Category Hardware

Time Change is a Good Time to Check Your Backup Solution

Many say with the time change to Daylight Savings you should check your fire & smoke detectors, that is a great idea.

Equally as important to many with tons of data, documents, design files, photo memories and basically our digital lives is to take the time and make sure you are backing your data up, and reliably. Backup methods fail sometimes faster than a Vegas wedding, so double and triple check your backup methods and I possible don’t reply on just one as that can fail.

You should be doing these things more than twice a year with the time change but twice a year is better than never as both can cause memories to go up in flames.

Are Blueprints Really Dead?

I read an online articles headline stating blueprints were dead. I would love that, but in reality I find that proclamation of blueprints being dead as a headline hard to believe at this time. This topic also started a flurry of tweets discussing if paper blueprints were really dead and discussing if hardware could survive some work environments.

Don’t have a 3D Printer, No Problem

I hear it frequently when I speak about 3D Printing “Shaan I don’t have a 3D printer”, but they were not aware there are many printing services available locally and on the web. I think that is the business model 3D printing will be for awhile where the design shops and ultra hobbyists may have a 3D printer, but others designing in 3D can still pay for someone else to create the 3D print for them. I don’t think in the near future every home will have a 3D printer, but I believe they will all have access to one. We are starting to see companies like Staples dabbling in a local 3D print services but I want to see a day where the manufacturers of consumer goods provide free or a for a small fee replacement parts or custom modifications that you can purchase online and then pickup at your local FedEx Kinkos which are located about everywhere. That would save time, energy, warehousing, transportation costs and be better for the environment.

Magic Finger for Your Designs

Maybe you have already heard in the last day or two about the innovative Magic Finger research. The Magic Finger turns any surface into a touch interface. Magic Finger is a research project from Autodesk Research in collaboration with the University of Toronto.

Magic Finger inverts the typical relationship between the finger and an interactive surface: with Magic Finger, we instrument the user's finger itself, rather than the surface it is touching. Magic Finger senses touch through an optical mouse sensor, enabling any surface to act as a touch screen. Magic Finger also senses texture through a micro RGB camera, allowing contextual actions to be carried out based on the particular surface being touched. A technical evaluation shows that Magic Finger can accurately sense 22 textures with an accuracy of 98.9%. We explore the interaction design space enabled by Magic Finger, and implement a number of novel interaction techniques that leverage its unique capabilities.

New Autodesk Recommended Hardware Site

Randy Young is an Lead Engineer for Autodesk Hardware Certification and today he sent me some great information on the new Autodesk Recommended Hardware website. In the past we have provided test results and guidance on graphics cards or recommended system level requirements such as memory and CPU but never really to the model and manufacture of a computer system but that is changing.

AutoCAD 2013 System Requirements

The system requirements for AutoCAD 2013 are pretty much the same as the last two releases with the exception of no longer officially support for Windows Vista. If you are using AutoCAD 2012 or AutoCAD 2011 on Windows XP or Windows 7 just fine, you should be good to go with AutoCAD 2013.

Remember system requirements are not a one size fits all as there are a number of factors that affect how much resources your system may require. The factors can be from the complexity of your drawings, 2D or 3D, visual styles. These requirements are also the lowest suggested system optimal requirements, so use it as a suggested baseline.