Monthly Archive: May 2009

May
28

SolidWorks Crashes & Slowdowns – A clarification

Perhaps having “it’s your fault” in the title of the series wasn’t the way to go. I’ve, apparently, rubbed some people the wrong way. The point I was trying to make was that every crash or slowdown isn’t SolidWorks’ fault. There are numerous system or environmental variables that can also cause problems. Throughout the years, …

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May
26

CADFind…ing what you can’t

CADFind, created by Applied Search Technology Ltd, is a recent addition to the SolidWorks’ Solution Partner family and a winner of Desktop Engineering’s 2009 Reader’s Choice Award. What makes CADFind so cool is that it not only will search through your 3D data, but your 2D data as well. Let’s say you need model of …

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May
21

Book Review – Lombard’s Surfacing Bible

The actual title is SolidWorks Surfacing and Complex Shape Modeling Bible, but that was just too much to put in the title.  Written by Matt Lombard, this book is part of the “Bible” series published by Wiley. Matt also wrote the SolidWorks 2007 Bible and is about to release the SolidWorks 2009 Bible. On top …

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May
15

SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 4

This week, let’s talk about your PC. There are things you can do, and should do, to help keep your PC running smoothly. Hopefully, a lot of this will be old news for many of you. Keep your hard drive clean. Clean out your temp directories and defrag monthly. I like to use ccleaner to …

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May
11

SpacePilot Pro – New Drivers, New Look, New Review

spacepilotpro

When 3DConnexions’s SpacePilot PRO came out, I, like so many others, jumped on the bandwagon and regurgitated the info from 3DConnexion’s marketing people. I then received a physical specimen to try out and ended up writing an open letter to SolidWorks and 3DConnexion because the drivers were messed up. My settings weren’t being saved, preset …

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May
08

Free SolidWorks Essentials Training

Yup, you read it right. Free Essentials training. Of course there are strings involved. In this case, you need to be a Washington state resident. More specifically, an out-of-work Washington state resident. Tom Welch, account manager at Next Level Engineering Services, a SolidWorks VAR, wanted to do what he could to help out, ala Fisher/Unitech. …

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May
05

Backwards Compatibility – Quit Teasing Us

Sal Lama, of SolidWorks, put up a post on the SolidWorks forums regarding backwards compatibility. Naturally, this is going to get people buzzing. I took the survey, though I think it’s like beating a dead horse. Customers have been asking for this functionality for years. Why am I writing this post? Because the survey aggravated …

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May
05

SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 3

I’m typing this up with, what may be, a broken thumb. As it turns out, it’s the thumb I use most on my spacebar, so it’s wreaking havoc not being able to use it. You never understand how much you depend on something until you can’t use it. I digress, again, though. Today, we’re going …

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May
01

Learning SolidWorks

I received an email today from someone wanting to know what I thought was the best SolidWorks training for your dollar; VAR training or something like SolidProfessor? He wanted to know, too, how I learned SolidWorks. I explained to him that I learned, in the beginning, through trial and error. Not a way I’d recommend. …

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