP. Just remember to put "AU2009" in the subject line.
Why go through all this camera-phone-taking-picture-emailing hassle? Because according to a yet to be determined and entirely subjective, unscientific method the best image of a stair or railing used in the session wins an unlocked and lovingly cared for 1st generation iPhone. It should work with any carrier that uses a SIM card.
See store for details. Additional restrictions apply. And I'm pretty much still sold on T-Mobile. Great customer service.
Thanks all for the factory focused email and phone calls. Very much appreciated.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein!
Poor ViewCubeGirl. One can only imaging what Der Fuhrer will end up doing to RibbonBoy.
In the meantime, still no word on official support for the Classic UI in Revit 2010. This is unfortunate because unofficially it seems to work just fine - keyboard shortcuts and all.
Update:
1) No, I won't tell you how.
2) No, it's not Photoshop. Or a time machine.
3) If the factory doesn't want to support it - fine. But don't tell me how hard it is to put back when it's apparently still in there.
4) I think I need a beer with Dennis Sheldon.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Not So Fast
Want to make a sales person crazy? Ask them to wait while you read the fine print. Or better yet - ask them to read it for you. Especially if you suspect the contract contains a "Loyal Customer Penalty" (TM):
"Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers; credit check required; must be 18 or older. For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)."
I'm sticking with T-Mobile. And these guys.
Walls are meant to keep people in or out (and once in a while both). So I guess a lot depends on which side you happen to find yourself. :)
"Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers; credit check required; must be 18 or older. For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)."
I'm sticking with T-Mobile. And these guys.
Walls are meant to keep people in or out (and once in a while both). So I guess a lot depends on which side you happen to find yourself. :)
Friday, June 5, 2009
Priorities
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Factory Speak
Per Inside The Factory:
"Another related topic is the request to reinstate a "Classic UI". We are evaluating this and the only thing I can tell you at this point is it would be a very large effort with many limitations.
Interpretation:
We're not really evaluating this. And even if we did, do you have any idea how large the effort would be? Imagine something large. Now double it. Now try to pick it up. Told you. Not to mention that it's covered with limitations, so if you do touch it - well, if I were you I'd wash my hands right away. You need specifics? Well, unfortunately we can't tell you what those limitations are because it'd require a Super Secret SEC Decoder Ring. Put it this way - it's impossible to make a new button in the Classic UI and a button in the New UI do the same thing. Why? Because we can't write code when our fingers are in our ears and we're singing, "LALALALALALALALALALALAAAAAAAAaaaaa...".
"To be honest there are a lot fewer requests for the old UI than discussions here would indicate, but the rationale is well understood to better support a transition."
Interpretation:
When I said, "To be honest", you instinctively trusted me. Subtle, no? Anyway - in spite of all your experience there's not really that many of you. You're just making disproportionally more noise. Here's the deal: we need to get Revit out to the masses. But the masses have short attention spans. They love shiny. And big. And YouTube. So we need a UI that is more shiny, big and distracting than YouTube. Otherwise the masses won't get any work done or pay their subscription notices on time. Yes - we do happen to manage multiple UI strategies for some other products. But those products have competitors in the marketplace with really passionate users. And if you think Revit users are cult-like, you can't begin to imagine what SolidWorks users are like. Put it this way: Revit users are like mid-western-Lutherans compared to a bunch of end-of-an-Appalachian-dirt-road-rattlesnake-handling-poison-drinking-tongue-speaking-Pentecostals. So we really don't want to upset the Inventor users. And since Revit really doesn't have a meaningful competitor we can pretty much serve dinner and you pretty much have to eat it (or go to bed hungry). Hey - someone get that dang SEC guy outta here!
"Biggest issue here is that we would have to support both the new and old UI at the same time which is roughly twice as much work or half as many new enhancements. Pretty much why it was deprecated in the first place."
Interpretation:
Twice as much work! Do you have any idea how much time was spent supporting the old UI? Infinity! So if we have to support two UIs we'll have to do Infinity^2 more work! Do you have any idea how hard that is?! Anyway, it's now obvious you don't understand how this game gets played. If you keep pestering us for the old UI, then we'll threaten to extract a price. How much? Well, let's put it this way: by having to manage two UIs, we'll insinuate that we'll only be able to get to around half of all the cool toys we've been begging everyone to let us do. So just to clarify - you'll eventually get all the cool toys...but it'll take twice as long...minus Infinity^2. Basically somewhere below Site Tools. And we'll be grumpy when we finally get around to it.
"Really just trying to deliver as many new enhancements as possible. We can't go back in time so need to decide what the best path forward is.
Interpretation:
Managing two UI's is impossible for the Revit team because to do so actually requires time travel. Yes - in fact we already do happen have one time machine. But obviously it's already being used by the AutoCAD team for managing their two UIs. And so far they'll only share it with the Inventor team.
"Another related topic is the request to reinstate a "Classic UI". We are evaluating this and the only thing I can tell you at this point is it would be a very large effort with many limitations.
Interpretation:
We're not really evaluating this. And even if we did, do you have any idea how large the effort would be? Imagine something large. Now double it. Now try to pick it up. Told you. Not to mention that it's covered with limitations, so if you do touch it - well, if I were you I'd wash my hands right away. You need specifics? Well, unfortunately we can't tell you what those limitations are because it'd require a Super Secret SEC Decoder Ring. Put it this way - it's impossible to make a new button in the Classic UI and a button in the New UI do the same thing. Why? Because we can't write code when our fingers are in our ears and we're singing, "LALALALALALALALALALALAAAAAAAAaaaaa...".
"To be honest there are a lot fewer requests for the old UI than discussions here would indicate, but the rationale is well understood to better support a transition."
Interpretation:
When I said, "To be honest", you instinctively trusted me. Subtle, no? Anyway - in spite of all your experience there's not really that many of you. You're just making disproportionally more noise. Here's the deal: we need to get Revit out to the masses. But the masses have short attention spans. They love shiny. And big. And YouTube. So we need a UI that is more shiny, big and distracting than YouTube. Otherwise the masses won't get any work done or pay their subscription notices on time. Yes - we do happen to manage multiple UI strategies for some other products. But those products have competitors in the marketplace with really passionate users. And if you think Revit users are cult-like, you can't begin to imagine what SolidWorks users are like. Put it this way: Revit users are like mid-western-Lutherans compared to a bunch of end-of-an-Appalachian-dirt-road-rattlesnake-handling-poison-drinking-tongue-speaking-Pentecostals. So we really don't want to upset the Inventor users. And since Revit really doesn't have a meaningful competitor we can pretty much serve dinner and you pretty much have to eat it (or go to bed hungry). Hey - someone get that dang SEC guy outta here!
"Biggest issue here is that we would have to support both the new and old UI at the same time which is roughly twice as much work or half as many new enhancements. Pretty much why it was deprecated in the first place."
Interpretation:
Twice as much work! Do you have any idea how much time was spent supporting the old UI? Infinity! So if we have to support two UIs we'll have to do Infinity^2 more work! Do you have any idea how hard that is?! Anyway, it's now obvious you don't understand how this game gets played. If you keep pestering us for the old UI, then we'll threaten to extract a price. How much? Well, let's put it this way: by having to manage two UIs, we'll insinuate that we'll only be able to get to around half of all the cool toys we've been begging everyone to let us do. So just to clarify - you'll eventually get all the cool toys...but it'll take twice as long...minus Infinity^2. Basically somewhere below Site Tools. And we'll be grumpy when we finally get around to it.
"Really just trying to deliver as many new enhancements as possible. We can't go back in time so need to decide what the best path forward is.
Interpretation:
Managing two UI's is impossible for the Revit team because to do so actually requires time travel. Yes - in fact we already do happen have one time machine. But obviously it's already being used by the AutoCAD team for managing their two UIs. And so far they'll only share it with the Inventor team.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
David 1, Goliath 0
Excellent article by Malcolm Gladwell: "How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break the Rules".
Along the same lines, I'd recommend, "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else" by Geoff Colvin.
More to follow.
Thanks.
Along the same lines, I'd recommend, "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else" by Geoff Colvin.
More to follow.
Thanks.
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