Dezignstuff SolidWorks Blog

If your reading muscles aren’t sore by now, here are some miscellaneous pieces of information that didn’t fit in other places.

Training materials for sale?

Ok, this must be another miscommunication, but I’m quite sure I heard from the main stage that the new website http://store.solidworks.com will sell the standard SolidWorks swag along with training materials. It is possible that they meant stuff like the Photoworks or Animator books, and not the reseller type course materials, but since what we do here better than anything else is stir the pot, I’m looking forward to buying an Advanced Assemblies training book. SW could put eBay out of business if they allowed people to buy training books.

Feature Lock

I’m gonna keep mentioning this one. They announced from the main stage that you will be able to put a Feature Lock on the Feature Manager to prevent features from rebuilding. YEEEEHAAAAW! “My name is Matt Lombard, and SolidWorks 2011 was my idea.” Ok, so feature lock wasn’t my idea, it was some one else’s idea, but I like the idea a lot.

Cloud Poll

I did an informal and non-scientific poll at my surfacing session at SWW10. I asked how many people were excited about the cloud stuff, and about half raised their hands. Then I asked how many were terrified, and half rose their hands. Not sure if they were the same people or different people, but this is neither a slam dunk nor a total waste in terms of public opinion at this point.

Quote from Jim Wilkinson of the Usability group:

“Escape is the most used key in the software”

User Groups

This year I resigned from leading the Central Virginia user group, stopped giving all the presentations at the Blue Ridge user group, and didn’t run for re-election for the SWUGN committee. To this point I haven’t really issued an explanation for why. Essentially, I was putting a lot of effort into SWUGN that was straight out of my pocket, and not reimbursed. In good times I can afford to do that, but I can’t subsidize that kind of user group activity long term, especially when the company benefitting from that activity doesn’t seem to appreciate or acknowledge the effort. Even as a part of the committee, I felt that personal and corporate politics trumped everything else. I believe that with the same amount of effort and at lower personal cost to me, I can have a bigger and more positive impact on the SolidWorks community with my on-line activities. The user groups will in time take care of themselves, and Tony Cantrell has been elected to replace me on the committee. Tony has a lot of energy and enthusiasm to contribute, and I hope that is harnessed and allowed to produce good things rather than discouraged.

If I can offer some parting advice, the “SolidWorks Community” includes all users connecting through all media. You can’t lead the community and not believe in certain types of media. You can’t demoralize volunteer labor, fail to reimburse when it is your policy, or lead campaigns against individuals. You can’t be devisive and bring people together at the same time. You can’t listen selectively and pretend problems don’t exist.