New on Labs: 3D Annotations for Inventor
Jul 17th
A new beta tool has been released on Autodesk Labs which allows you to annotate a part file within the modeling environment. This may be a handy tool for quickly communicating design intent from a designer to a drafter or dropping into a design review presentation. If you make widgets at your company, you could technically use this tool to bypass the whole drawing creation step. Check it out for yourself here: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/inventor3da/
Not really sure why, but the addin is only available in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States.
Off Topic: Windows Live Mail & Gmail
Jun 26th
…and now for something completely different.
I use Gmail for all my email and for the most part use the web interface for everything I need to do. This was mainly due to the fact that I could never really find a good (free) tool for use with Gmail. I was using Thunderbird but it was always quirky and displayed odd Gmail folders that I did not want to see.
I recently downloaded the beta of Windows Live Essentials which includes Windows Live Mail. I really like it. It’s getting very similar in appearance and functionality of Outlook at zero the cost.
One of the issues I still was having was that Windows Live Mail was displaying the folder (or in Gmail terms; label) that was called “[Gmail]”. Being of a CAD perfectionist background, this annoyed me to no end.
When I tried to hide it, Gmail would not allow it. If I tried to delete it, Gmail said it was already deleted.
To fix it took some trial and error but it was helpful to know you can install a special Gmail Labs tool called “Advanced Imap Controls” to hide tags individually from display within your IMAP mail application. This can be found from the “Labs” tab within your Gmail account options. This was good to know, but still did not fix the issue. To resolve it completely I had to first create a new label within Gmail named “[Gmail]” and then I could delete the folder within Windows Live Mail. From there I simply deleted the label within Gmail. Problem solved.
It’s also worth noting that I wrote this post using the Windows Live Writer tool that comes part of Windows Live Essentials. It’s really the best tool I’ve seen at getting your formatting just right for posts. Even better than the WordPress editor itself.
CAD Fodder
Jun 16th
Just added a page to the site with some feeds from some popular Inventor blogs. I’ll be adding to the list of blogs over time. Send me a note if you want yours added.
Check out the fodder here: http://www.cadtoolbox.com/?page_id=1379. You can also use the "Links" pull down menu at the top of the site. Enjoy!
Enjoy!
New iLogic Web Series
Jun 9th
From Ellipsis, the official blog of Autodesk’s technical evangelist team comes a new iLogic web series. The You Tube video was created by Rob Cohee from Autodesk. This is one of the first video demo’s I’ve watched that was both informative and somewhat entertaining. Hope to see more demo’s like this from Rob.
Read the blog post here.
