The Dan Miles Idea Factory

Designer's Night in Detroit 2009

On Monday evening I attended the annual Designer's Night in downtown Detroit.  This event goes on each year for automotive and industrial designers at Camilo Pardo studio.  The timing is perfect as the Detroit Autoshow starts the same day for media so people from all over the world attended the legendary event.  Autodesk and INCAT helped with the event so we were able to down there early and hang out the full night.  Of course I didn't leave until midnight as it was a damn good party and networking event.  I would say that designers from all major automotive companies attend and them some interesting people like from PIXAR or Harley Davision.

I uploaded some pictures from the night on the blog for you to check out.  Camilo Pardo works in the Ford styling studio and was the lead designer for the Ford GT.  Yes he had one inside his studio also.  He is also a great artist nad fashion designer of some hot ladies clothes.  Check out the special outfit he made for Autodesk as the sponor in the pictures.

Here is Camilo Pardo website and also a nice blog post on the Chip Foose site about him.

Dan

LIVE Class from Autodesk University 2008

Autodesk will be broadcasting my "Autodesk Inventor Best Practices for Working with Large Assemblies" class live from Autodesk Univeriity on December 2, 2008 at 1:15pm PST.  You can learn more about how to sign up for this and watch the session live at the link below.

Live from AU Sessions

If you are going to be at AU 2008 please attend the class and feel free to track me down during the week.  If you not signup to watch live from your home or office.

Dan Miles

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

AU 2007 - Implementing Inventor Class Files

With Autodesk University 2007 now complete in Las Vegas I will upload my class handouts and presentations.  These are the files from my "Implementing Autodesk Inventor in Your Company" on Friday.

Class Handout

Download au_2007_ma4051_dan_miles_implementing_inventor_hand_out.pdf

Class Presentation

Download au_2007_ma4051_dan_miles_implementing_inventor_presentation.ppsx

Thanks to everyone that attended and I will continue to update these documents in the coming months as new features come out.

Dan Miles

AU 2007 - Inventor Large Assembly Class Files

With Autodesk University 2007 now complete in Las Vegas I will upload my class handouts and presentations.  These are the files from my "Autodesk Inventor Large Assembly Best Practices" on Wednesday.

Class Handout

Download au_2007_ma2155_dan_miles_large_assembly_hand_out.pdf

Class Presentation

Download au_2007_ma2155_dan_miles_large_assembly_presentation.ppsx

Thanks to everyone that attended and I will continue to update these documents in the coming months as new features come out.

Dan Miles

Off to Autodesk University 2007

I am heading out to Autodesk University tomorrow morning in Las Vegas.  I will provide you with some updates from the event and also the hand outs from the classes I am teaching.  My "Large Assembly" class for Autodesk Inventor will be taped and available as a screen cast after the event also by Autodesk.  I will let you know how you can get to it once it is available but I think you will need to log into your Autodesk subscription site.

Talk to you soon

Dan

2 Classes at Autodesk University (AU) 2007

I will be presenting two classes at the 2007 Autodesk University held in Las Vegas.  So far the classes are coming along very nice and have over a hundred people signed up for each of them.  This is something I am looking forward to and plan to present some great high quality and fun content for everyone.  You can visit the Autodesk University site at the link below to register and view all of the available classes.  Listed below are the two classes I will be presenting - Please sign up :-)

http://au.autodesk.com/2007/

MA215-5 = Working with HUGE Digitial Prototypes: Autodesk Inventor Large Assembly Best Practices

MA405-1 = Implementing Autodesk Inventor in Your Company

Dan

Travels - First India Trip

One of the reasons for me not posting much this past month is that I have been on the road all over the place.  At the early part of March I made my first trip over to India to visit our INCAT offices.  The trip getting there and coming back was just nuts.  (Over 30 hours of travels each way)  Then to top it off I went to Vegas the week after for the Autodesk One Team conferance.  I uploaded a few pictures to my photo album from India.  I will try to post more on this trip later because it was very interesting.

Dan

New York Trip

Last week I spent two days in New York for myself to attend a seminar by Seth Godin.  This is one trip I was looking forward to because it is not very often I get to sit and learn without giving a presentation.  The topic was on marketing and it was very interesting and worth the trip for sure.  I would highly recommend his books if you have a interest in marketing.  Also for you "Mad Money" fans out there I had to stop by the CNBC store to purchase a Jim Cramer Red Bull!!!  Boo-Yah!!!

Update on Dan

First off I am sorry for not posting much but I think I have everything running smooth again.  The good news is I have been working on some new projects which I always enjoy because I come up with new ideas and learn a few things.  Listed below are a few interesting newer topics to maybe check out to get you up to speed on some new stuff.

1.  Autodesk has released a preview of a feature recognition addon for Autodesk Inventor 11.  You can download this preview at labs.autodesk.com.  This is great if you import dump solid models into Inventor.

2.  At INCAT we have been working on a nice batch plot  program for printing out of the Autodesk Vault or Productstream.  This program is currently in beta form and will be released in Feb.  If you would like to try it out and provide feedback to me please just email me at dmiles@incat.com.

Stay tuned

Dan