Tag Archives: Dassault

Dell Shows Appreciation for Autodesk and Dassault Cloud Efforts

Posted on January 24, 2014 | 10 comments

I like to look at workstations even if I am not in the market for one. You never know when some new deal will come out that compels you to reconsider. Like the new Dell M3800 and M4800 Laptops with available 15.6″ UltraSharp QHD+ (3200×1800) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit screens. I think I would like to see one of these. But perusing the site today led to some other not so pleasant discoveries.

It is and has been my position for a few years now ever since Dassault began its drive to force users to the cloud plantation that the CAD CAM software authoring companies that do this are duplicitous and do not have a shred of moral concern for their customers. And of course add to this now the whole line of Autodesk products and the comments from Carl Bass regarding his goals of moving it all there for Autodesk products. I don’t know if Dassault is just so incompetent that they can’t produce more than they have to showcase their efforts at tyranny. To date what has really made it to the marketplace after years of effort? And coming up at the SWW 2014 End Of Life convention supposedly the new CAD utopia of Mechanical Conceptual will be revealed in all it’s glory. Late of course and no one has seen any previews of this wonder. I have images in my mind of Charles standing there on stage, just like another individual did at the COFFES conference a while back, and being subjected to software or cloud failure to perform as touted. This to an audience that did not ask for their yearly subscription monies to be abrogated to such a thing they neither asked for nor wanted. This has all been mentioned before but it bears repeating because it is a direct indicator of the competence of Dassault to create a new paradigm and it is also a multi-year indicator of their contempt for customers futures that they would be willing to put those who would continue to use Dassault products at risk.

Autodesk has come further in a much shorter time than Dassault based upon products that are actually out there and available for beta testers and pretty much whom so ever is interested can be one. Unlike the sworn to secrecy small group of beta selectees Dassault has. So Autodesk is making an honest effort to show beforehand what they are producing and how it will work. In addition they are purchasing relevant programs essential to CAD and CAM creation like HSMWorks and Delcam which may give them critical mass for forcing enough people into the cloud that they will succeed in this effort. I give kudos to Carl Bass and Autodesk for being upfront about their goals and transparent about what they are doing. Based upon this if I had to make a choice between Dassault and Autodesk for the cloud I would choose Autodesk in a heart beat. Their problem is that albatross Inventor which from all I hear is the bottom of the barrel in midrange MCAD.

But the two big things both of these companies are guilty of is A, they know what they propose to do to you can’t be made secure so no guarantees of security and no indemnification for you the buyer and B, they NEVER talk about all the additional costs you will incur here over time above what you are currently spending. I would also add that neither will guarantee you that you will never become data hostages to them. Neither have done so and they are not intending to do so. You have to become chattel for all this to pay off for them.

Dell is going to help establish the nature of the fraud of the cloud claims to cheaper better faster multi-unlimited core compute power no IT staff auto-updating cloud computing Nirvana. Dell has a new product suite out there for the cloud. I guess they figure either enough companies will be forced into the cloud by people like Dassault and Autodesk that there will be a market for cloud security. Maybe they figure that all this cloud junk is going to appeal to enough C-Suite types who figure it sounds good and all they have to do is wave a magic cloud wand at their computing infrastructure and all will be well as they fire tons of staff and save gobs of money. (As an aside here heaven only knows MBA CPA C-Suite types have not been known for prudent long-term planning beyond 90 day stock market manipulation time frames. Kind of like these idiots fire all their American workers and move jobs to China and then lobby Congress for illegals to be allowed to replace American citizen labor. And then they have the unmitigated gall to complain of dwindling sales here as people run out of money. Gosh, just when they thought they had invented a new way where actions would not produce negative reactions and now no one has money to buy their stuff. I have such utter contempt for these short-sighted idiots that it is hard for me to adequately describe it. Unless manufacturing is brought back to the USA by a different class of manager we will become has beens. You can’t be a prosperous large middle class world power without manufacturing. Something this guy Henry Ford understood so well and MBA CPA pillage and plunder morons have no clue of.) Dells new offering is called Sonic Wall.

Never let it be said that Dell marketing can’t speak tongue in cheek and my favorite of their new offerings is, I kid you not, the “SonicWALL NSA 220”. No double entendre implied intent there I am sure and the NSA stands for Network Security Appliance. http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/sonicwall-nsa-series/pd?oc=swnas220&model_id=sonicwall-nsa-series

Here is further info on this family of devices and services.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/acq-sonicwall

Dell is telling all of you who care to think about what is happening that the internet is fraught with danger and that companies like Dassault and Autodesk are perpetrating huge risks on you the more you have to use the web for critical data in your business. Not that you would ever be in jeapordy of losing irreplacable IP on-line right? Just ask to see the indemnification and guarantees of security from Dassault and Autodesk as proof of their confidence in their own products.

No costs added to you dear customer is our Dassault Autodesk cloud pledge. So lets see here. I want to buy a Dell Precision T3610 with decent ram and graphics that would cover most users. But look at the new options. This NSA whiz bang thing adds 60% to the cost of the workstation.

Sonic Wall Dell cost for t3610

Then you have another category of Dell Cloud Clients.

Dell Cloud clients

If you dear reader care to look around you will find a lot of evidence of ancillary costs that will be incurred in so many ways if you are ever foolish enough to relinquish your destiny and control to those who would demand you work on the cloud for your business. Specifically here I am addressing primarily CAD and CAM users. This class of individuals and companies who can never be made whole from security breaches unlike financial transactions where damage is finite and amounts provable and reimbursements occur. How do you calculate the damages from a product that you have spent three years developing only to see your IP being manufactured by a country like China before you released it yourself? I can see Dassault and Autodesk trotting out their weasel words lawyers who would then say things like “Your Honor, there is no proven track record of sales by Company X for them to base their claims of damages on” in a case like this. This is the degree of honesty I think cloud perpetrators bring to the table and then want you to sit still for it. “And further your Honor this company signed an agreement not to hold us liable for anything as a condition of use and we move for dismissal”. And it will be dismissed because the lawyer weasel words are there and you did sign on.

So as the SWW 2013 EOL convention nears I think it is appropriate to consider the honesty and integrity of Dassault and the individuals that will be presenting the future of Dassault and SW to the attendees. I expect a lot of people to leave there contemplating where they are going to go to avoid this thankless future that Charles is going to present to them.

10 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dassault 3DExerience, You have to buy it to find out WHAT’S IN IT

Posted on January 21, 2014 | 2 comments

First off I want you to read this. http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-803.htm Ralph has some things to say about Dassault and this will affect SW. I think it is appropriate to talk about the future of SW users in light of what is going on.

I doubt any of you forget the utter duplicity and treachery of Nancy Pelosi stating that you have to vote for Obamacare to find out what is in it. I find it pretty staggering though that a corporation like Dassault would pull the same stunt. But here you are and after this whole conference was done no one knew details nor what the costs would be. Charles can’t tell you because either A, it is so bad they are still figuring out how to finagle you into it or B, they have yet to put the pieces of the puzzle together and how do you price something when you don’t know what will be in it. Neither option inspires much confidence. Companies operate with yearly and longer budgets and I highly doubt they are going to be willing to say to Dassault just send us a bill when you figure it out and whatever it is we are good with it.

There are so many ambiguities in his comments that my jaw was just left on the table and not soon drawn back up to proper position. Whole futures are being shot down and security is not adequately addressed nor even a hint of Dassault guarantees that this will be secure with indemnification for customers as proof of their confidence in their own product. And the utter fraud of them even trying to guarantee throughput FOR THE WORLD except China. Well he said they would monitor everything whatever the heck that means. Maybe they won’t guarantee you connectivity but they will give you a report on how rotten it all is so that when you sit there and stew over your bad throughput and the unproductive days that result they can confirm your 3DExperience. I suppose this would be another one of their “modules” they will charge you for. I find this so absurd that words escape me to properly describe this delusional idiocy. Promises and glowing reports on things for which they absolutely refuse to release any real world studies to prove actual work environment efficacy.

And it will all be out of your hands to so be prepared to feel the love when the latest update fails and you can’t do squat about it. There are just so many things wrong here. I am not going through any more of this list because I know you readers who peruse this article from Ralph are going to come up with a big list of fail items on your own. But the arrogance of Charles to even say these things like his SW users are too dumb to figure it out.

The philosophy of the company that you choose to do business with is important to your survival, your profit and your future. You have years of legacy data and signed confidentiality agreements and moving anywhere is a problem in so many ways. So most of us think long and hard before selecting a software company to deal with. But is this a really true statement when SW is the program under consideration? It was years ago when it was usurping ProE. But when they proved themselves over time and they became so large most did not put them through this selection metric anymore. SW was the gorilla and ubiquitous in many places and why would anyone look any further was the thought of most new customers I would say. Of course many of those who created this paradigm have left or they were shoved out because they refused to conform to a new way they felt was not going to work.

“We have changed in two years the company, from being technical-oriented to business-oriented,” explained ceo Bernard Charles.”

OK SW users this is where the rubber hits the road for you guys and you are now at the cross roads and your time to vacillate about the fantasy of SW as you knew it being there indefinitely is over. I interpret this statement to mean that the technical reason for a technical design program like SW to exist is going to be held hostage to some sort of business oriented ecosphere which is supposed to be rolled out this month. Curiously this is the same month that SWW 2014 happens and not so long after Biasotti has left the company adding to the long list of departed talent. And again no one really knows what this thing is they just hear PR jargon and word mash ups but no beef in the burger. No building blocks, no examples that relate to real world users. Just hyperbole. I think you are a bit foolish if you are ignoring all this and I fully expect SWW2014 is going to bring a serious jolt of SW End of Life reality to many. I am truly grateful to be an observer of this and not a participant.

It was not on my radar when I bought Solid Edge five years ago to consider things like this. I was like many except I did go through a more thorough selection process than most and arrived at what worked best for me after research. I did not buy something just because it had the largest presence in mid range MCAD. But watching the sorry saga of mistreatment of SW users for the last few years now makes this a very serious consideration in what I will use. Fortunately at this time as Ralph mentions Siemens and SE have no intention of morphing their responsibility to you as a customer to produce efficiently and to be able to plan long-term without software worries. I know a lot of these guys and sometimes I sit here and wonder how this could be but I do. I see and hear absolutely NOTHING that alarms me from Siemens or SE.

Some of the things they do in marketing make me mad and I think they have three near total incompetents in charge of it but the technical side of the program is focused on geometry creation and empowering users to do so in ever better ways and not on some nebulous cloud ecosphere fantasm like Dassault is forcing upon its users. I have no serious complaints about the program and expect to be happily able to stay here for the next ten years or so.

By the way speaking about marketing and publicity I want to take a moment to say something about John Fox. I used to think he was the source of these advertising and publicity problems but have concluded recently he is not. This is my public apology to him but sometimes it is hard to figure out who is to blame. I have concluded that there are some individuals in Siemens that are total roadblocks to progress and you can read about them here. https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/marketing-and-publicity-for-siemens-plm-software-fifth-semi-annual-update/ They deserve to be slapped on the way by whenever I can do so and I intend to do so. They are monuments to the idea that entrenched useless corporate bureaucrats can and do exist and whose apparent main skills are navel gazing and circular logic and to survive and get paid to be hindrances to progress. What I don’t understand is why some big shot from Siemens does not grok this and correct a problem that prevents greater profitability.

In any case tune in to the SWW2014 End Of Life convention for more updates from Dassault and the enlightened Mr Charles the Mad French Man as he perfects his ability to speak many words and say nothing concrete.

2 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

If You Can’t Innovate Obfuscate

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 4 comments

What prompted this post was reading today about conjecture over Windows 9. My eyes kind of rolled back in my head at the title but I had a look anyway before they rolled back to far. Part of the article was conjecture on what MS would have to offer to get people to continue to spend gobs of cash with them. What would they have to offer? Indeed considering the state of affairs in most companies what is there to offer that buyers would VOLUNTARILY spend cash on.

I am not a code writer nor am I an expert OS tweeker. So what appears to me is what appears to the vast majority of all users I would imagine. And what appears to me is innovation stagnation. Other than this execrable ribbon bar monitor real estate hog what has MS really done for some time now? And the same for über cash cow MS Office. Tweaking around the edges it seems to me without anything really profound or new. So what you do in these cases is change the wrapper and call it new. Drum roll for the ribbon bar which I still see no reason for and which was a PITA in the CAD field to all I spoke to.So we have to relearn how to do the same things all over again for no purpose. Think about it, did this ribbon bar paradigm bring anything to you except the consumption of your time to learn new so MS could claim innovation? And WIN 8 with all those cool new hand gestures. I have had a Dell M6700 for a while now with the touch screen and quite frankly with the option to work however it pleases me I hardly ever use gestures. But then I am working with mine and not playing or showing friends how cool it is to make things zip around without a mouse. So we have the New Big Deal for Win 8, an environment designed for touch screens. The unparalleled thrill of having a 24″ smart phone and how cool is that? Now this window dressing did not bring anything of value to most users so MS had to relent and change things so you could work the way you used to. I think that is conclusive proof that the innovation ceiling has been reached doing things the same old way. Change for the sake of change again. I for one am not going to adopt Win 8. I know Win 7 is not “optimized” for touch screens but I see enough of the functionality to know this is not for me.

Now a word about tech Neanderthals. This is about the time you cutting edge super wonders chime in with how I am a foot-dragging Neanderthal who just does not appreciate new. I dare say that out of my own pocket in the last couple of years I have spent far more than most of you on innovation and buying into more productive ways of doing things both mechanically and in software. I search and look for innovations and better ways and I am an early adopter when it makes sense to do so. The very first time I saw direct editing in SE before ST1 was released was enough to convince me this was powerful in so many ways that I could not afford to do without it. It took until ST3 before what I saw became user-friendly reality but this was new for the sake of users and not new for the sake of new. It was not new window dressing meant to gull the unknowing or naive into coughing up the dough. Now I know that the idea of direct editing has been around for some time but how to make it work really well and with power and precision and wrap it up into a user-friendly package? Plus it required a certain amount of compute capabilities which were not here until recently, or so I have been told. I looked at Ironcad years before I had a look at SE ST. Ahead of its time but it just never clicked with me like the very first time I saw ST. I assume there are serious limitations with it and that is why it has never gained much market share. The idea was sure interesting though. I think Direct Editing is the last powerful thing that can be done for CAD as we know it and it was the last unused innovation arrow that will hit the bullseye for CAD. Until there is a new paradigm for how shapes and data are created and at the age of 60 I don’t expect to see it.

SW has been moribund for years now and the parent company has run into both technical and philosophical social media oriented barricades they may not be able to surmount. SW World 2014 End of Life convention is going to be full of smoke and mirrors. Don’t look at the man behind the curtain look over here. Look at our shiny new old CGM kernel stuff we have for you because we can’t do it with parasolids. So lets put an, ahem, “CAD Ribbon Bar” or “The power of 3DExperience Social Engineering Group Think Power of Cloud Compute” monikers on our stuff and call it cool to hide the fact we have run out of ideas and or talent.

Adobe has not brought about much that I can see that is remarkably better than what has been out there from them for years. Incremental improvements. New improvements of mediocre import they make available to cloud buyers only is all I see.

Autodesk has not been much of an innovator either but they have been a prolific buyer of talent and market share and they do have a plan. And it is the same plan as all the above companies have and it is the same common thread that ties them all together and brings me to my main premise for this post.

When you run out of things people will voluntarily buy, when you run out of true innovations and you can no longer sell yourself on provable new benefits and features to your buying market what is left? Why the Cloud of course. It is the last refuge of those who see that their existing customers could do quite well with permanent licenses and not send you another dime for years and years because what they already have bought does everything they need. The closest thing to a new way out there in CAD right now is SE. It is not coincidence that they are the only major CAD company that is not pushing you into the cloud. They are going to draw customers from the existing pretty much static sized CAD customer market from their competitors because they are the only ones doing really good stuff right now.

Autodesk is my favorite set of bald-faced liars. They stand there and look you in the eye and babble about unlimited compute power when you are using cad and cam programs that have core limits. And yes they do on the cloud too so you just go ahead and slurp that Kool-Aid these guys serve up. Throw in all the connectivity problems and the additional layers of software and software problems that they are going to heap on this and add in no ability to guarantee security and just where is the compelling reason we all should voluntarily buy into this junk?

So scratch the voluntary cash transfers and move on to pay to play. THIS is the new innovation which of course accrues benefits to those who created it and not buyers and it is the last resort of companies that fear a level competitive playing field and who have run out of new things to sell their customers. I believe this whole cloud thing is solely about digging into your pockets. There is a reason why none of these companies have been able to present proof of concept at this time for complex cad creation on-line. Yes I know there are some things out there in controlled laboratory condition dog and pony land but I have yet to see a typical connectivity situation proved out and a concise list of all expenses from every angle that typical users are going to have to pay created. In other words no proof it works better and saves you time and money. Remember, this is from the same group of people who can’t bring enough solid innovation to you to sell their stuff on its own merits. Nor is there any indication they intend to maintain loss leader costs on their programs with a guarantee of time duration for them because the sky is the limit as soon as they figure they can get away with it.

I figure that in this time of fiscal austerity sub rates are dropping for many software companies or they see them dropping in the future. Now one of the chief weapons companies have had over time is user lock-in. Traditionally this has been accomplished with proprietary ways of saving and using data that makes it hard to go elsewhere with it and fully use it. And the expense of new programs and training add to this. Today this is not enough security and thus the creation of a chattel instead of a customer market. Or so they hope. Make your customers work under the above conditions and then add to that the forced archival of their intellectual property and then also make them pay to use it forever and withhold access to their data if they do not pay. The destruction of permanent seats will be a key part of this if these guys can get away with it. There is nothing benign here and it is all about heaping on costs to a captive market in ways that will guarantee and grow profits for all involved except YOU the customer. It is why none of these guys layout with proof the benefits to you. What true proof can liars bring to the table anyway? Remember the fraud of unlimited data forever for iPhones utilized as incentive to get people there? Remember what happened to costs when a certain critical market size was reached?

So remember the rules of engagement for the CPA MBA attitude of corporations that figure earning your business is too hard. If you can’t innovate obfuscate. Tune in to the latest episode of this new way as the MIRV Bernard Charles straps his iPhone and iPad on and launches for San Diego. Or check in to the latest words of feudal overlord wisdom from Carl Bass as he tells you what you are going to do instead of selling you on what you should do or want to do.

4 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Solid Edge Direct Editing, Dogbone Die Assembly + User Community Comments

Posted on January 7, 2014 | 9 comments

Here is a part that slipped through the cracks of QA which happens when everyone is in a hurry. This was a panic order and after delivery my customer made mention of a little “ridge” on the inside of the cavities. He said it was not problem and it worked fine so we left it there. Time passes and I decided to have a look at it last week and see what he was talking about. There was more than one problem and in the following video I will show how easy it is to fix these problems in Solid Edge.

Now there are a couple of things I would like to point out here. Synchronous editing in SE is not at all like direct editing or “move face” in SolidWorks. Throughout the edits I will do in SE there are not any additions to the Pathfinder or “history tree”. When changing existing features the part complexity does not change. Also the file sizes change very little and they are not cumulative adding steps with every alteration. In addition even though features may be consumed driving sketches are not and these can be reused at any time. Of course with imported parts this is not possible and if you are worried about this I would advise you to make some sketches of features before you delete them. Once you save you can’t go back. Another option and the one I prefer best is to just save a renamed copy for use if need be.

I don’t know how “move face” would work with SolidWorks in assemblies and I have not found a video on-line that would show me. I am VERY interested if anyone knows of such a video as I would like to do a comparison between SE and SW. Please send me a link if you have one. Now in order for there to be a useful comparison the link must show the history tree in SW to allow for a direct comparison of file size and complexities.

Here are two screen captures reflecting file sizes from before and after the edits in SE. Please note the file sizes and how little change there is.
dogbone first

dogbone last

And here is the video.

I would like a word with all the Solid Edge users that may see this. Each and every one of you have something of value to contribute to the community in some way. When I post videos on how I do things I do not say it is the best way, nor the only way, it is just the way I do it. Part of my purpose in posting is to generate a community of INVOLVED people with SE. If you have a better way or a different way why don’t you contribute what you know? I am willing to post here both worthwhile comments and videos with accreditation to contributors. In addition there is an official gathering site
http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Community-Blog/bg-p/solid-edge-news
where you can contribute and I know Matt is looking for volunteers who are willing to share their expertise. Become a FAMOUS WORLD RENOWNED Power Contributor. 😉 I even created this wonderful moniker which will accrue much prestige upon you so how can you lose? Just do it.

Now if I were Siemens I think I would be providing a little incentive here for contributors. Perhaps free attendance and transportation to SEU 2014 for the best user contributor of the year. Another worthwhile incentive might be a free years maintenance as prizes for notable contributors. Or a gift card of equivalent value for contributing employees of a company where a years free maintenance would not mean much. I bet you creative marketing types can figure some things out but don’t be tightwads. At the last user group meeting in Huntsville Saratech contributed a graphics card as a door prize just for attending. Of how much more worth is an individual who is willing to take his time to share his knowledge and show the world how users deal with CAD creation and editing? Perhaps it is time for Siemens and SE to step up to the plate and let users KNOW they value contributions to the establishment of a vibrant users community. Is there really any reason why this should not be so except that Siemens has not spent the time nor created inducements? I want to make it clear I am not trying to get these things for myself. I chose years ago to do this because I believe in the product and in the Value of community. But I know it is a rare individual who will make this type of decision based upon a goal that does not materially and directly compensate them for their time or effort. So I am asking for two things here. That any individual that feels they have productive methods or tips and tricks to consider showing all of us how you do it. And that Siemens start motivating those who would not otherwise consider contributing that they VALUE contributors. I mean you Siemens guys do don’t you? Quit being cheapskates and get on the ball.

9 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

SW End of Life Indicators 2014, Here You go Evan

Posted on January 3, 2014 | 2 comments

I see there is a session on Direct Editing at SW 2014 EOL convention. Those who think it is going to be serene sailing for SW users in the future might like to read this and it is a harbinger of the migration away from SW traditional to come. Cue up the R.E.M. song “End of the World as you know it” at this time please. Brought to you courtesy of CGM and Paris for your future delight. Now I looked just for direct editing as a session topic on the 2014 agenda and stopped at the first one I found. I have no idea what the content is in any other session but I wonder how many will be touting the new way. By the way, can I ask why they are not doing this in SW Traditional? For your viewing pleasure we have…….

ScreenHunter_01 Jan. 03 09.54

2 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , ,

Dassault, Autodesk and NSA Bring Peace of Mind to You in 2014

Posted on January 2, 2014 | 7 comments

Now I have to admit that Dassault is my principle target here as they get ready for the SolidWorks 2014 End of Life convention. And I intend to help them along because I think any company that propounds the cloud as a solution must be stopped before the contagion spreads everywhere. Picture Charles as he cavorts across the stage once again with his ubiquitous iPhone or iPad. You know, the ones that you will be able to take your two foot wide fresnel lens to so you can adequately view the screen on this wonder of tech art as you design from remote servers anything imaginable to man. I wonder if the rock these guys live under was designed within the auspices of the 3DExperience group think community, but I digress. Now don’t forget you Autodesk customers, fearless leader on your side of the fence intends to go here to.

A better title may have been NSA TAKES pieces of your mind. I want you to go here.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-30/how-nsa-hacks-your-iphone-presenting-dropout-jeep

Der Spiegel is not exactly a rumor clinic nor is what they are claiming being denied by NSA or that idiot Obama. Snowden has been a remarkable source for just what all is wrong with the cloud in so many ways and here is another.

I can’t think of any polite way to say this and for those of you who like the refreshing Kool-Aid served up by Dassault read no further and disregard the earlier. But for those rational beings who make a living based upon the IP they create with SolidWorks I have a challenge. Don’t you think it is about time to get a little bit in your face at the 2014 EOL convention when the pabulum is served up? Don’t you think it is about time these Dassault guys stop evasive talking and start giving written commitments to you users? To state how they intend to make you secure when EVERY device that goes online is being hacked and whacked? And let me say that this goes for every company that wants to force you to the cloud.

Now do you honestly think that NSA has the only talent out there to do this? That no other government or agency or criminal enterprise can do this? The utter contempt these Dassault and Autodesk etal executives have for you and your future staggers the imagination and you better start seriously fighting this mess or build a life raft.

I suppose the next step for these chattel cloud execs is to push the “private cloud”. Here, let us take the LAN you already have successfully implemented. We will re-label it as private cloud plus make it more complicated and make it so you have to pay us each month to use your own stuff. Sounds like a winner to me.

7 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Dassault and Autodesk Wish You a Happy Cryptolocker New Year

Posted on January 2, 2014 | 4 comments

One of my premises in regards to the cloud and companies that force you to go there with your IP as a method of conducting your business is that the black hat guys fight with the white hat guys and none can get rid of the other. And at any given time one is victorious over the other and YOU the user are left to absorb the consequences. So as many in the CAD and CAM world are shoved knowingly or unknowingly towards the Dassault and Autodesk hoped for forced subscription nirvana of cloud only CAD and CAM software it is worth considering the last few months. And of course with the upcoming 2014 SolidWorks End of Life Convention it is timely to remind both Dassault and their users about the folly of what Bernard Charles proposes with this online “Experience” paradigm. This wonderful thing that will enable secure data storage and unlimited compute power over your crippled ISP throughput and all the other lies they propound. Put Autodesk in there too but SW has the next big deal convention coming up and they have been at it the longest although without any real commercial grade success to speak of. Bet that makes the EOL SW subs happy to see their money spent that way considering the scarcity of announced new product features for 2014.

So lately we see that customer data loss from Adobe tops 2,900,000 and Target tops 40,000,000 and you can bet this was from “secure” situations. And now welcome the latest and greatest proof of concept of the insanity of Cloud for CAD and CAM, Cryptolocker.

How would you like to log in to your network only to find that every connected device with storage had been encrypted. You have 72 hours to pay up or lose it all. I like especially comments and instructions from Carbonite, a company that extolls the headache free and totally reliable cloud backup method for all your files. Oh, and they say you can access your files from ANYWHERE and work so free and effortlessly not shackled by the limitations of offline hardware and the onerous burden of being responsible for yourself. Sound familiar all you Autodesk and SolidWorks/Dassault users? Go here and read this.

Comment
byu/bluesoul from discussion
insysadmin

Which says in part,
“I work for Carbonite on the operations team, and I can confirm this for most cases – I will also offer these two pieces of advice:
1) If you are affected by the virus, you should disable or uninstall Carbonite as soon as possible. If you stop backing up the files, it’s more likely that Carbonite will not have overwritten a “last known good” backup set. There is a high risk of some recent data loss (you’re effectively going back in time, so if we have no record of the file existing at a previous time, you won’t get it back) with this method, but it’s far, far better than losing all of your files.
2) When you call customer support, which you should do as soon as possible, specifically mention that you are infected with cryptolocker. It was mentioned in the post above, but I just wanted to put emphasis on it because it’ll get you through the queue faster.
Edit: also, just to state the obvious, make doubly sure the infection is off your machine before you call support, please.”

I really like that last part. Please don’t expose us to your infected machine because we don’t want bigger problems than we already have on our safe and secure servers. And we don’t want to have your problems bleeding over into other accounts on our network because we are not sure we can stop it. The delicious irony of secure online backups being a vector of additional infections and theft is sublime is it not?

Information from Dell regarding this. http://www.secureworks.com/cyber-threat-intelligence/threats/cryptolocker-ransomware/

Bleeping computer has a regularly updated post on this with information on what it is and how to hopefully block it. Of course this site http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1p32lx/cryptolocker_recap_a_new_guide_to_the_bleepingest/ccy89d3
has a lot of information but common sense will tell you that once the genie is out of the bottle how do you get it back in? So Microsoft has a solution for this at this time but don’t you know the guys who figured this out are already working on their Cryptolocker patch for your future entertainment.

Time and time again I keep saying that the only secure way to work with data you are supposed to be protecting is keep your stuff off-line. Keep your internal network off-line and allow access only through certain isolated computers and for sure don’t let these BYOD clowns plug their stuff into your network. Sys admins and bean counters, shame on you for concocting this save my company money with BYOD idea. How many access points do you want for all these bad guys to get into your data if you even care?

Another method that will probably save you is regular complete images of your system. But my money is on local regular backups. This is just good policy anyway for so many reasons and I am shocked at how many companies do not have an implemented procedure for this. I am thinking here that two backups separated by two weeks would probably defeat the activation time requirement for Cryptolocker and do it on a regular basis. In addition I save all my CADCAM data periodically to flash drives and DVD’s. And of course the Workstation in the shop never goes online.

How many times do you people who get all giggly and excited over the promise of being cutting edge technophile guinea pigs and smart guys saving your company time and money with the cloud have to get the alarms before you think twice? If you give your business to companies that insist you have to put your IP on the cloud to use their products you are nothing more than a Russian Roulette volunteer who is counting on the other guy to take the bullet. I get really aggravated at how much traction these cloud proponents get and then think about the idea that they will not guarantee your security or productivity even though they will guarantee you a bill. It is why I write so much about the cloud because the only fallback method for these cloud guys is to repeat the lies often enough so that people will begin to think it is true. And so my rebuttals continue as do their lies. If they were honest with you their hopes for chattel labor would quickly go away.

I just bet that Dassault and Autodesk do not store their source code online. Perhaps you ought to be suspicious of these characters that hand you a chilled pitcher of refreshing Kool Aid but somehow don’t want to drink it with you.

4 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Marketing and Publicity for Siemens PLM Software Fifth Semi-Annual Update

Posted on January 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

One thing leads to another in this bloggers world. I was thinking about my local buddies machine shop example in my recent SW 2014 End of Life Convention post and wondering why the compelling message of SE over SW had never reached his shop or the companies he has to work with. So I decide to look up director of marketing and publicity for Siemens and lo and behold this is the first page that pops up.

Google siemens pr hunt page

I had to laugh as there right in front of me were my last two updates for Siemens publicity. Must be time for another one I thought. An additional thought I had is why why is this needed once again and after five years things still stink although not as badly? Who is responsible today for this continuing saga that has its tentacles choking the life out of the online potential of Siemens PLM and whose philosophy seemingly stretches way back into those bad old UGS days. I clicked on this link and for the first time I find out who I think is responsible for the current state of marketing and PR.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/siriusdecisions/roi_award_winners/prweb10703409.htm

Three names are mentioned there. David Taylor, Chris Kelley and Jeff Nercesian. Judging by the titles they own I am of the opinion that they are responsible for the state of Siemens Marketing and PR art, such as it is and at least as it relates to Solid Edge. Seeing them at the PRWeb site was pretty surprising to me since I have scant regard for the poor way Siemens represents itself on-line. So I decided I would look to see what their competing software companies did on-line and see just how they stacked up. I might be right, I might be wrong about how well they are doing so I went to look so I could have a real world basis for my opinion. What will follow is going to be a bit lengthy but it is required in order to lay the basis for my conclusion. Which is that Siemens has the industries poorest on-line presence. I went to various web sites for their competitors using IE 11 to see what each company did and how they wanted to present themselves to prospective customers with a 24″ monitor size. So let us start.

Dassault begins with their corporate splash page.

Dassault splash screen

A great looking page. (And I really like the special Freudian touch where they show the user whose on-line cloud stuff just blew up heh-heh). Next is the splash screen for SW.

SolidWorks from Dassault splash screen

Pages are either fully populated or mostly so, content is centered and the overall color selections and themes are pleasing. Links are easy to find and use. Surprisingly for all the blah blah about 3DExperience immersive Total Lifestyle the Dassault stuff after a few layers did revert to some basic looking pages. I guess they figure that by then this is OK to do.

Solidworks splash

Even so it is centered and the colors and layouts are pretty decent.

Next up is Autodesk.

Autodesk splash page

Full page with compelling graphics and what is there not to like. Visually impressive and it makes you want to look further. So let’s do just that.

Autodesk Community

Inventor

Clearly someone who cares what you think of them is in charge here. Now what is true here is true for the rest of the examples I am going to use. Dedicated people who know what potential customers see online helps to steer customers towards their products. It shows polished professionalism that connects I believe in the viewers mind as being representative of what he can expect in the software.

Next up is the software we never seem to hear about much, PTC Creo.

PTC splash screen

Not bad at all is it? Lets click a link and look a bit further.

PTC Creo

Pretty ho-hum really but at least someone was professional enough to have it centered and the PTC splash page is compelling enough to drive an interest level to overcome the ho-hum on the second page in.

Next up is Delcam. Every time you go there the main picture changes.

Delcam splash

Pretty cool and it gets a lot better. When you click-through to PowerShape you get this.

Powershape two

Powershape one

The pictures cycle automatically with attractive appearing messages or high quality renderings.

Up next is CAMWorks from Geometric.

Camworks

CAMWorks SE

I like this page too with good color selection, centered graphics and a series of five pictures that cycle through. If you click-through you get this.

Camworks click thru

Even the secondary layers of this website while not loaded up with stuff is still worthwhile and attention-getting.

A stroll to the Vero site yields the following.

Vero 2 (2)

Vero 2 (1)

There are TWELVE cycling pictures on the splash page. The second page in is not so exciting but go three in to get to a specific category and once again you have rotating content. Here is Alphacam for instance. A series of five cycling pictures are here.

Alphacam

What comes up next was the real surprise for me and it was the quality of the websites of three Siemens VAR’s I am familiar with.

Swoosh Technologies has a splash page that has cycling pictures and messages. While it is full-page left to right it is a partial page top to bottom. The Siemens clone color scheme could use a makeover but I really like content that changes while you watch. It is of the three VAR’s the closest to Siemens web page quality.

Swoosh two

Swoosh one

What follows when you click-through is kind of drab by comparison but even then content is centered and changes as you watch to some degree catching your attention.

Ally PLM is next. The main splash page is fully populated with something and as a bonus you have a series of five pictures that cycle automatically.

Ally PLM splash Camworks

Ally splash again

When you click-through to the SE page for instance while there are no cycling pictures the screen is once again fully populated and the written content is not just a rehash or CTRL-C CTRL-V of official drab and dreary Siemens stuff. It is content written for Ally and for this page and designed to convey why you should care.

Up next is Saratech. I am going to show two screen captures from their main splash page. They have so much going on in their page that with my slow ISP connection it takes a bit to load but when it does there are things happening everywhere.

Saratech blog like you mean it

Saratech splash with SE creative video

If you click-through to the SE page for example you get alternating messages in a bar that crosses the page that draws your attention to salient features Saratech wants you to consider. They compel you to regard different aspects of the products they want to sell you and give you visual prompts to drive you there.

OK, we are done having fun now and let us venture into the world of the Siemens PR and Marketing departments.

Siemens PLM splash

This is the Siemens PLM main splash page and it incorporates four changing things shoved up into the corner as is true with all the other pages here. Done like someone just wanted to hurry up and finish something they really did not want to be bothered with. Shoved over into the corner and tons of wasted space that could have served some sort of purpose. What you see is what you get and you have to use pull down menus with somewhat unintuitive click-through links to go further. But wait, there’s more!

SE splash from Siemens PLM

So we go to the SE splash page. Shoved up into the corner that evidently is the only layout option available to Siemens.

I try to analyze things as I go through content on-line when I am seeking answers to questions I have. Questions like why is the website quality second-rate for Siemens compared to every other CAD software company I show here and sadly even when compared to two of three Siemens VAR’s. I don’t know what the pecking order is here with these three individuals and I guess it really does not matter. They are all responsible and culpable for the second-rate public face presented to the world of CAD CAM of the companies I reference here and the evidence is irrefutable. This whole regimen of neglect and in my opinion contempt towards potential customers and actual customers goes back a long way. In fact it is what started my presence online almost five years ago prompted by my disgust for Bruce Boes and how publicity was handled back then. I could not fathom how people employed by a company to market that same company would act the way they do. This was true five years ago and it sadly is still true today. Manifesting itself with pages that clearly are there only because someone grudgingly felt they had to do something and they lavished the project they disdained accordingly with attention and care.

In spite of my thoughts that say if these Siemens guys do not care much, have not cared much for years and I can’t make them care and so why should I bother even thinking about it, I do care. I like to think that something I write can influence these individuals or Siemens to reassess what they are doing. And if it does not help create some change for the better at the very least I will have the satisfaction of having three posts describing the mediocre Marketing and PR right there on the first Google search page for the world and these worthies to see and think about. You guys may think you are hot stuff but I think you need to find a job that you actually care about or find a way to care about the one you have now.

Leave a comment

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , ,

CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2014 to be released

Posted on December 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

OK folks it looks like the customer release of CW4SE 2014 will be on 12-30-13 and customer links should show up for downloads at this time assuming no last second delays.

I don’t know what were the problems behind the scene with lack of publicity and announcements and general progress over the last six months but after some communication from Geometric this week about these topics I do have an update. Assemblies is waiting on an MP update from Solid Edge and then we will be good to go. I expect that the next MP or the one after will be the one. So the last big integration hurdle will be jumped at that time. Multi-Axis milling and mill-turn and wire EDM will be in this release. I have had a chance to play with the EV pre-release version of CW4SE 2014 and they have cleaned up the work flow a bit. Without sitting down and doing a direct click by click comparison the feeling I have is a smoother work flow and it is going in a direction that is more intuitive for how many of us work.

Tech Data Base is still this convoluted monster that you will have to spend some time at learning before you can even begin to have a hope of making the program work well for Automatic feature Recognition. I have started to try this out and while I can see the power getting there to fully use it is complex. I have yet to find really good training resource for this and if anyone knows where to go please share it here. There are a LOT of parameters and pages and stuff to fill out. As it is out of the box it does things arbitrarily that most of us won’t like and without many common use tools in the base library you end up spending more time fixing things than if you just started from scratch by picking features and assigning tools to a blank tool crib. However, I believe that Geometric is after all these years going to be updating this and the tool library beginning with turning tools. I wish it was milling since the majority of the work out there is milling but I am pleased that they are getting ready to change some of these old legacy parts of the program into something more useful in the somewhat near future. I know, it might be a somewhat long wait but at least it is progress and they are acknowledging it is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is important more than they know I believe because when people get a thirty-day trial they are not going to have time to fool around with the byzantine TDB and their impressions on CAMWorks will not be as favorable as it should be. The tool paths are great and nothing touches Volumill but this stuff in between start here and posting code is to complex in the TDB and it will turn off many potential buyers.

Now all this having been said I can today see that this TDB will be worthwhile to set up for at least some of my parts families and when done so, if it works like the claims state, this will be a real-time saver in these instances. I really regard this as a production manufacturing tool where there are dedicated individuals who will have the time to really learn and set up the TDB and make in essence an operational work flow happen. For a lot of small shops this will probably never be implemented and they will I think opt for doing it as close to the way they are used to doing things as they can. The TDB and it’s complexity is not something with my ignorance of how to use it and set it up I can judge as to whether it is unnecessarily complex or all the bits and pieces need to be there to work right. My opinion may change here as I get some actual time with CW4SE under my belt. Some of the language used here though to describe features is so weirdly convoluted as to logic that it is best for you to print off a list of what they call various feature types and keep it at hand until you memorize it.

There is a method to do a pretty good work around if you are not interested in all that TDB stuff and I will have a post soon on this.

Insofar as where you go for good material on CW I would have to say that looking for good CAMWorks for Solid Works is the best answer at this time because there is hardly anything for CW4SE. The two programs are the same except for the CAD side and the basic tip I found to allow me to do the TDB workaround was found under SW tips and tricks and it works just fine for SE.

Leave a comment

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dassault’s SolidWorks End of Life 2014 Cloud Poster Boy

Posted on December 19, 2013 | 4 comments

Sometimes you see something that is just so Freudian that you bust out laughing and asking yourself what could they have been thinking? And then you reflect upon the truth behind the phrase “Freudian Moment” I have long been an opponent of cloud based software for the sake of users and useability. Technically it is an impossibility for probably 99% plus of all CADCAM users for instance to achieve anything even remotely close to the power and speed that resides on their own desktop. Still the propaganda machines from Dassault and Autodesk churn on in their efforts to fool C-Suite execs into believing this junk. Personally speaking I don’t know a single user who wants to go to the cloud for this.

And security, can we talk about security for just a second here? Really it is all it will take and it is why Autodesk and Dassault will not indemnify you for anything online. It is why 40,000,000 Target users have had their “secure” online data hacked as the news reveals this week. Oh, and NSA and honest politicians and bureaucrats that would NEVER use your confidential information against you or sell it to your competitors, right? You know of other stories to. IP is different though and just how will you get reimbursed from Dassault or Autodesk when they trash your stuff? How do you even find out your data was stolen until it shows up in products from China? Considering that the first person to file a patent wins can you perhaps see the potential for NSA to become a clearing house for IP transfer to crony capitalist’s? The single common allowing mechanism for this to be possible is if you buy into these cloud only schemes. Follow the money I have been told and as far as I am concerned this is all about putting users into forced chattel situations where they end up spending more money with Dassault or Autodesk, not to mention other uncontrollable costs from data caps at ISP’s, and an effort to end piracy by in part punishing honest users to solve the theft problem. And it reveals the contempt these people have for you and your company that they would force this and then not indemnify you.

So, let us venture forth into Dassault’s priceless Freudian Moment and regard the future face of data loss as this poor guy’s internet stuff blows up in his face. This is from the current Dassault splash page.

Dassault splash screen

Is this not priceless 😉

UPDATE Today this at SW forums forwarded to me. https://forum.solidworks.com/message/399992 Mark Biasotti, Senior Product Manager for SolidWorks has left the corporation and he joins a long list of those who made SW great in departing the Paris Feifdom.

4 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , ,