In the Dynamic Interface

Media Center controlling home appliances?

Found this link on Matt Goyer's Media Center BLOG. Seems like the Media Center Operating Systems are becoming a House Hold name (no pun intended). This link shows a possible future concept.

From the Post: http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2006/07/19/1147

This would be great for apartment buildings where you have to share a laundry room. From The washer goes wireless:

Are you ready for this? Microsoft, Whirlpool, Hewlett-Packard and other members of the Internet Home Alliance are about to start testing a system that connects a washer and dryer to a home network to deliver notifications to TV screens, PC monitors or cell phones about the status of a laundry load.

The “Laundry Time” system also goes further, to let people control the washer and dryer from a distance — pressing a button on a cell phone, for example, to keep the dryer going a few extra minutes until you get home. Microsoft created the Laundry Time software, which works in conjunction with the company’s Media Center PC and mobile-phone technology.

New AUGI Toolbar

Tonight I was searching around the internet looking for AutoCAD blogs and landed on Richar Binnings Besides the Cursor BLOG and noticed he developed a COOL Augi Toolbar for Internet explorer. This toolbar has access to the Augi Website, Augi Forums, Search Augi, AutoCAD Community, Revit Community, MSN Messenger, a Pop up Blocker, RSS Feeds with pre set feeds, and Autofill. This toolbar is pretty cool!! Nice work Richard!!

Link to Richards blog post: http://www.integr-8.com/besidethecursor/2006/02/are-you-using-augi-toolbar.html#links

Apparently he's working on one for mozilla\firefox also!!

AUGI CAD Camp coming to NorCAL

YES, finally the Augi CAD Camp is coming to Northern California!! I'm very excited to finally see what this mini AU or CAD Camp is all about. You'll see there are many different types of classes ranging from AutoCAD 2006, Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, CAD Management, and more. I may try and sneak in on a Dynamic Blocks class while I'm there to see if there's anything I missed that I can BLOG about? (Need to keep the Dynamic Block content going) There are also some really good instructors, Robert Green, David Cohn, Matt Murphy, Sheet Set Wiz Heidi Hewett, and of course the all around AutoCAD guru Lynn Allen. The CAD Camp is only one day long so its a nice little way to get a break form the office. Were in the mist of trying to send our whole CAD department so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully it doesn't fill up too fast. Early registration is now open so if you're a AUGI member get on over to the site to sign up and get the early bird fee.

Hope to see everyone who can make it there!!

AUGI Web Site: http://Augi.com
Link to AUGI CAD Camp: http://cadcamp.com
Link to AUGI San Francisco CAD Camp: http://cadcamp.com/sanfrancisco/default.asp

Between the Lines Holiday product donation for students

Its that time of the year again. Shaan Hurley of "Between the Lines" is holding his 3rd annual holiday product donation for students. This little giveaway is not only for AutoCAD, but for other Autodesk products suck as Revit Structure, Inventor and many others.

About 2 years back for Shaan's first annual product donation and give away I put in a nomination for a friend of my from college & high school. At that time, he had just injured him self working  at a sporting goods store and suffered from a slipped disk in his back at only 20 years old. Well he was bed ridden from working for about 6 months and went through many surgery's to repair. I submitted a short little story explaining my friends situation and Shaan graciously acknowledged by sending him a seat of AutoCAD 2004. My friend was able to learn AutoCAD while injured and bedridden, studying the help book and was able to get his first drafting job only 4 months after being approved to begin working again. Now after a year, he's just gotten on board with our firm MKM & Associates and is continuing to improve each day. Just a short little success story from this donation.

So, if you have a student or know someone who could really benefit form one of these free NFR copies of Autodesk products, make sure to jump over to Shaan's site to get your nomination in.

AU 2005 Recap

Well if you couldn't tell. I failed on trying to update my blog while at AU. So this either means I was really lazy, or I was was having a lot of fun and really busy. So I'm going with option number 2. AU 2005 was a great time!! I leaned soo many new skills, and already this weekend started adopting some of the new learning's, and ready to deploy them to the office Monday morning.

As far as the conference and location. I'm very happy to hear that AU 2006 will be back in Vegas & a new location. The Venetian is a great hotel. The party's & things Disney did at AU was awesome!! The only complaint I had was the poor people who had to shuttle everywhere around the location. Especially the last day they stopped the shuttles way too early. Back and forth to hotels and classes didn't seem much fun. I was lucky enough to have a room at the Dolphin hotel, so started storing bags in my room for friends.

Also if you attended AU this year and didn't know what DWF was. It was pretty much impossible to leave Florida without knowing what DWF was. It was EVERYWHERE!! They were even handing out free copies of DWF Composer to all participants. I talked to the team who worked on the DWF stuff there, and they put a lot of time and effort into it. You guys did a great job!! Here is my favorite pic showing the "DWF BALLS". You couldn't miss them. So make sure you "Connect the Dots"

While at AU,I was lucky enough to speak in 3 DWF classes with a big DWF man Jonathan Knowles. Jonathan spoke in the keynote about Bubble Corp. And was a lot of fun to present with in the DWF classes. Thanks to everyone who attended.

This year at AU I was able to network and meet many people I didn't get to in the past Au's. This year I meet Dwight Lebowski, Michael Beall, Lee Ambrosius, Ellen Finkelstien, Brian Matthews (Creator of DWF), Rick Moore, Robin Capper, Darren Myles, Many DWF team members and soo many more. I cant wait for next year!! Hope to see you there next year!!

Next Stop AU 2005!!

Well tomorrow is going to be an experience in my travel to AU. I leave my house at 3:30am (pacific time), drive an hour to Oakland Airport (CA) arriving at 4:30am. Then I'm going to have to battle the post Thanksgiving crowd to get through security check. Then I leave at 6:00am from Oakland Airport and fly to Phoenix (AZ) arriving at 8:00am. Then an hour lay over, and finally depart for Orlando. I arrive at 4:00pm (eastern) in Orlando Airport. I've heard there is about a 45 minute travel to the AU site, but is free if you shuttle using one of the Disney shuttles. So Sunday night I could possibly be really whipped out. Then I've got my first class I'm helping out with at 10:00am Monday morning.

I know there are probably a ton others out there who have even worst traveling ahead of them. Hope everyone has a safe travel and see ya there!!

Also, make sure to check out Shaan Hurleys "Between the Lines Class at AU!! I'm sure it will be really entertaining. I've got my fleet of paper airplanes all ready to fly in his class. (Just Kidding)

7 Days and counting till AU

Only 7 days till Autodesk University 2005 in Orlando Florida!! I'm really looking forward to this years conference, hearing that there is going to be over 5,000 people!! This one is going to be huge!! Guess that's why they moved it to a bigger venue and new location. I really enjoyed last years AU in Las Vegas, so hoping this one is going to be just as fun. This years will be a lot more stressful for me as I've been asked to be a guest speaker in (3) DWF/ DWF Composer related classes. So I've been pretty busy trying to prepare. If this year will be your first time, I strongly recommend NOT taking all of one subject throughout all the classes. Last year I went to AU wanting to learn AS MUCH as I could in programming, from VBA, to Lisp to .NET what ever it was. I can tell you, I was a little burned out on the last day. So this year I've got much more of a variety of classes.

I also plan on trying to BLOG from AU as much as possible. Although this year my schedule is pretty much completely booked up. I'm still going to try my best. I'll try and post as many pictures form the conference as I can. And try to meet as many new people as I can. Last year I meet soo many people from all over the world, including Mike Burke from New Zealand, Devon Middleditch from Australia, Kal Houhou from Washington DC and many more. It was a BLAST!!

If you see me around, just say hi! Or find me on AU Connect to meet up and chat!!

See ya there!!

Drafters Wanted!!

The company I work for MKM & Associates is looking to hire a couple structural technicians (Drafters). If you're looking for a good group of people, this is a great place to work for. Projects range in residential remodels, high end custom homes, small scale commercial buildings, high rise commercial buildings and school projects. We run the latest and greatest software, so if you're not up to speed with 2006 no worries, we can get you there.

MKM is currently accepting resumes for the position of a structural technician (Drafter).

Applicant should have a minimum of 3 years experience with AutoCAD. Structural drafting experience is recommended but not required. Salary and position commensurate with experience and availability to start. Excellent benefits package includes full health insurance coverage, 401K retirement plan and profit sharing.

Recommended method is e-mail to [email protected]

Please send us your resume and cover letter by e-mail, mail, or fax:

MKM & Associates 441 College Ave. Santa Rosa, CA, 95401

Email: eric@mkmassociates.com Fax: 707.578.7153

The Countdown is up!!

My AU 2005 Countdown is live. T-Minus 61 days and counting till AU 2005 in Orlando Florida. Hope to see you there. More posts later on this as we get closer.

New polls feature added!!

If you haven't noticed, I added a new Polls feature to my right side bar. I plan on placing polls on some questions I've always wondered about. So if you have a second, i would appreciate you placing your vote. If you have some long lingering questions you'd like me to poll, just let me know. I'll try my best to place as many new polls as possible.