In the Pipes

Drum roll please . . .

For months and months I've been dodging questions of:  "So, when is Autodesk going to have a 3D Piping application?" And I'm not saying that we will.  But I am saying that if you join our customer council (and sign the NDA) then you will find an interesting link to a web based presentation happening next Wednesday. In this meeting Peter Quinn, one of our Product Managers, will be showing some pre-alpha software.  Actually, there will be three sessions on July 30th:

• 7:30 AM PDT (GMT-7:00)
• 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-7:00)
• 6:00 PM PDT (GMT-7:00)

Here, this link is useful to figure out what time these San Francisco times would be for you locally.

If this presentation is something in which you are interested, you first need to join our beta site/customer council.  If you are already on our Plant Customer Council, you should have gotten an email with the link.  Or, to join, go to http://myfeedback.autodesk.com/  and select Sign up from the left sash. You will then be asked to fill out a profile. Please use ‘Plant Customer Council’ in the beta code field (at the top of the sign up page). You will be emailed a password for the general site once the MyFeedback team has reviewed your application. This process should not take you more than 5 minutes to complete.

If you already have a profile on the MyFeedback site, please take a moment to update your profile to include ‘Plant Customer Council’ in the beta code field.  Simply click the User button in the upper right of the screen when logged into the MyFeedback portal.

Hope to see you there.

Ooooh! Cake!!!

It's my birthday and we took time out from today's strategy session to have cake.  Actually, 2 cakes.  And Mark our VP even splurged and bought the group an Atari Flashback 2 with 40 Games Preloaded (which we all can pretend was in my honor).  Woo hoo!  I love birthdays!

Hot Green Summer

I don't feel like writing about software today. I want to write about cars.

It's the middle of summer here in the San Francisco Bay area, and when it gets hot and windless we often get Spare the Air days.  On a Spare the Air day like today, officials encourage everyone to drive less by using public transit (or by just staying home).  Sometimes they even make all the transit free, but not this time.  I opted to go to the San Francisco office  - whichI can get to by tram - instead of my usual drive to a different office 40 minutes away.  I'm patting myself on my back for being a good citizen and saving air.

This brings me to the next green topic we've been chatting about lately at the office.  In the Autodesk parking lot, the Prius Hybrid is very well represented.  It gets more and more popular as gas prices continue to rise here.  Yeah yeah, I know we Americans are generally spoiled regarding how cheap our gasoline is.  Still, we're not used to paying $4.50 per gallon, and it is changing habits.  My favorite thing about the Prius is the video screen that can report your car's current energy consumption in real time.  Of course a Prius is no Atom.  (But then again, what is?)

Yesterday, I was riding to lunch in a coworker's new Prius, and we started chatting about cars.  I learned that apparently a modestly priced compressed air powered car is being developed.  For about $3 of electricity you can fill it up (with air) and go 125 miles at speeds of 70 miles per hour.  It seems too fanciful to be believed, despite the videos and websites hyping it.  I have to admit I was skeptic that it would make it to market.

But hey, it turns out that one of our software engineers actually already has one booked in India (although he won't clearly tell me exactly how he managed that).  It's a Tata Nano. At $2500 it's the "worlds cheapest car" - that's even cheaper than a Vespa!  Clearly, they've moved from concept cars to production vehicles.  He does indicate that it isn't the most substantial car, but still.  Too cool.

Now I'm using my skepticism to disbelieve the new reports of a water powered car.  Seriously, water powered?  "Any kind of water will do . . .even tea works."  This is going to take some serious convincing before I believe in it.

Hey, I must be becoming a Californian.   Buying organic produce, craving green cars, next thing you know I will be trying to detox with a cleansing fast.  Go go green !