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.