It is Alive in the Lab

Thanksgiving Week Furlough

Taking some vacation time in 2009

Autodesk is observing a company furlough this week. With the exception of staff dedicated to manning our critical systems, all United States employees will take the week off with our vacation time. So although it may seem like something's amiss with the RSS feed for this blog, it really just us relaxing. And if you don't get an immediate response to your Autodesk Labs feedback request like you normally do, fear not, we'll reply as soon as we get back. We will return ready for action. Autodesk University is just around the corner.

I am making a list and checking it twice

Autodesk is getting more involved with social media. Project Bluestreak is a great example. To try to make some sense of our increased involvement, I updated our social media page on the Autodesk Labs site to list the various social meda resources that Autodesk Labs is involved with:

http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/showroom/social_sites/

I will keep this up to date as our running list.

Being sociable is alve in the lab.

Autodesk Labs Community Login unavailable due to system maintenance tomorrow

Sign In and Registration functionality will not be available for discussion groups due to systems maintenance tied to our Disaster Recovery testing of our Enterprise Applications.

Saturday, Nov 21 from 12:00 AM – 3 PM PST

Creating new threads or replies, and other functionality dependent on sign in will be restricted. This includes saving diagrams on Project Draw, uploading files to Project Freewheel or participating in collaboration sessions, saving room customizations on Project Showroom, and trying our design applications using the cloud (Project Twitch).

Thank you for your patience and continued interest in Autodesk Labs.

Product Support Subscription Advantage Pack Videos

BYOP - bring your own popcorn and leave the rest to us

Social Media Manager, Brian Kling, shared this with me.

---

Overview - Product Support has created "deeper dive" videos reviewing the 2010 Subscription Advantage Packs for:

• AutoCAD
• Civil 3D
• Inventor
• Map 3D
• Revit

These videos cover features/functionality from a different angle than traditional Marketing introduction videos and should provide users with a deeper understanding of how it is useful for them as well as anticipate/answer some questions users may have.

Goal - We are trying to increase visibility of our content to better assist our customers.

Location - The Autodesk YouTube channel collects these videos into a single play list.

So go ahead and join a Technical Lead from Autodesk Product Support as they walk through the features and functions of the new Subscription Advantage Packs, anticipating frequently asked questions and showing you how these features will be useful for you. Not on Subscription? Review the videos and then assess the many benefits of Subscription via the video.

---

Thanks Brian.

Helping spread the latest Product Support news is alive in the lab.

My first week back

Well it's been my first week back. I would like to thank Amanda Collins, Ben Cochran, Brian Mathews, Douglas Look, and Frederic Loranger who looked after the blog during my sabbatical and guest authored articles. During my six weeks off, my wife and I:

• Saw our son off to boot camp at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. I helped him get his car ready for sale. He sold it to CarMax - a very disappointing experience in terms of the price he received.

• Moved from Scottsdale, Arizona to Alameda, California. We got to go to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. As part of registering my car, I asked "Are front plates optional or required?" The clerk's response was "No." (Excuse me but that was not a "yes" or "no" question.) Although Arizona only requires a rear license plate, California requires both front and back. I also had the pleasure of opening new bank accounts, setting up new services, dealing with damage caused by the movers, and becoming familiar with the rules for my Homeowners Association.

• Oversaw progress on the remodeling of our town home. We are getting a new kitchen, new shower, organized closets, tankless hot water heater, new fireplace, and painting throughout. This started in September. We're not done yet. The goal is to be done by Thanksgiving. We have made so many trips to Home Depot and Lowe's that the employees know us by name.

The day we drove from Scottsdale to Alameda was October 13. It rained the whole way. In fact, Alameda had its hardest rain since 1962. When we arrived, we saw that our garage had a leak. In addition, the painters had painted the rooms the wrong colors. Welcome to California. It was a very productive time in our lives. I am glad to be back at work.

Noble Studios: 2009 Silver Davey Award – Winner for Interactive Multimedia for Corporate Image

What's a Silver Davey? An award. What's a Greek urn? About $9/hour. [old joke as in "earn"]

One of the partners we work with is Noble Studios. For example, they helped us with some of the Autodesk Labs site redesign we completed in August. Jarrod Lopiccolo of Noble Studios recently shared some good news with us. Noble Studios was recently awarded a 2009 Silver Davey Award. Read about it here:

5th Annual Davey Awards

The award gets its name from the story of David versus Goliath. Like the small boy who brought down the big giant with a slingshot and a rock, awards are given to small firms with big ideas.

Congratulations to Noble Studios.

Back to Work on Monday

Ducks in a row outside our bedroom window

Today is the last day of my sabbatical. I had better get all of my non-work "ducks in a row" as it is back to work on Monday.

-- Scott Sheppard, Autodesk Labs

Project Cooper evaluated on CNET

Rafe Needleman from CNET evaluates Project Cooper on Win7 with multi-touch. If you remember a few years ago, multi-touch on the desktop was obscure and unsupported. Now you can see how multi-touch is entering the desktop environment. Check it out!

 

Project Twitch now runs on Windows XP x64 and Vista x64

[Frederic Loranger here as a guest writer while Scott Sheppard is on sabbatical]  ®

Project Twitch is a technology preview that lets you try AutoCAD® 2010, Inventor® 2010, Revit® Architecture 2010, and soon Maya® 2010 over the internet without the need to install these applications on your computer. A small application called the Autodesk Trials takes care of the communication between our servers and your computer. This small client originally supported only Windows® XP and Windows Vista™.

Since we first launched Project Twitch, many of you have asked our team to consider adding support for other flavors of the Windows Operating Systems. After doing some preliminary testing, we are happy to announce that we have now added Windows XP x64 and Windows Vista x64 on the list of available platforms.

Please give it a try and tell us what you think at labs.trials@autodesk.com

Frederic Loranger, Autodesk Labs

We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: An OK Book

Scott prepares to attend a friend's surprise 50th birthday party that has a Beatles theme

With time on my hands during my sabbatical, I was able to read Paul Shaffer's book We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives in practically one sitting. As someone who grew up watching Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, I could personally remember much of the content contained in this book. I am also the right age to read this book as I have an appreciation for celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Buddy Hackett. Some interesting tidbits from the book include:

• When Paul met Bob Dylan, IMHO he said all of the wrong things. When I meet famous people, I separate the person from their work by saying "I enjoy your work" instead of "I love you man." After Paul gushed all over the place, Dylan's retort was "Paul, do you think you could introduce me to Larry 'Bud' Melman?" Larry "Bud" Melman was a minor character on the Letterman show played by Calvert Deforest.

• When Ray Charles hosted SNL, he had to memorize all of his lines. Unlike all of the other hosts, he could not read them off of the cue cards.

• Jerry Lewis is fascinated by the show Law & Order: SVU.

• James Brown got the idea for his famous cape routine by watching the wrestler Gorgeous George.

• Paul cowrote "It's Raining Men" with Ron Dante.

Though I enjoyed the book, I wish it would have contained more anecdotes about musical guests who appeared on SNL or Letterman. Surely interesting things happened during rehearsal or on-air.

Relaxing with a good book is alive in the lab.

-- Scott Sheppard