The Dan Miles Idea Factory

Server for Home - Microsoft Home Server

This weekend I got a new toy for home the HP MediaSmart Server which runs the Microsoft Home Server application.  These new devices (Home Servers) are really taking off and l know why now.  Just about anyone can get the benefits of sharing files and other items within minutues.  The setup is very simple and is almost like a mini Network Appliance device.

So now I can share all of my videos, photos, and music throughout my house without problems.  I even have my Microsoft Xbox 360 setup to connect to it.  Plus even better yet I finally have an automated way to backup all those Autodesk Inventor files from my home PC.  If you are looking for a storage device for home I highly recommend this solution over an external harddrive or a home NAS device.  You can just plug in new drives to expand the storage.

Thought I would share this new toy with you for home use.

Dan

Autodesk Productstream 2009

I haven't seen much information around on what is new within Autodesk Productstream 2009 so I figure I would share some of the new items I have been using during beta testing.

• You can directly open and place components from Productstream within the standard dialog boxes now.
• The DWF publishing is much faster now due to the new DWFx format and several new settings.  You can even have it just publish a screen capture image of LARGE assemblies saving time in some cases.  These features are in Autodesk Vault 2009 also.
• The ECO change order process has some streamline options now to reduce user steps making it more usable.
• Tool to publish DWF files to Microsoft Sharepoint
• The new parameterized search is very nice for user inputs
• Microsoft active directory support for user accounts

These are a few things to come to mind and there are more also.  Some of these features are also available within Autodesk Vault 2009.

Let me know if you have any questions

Dan

Microsoft Software to Create Tools for Free

Microsoft announced a new project called Microsoft DreamSpark that enables students to download Microsoft software at no charge.  The goal is to provide students tools to allow them to develop their skills and create new innovations.  The main product you can download is Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition.

Microsoft DreamSpark Website

With these tools you can learn to create some great programs to work with Autodesk Inventor using the Inventor API.  These are all the tools you need to build the next great tool or feature for Inventor in a way.  Here are a few other items to get you going.

Autodesk Inventor API 101 Video Class

Bill Gates interview about DreamSpark

Dan

Autodesk Vault 2009

There are several new features within Autodesk Vault and Autodesk Productstream 2009.  So far two of my favorite new Autodesk Vault features with Autodesk Inventor are the following:

Support for Level of Detail (LOD) Suppression with Open
Autodesk Inventor 2009 will not only download the files needed for the level of detail (LOD) selected during the file open from vault process.  This will reduce the amount of items your client needs to ping the server for which will greatly increase checkout time.

Searching Performance within Autodesk Vault and Productstream 2009
The engine that is used behind the scenes for searching within the Vault and Productstream 2009 has been replaced with a new method that is so much faster it is crazy.  You will notice a major improvement in search performance on 2009.  I will try to post some time studies I have done for you in the future here.

These two items will sure help everyone that works with large assemblies within Autodesk Inventor.

Dan

Inventor 2009 Viewing Controls

With the new View Cube and Steering Wheel viewing tools within Autodesk Inventor 2009 there is one thing I miss.  You can no longer just do a right click on the graphics window and pick Isometric View.  I used this option a ton.  There is a right click "Home View" option now that is similar.

UPDATE = The right click Home View is good once you use it a bit and you can redefine it.  I just wanted to udpate this post after using the new feature for a few more days.

I think these new viewing tools provide a ton of features but I find them a little overwhelming so far.  This will be one of the biggest things that user have to get use to using.  I personally still like my SpacePilot controller.

Dan

The Ribbon Interface is Coming

Microsoft provided the ribbon interface with the launch of Microsoft Office 2007 to us.  Now just like the original dialog and menu based interfaces everyone is off and running with it.  Autodesk provides two user interfaces within the new release of AutoCAD 2009.  One is the standard interface we know and the other is a new ribbon based interface as seen below.

If you ask me it will not be long before you see this type of interface in more products.

Dan

Favorite AutoCAD 2009 Feature - Action Recorder

There is always more you can add to the good old AutoCAD product.  My hands down favorite new feature in AutoCAD 2009 is the Action Recorder.  This new tool enables you to record repetitive tasks as macros.  This will make everyone a programmer.  The actions are recordered as you do them live and then you can add in custom user inputs and a bunch of other stuff.  This is a great idea and feature.  Maybe a future release of Autodesk Inventor will have something like this to super size iFeatures and the feature generator.

Dan

New Autodesk DWFx Format

With all of the new 2009 Autodesk products coming out soon and a new version of Autodesk Design Review the new DWF file format is called DWFx.  This is a newer version of the DWF format that is now the default within just about all of the 2009 products.  One of the biggest benefits to DWFx is that on Windows Vista computers and Internet Explorer 7 systems (XP) you do not need to install a viewer.  Viewing the files within the free Design Review application offers some other benefits but is sure nice to share files without people installing viewers.

Dan

Inventor 2009 - Feature List PDF

Everyone listed below is the offical Autodesk Inventor 2009 Technical What's New brochure from Autodesk.  This brochure outlines all of the major improvements and new features available within Autodesk Inventor 2009 and Autodesk Inventor Professional 2009.  This will make for some good lunch time reading.

Download autodesk_inventor_2009_whats_new.pdf

20 pages of new stuff.  Now that you have the list of everything I will start to dive deeper into specific features for you on how they might be used.

Dan

Autodesk Inventor 2009 Video

Garin Gardiner from Autodesk posted a short video on his blog site from the Autodesk World Press day in CA.  The video shows some of the new features available within Autodesk Inventor 2009.

Inventor 2009 - World Press Day Video from Garin

Cool stuff

Dan