Blackberry Playbook….

As a Christmas present to myself, I bought a Blackberry Playbook. I’ve wanted a tablet for a while, but many of the Android tablets out there felt cheap and nasty to the touch. I also could not bring myself to pay ridiculous money for either a Samsung Galaxy Tab or an iPad.

One night over the holidays, I was reading about the 16GB Blackberry Playbook. I checked a local store and saw that it would be reduced to €219 as St. Stephens Days special. It would then return to €249 afterwards. It should be noted that the €249 is already a vastly reduced price. It was originally released at €469.99 when released.

Anyway, bright and early on St. Stephens Day, I hopped into the car and off I went to PC World to take a look at one. First impressions were that it was small. Solidly built, nice to hold, great screen, but still small. I pottered around the store and looked at other tablets, mainly Android ones, but something kept bringing me back to the Playbook. Eventually I gave in and purchased it. You know the story, it was in a sale, I had a voucher, I was practically saving money……

The initial setup was quite easy, next next next next, you get the idea. After initially playing with it for a while, I upgraded to the beta of OS 2.0. Why did I do that? Well first and foremost I like to tinker… Secondly, although the Playbook runs its own OS called QNX, it allows you to run many Android applications (.apk) that have been converted to Playbook applications (.bar). Not every Android app can be converted, there seems to be strict rules on what is and is not acceptable. I’m damned if I can find the forum post about what you can and can’t convert. If I do, I’ll update the blog.

I’ve installed the Android versions of Twitter, Facebook, Amazon Kindle and Handrite so far. All seem to work well and in the case of Facebook and Twitter are far superior to the versions that came preinstalled. There are some good native Playbook apps. I’ve installed BlueBox (a Dropbox client), Score Mobile (keeps me up to date on my sports results), Air Browser (a file manager) and Evernote (a note taking app that syncs between your PC/Tablet/Smartphone).

One of the most important aspects of any tablet, is battery life. I’ve been getting approximately 7 hours of use on a single charge. It’s hard to be exact as I don’t use it continuously all day. Unfortunately, I have other things to do aside from playing with gadgets. Officially, I should get 10 hours of standard use on a single charge, but just what standard use is, I don’t know!! In use, the Playbook is quick and responsive. The screen is fantastic and has a wide viewing angle. You can also access the Playbooks hard drive over wifi and upload or download files to it using this method. You don’t need any special drivers to do this, just open My Computer on Windows and type \\ followed by the ip address of the Playbook into the Address Bar, in my case it was \\192.168.1.45

One of the best resources for all thing Playbook and indeed Blackberry related, is Crackberry.com. The forum on the site is a wealth of information with answers to almost any Playbook related query you may have. After setting up your Playbook, the next thing I would do is head over there and register an account!

So, that’s it so far. I’m still coming to terms with the OS and its features. I’ll have to sit down and work out how to convert .apk files to .bar files and I await the official release of OS 2.0 slated for sometime in February. Hopefully, over the coming weeks and months, I’ll have a bit more to say about the Blackberry Playbook.

TurboViewer Pro v2 released for iOS devices…

IMSI today announced the release of TurboViewer Pro v2, the professional version of its free TurboViewer app for the iPad and iPhone. The full press release can be read here.

I haven’t had a chance to use the app yet as they IMSI have not released a version for Android. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for an Android version of this app. It looks interesting and it’s great to have another player in the CAD world developing for the mobile platform.

You can read more about TurboViewer by clicking here.

10 Billion Downloads from the Android Market…

No posts in 2 weeks and now 2 in a matter of minutes!!

Google are celebrating reaching 10 Billion downloads from the Android Market. Check out the 10 for 10Cents promo that they have running all this week.

The graphic below shows the growth of the Android Market since 2008.

Draftsight Youtube Channel

Seems like I haven’t written a blog in ages….I’ll try to be more productive in December!

This posting is just to give a heads up about the Draftsight Youtube Channel. Check it out by clicking here. You will find some fantastic and easy to follow tutorials for everyones favourite free CAD package!

Don’t have Draftsight? Well then, download it for free from here.

Autodesk Design Review Mobile

Design Review has been around on Windows for a good few years now and has now been released for your favourite iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch).

What does Design Review Mobile do? Well it allows you to view, mark-up, and annotate drawings on your mobile device when you are out and about.

I would have thought that Autodesk would be working on combining the features of Design Review Mobile and AutoCAD WS into one mobile device, but we will have to wait and see if that ever happens!

Check out Design Review Mobile over on the App Store. No word as of yet on an Android version.

A murmuration of Starlings….

Yeah, I had never heard the phrase before either. Turns out that “a murmuration is a large, swirling, cloud-like formation consisting of thousands of starlings flying together.” Thanks RTE for that explanation!

Anyway, two young British ladies (Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith) were happily canoeing their way down the Shannon here in Ireland when they came across this.. It’s spectacular.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Mars500 Hatch Opening

What’s Mars 500? Well, Mars-500 is an experiment that simulates a manned flight to Mars. The experiment is based at the IBMP facility in Moscow, Russia. Now, I could go in to much more detail, but somebody over on Wikipedia has already done that, so why not follow this link and read up about it over there.

After you are finished there, why not pop back here and watch the opening of the Mars 500 Hatch at 5:50 AM - 7:00 AM EDT on Nov 4th, 2011.

eurospaceagency on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Sick evil bastard

I draw cartoons for an Irish website called Boob.ie and today one of the other contributors brought this to my attention. I’ve seen some sick shit on the internet, but nothing has made me feel physically ill before, until this.

It’s a video of a father beating his 16 year old daughter with a belt… Now, I got my fair share of belt slaps in school when I grew up (thanks to the Christian Brothers), but nothing, nothing ever compared to this.

The video below is graphic in the extreme. It features violence and foul language. It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Android 2.3.5 Update for Samsung Galaxy s2

I connected my Samsung Galaxy S2 to Kies today and it found and downloaded the update to Android 2.3.5.

Just what this update will do for my Galaxy S2. I’ve no idea, but hey, it’s the latest version available, so why not update.

This update was on the Meteor network here in Ireland. Other networks may or may not have the update available yet.

TurboViewer Pro 1.1.0

IMSI/Design have released an update to their iOS application TurboViewer Pro. Version 1.1.0 was released today.

So, what’s new in Version 1.1.0 I hear you ask. Well, since you put it nicely, the list is as follows:

• New 3D Perspective view, specify camera lens in mm
• Support for international localized SHX fonts
• View model space and now paperspace layouts
• Updates for iOS 5 compatibility

The update also includes the ability to view over 20 different CAD industry file formats including:

That’s a substantial list of supported file formats, whether you use them all or not! Take a look at the video below to see how easy it is to open a DWG from your iPad / iPhone email package.

For more information on this release, check out the App Store and the IMSI/Design product page.

Autodesk 123D Beta 7

The latest beta version of Autodesk 123D has just been released.

Just what is Autodesk 123D I hear you ask. Well Autodesk describe it as “a free solid modelling software program based on the same Autodesk technology used by millions of designers and engineers worldwide. Not an engineer? No problem, with Autodesk 123D you can design precise and makeable objects using smart tools that let you start with simple shapes and then edit and then tweak them into more complex shapes.”

Sounds simple? Well actually it is. Why not try for yourself. You can download Beta 7 of this amazing software here. Check out the videos below to find out just what is new in Beta 7.

 

Whats new in 123D Beta 7 - Part 1

 

Whats new in 123D Beta 7 - Part 2

 

Whats new in 123D Beta 7 - Part 3

 

Whats new in 123D Beta 7 - Part 4

AutoCAD WS–3,000,000 Downloads

The AutoCAD WS team announced today that they have achieved 3,000,000 downloads…. That’s pretty impressive for CAD software!

AutoCAD WS is available for free on the Web and as apps for the iPhone & iPad, Android and Mac. Check out your App Stores and Markets for downloads.

Draftsight 1.3 Released

Dassault Systemes have just released Version 1.3 of Draftsight for both Windows and Mac and Beta 2 for Linux users (Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mandriva).

Check out the video below for more information on some of the updates.

For more information on the latest release, check out the Highlights and Installation Guide for V1R1.3. To download the latest version of Draftsight, click here.

RIP Steve Jobs

So, Steve Jobs has died at the early age of 56. Those who know me know that I was no fan of Apple, but it is hard to dispute Steve Jobs influence on the world of computers.

From the iMac and iPod to the iPhone and the iPad, each and every one could be called a design classic. Were they perfect? No, but dammit they looked amazing.

It should be remembered that Jobs was not just Mr. Apple, he had other successes away from all things Mac. In 1986 Jobs bought Pixar from Lucasfilm. Twenty years later, in 2006, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 Billion!

So, RIP Steve Jobs, the world of computers has lost one of is most interesting characters and will be a more boring place without him.

Cadaroo…

By chance I came across this cartoon today on another CAD Blog, that of the fantastic Kung Fu Drafter.

I think every CAD Monkey out there has woken up in a blind panic in the middle of the night at one time or another because they forgot to do something.

Check our previous episodes of Cadaroo here: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3.

***Update***

For more on the creator of Cadaroo, check out http://cadsetterout.com/

Another freebie, courtesy of AutoCAD WS

This fantastic t-shirt arrived in the post this morning.all the way from the AutoCAD WS team in Israel.

If you haven’t checked out AutoCAD WS yet, pop over to www.autocadws.com and take a look.

Pixlr-o-matic for Android

Pixlr were bought over by Autodesk back in July of this year and a month later, released Pixlr-o-matic for iOS devices. Thankfully, they have now added to Autodesks growing range of Android Apps.

For those that are unfamiliar with Pixlr-o-matic, it allows you to add effects to your photos. according to the blurb, there are so many options available that there are 25000 possible finishes for any one image!

For those without an Android or iOS device, check out the Pixlr website where you can use an online version of the software.

More details on Pixlr-o-matic for Android can be found here.

Some software updates….

Autodesk 123D Beta 6 is now available for download.  Some of the new features are:

• NEW Text feature! Write text and convert it to 3D using any of the solid creation and editing commands.
• NEW! Tools in the 2D sketching environment that help you make precise models even easier.
• NEW! 3D solid creating and editing tool updates, including shelling enhancements for material reduction when 3D printing.

Autodesk 123D can be downloaded from here.

IMSI today announced the launch of TurboViewer Pro, a professional version of its popular free TurboViewer app for the iPad® and iPhone®.

TurboViewer Pro for the iPad and iPhone does everything the free TurboViewer does and more. Extra features include:

Visual styles that support:

• Hidden line
• X-ray
• Shaded
• Shaded with edges
• Grayscale mode
• Adjust edge color range from white-gray-black
• Adjust x-ray transparency factor
• Option to use default or model lights (if any in drawing)
• Option to render both inside and outside model (force two-sided rendering)

Layer Manager (turn on/off layers, invert layers, turn all layers on/off).

Additional settings (turn on/off 2D/3D autosense navigation, option to use two fingers to 3D rotate/tumble or constrain orbit, etc.

Support for 14 languages: Chinese (simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

No onscreen advertising.

You can check out TurboViewer Pro over on the App Store.

It must be fun to be Tom Cruise…

Opinions on Tom Cruise can split a room. His devotion to Scientology and its views are well known, but like him or loathe him, he sure knows how to have fun!

Why can’t Red Bull bring me on a day like this?? God knows over the years, I have drank more than enough of the stuff, I’m practically a brand promoter!!

#Design816

After weeks of waiting, August 16th finally arrived. What was so special about today? Well Autodesk had a publicity event scheduled for 6:00pm Irish time. For 2 weeks CAD users around the world speculated just what this event might be about. Ideas ranged from AutoCAD LT going free to AutoCAD being released on Linux. In the end, neither of those ideas were even close to the mark.

What happened today was based all around OS X Lion and the Mac. AutoCAD 2012 for the Mac, AutoCAD LT 2012 for the Mac and a standalone AutoCAD WS app for the Mac. Since AutoCAD launched on the Mac last year and AutoCAD WS has been available through the browser since it launched, the biggest news of the day was that Autodesk have finally released AutoCAD LT for OS X. LT is available only through the Mac App Store for the princely sum of $899.99. Oh and it is only available in the US & Canada and according to the Q&A, there are no plans as of yet to release it to the rest of the world. I would imagine that will change sometime soon.

So, did all that rock your world?? It didn’t do much for me to be honest. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I certainly didn’t think all the hype would be for the Mac based AutoCAD products. On the plus side, I found the facecast on Facebook to be quite interesting and the Q&A afterwards was quite informative.

Still though, I can’t help but feel that Autodesk tried to pull an “Apple” on this and hype the event beyond its worth. Reading posts on Facebook, Twitter and other blogs, I know a lot of users were very disappointed with today's event.

For more information, Shaan Hurleys blog “Between the Lines” has more information on the three products above or you can watch the Facecast below.

Watch live streaming video from autocad at livestream.com

Another freebie…

I feel bad now, I never mentioned the fantastic rucksack/laptop bag that I won in a Draftsight competition.

It’s a fantastic piece of kit made by Ogio and it now serves as my work bag. Thanks to the Draftsight Facebook team!

The Autodesk Dinosaur

During the week, Autodesk ran a Webcast on Facebook from the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco.

One of the exhibits was an 8.5 foot tall Dinosaur made out of Lego. At the end of the webcast, a competition was held. The question was How many Lego pieces were used in the the Dinosaur?.

I had no idea, but my friend Google did. There are 62500 individual piece in the model. My prize for getting the correct answer was a Lego Dinosaur kit which arrived this very morning!

As you can see from the picture below, I wasted no time in constructing my Lego Dinosaur. I have since disassembled him (or her, I didn’t check…) and have packed it away to give to my nephew when I see him. I’m sure he will love it as much as I do, it’s Lego and it’s a Dinosaur!!!

Anyway, thanks to Autodesk and in particular Gabrielle for the prize, it was my first Autodesk freebie since Autodesk Actrix many years ago.

Creo Sketch from PTC released

I mentioned Creo Sketch, the free 2D sketching package from PTC a few posts back. Well it is finally available for download from this link.

I’ve only just installed it myself and have not had time to really give it a good workout. My first impression though was that the user interface was a tad strange, it seems a tad bland….

It does seem to have all the tools I need to create sketches with though, and unlike Sketchbook Pro by Autodesk, this is free. I’ll persevere with it for now and see how I get on with it.

AutoCAD WS hits 1 Million Android Downloads…

The AutoCAD WS team passed two huge milestones last week. Firstly, they have reached one million downloads of the AutoCAD WS mobile app for Android. Not bad for an app that was only released back in April.

The AutoCAD WS team also announced that they had surpassed over 2 Million registered users for the service and since September 2010, over 3.5 Million drawings have been uploaded to AutoCAD WS.

Congratulations on both counts.

Creo Sketch by PTC

I use Sketchbook Mobile on my Samsung Galaxy S for quick sketches. Truth be told, although it is a fantastic product, the 4” screen is just too small to be really useful. It is fun though. I draw some cartoons for a website here in Ireland and use the free Paint.net for creating these. I have been using the trial version of Sketchbook Pro 2011 for a while and it seems to offer everything I need and more at a very reasonable price.

Today I read about a new free product from PTC called Creo Sketch. It seems to be a rival to Sketchbook Pro and it appears to offer all the tools I require to make my modern day works of art. Unlike Sketchbook Pro though, Creo Sketch will be free.

There has been a trend recently where the big layers in the CAD world have been releasing excellent free tools, most notably Draftsight by Dassault and 123D & AutoCAD WS both by Autodesk. Hopefully PTC will continue this trend with Creo Sketch.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to play with the software yet as it is not released till August 1st, but you can read more about it here and here and you can check out a brief introduction to it below.

Unfortunately I can’t promise that upgrading my software to Sketchbook Pro or Creo Sketch will improve my cartoons at all. If you would like to check them out, a new cartoon is released every Friday over at boob.ie (that site is NSFW, you have been warned) or you can check them out over on my other blog.

SketchBook for Android 3 Tablets…

Autodesk finally release a dedicated version of Sketchbook for the Android Tablet market today. Unlike previous versions for Android, this version is optimised for the larger screen.

Fore more information on SketchBook for Android 3, click here.

SketchBook for Android 3 Tablets

Draftsight update released

Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Draftsight from Dassault have been updated and are now available for download from www.draftsight.com Some of the new enhancements are as follows.

Smart Dimensions - One dimension tool to do all your dimensions. I tried this out earlier today and it worked well. It certainly is quicker having one tool to do all your dimension needs.

Smart Dimension Tool

Dimensions on Sheets to Model Geometry - You can now place dimensions on a sheet for an object that resides in model space. Quite a handy tool, but just be careful that you don’t pan around in your viewport and mess up the dimensions.

Linked Dimensions in Sheet Mode

Flipping Dimension Arrows - Users can now flip dimension arrows so that they are either inside or outside the dimension extension lines. I think the video will help explain it better than that!

Flip Dimension Arrows

Check out www.draftsight.com for more information about Draftsight and for download links.

Oxegen 2011–Day Three

Day three of Oxegen did not get off to the best start…. I missed The Saturdays!!! It was my own fault, I fell asleep watching Dublin play Wexford in the Leinster final.

We made it in for the last 20 minutes of Ke$ha. Her music does nothing for me, but she is an attractive young lady and who doesn’t like to look at attractive ladies?? She drew a huge crowd, much bigger than I thought she would and the seemed to like her.

Anyway, Ocean Colour Scene were starting in the Heineken Green Spheres tent, so I headed on over. I’ve never been to a bad OCS gig and todays was no different. The crowd went wild from the start and never stopped singing. Fantastic stuff.

Next up it were the Manic Street Preachers on the Main Stage. I thought they would have pulled a larger crowd than Ke$ha, but I was wrong. Still, it didn’t stop them belting out hit after hit after hit. Fun times in the pit, though thankfully there was no moshing…. I’m just too old for that these days!

Slash was up next on the Main Stage. I must admit I had reservations about his gig and didn’t bother going back to the pit for it. In hindsight, that was a bad idea! It was a fantastic gig and Myles Kennedy was a fantastic singer, great voice too. Personally I thought he sang the G n’ R stuff better than Axel.

Finally it was the turn of Beyonce on the Main Stage. I only stayed long enough to have a look at her and find out that unlike some of her pop world rivals, she can sing live and look good whilst doing it!

After leaving Beyonce, I headed off to the VIP area for a quite break and a drink. The VIP area would be nice if it wasn’t for all the arseholes pretending to be important, but then that goes with the territory I suppose.

I left the VIP and went over to see The National on the Vodafone Stage. I had no clue about them before I went and I had no clue about them after I left. They sounded good, but black clothes on a black stage with dim lighting is a bad idea guys!! I could hardly see the band and I was up the front!

After The National, I went to see Coldplay on the Main Stage. Coldplay did exactly what Coldplay always do. Lots of earnest singing and beautiful melodic tunes. I left after 30 minutes and went to watch Pendulum over on the Vodafone Stage. I had no idea I knew some Pendulum tracks, but I did and they put on a fantastic show. I may not be their target audience though!

I managed to catch the end of Coldplay back on the Main Stage, though I missed the duet with Christy Moore unfortunately. After that, well… that was it, that was Oxegen 2011 done and dusted. Nothing left to do but go party for the rest of the night.

Oxegen 2011 was a great festival. The line up was great, though I would have preferred to see some of the bigger Irish acts on the list.

The highlights for me were Imelda May, Ocean Colour Scene, The Pretty Reckless, Whipping Boy and House of Pain. I’m sure I left someone out there, but my memory is now a tad fuzzy and the photographs don’t help much!

Roll on Oxegen 2012!

Android 2.3.3 for Meteor Samsung Galaxy S is available.

As the title states, Android 2.3.3 is now available for Meteor customers with Samsung Galaxy S phones. Whilst there have been reports of installation issues by some users over on Meteors forums, I had no problems with the upgrade and all was completed in about 10 minutes.

What has changed? I hear you ask. Well to be honest, the only thing I have noticed so far is battery life seems to be longer and there is a slight change to the UI. I’m sure there are other changes, I just haven’t played around enough to see what they are yet.

Anyway, get downloading!

Oxegen 2011–Day Two

Somewhere over night, someone robbed my feet and replaced them with two stumps that I could barely hobble on… but hobble I did and off I went for Day Two of Oxegen.

After a nice hot shower, a fantastic breakfast and a quick snooze, it was time to rock out again and first up on the Main Stage were old favourites, Big Country. Mike Peters, formerly of The Alarm, now fronts the band (original singer Stuart Adamson died back in 2001) and whilst his voice may not be as strong as it used to be, he worked the crowd well, ably assisted by Bruce Watson on lead guitar. It’s just a shame I never got to see the original line up.

After Big County, I relaxed for a while before heading off to the Heineken Green Spheres tent for The Pretty Reckless. I must admit, I felt a bit like a dirty old man watching Taylor Momsen bump and grind her way around stage in a barely there costume, but the girl can sing and the band can play. All in all, it was a very enjoyable show, I was pleasantly surprised.

Over on the Main Stage, Plan B was doing his mix of UK Soul and Rap and doing it well. Oxegen seems to like Plan B. His mix of sing a long choruses and quick fire rap went down well with the crowd last year and this year is no different. Good stuff.

It was time to go see Imelda May, but on the way, I stopped off to catch some Eliza Doolitte in the 2FM / Hot Press Academy. What a fantastic voice she has. I’m not sold on her type of music, but she can sing and in a world of auto tuned pop stars, that should count for a lot.

Anyway, Imelda May was starting so it was a quick march off to the Vodafone Stage. What is there to say about Imelda May that has not been said already? She has an amazing voice, sings from her heart, obviously loves what she is doing and for me, is the gig of the weekend. Irish Rockabilly, you can’t beat it!

After that, all that was left to do was wait around for the Foo Fighters to appear on the Main Stage. To pass the time, I watched the Arctic Monkeys. I liked their first album, but after that, I lost interest. However, they still got the crowd going and who doesn’t like to bounce around to “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”

Finally it was time for the Foo Fighters. I had high hopes as I do like FF and had seen them 3 times previously. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they didn’t click with me tonight. Starting the show with two new tracks probably didn’t help much. The key to playing festivals is to play the hits. That’s what the majority of the crowd wants, but the Foo Fighters too too long to do so and by then people were leaving in their droves from the back of the crowd.

And so ended day two on a slight downer. Roll on day three.