The winners from the contest I ran are: Steve Reed Hayden Morgan Michael Lord Chris Serran Mahir Abrahim Jay Barrette (who emailed me today and said he’d already passed his exam) Jim (didn’t give his last name) David Walker Congratulations, guys! You should all have your coupon codes by now. Good luck on your certification [...]
Apr
21
SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 2
Last week, when I started this “mini-series”, I talked mostly about your network. (Awesome post, btw. You can check it out here.) Today, let’s talk a little about crashes and what can cause them, shall we? You have SolidWorks open and you go to insert a drawing view. You can hear your computer crunching all [...]
Apr
21
Dear SolidWorks & 3Dconnexion,
Can you guys please get together and fix the issue I’m having with my SpacePilots? The need to have the tool I want to map to my buttons on an active toolbar is ridiculous. One of my favorite things in SolidWorks is the fact that I don’t need to clog my graphics area with toolbars. [...]
Apr
20
A round of applause (and drinks) to Fisher/Unitech
I’ve mentioned Fisher/Unitech’s “No Engineer Left Behind” program a couple of times in posts about the SolidWorks Stimulus Plan. However, these guys need to be recongnized as what I think is the most customer-centric SolidWorks VAR. As mentioned in Desktop Engineering online, Fisher/Unitech is extending their program in conjuction with the SolidWorks Stimulus Program. I [...]
Apr
17
Free Stuff Part II
I’m guessing that the question I asked in yesterday’s post offering free CSWP exam coupons may have been a bit obscure as I only received one correct answer (congrats to Chris Serran). So, in order to award the final 9 exam coupons I have, here’s a new question: What are the four training courses SolidWorks [...]
Apr
16
SolidWorks Certification – Win one of ten free exams!
Back in January, I put up a post about SolidWorks certification being free and how I thought it cheapened the whole exam. At SolidWorks World, I interviewed Jeremy Luchini and we discussed my thoughts. He explained why they’d made the changes and it seemed reasonable, though I wasn’t fully convinced. About a month ago I [...]
Apr
16
3Dconnexion’s Newest offering
3Dconnexion has a new controller, one that makes my SpacePilot™ seem like last year’s technology (actually, it’s about 4 years old). The SpacePilot™ PRO is, basically, a SpacePilot on steroids. 3Dconnexion took input from their customer base and have squeezed all sorts of new goodies into the SpacePilot™ PRO. The main features they’re touting: Larger [...]
Apr
14
SolidWorks Crashes & Slowdowns: It’s Your Fault
You like that title? I did when Richard told it to me. It’s also the title of a new presentation I’m working on. Richard had done a similar presentation back in ’04 and, realizing it was right up my alley, bequeathed it unto me. After much updating, it’s almost done. I’m hoping to be presenting [...]
Apr
09
ATI FirePro V5700
About two weeks ago I came home to find a large box addressed to me. Inside was a test computer from ATI loaded with their FirePro V5700 graphics card. ATI asked that some of us bloggers test out this card some time ago and I got to be one of the first. I haven’t touched [...]