I’ve decided it’s time to move on.
Good luck to all, especially those still trying to earn a living as “Pro/Tools” :-)
Archive for the ‘default’ Category
Pro/ENGINEER FAQ – no more
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009Off-topic: the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Every once in a while, it’s good to take a look back:
Doesn’t hurt to remember this when posting to social media :)
Administrivia: a few updates
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009You are probably aware of at least one obvious change here at the FAQ: a new (old) theme. The default WordPress theme is very legible (the usability bug got me again) and easy for me to customize. It allows me to add:
- Custom Google search – you might notice that the results are pulled from the Blogroll sites. I thought it might be nice to filter the results a bit.
- Google Ads – If you’re thinking of doing Ad Sense on WordPress, spend a dollar on the Google AdSense Widget from Mike Smullin.
- Polls – Made possible by the WP-Polls Widget created by Lester Chan.
I’ve also made nice with the Google search engine so my archive posts are once again searchable.
And, I’ve added a Pro/E jobs page with my own twist.
Welcome, technoDAVE!
Monday, April 27th, 2009I’ve started another blog as an outlet for the other side of my work experience – departmental and small business computing. There’s a link over on the side, and I’ll probably be spending more time there for at least a while, or until I return to working with Pro/ENGINEER.
These dry spells are always troublesome as far as keeping skills up-to-date and publishing content that’s interesting and current. Unfortunately, my last employer was still stuck at WF2 and Intralink 3.3. Oh well, at least Pro/INTRALINK seems stuck at 3.4!
What kind of Pro/E organization are you?
- WF3 – stable choice for large organizations
- WF4 – early adopters and small companies
- WF5 – bleeding edge
Guess I need to get going – check out technoDAVE’s blog.
Off topic: Who moved my cheese?
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009Count me in as another casualty of the recent economic downturn. I’ve been working as an engineer / cad operator in the Pro/Engineer arena for almost twenty years, and just finished an extended contract doing drafting for a Fortune 500 company.
It was a tough assignment. Learning by bad example is one method of learning, but it’s very taxing.
I felt like I was the last US citizen doing drafting. Drafting doesn’t get the respect it deserves, by the way. Like a lot of skills, someone who’s “been there and done that” will usually finish a task faster and more efficiently than someone trying to find their way the first time. The same holds true for the Pro/E modeling/detailing/drafting task. A good detail drafter will do a better job of modeling by creating more usable parts conforming to company standards, resulting in drawing ready parts that get released quicker at lower cost. This is how an experienced Pro/E contractor delivers on the Pro/E promise.
Most companies today seem to have lost sight of the value of trained professional help. A lot of money spent chasing bottom line values doesn”t reflect true costs. Oh well.
Who Moved My Cheese?- a book I read a while ago. Seems apropos to my situation, and maybe a lot of other contractors.
Another philosophical reference:
Your Money or Your Life – the authors (I think) have coined a phrase “Making a dying” which hits pretty close to home for a contractor.
Time to move on, maybe. I’m not going to close any doors, but it’s pretty obvious Pro/E isn’t the meal ticket it used to be. The best protection against companies exporting jobs overseas is to develop skills important to a local market, I think.
Change is coming to the FAQ; I think I’ll have to add advertising to help support the site. If that works, I’ll try to add more content from other sources.
Thanks for visiting.
Summer’s almost over…
Friday, September 26th, 2008I really haven’t forgotten about the FAQ, it’s just that summer’s more fun outside. I’ll get back to some ideas I’ve been kicking around pretty soon. Check back in a month or so – maybe I’ll finally make good on my promise to put down some best practice ideas. Or maybe I’ll finally give up on J-Link and move on to Web.Link. Stay tuned.
Optimum monitor setup?
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008I can never get enough screen real estate, so here’s my latest:
This isn’t as extravagant as it looks. If you upgrade your 20″ with a 30″, just hang onto the old 20″ and rotate it. Set it to the left and dump all your icons and the menu bar on it. Dual DVI cards like most of the Quadros will support both monitors in separate rotations. Remember, graphics card bandwidth just keeps going up while monitor prices keep going down.
Making the big monitor primary helps with the Pro/E window management. It also puts your other applications / workspaces / popups (E-mail, Pro/INTRALINK, Pro/E FAQ) in front of you temporarily. Close / move them off to the secondary monitor when you return to Pro/E.
SecureZIP anyone?
Thursday, June 5th, 2008I have a soft spot for PKZIP, so I’m going to give this a try.
A full individual, non-commercial use, perpetual license for PC Magazine Editor’s Choice Award winning software – what have you got to lose?
WordPress 2.1 upgrade
Sunday, February 11th, 2007Hello,
Just a little administrivia – we’ve upgraded over the weekend, so things may take a while to get back to normal. The great thing about WordPress is that content is stored in a MySQL database, so changes to appearance and functionality are less traumatic.
Pro/E Soapbox: Rounding
Thursday, January 4th, 2007I think I learned the “round even” rule the first year out of college, so it still amazes me that one of the most powerful CAD packages in the world rounds .625 to .63, so that 3/8 + 5/8 = 1.01!
The obvious answer is to actually design with real numbers, but it seems that a lot of people are found of that extra digit! (Don’t get me started on significant digits!)
How about giving a guy a choice?
Wikipedia on the subject; better yet the NIST
Will PTC ever teach Pro/E to think like an engineer instead of a programmer?Â
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