I’ve been out of action for several days, suffering from what may seem like an awful case of conjunctivitis, or extremely dry eye, most likely related to the presence (and recent growth) of scar tissue on my cornea as a result of a chemical burn I suffered a few years ago while working with strain gauges. It feels worse than it sounds, believe me!  It also comes and goes, never lasts more than ...

I guess the bad thing about being a self-learner is that many times you have to make do with whatever materials you may find available, and sometimes they may be a little outdated. For instance, I grabbed this COSMOSWorks Designer 2007 manual on eBay and was going through the lessons using SolidWorks Simulation (that’s the new name for COSMOSWorks in 2009). Except for a few differences here and ...

Well a lot has been said already about SolidWorks engineering stimulus plan to help those professionals that have lost their jobs due to the tough times we live in update their skills and get hired again. In addition to this you will often hear of all these discounts and financing plans available at your local VAR, but truth is, despite all these efforts, for many entrepreneurs out there that wish...

I’m really excited about a great new resource available to all those engineers, scientists, students, and enthusiasts out there that perhaps never got exposed to CNC machining while in their college years (like yours truly) and/or that wish to learn the basics on how to program and operate a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine.  It is a book  -actually  it’s a complete course w...

While at the partner’s pavilion during SolidWorks World 2009, I watched a very nice demo of a 3D modeling product known as SolidThinking. I must say, with my very limited knowledge of surface modeling in SolidWorks,  I was very impressed by how easy it was to create and modify all sorts of capricious shapes starting from very simple geometry and/or dragging around, pushing and pulling the alrea...

As some of you know, I’ve been using Twitter for a short while already. You can find me as avephoenix, if you wish to follow.  It is kind of useful at times, I suppose.  Hmmm, on second thought, don’t bother, because I may just cancel that Twitter account, anyway. These are a couple of interesting articles that I found about the use of Twitter; just wanted to share them here and see wha...

 Fear is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can ever experience.  It can trigger quick thoughts and actions that will help us fight back or flee from whatever situation we perceive as danger; it can be paralyzing, as well, robbing us of valuable experiences and opportunities that we may have otherwise enjoyed.  Take me for example: I used to be afraid of driving the freeway. The th...

Just received the news today that the proceedings from SolidWorks World 2009 are already out and available for all at www.solidworks.com/sww2009proceedings   Notice that you will need to login to access the materials; simply use your username/email  and password that you use to sign up to the customer portal. If you don’t already have a login for the customer portal, you can create one by c...

Wow! It seems like an eternity since the last time I updated this blog. Well, it hasn’t been an eternity, of course, but it feels that way because I used to post frequently. I have a few good reasons for my lack of activity, though.  Double whammy baseball season is the one you already know. I have less time to write than I used to, but there’s something else…  I’m currently digging deep...

This is a small post in hopes to answer a question from one of the visitors to this blog. How to apply a limit angle mate in SolidWorks? Well, for illustration purposes, I created this little assembly of a couple of thin plates, and mated one of their edges coincident to the corresponding edge in the other plate, so that they could rotate about each other like a hinge. Now, it’s time to apply t...

Little league baseball season has already started and once again I’ve found myself stuck for hours on the bleachers of some school baseball field. This year I have two baseball players, now that Master Andrew has decided he’s got game and joined the Shetland division. That’s a long time on the bleachers!  To try and do something useful with all that time, rather than listening on the latest...

Could it be? Is it possible that the day has finally come when Gabi Jack has nothing else to blog about? Is that why this blog has been so, well, empty ever since she came back from SolidWorks World? Has Gabi finally come to her senses and decided to renounce absolutely everything related to 3D modeling, design and engineering, and instead put her highly rated athletic skills and daring personalit...

If you’ve seen this blog kind of empty lately is because I’ve spent the last few days “putting my house in order” after the trip to SolidWorks World. I had my laptop with me the whole time, but a lot of email went unanswered just the same, so I came back to dealing with that, plus taking care of a few local appointments I had set up before leaving, hunting for a new babysitter for my boys,...

Bruce Holway, Manager of Product Definition for DS SolidWorks showed up to let us know what the top ten enhancements for 2010 will be, as voted for by the community through Brainstorm.  And these are the ten that made the list this year: 1. Increase program stability 2. Clear memory when a file is closed 3. SolidWorks backwards compatibility 4. Rename configurations that are in use. 5. Faster r...

Today was the final day of SolidWorks World 2009. I guess the fun can’t last forever! I had a wonderful time, met a lot of interesting people, saw amazing technologies that I hadn’t even dreamt of, and learned a lot. I know I will never forget it and I’m really grateful to all the wonderful friends from SolidWorks for allowing me to be here in the first place. The day started early as usual,...