Gabi Jack's Blog

Directo desde Barcelona

So here I am, in Barcelona. Finally, after nearly 14 hours of flight from San Francisco, I’ve arrived to the hotel, and even met with a few of the SolidWorks bloggers. Here in this picture you can see, from left to right, Jason, Josh, Mike, Brian and Ben. Yes, we met at the hotel bar, but I was drinking Coca-Cola.  They are such great guys; a lot of fun to talk to. I’m really looking forward to meeting the rest of the bloggers and people from SolidWorks that I’ve only met by email or phone.

Barcelona is such a beautiful city! On the way to the hotel, the taxi driver was playing tourist guide and telling me about all the interesting parts of the city and a bit about its history, monuments, architecture, etc.  I had this great plan of walking around the area today, since I had some time before dinner, but instead I’ve been hit by jetlag. I’m trying so hard to stay awake!

Time Off

What’s the only good thing about having a spouse who travels the world all year round, I mean besides (emergency) chocolate from Switzerland and gold plated figurines from Japan? Frequent flyer miles! Thousands and thousands of them! This year, instead of me traveling to Mexico with the kids, Keith decided to take some time off from work, take some of those miles, and head over to Orlando, FL, for a much needed vacation with the whole family. We leave this weekend, and I still haven’t managed to put a suitcase together. I know, this has nothing to do with SW, but I just wanted to give you the heads up that it’s going to be pretty empty and lonely around here for a whole week, but that I’ll come back soon (yes, I will come back, you haven’t got rid of me yet) to continue blogging about SolidWorks and whatever’s new in the community.

In the meantime, check out all the other blogs for very interesting articles about SolidWorks 2009 and perhaps even about all the preparations for SolidWorks World 2009. I know, it seems a bit far away, but believe me, people are already getting excited about it and planning for it. With some effort and a bit of luck, you could even get to go for free.  I still don’t know if I will be lucky enough to attend this one. I really wish I can go, but it’s too early to say. At least, one thing I know is that, so far, I’ve got the airfare covered. Plenty of flyer miles to spare!

See you soon!

This one's for the girls...

This hasn’t got much to do with SolidWorks, but a lot to do with women and engineering. It’s about the annual national conference for women in engineering, and that this year will take place from November 6^th to 8^th, in Baltimore, Maryland.  It looks like something I would like to experience, but unfortunately I will have to miss it this year. I had no idea that such an event took place, so I didn’t plan for it at all. Maybe next year.  In the meantime, spread the word among the women engineers that you know. And if you are one, consider attending. It looks like something really cool… and they even offer free childcare! For more information, take a look at this brief video clip or visit their website.

TechShop: a playground for the creative spirit.

While searching for a SolidWorks model of a presser foot for a sewing machine, I ran across the site of a place called the TechShop. I must have been living under a rock all this time, because I had never heard of anything like this before.  This place is a public access workshop, like a Kinko’s, only full of all kinds of equipment that can be used to work on almost any kind of project you can possibly imagine: milling machines, sheet metal working equipment, welding stations, plasma cutters, tubing and metal bending equipment, lathes, equipment for working on plastics, and even a Dimension BST 3D printer. All kinds of neat stuff, all under one roof, and available for anyone that needs to get some project done or simply wishes to learn how to use the equipment, since they also offer classes and assistance from instructors. There’s one of these in Menlo Park, not so far away from my place, so I’m thinking about going on a little “field trip” one of these weekends and tour their facility (yes, that 3D printer is making me insanely curious).  So, I’m wondering, have you ever tried a place like this? If so, did you become a member or just visit every now and then? Is it really as good as it sounds? Is it worth the cost?

Meet the new CSWP!!!!!

ME!!!! Just a few minutes ago, I finished taking my CSWP test and... I passed!!!! Thank you, Jesus!!! And thank you to my wonderful husband for supporting my crazy dreams!! I feel soooo tired, and sooooo happy! I'm crying, but these are tears of happiness! I still can't believe it! I passed!!!

And now to sleep for a month... If I can...

Embracing change

This is a little story that reminds me somehow about the way some of us approach SolidWorks and, more in particular, the new functionality that is added to it with every release. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

One of the many summer activities for kids in this area is a one week bowling camp. It’s really fun and a great value for the money, because at the end of it all the kids receive a customized bowling ball of their choice and a bag.  My older son tried it last year and loved it, so this year we decided to sign up both boys for the camp. Now, you have to keep in mind that my younger son is only four, and his hands are so small, his fingers so short, that not a single one of the house balls in the whole bowling alley could fit him. The space between the holes for the fingers and the thumb has always been too large for him. For this reason, in order to bowl with the others, he holds the ball with both hands, gently places it on the lane and gives it a little push, then stays there, watching his ball slowly creep to the pins, at an “astonishing” speed of  1.5 mph.  Problem is, unless he’s allowed to use bumpers, the ball almost never makes it to the pins,  and usually ends up in a gutter, as a dead ball, instead. As the camp came to an end, we could hardly wait for him to try his new ball, the one that had been customized for him, using exact measurements of his hand and fingers.  The coach gave him his ball, and he placed his fingers and thumb inside the holes to hold it. He was so delighted! “It fits, mom! Finally, I have a ball that fits! Now I can hold it!” he said. Suddenly, it was his turn to bowl and what did he do? Well, while still keeping his fingers inside the holes, and as everyone cheered for him, he carried the ball all the way to the lane… then gently placed it down and gave it a push with both hands.  Oops!   I guess it’s going to take some time for him to realize he doesn’t need to do it that way anymore. He’ll get it in the end, I’m sure. I’ll make sure he does!

But, you see, the way my son continued to cling to his old ways even with the new and improved ball, reminds me a bit of all of us. Here we are with our “brand new ball”, this powerful software, full of functionality and great features, yet, many times we don’t use any of it, or don’t even know of its existence.  Instead, we continue to “give our ball a little push” in order to get the job done, just like my son did. And if you don’t believe me, go to the forums, read a few blogs, or check out the videos I posted of the last Tri-Valley SWUG meeting. You’ll see many users that seemed surprised to hear about top-down modeling, smart components, mate references, etc. Functionality that is not precisely new.   I wonder why. Is it lack of information about this functionality? Lack of educational materials? Misinformation? Lack of trust that this functionality may actually work the way it’s supposed to? Is it that we can’t come up with a good use for it? Or is it just that it’s too hard to get out of our comfort zone and try something new? Whatever the reason, it is a real shame. After all, what good is all this functionality, all this power, if we don’t use it?

So, next time you’re using SolidWorks, if you have a chance, try something new, just for fun. Explore a bit! You may be surprised by what you find! It may be just what you needed all along to stop pushing your ball down the lane and knock down a few pins for a change!

Blocked in China?!? The things you learn!

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, my husband’s job requires him to travel frequently, at least one week of every other month, usually to places in Asia, although he’s also been to England, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia… Well, you get the idea.  This time he’s in China, and trying to access my blog to no avail (he’s my one sure reader).  After quite a few failed attempts, and noticing that there didn’t seem to be any problems to access the blog on this side, I asked him to try a few other typepad blogs. No luck either!  A quick search on Google took me to this blog: RC Conversations, by Rebecca MacKinnon.  In a blog post from June 2005, she explains how all or at least most of typepad blogs have been blocked in China, apparently for political reasons, even if they don’t talk about China or its government at all! According to her post, no blogs from Typepad would be able to be seen, unless you are reading them using some proxy server, because even some readers and feed burners were blocked. And it seems it wasn’t only Typepad, but other blog-hosting services as well, such as Blogger and Blogspirit. OK, so that was June 2005… I wonder if what my hubby is experiencing while trying to access my blog from China is anywhere related to that massive blog blockage or if it’s related to the most recent internet crack-down measurements taken for the Olympic games, as detailed in this article by the Global Voices Advocacy. Either way, it’s sad, isn’t it?  I don’t even talk about China in this blog! All I want is to share about SolidWorks with them! Oh, well…

COSMOSnaut

Well, this is one of those “I haven’t fallen from the face of the Earth yet”, kind of post. I think we all have one of those every now and then. I’m still alive and kicking, but seriously, whoever has the voodoo doll, could you please just leave it alone? Yes, you know which doll I’m talking about, the Mexican looking one with the wavy black hair and the glasses. Just put the darn doll down!  Now, I don’t really believe in voodoo dolls or any kind of witchcraft, but the truth is I’ve been having some very bad luck the last few days. First, I tried for the CSWP test a few days ago and didn’t pass it. I was very sad about it, but I don’t consider it a total loss, since now I know what to expect the next time I try, and I think I even learned a thing or two from it. The test is not impossible, just really long and tedious.  I didn’t use my three hours wisely and couldn’t finish. Next time, I hope, I’ll do much better.  OK, so maybe that’s not so bad, but guess what else? Well, my minivan got burglarized and brutally vandalized. It happened right in front of my own house, in broad daylight, and nobody heard or saw anything! Except for the personal items that were stolen from the vehicle (my beloved GPS was in there), the insurance will cover all needed repairs, but, as usual, I was left to deal with all the hassle of finding a good shop to do the work for me, arranging appointments, etc. I called the police to report the crime and they told me to file a report online, but they won’t do anything about it. They won’t even come or take a look at the vehicle. Nothing! So, I wonder, what’s the purpose of filing the report in the first place?  Just for it to become a statistic on how many cars get burglarized in this city? Hmmm…

Anyway, now I need to get back on track with everything else, including SolidWorks and blogging, of course. Haven’t got much done, but at least I’ve been practicing on SolidWorks 2008 for my second attempt at the CSWP test and I can tell you something: I am loving it. I know I said before I wasn’t sure yet, but now…  I just love what they did with it!  One thing that really saves me time is that little context toolbar that shows up every time I select anything in the graphics area or Feature Manager. I use it frequently to change to a normal view of a face, edit a sketch or feature, show or hide an item, or start a new sketch. It’s so convenient that I think next time I’ll take the test using SW2008, instead of SW2007. After all I had heard about it, I was afraid the new user interface would make me waste time while looking for toolbars and icons, but is actually helping me work faster, instead. In my humble opinion, it's the best thing about SW2008.

This week I’m also unearthing some of the notes I ran into quite some time ago and that I had been saving for “some other day”. They are an introductory course to Finite Element Methods, written by Dr. Carlos Felippa; lecture notes and materials from one of the classes he teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Ever since a brief encounter with ALGOR in 1997, I’ve always been fascinated by FEA, collecting all kinds of materials I can find about it, and now with COSMOSWorks so conveniently integrated into SolidWorks, I can finally learn about it, like I've always wanted to. I had been waiting until I felt a bit more confident in my SolidWorks basic skills. Now I think I can try to jump into it with both feet. I already have a few books on COSMOS, but I would appreciate if anyone can recommend a few good books on Finite Element Analysis.  And of course, any advice and suggestions are always welcome!

So, that’s all that’s been going on (or not going on at all) on this end. Hope I have better things to talk about real soon!

A Solid Ant on Wings Like Eagles

I can’t say I’m a very patient person. No, not really. That’s not me! My nature is to run straight ahead to wherever it is I want to go, and never stop running until I get there, no matter what. However, I’ve learned that in this life, sometimes, it does pay to wait and go little by little, just a little bit every day. Sometimes, it’s the only way to do it. You just need to keep at it, even when it doesn’t seem like you are doing much, or getting anywhere at all. Never stop… Before you realize, you’ll get the job done, exactly like the ant, one grain of sand at a time. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish this way, with a little patience and a little faith… and, sometimes, a little luck.  Well, this Solid Ant has gotten lucky in unexpected ways, and she’s also saved some money, little by little, for quite some time, and now she has just put some of that money to good use and bought herself a brand new computer to run SolidWorks 2008 in it.

Yep! After spending some time researching and comparing what others (like Anna and Devon) had bought for themselves, I finally made up my mind and bought a Dell Precision M6300 mobile workstation, with all the trimmings I could afford, such as 160 GB in hard drive, 4 GB SDRAM, and, for the first time ever in my life, a nice NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600 graphics card. I will finally know what Realview looks like! I ordered the computer this weekend. It will still be a few days before it gets here and I can load all the software in it. A few more days, and I can hardly wait! I’m really excited, so please, if you own one of these computers and there’s something about it that you absolutely hate, don’t even bother raining on my parade. I just don’t want to hear about it! Just kidding! Well, no, not really.

I’m still keeping SW2007 in my old Fujitsu. I’m still not done with it. You may see me jumping from one version to the other.  I wonder how different SW2008 will be and if I’ll like it better than SW2007. Guess I’ll find out in just a few more days!

Test drive, anyone?

Well, this blog post could also be called “How to make one’s life more complicated than it already is”, or even better, “I have to stop wearing that cap to the baseball games”. OK, so this time there I was at the baseball game, minding my own business, when one of the umpires, taking a good look at my ever so stylish baseball cap, came over and asked, “Excuse me, what exactly is SolidWorks?”  I opened my mouth to answer that question, and that’s precisely when I began to complicate my own life even more. 

You see, this guy and his wife own a drafting business. For five years since they started the business, they have provided drafting services using a particular CAD software that I’m very familiar with, but its name I’d rather not mention here, for fear that this may give place to any kind of controversies. I just want to clarify, this post is not about bashing other software at all. Anyway, as I was saying, neither him, nor his wife, use the software.  They simply own the business and manage it, and pay to drafters and designers to do the “dirty” job for them. For five years, the business has sustained itself nicely… But, believe it or not, it has not generated any profit for them at all! Nothing, zero, nada! What’s even worse, it’s now on the verge of generating debt, and all because they don’t do solid modeling. So, they are looking into purchasing new software, but they don’t know what to buy.

The first thing I had to explain to them was the difference between the kind of software they use now and  the kind of software they  intent to purchase. It took a while, but I think they got it, as he finally exclaimed “Oh, it’s like comparing a VW beetle with a Ferrari”. Yes, yes it is. Next, came a brief account of the many kinds of software for solid modeling that exist out there and the ones I’ve tried (even if briefly), besides SolidWorks. Then, came the painful part, as we discussed prices and affordability. At this point, the wife expressed  a deep concern about the cost of the software and training, wondering if, perhaps, their best bet would be to go with the one from the same brand they are using now  (we are talking about something that rhymes with mentor), because they may get it for a good price and, being from the same family, it may be easier for their designers to learn. He, on the other hand, was even more of a cheapskate, wondering if they should purchase another one, which name reminds me of the Spanish word for “free”, again, basing his decision entirely on the cost.

I don’t know about you guys, I do understand that there is a budget for everything, but I honestly think that there are certain things in life that you just can’t choose merely because of how little they cost. A car, a house, the software you’ll use for your business, all of these are among them.  So I told this couple if they were too intimidated to ask for information from a salesperson, I would be glad to talk to their drafters and let them “test drive” some of the software I have, just to see how they like it and which one they like the best. I also advised them to download and try demos, trial versions, etc., and, if possible, have their drafters do some research as well, all so that they can make an informed decision, whatever it is they choose to buy in the end.

I didn’t think they took my offer seriously, until I got a phone call today from one of their employees, asking for the best time to meet and try the software.  Wow! I’m glad to help out, but I’m almost hoping that, in case they decide to buy SolidWorks, they won’t take me on that other thing I offered in the spur of the moment, because if they do, I’ll be spending quite a few hours  of my already busy life teaching their drafters whatever I’ve been able to learn about the basics on how to use SW… for free!  Yep, I’ve got to stop wearing the cap and learn to keep my big mouth closed!