One More Thing...

I haven't posted in a while, but I've certainly been chewing on something that continues to leave a bad taste.

Being fluid in an application is akin to playing an instrument (or learning a language). Is ADSK is deciding that all instruments should have the same UI? That we all should speak the same language? This seems an inane presumption.

Why has the UI been so significantly altered? A few reasons suggested at http://insidethefactory.typepad.com/:

* Make the products easier to learn

To be determined. Why "easier"? What compels me to learn an "easy" tool if I'm not convinced it does what I need? I wouldn't. I'd learn to use the harder tool that will help me accomplish a task.

* Make it easier to switch between Autodesk products

Presuming users care about switching only between Autodesk products that do different things is the first mistake. In any event, we switch between products all the time - from operating systems to applications. They look different. We get it.

* Maintain the productivity of existing users

To be determined. Anyway - why is the ideal to "maintain"? Why not accelerate or enhance productivity?

* Update the Autodesk identity

You are a public company. Your identity is your stock price. Get over it. Investing 2 years improving the UI while not significantly improving what you can do with the UI is wrong headed and inexplicable. How will revamping the UI convince your existing and new customers to buy your product and in doing so increase your stock price? This is your identity.

In conclusion, to hobble design teams with learning another "language" will make them significantly less productive in the short term. If they are 1/2 productive for a month, this represents a annual productivity hit of -4%, which I have to trust will be made up over the year. The UI is interesting but not compelling. What is the trade off? The downside of an learning an entirely new UI is certainly not being offset by long needed functionality enhancements (starting with site tools).

At this time, I find no compelling reason to upgrade to R2010. And if I get the sense there will not be significant enhancements in functionality in the coming years I will absolutely begin to consider other non-Autodesk solutions. There aren't any compelling BIM solutions at present. But this could quickly change as Autodesk has just given a potential competitor a terrific head start.

Stop, Drop and ROLF

Been a while...sorry. Got distracted counting all of my Adsense revenue. ;)
Bit of irony as Harrison and I are at yet another chess tournament (as with the last post). So far he's up two for three with one to go. Go H!
In the meantime there's this:


Available via iTunes. More info here.

What else?

New Wallace and Grommit: "Matter of Loaf and Death". Available here and there online.

The iPhone Dev Team is plugging away - but the 3G phone still isn't in the clear. Bottom line: don't buy the unlocks. They're just reselling the iPhone Dev Team's work and ripping you off in the process. Test: Google the unlock sites. The consumer sites are full of complaints against them at the rate of $50 a person.

Slightly less ironic than a GM Suburban on an LA freeway with a "No Blood for Oil" bumper sticker - cork forests are under threat after many compelled wine makers to move to synthetic cork (cough..recycling...cough). I wish they'd make up their minds. And if you hate sprawl now, just wait till cars run on sunlight and good intentions. People will drive to from New York Tokyo for weekend sushi.

Oh yeah. After much hand wringing, Apple finally released a 17" laptop that'll support up to 8GB of ram. ZZZzzz... The 'insanely great' upcharge from 4GB to 8GB is $1200. So I'm waiting until I'm sure that I can install it myself for $200. Which leaves $1000 for far more compelling investments. Maybe fly Guy over to Vegas for AU...hmmmm.

And finally, Carol Bartz is the new CEO of Yahoo, which leaves Jerry Yang to drop by Starbucks for her on the way into the office. I'd expect a Microsoft or Google deal to follow. Google would be very interesting. If it's Microsoft, I wouldn't suggest Steve Ballmer try any of that crazy-chair-throwing-monkey-boy-intimidation-stuff with Carol. It won't work. Not with Carol.

Send Money Please!

Mike Klein (above) is Harrison's chess coach and presently on sabbatical, which is fancy talk for being unemployed (yet not unemployable) and traveling around the globe for a year while the rest of us get to live vicariously through his exploits:

http://sendmoneyplease.livejournal.com/

Don't let the adult beverage, smokey-thing and angst-ridden inability to sit up straight fool you:
*1985 - Received first rating of 1398 (age five)
*1986 - Played Josh Waitzkin at the Nationals (creating a mention in the book "Searching for Bobby Fischer")
*1988 - National K-3 Champion
*1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 - North Carolina High School Champion
*1996 - Received National Master and Life Master titles
*1996 - World Open Under 2250 Champion
*1997 - North Carolina Open Champion
*2003 - Land of the Sky Open Section Champion (Largest open tournament in NC)
*2006 - Received FIDE Master title
*8-time member of the All-America Chess Team (inaugural member)
*Career national scholastic record: 61 wins, 10 losses, 13 draws

http://www.youngmasterchess.com/

Check out his itinerary. He's presently en route to Budapest and then to South Africa after the new year.

So far:
Sept. 08 - Amsterdam, Brussels, Bergerac, Bordeaux
Oct. 08 - Pyrenees, Barcelona, Granada, Morocco
Nov. 08 - Austria, Germany, Prague

Then:
Dec. 08 - Slovakia, Budapest, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia
Jan. 09 - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana
Feb. 09 - Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania
March 09 - Egypt, Israel, Jordan
April 09 - India, Nepal
May 09 - Thailand, Cambodia, Fiji

If you intersect his path of travels and have a clean couch (or spare room) please drop him an email. In return, he'll best you in a match of wits. How well you are likely to hold your own in said match of wits besting can be quickly estimated using what is otherwise known as the "Klein Formula":

[(Bn*Tz)/Dz)*(Bz+1)] = Mw%

Where:
Bn = #Beers consumed by Mike the last 6 hours
Tz = Time zones removed from Mike's last time zone
Dz = Days Mike has spent in present time zone
Bz = #Beers consumed by you the last 6 hours
Mw = % odds of getting your wits bested by Mike

If you cross paths with Mike please be sure to post your score in comments!

Safe travels, Mike.

Transparent Stoopid Easy Multiplatform Sweet

Windows and OSX (Beta). And better performance than some paid for business solutions.

Really.

Features:
* Video Chats (3 Free / 6 Paid)
* High Resolution Video (Paid - Windows Only)
* Record Video Chats
* Video Messages (1 Min Free / 5 Min Paid)
* Video Effects (Windows Only. ZZZzzzz....)
* Call Non-ooVoo Friends (Windows Only. IM Link - Opens Video in Web Browser. Interesting / Sneaky)
* Phone Calls (US and Canada / Cell and Land Lines / Free-ish / Tinny Sound)
* Other Stuff (ZZZZzzzz....)

More here: http://www.oovoo.com/

Username: Anarchytec

AU2008 BLIM BLAM BLOG

First of all - the weather is great. Nearly 70F during the day - which is around 10F higher than normal. That means people could actually hang out by the pool. That is if there were any people here. AU hasn't officially kicked off yet (most people fly in on Monday) and Vegas seems like a ghost town. The HNTB Architecture technology team had a fantastic meal together last night and the restaurant might have had four tables in use. The restaurant was a very fine selection by Katherine Meeder. And speaking of Katherine - she'll be traveling to Seoul, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur for a brief architectural study abroad program. And speaking of Singapore - Katherine is concentrating her thesis on the modernization and planning of Singapore.

So if you're from Singapore and you'll be at AU - please drop me an email. I'd like to introduce you to Katherine. Let's see if we can arrange for you two to meet and discuss all things architecture and technology while she's visiting in early January of next year.

Today: Design Computation Symposium. All day event. I'll get to see Matt Jezyk (Revit Mother Ship) and Neil Katz (SOM NY Mathematic Philosopher Design Guru Classical Clarinetist). Neil once described his design philosophy with the elegantly pejorative, "We don't make blobs. We make decisions". ;) Good times.

Hey Neil - can I buy you a couple of beers and then introduce you to Blackjack? :)

Finally - another year passes without Guy Robinson attending AU. Dude - wish you were here. Allow me to solace you thus.

The Veldt

Wrapping up the cave. Normally the lights are out while the surround sound blares. Wii Sports is a ton-o-fun and Tennis is the family favorite. Ditto for The Force Unleashed.

Considering this is what kids are growing up with now, it'll be fascinating to see what evolves as "immersive" home entertainment over the next 20 years or so.

I'm sticking to pinball.

Tivo To Go

We've given up the Tivo. Totally worth it.

Here's the setup:

Mac Mini: Storage, DVD Player/Writer, etc.
Controls: Wireless Keyboard, Mouse and Remote
Elgato EyeTV 250: Watching / Recording TV to the Mac
Bitorrent: Transmission and TVShows
Firefox: South Park Studios and Netflix "Watch Now"
iTunes: Podcasts, TV and Movie Downloads
Dropbox: Shared content with other computers around the house as well as when I'm on the road.
Future(?): May need an external terabyte or so of storage. Presently have about 100GB.

DVI>VGA out from the Mac into the TV. Update below.
Audio out from the Mac into Bose Subwofer and Speakers.

Dear Apple: Please make a wireless keyboard with integrated track pad! :)

Looks and sounds great.

While this is more expensive upfront cost than the Tivo box. But once you consider $150 a year for Tivo subscription it quickly balances out.

Way more options. Way more control. Way more content.

UPDATE 1: SVideo provides limited resolution compared to VGA video output. The Mac Mini will support analog resolutions up to 1920 by 1080 pixels. The VGA adapter is included in with the Mini - but you'll still need a VGA cable to go from the Mini to the back of the HDTV.

UPDATE 2: Bought a terabyte external drive. Plenty-o-storage.

UPDATE 3: Never mind the wireless trackpad thingie. Check out Mobile Air Mouse. Seriously cool.

Total Perspective Vortex Machine

From Education Knowledge
From Experience Wisdom
RIP Eric Hoffer

BIM There...Done That

One man's patio is another's "Drinking Plinth".

Stock Watch

Netflix just opened up "Watch Now" for OSX. Not a bad selection either. Great timing as the Tivo decided to crap out just a few weeks ago by broadcasting only in b&w. In the meantime, I've been trying to decide between one of two options.

Corner 1: New Toshiba Tivo with integrated DVD player / writer
Corner 2: New MacMini, EyeTV and a Torrent client

I'm starting to nudge over to the Mini.

More info on Netflix for OS X here.

Your Cheating Heart...

Working on a front patio addition which is presently under construction. More 'Build>Design' than 'Design>Build'. ;) And as much as I love Revit, SketchUp is just so effortless and so very sexy. So what did I use to resolve some late design questions with the builder? Yup:

• Real Time Materials
• Beautiful Graphics
• Windows / OS X
• Photo <> Geometry Mapping Tool
  
• Google Warehouse
  
• Forrest Gump Shallow Learning Curge
  

SketchUp has limitations 'o plenty. But if you know them - they're not limitations. They're just stuff you can't do.

Is SketchUp a BIM tool? No, but neither is a pencil. And pencils aren't going away either.

The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together!

Feel free to post comments. But mind your manners or I'll send my nephews over for a visit...;)

So Much For Those Girl Dreams of Vassar...

My youngest sister Rebecca has a great tradition for allowing her sons to come up with really terrific Halloween costumes. This year, nine-year old cousin William really, really wanted to be an "Evil Ventriloquist Doll". Unfortunately - his oldest brother wanted to be one as well.

Solution? William would be the evil girl doll, oldest sibling Braedon would be the evil boy doll, leaving middle child Luke free to attire as a maniacal surgeon.

The four of them scouted Goodwill for clothes - but ended up finding just the right outfit at Kohls for under $14. Best line of the day came while they were looking for shoes:

Braedon: "What about these Will?"
William: "There's no way I'm wearing those shoes with this dress."

YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!

New Zealand is a great country and all. Stunning beaches, beautiful geography and hardly any animals that eat people. They also play football without helmets and the players occasionally step on each others heads (when not attempting to gouge an opponent's eyes).

Fortunately, beer in New Zealand is distributed free to all citizens as part the country's experiment in socialized medicine. Beer makes you forget that your head has been stepped on and you're missing an eye. Oh - and they worship the Queen of England. Every Christmas, the Queen does a speech. The first time I saw it I thought it was a Python sketch but became confused as there was no live audience laugh track.

So overall - great place. Before you die, you should definitely visit. Don't even get a hotel. Just show up with your family at a stranger's house and ask them to stay for a few days. Odds are they'll let you. Really. They're that nice.

But do beware of one particular sandwich topping. It's a spread as black as night with the consistency of peanut butter. And it smells worse than a Balrog's ass. Now mix in a handful of salt. So it's a food as well as a preservative. Which is why people live to be hundreds of years old in New Zealand: Vegemite.

But most unfortunately, you can't watch South Park in New Zealand. So I've refused to allow my children to grow up there. The maternal government is afraid (and rightly so) that watching South Park will warp a child's "fragile little mind".

This from a country that gave birth to an abomination of a TV show called "Shortland Street".

Isn't that right, Dr. Ropata?

YAHIKNOW!

Markets are in the crapper. At this rate the kids will have to go to NC State rather than Duke.
At least there's Little Britain. More info here.
You'll need HBO. Or a decent Torrent.

FYI: Careful if you watch this on a laptop or during a flight. Right Hunter? ;)

Transparent Stoopid Easy Multiplatform Free

I'm guessing Google will pick these guys up soonish.

http://www.getdropbox.com/

All of These Keyboards Suck

And it's very important that they continue to do so.

Why? Predictable Inefficiency.

Keyboards represent a well understood UI. But from a functionality standpoint they're not arranged with regard to what works ergonomically. In fact - typewriter keys were deliberately arranged to not work well (from a speed of typing standpoint) because forcing people to type slower meant the mechanisms jammed less frequently.

And as time passed, typewriters gave way to electric typewriters which gave way to word processors and eventually personal computing. But something interesting happened: the keyboard pretty much remained the same.

Which brings up my point.

Improving the functionality of what typewriters represented (i.e., the ability to create, manipulate and disseminate thought) was far more important than improving the UI of the keyboard. Of course one can refer plenty of carefully managed studies that argue for an entirely different keyboard layout. But the fact remains - improving the keyboard will only serve to frustrate the end user, cost the customer a lot time and the shareholders a lot of money. Or simply:

Don't improve the UI at the cost of
improving functionality.

And some serious functionality improving is long overdue:

1. Site Tools
2. 64 Bit
3. Stairs and Railings
4. Curtain Wall
5. Geometry Enhancements

Don't fall into the same crap trap as Office 2007. Because if you do it'll only mean we still won't be able to do stuff - only faster.

Nice Hack

Beats spending $30. The thing is - you can't find 1st generation iPhone cases in Apple stores anymore. And when you ask the staff if they have them, they look at you a bit strange. It's as if I'm supposed to be embarrassed for having not upgraded to the new phone with a new selection of cases.

Pfffttt.

So I'd used gaffer tape to wrap the back of my phone. But after too much trial and error and thought I decided to search online for a template to make cutting out the exact shape a bit easier.

Turns out some other clever person has already done it. Nice work here.

No Signs of Intelligent Life

So NASA found water on Mars.

ZZZZzzzz.....

You know what would turn a few heads?

If they found beer.

Totally. Awsome.

More info here.

The iPhone Is Not A Phone

And this is not a radio station.

Old media is dying; their electronic toll roads and controlled distribution have been usurped. I don't watch news at 11. I can't bear the false drama and carefully timed commercial breaks. Controversy replaced Journalism in order to sell more advertising.

Technology renders Technology obsolete.

The cloud will not be downloaded. There's little need. The cloud can be streamed. And the millions upon millions that record companies paid to the RIAA to sue the parents of kids raised on Tivo would have been better spent finding the next Dylan/Zepplin/Stones/Doors/Joplin/etc/etc/etc.

But the record companies realize that this is not about controlling the revenue due to their artist. It's about controlling distribution. They make money because they stand between what is wanted and those who want.

Their control over distribution is being usurped.

Suckas.

Radio is ubiquitous - but you have control over genre, not specific content. And the advertisers were clever enough to stand between the content and the listener.
-
Satellite radio simply generated revenue by charging the listener rather than the advertiser.
-
The iPod allowed you to control content without advertisers - but you paid (mostly...be honest) to get the content into your little white box, that still limits selection to around 25,000 songs. Sure, that's a lot of selection (figure 3MB per song = 300 per GB = 25,000 songs on an 80GB iPod). But who has the time to rip and burn that much content? Figuring 1 minute per song for 25,000 songs? Over 400 hours. Over 17 days. Fugettaboutit.

But what if content was ubiquitous, you could control it, there were not advertisers and it was free? What if everyone just played their music and everyone else could just listen?

Well. That would make record execs shutter. They'd say things like, "The internet has opened a 'Pandora's Box'." Because they think the moral to the story of Pandora's Box was that all this bad stuff got out that could never be put back in. Because they're motivated by fear.

But the moral of Pandora's Box was a single word: Hope.

http://www.pandora.com/

World's Greatest BIM Manager

Pat even bought a new shiny 16GB 3G iPhone to celebrate.

But he won't let me anywhere near it.

Happy Birthday sir. It's an honor working with you. Keep kicking arse and taking names!

Thank You Thomas Carter! No...er...wait...iPhone Dev Team!

More info here. Hunter - don't panic. Smooth sailing ahead. :) Basically - don't take the easy path. It's all pretty pictures but doesn't always work. Well it didn't work for me. After I took the expert route it all clicked.

Check out the very useful comments by Frederick231 in the comments section here. I had used Zibri's Ziphone hack up until 1.1.4 (this morning). There were some warnings on his page about upgrading. The iPhone Dev Team's comments section removed that concern.

Instructions start off by upgrading to official Apple 2.0 software. This will lock (but doesn't brick) your phone. By the time it was finished I was able to re-sync and recover all settings, music, photos, etc.

Earlier 3rd party apps and games are gone. The one really useful tool: "Search" by Polar Bear Farms - has been replaced by actual functionality.

1Gen iPhones only (for now).

Mac only (for now).

Thank You Thomas Carter!

My disdain for AT&T goes way back. I'd sign up for a home phone plan with an agreed upon international calling plan. Then after a few months a phone bill would arrive for $300. Somehow - the calling plan to New Zealand had "reset" and I'd been charged $1 a minute for overseas calls - for a month. And after four weekends of calls, it added up.

Then the dance would begin. I'd call AT&T, tell them about our calling plan, they'd tell us we canceled it, I'd tell them we didn't, they'd admit they couldn't prove I canceled the plan, and credit the charges and reset the calling plan. I'd do this 3-4 times a year. Waste an hour or so on the phone. Great way to spend a Saturday morning.

An associate of mine is the technology manager for an architecture firm in Charlotte, NC. He had the misfortune of sending a 6MB (not GB) file to his office, using his cell phone as the modem. With no data plan - care to guess how much AT&T charged him?

$360. Yep. $60 per MB.

Good thing he didn't download a Podcast. At that rate, an hour long episode of The Totally RAD Show (180MB) would have set him back nearly $11,000.

My friend called AT&T and tried to negotiate. A monthly data plan was $25. But the AT&T rep told him they didn't care since they were being bought by Cingular. No negotiation. He needed to pay the $360. Oh - and did he want a $25 data plan?

He canceled his AT&T account that month. Paid the $150 penalty. Moved to T-Mobile. Never looked back.

And yet, my distain for AT&T has recently subsided. While I have a first generation iPhone (wait for it...it's unlocked with the Ziphone hack) I've watch scornfully from the sidelines while others upgrade their official AT&T iPhone and now have Exchange support. On the other hand, I can't upgrade mine (yet) because it'll brick my phone. I need to wait till the updated hacks are released.

But then - just as I was about to hold my nose and move to AT&T and buy a new iPhone, I found out something interesting. The Exchange support already works with the $30 a month data plan with a first generation iPhone. BUT - if you buy a new (3G) iPhone and you want Exchange support - your data plan is now $45 a month. Nice.

The AT&T rep told me that AT&T didn't realize that Apple would automatically support Exchange on the first generation iPhones. D'oh! And AT&T isn't too happy about this little factoid. So it seems AT&T haven't yet learned their history lesson of working with Steve Jobs. Yes, the same Steve Jobs who ironically, was helping college students hack AT&T payphones so they wouldn't have to pay for long distant charges. Did I mention that you can use VOIP (like Skype) with the iPhone? D'oh! D'oh!

Anyway, if you already have an iPhone and you're considering upgrading to a new 3G iPhone for the Exchange support:

Don't buy a new iPhone. Upgrade your first generation iPhone and Exchange support should already work.

I really don't understand. Does anyone enjoy being an AT&T customer?

And here's the kicker: if you bought the first generation phone, and AT&T wireless plan, and now want to upgrade - he new iPhone is cheaper, right? "Twice as fast, 1/2 the price", right?

"If you are not currently eligible for the upgrade price, but your account is in good standing, you have two uptions: wait until you are upgrade eligible or pay a discounted early upgrade price of $399 for 8GB (black) and $499 for 16GB (black or white). A two-year contract is required. Additional discounts are not available for iPhone 3G."

$399 for a phone that costs a new customer $199?

I'm staying with T-Mobile. As for AT&T? They've been screwing their customers long before the Carterphone Decision.

Speaking of the Carterphone Decision, July 2nd was the 40th anniversary.

Thanks Thomas Carter.

Dear AT&T: Bite Me.