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Actually, coffee could make me grow arms out my face as long as I was able to have some. I’m sure there’s studies on this, but what there probably isn’t any study on is,

“If bloggers get free flavored coffee, will Starshucks stop selling cinnamon scones and greeting people in a overly-friendly fashion?”

Joffreys Coffee & Tea Co. thinks it might be possible and is beta testing a marketing strategy by giving bloggers one of their new flavored coffees, Jamaican me Crazy.

Pretty good idea. Blogger write. Bloggers drink. Oh, and most enjoy the coffee. So I got some in the mail over the weekend and brewed up a pot this morning.

I absolutely love coffee
Ask my wife, I pretend it’s water. If coffee went into my lungs I would have coffee lungs and also probably be dead. But I haven’t had a flavored coffee yet that I like. For some reason, they all always taste like French Vanilla.

“Hello! Welcome. You have an amazing smile and people think you’re muscular.”
“uhhhhm…Hello, I’d liked one Hazelnut Latte please.”
“ok, sure! Is that a Hazelnut French Vanilla or a French Vanilla Latte?”
“…No.”

So, all I’m sayin’ is Joffrey, dude, give me a black cherry chocolate that doesn’t taste like French Vanilla. This is the first time I’ve tried their coffee. I haven’t heard of them before so I’d actually like to try their other stuff. Is it possible there’s such a thing as good flavored coffee?

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When you look out over the wall surrounding the meat and cheese paradise that is sketch-driven, history-based solid modeling, you’ll notice the rolling hills of free-form 3D modeling.

It’s a wonderfully surreal place to escape to every once in a while, especially if you need to work in some unusual 3d formats or create something a little more abstract.

Crispy and Clean
MoI (Moment of Inspiration) came on the scene around August 2007. I’ve been fiddling with the beta release here and there and noticed last week that Deelip crashed the MoI launch party for version 1.0.

What’s it like?
It’s really intuitive. For me, it’s like shaping Styrofoam, without the mess. That might sound weird, but it provides just enough precision with the ability to shape what you want. If you wanted a comparison, it’s right in between SketchUp and Rhino. It actually uses the Rhino openNURBS file format (.3dm) so obviously, it’s interoperable between the two, plus you can open that format directly in SolidWorks.

In ease of use, it stands on its own
Developer, Michael Gibson, actually created Rhino, so you’ll see similarities, but MoI is a lot easier to get started with. I’d try this if you’ve ever been interested in trying a free-form modeler but apprehensive. He developed it from the standpoint of ease of use for pen tablet users. However, it’s easy even with a mouse. You can use the keyboard to enter values if you like, but every command can be done with the left mouse button.

What’s extra special is how good it looks and how fast it runs on the foulest graphically-challenged of computers, like my 2001 Compaq Presario laptop. Additionally, the beta is still free to download, but the price for Version 1.0 is a mere $195. You can’t buy conversion software for that cheap.

If you want to see how it works, there are some very nice video tutorials that give a quick overview. I created the below model in just over 5 minutes. Fun stuff.

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Gone are the days of your typical PDF. Adobe is cranking up the possibilities with Acrobat Version 8 3D and they’re on top of the issues to make you look as cool as possible.

I wrote previously about Acrobat 8 3D. At that time it was great with small to medium size models, but there were some issues that made converting large models, particularly assembly files, difficult which resulted in large PDF file sizes. The PDF files sizes were quite a bit larger than the original file, which made it harder to use as a collaboration tool. That is no longer the case.
Continue reading ‘Acrobat 3D: Your PDF on Crack’

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MCAD, a UK based product development and manufacturing magazine, has put up a 4 page review of SolidWorks 2008 this month.

It’s basically a rundown of the most talked about features. If you’ve seen a 2008 demo or have read other reviews it won’t really tell you anything new though. I would just skip to the end and read the conclusion which has some thought provoking copy.

The basic premise is that SolidWorks is headed in a new direction that allows you to focus on developing the product rather than getting the modeling to work. I’d agree for the most part. I think 2008 will make some things easier. I haven’t had to think about making fillets work as much, I just allow the FilletXpert to do its job.

The modeling and development are the fun part, but are drawings easier to create though? In most industries, you still have to document the design in a drawing. The process is the still the same for me, but I have noticed is it seems to be easier to move drawing views around. Not sure why. What’s made the biggest difference in modeling and drawings is the Shortcut bar. I’ve customized this to the point I’m not using the typical toolbars. I’m still messing with it, but let me tell ya, it’s nice.

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