In the realm of somewhat useless but cool stuff you can do to customize SolidWorks, I recently did a post about making your own background. This can in actuality be very useful for two things Making things on your screen easier to see Giving a custom feel to product presentations So, in light of all…

There’s lots of things that can make a team efficient – collaboration, coordination, communications, 24” monitors, donuts. But there’s one thing that can make a team of SolidWorks users take those first three things and spread them like a warm stick of butter. It has to do with standardizing SolidWorks settings in your group. At…

I know it’s been hard on us all having to manually unroll the toilet paper for the past 100 or so years, but your worries are over and good old SolidWorks may have had a large part in it. News was announced yesterday that Kimberly-Clark, the name most are familiar with in public restrooms, has…

After being with SolidWorks since 1996 and leading since 2001, John McEleney has stepped down as CEO. Dassault Systèmes has named Jeff Ray as his replacement. He brought vast amounts of knowledge, a friendly face and a well trimmed goatee to SolidWorks. I’m sure he’ll be missed… but not till the end of the year.…

A few weeks ago I did a post about Dimesioning tips. Looking back at it, I feel it was limited. So, I want to open it up to you and provide a little incentive as well. I will be giving away this brand new SanDisk 2GB Cruzer Micro USB 2.0 Flash Drive. To enter the…

I was going to wait and have some links from this site in the Friday Smackdowns, but there’s just so much good stuff I thought it deserved a post of it’s own. If design matters to you at all or you’re interested in color, art or just making things look good you need to check…

Since their launch in March of 2007, SpaceClaim, out of Concord, Mass. has been making some waves with their new solid modeler. I’m even starting to hear more talk about it amongst the casual uninterested CAD users. Their assertions to a “highly flexible design environment” make some wonder if this is a fresh approach to…

Have you ever seen five tons of fire-breathing hamsters running at you? It would be best to turn and RUN. Dave Quiggle Artwork – I love this guys artwork. His new Tattoo Flash is incredible. Bionic Arm Uses Elephant’s Trunk as Design Model – elephant trunks can crush a man. I hope they took that…

Last week SolidWorks put out a press release about the two competitors in this years America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand and Alinghi Switzerland. Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) and Alinghi are competing in the America’s Cup 2007…Taking place off the coast of Valencia, Spain, the 32nd America’s Cup features a rematch of the two…

And when I say snot, I mean all that messy undefined-ness. That is some nasty stuff and can make your part sick I tell you. Sick, sick, sick. There is one thing that can help you though. One Command to dimension them all, One Command to relate them, One Command to bind them all and…

On August 4-5 Team SolidWorks will be going on a bike ride to support a cure for cancer. SolidWorks started officially doing this in 2002 and will ride with a team of over 70 people this year. Their goal is to raise 500,000, a goal they nearly achieved last year. I’m usually not into this…

This is so off topic it’s rediculous, but it’s the weekend. Two of my favorite movies are Goonies and Pirates of the Carribean. Now, imagine if they were mixed together? Don’t imagine skallywag. watch the trailer!

I want my drawings to be as clear as possible, but I also want the least amount of views and pages to get the information across. This can be difficult when there are parts weaving in and around each other. So, imagine if you could combine two views together to reduce a bunch of extra…

Oh! me bones and sockets! Shake me up, Judy! and give me some tasty links ya grimmy pole parrot! CSS Dock Menu – a very slick web nav menu like the menu bar on the Mac SimpleViewer – a free, customizable flash image viewing app. I made this. iPhone launches today – Imagine that. People…

Wouldn’t you just love to put a giant metal contraption on your hand and touch the stuff in your computer screen. Get ready to feel the warm buzz of the pixels against your skin with this very large 3D glove. Fellow blogger Ben Eadie of SolidMentor.com sent me a link to this story. The software…

I have no idea. This is the funniest video I’ve seen in so long. Leave it to the Japanese to make American television look boring. Basically, contestants have to contort their bodies into weird shapes to avoid being hit by huge blocks of Styrofoam that come flying at them or else be pushed into a…

You can customize lots of things in SolidWorks from backgrounds to toolbars. But did you know you can spice up your background with your own custom image? It’s not that hard either. Here’s how you can do it.

Have you ever been bored with what you do at work or wish you could just model something different? Well, what if you could enhance your 3D skills and maybe even come up with a new product idea. People that keep learning, keep creating opportunities. Hmm. Now isn’t that just a little piece of wisdom.…

Some artist are having their designs put onto the bottom of skateboards with a laser. I love to skateboard and my last board had a really cool tattoo graphic on it done by my brother. I almost didn’t want to skate it… but I did. I ended up breaking it. I was actually kind of…

SolidWorks is so easy to get started in, you can spit parts out like a factory without even thinking about it. However, one of the most important things to understand when starting out in a 3D modeling program is knowing how to build a part for how it will be used and how design changes…

I was gonna go through some more new features for SolidWorks 2008, but after the last two post on the interface and sketching I started feeling like a demo jock again doing a What’s New spiel, so I’m gonna dig down to the bone in the following… Top 5 questions for SolidWorks 2008 These were…

The vast amount of space is taken up by things like air and dust and people sneezing at each other simultaneously. Dual Monitor Wallpapers – Bring unity to your dual screens. The 10 Second Rule – One of my favorite blogs tells how to write for diagonal readers. Surefire ways to get fired – hilarious,…

You know that table Microsoft came up with? It’s just a big-ass table. This parody video explains it all. source: Techcrunch

Monday we took a look at the interface enhancements for 2008. While there are things that can be improved, like being able to customize menus, I generally see it as an improvement because it gets you closer to your design. This is particularly important when you’re starting it out and that’s what we’re cooking up…

SolidWorks sent out their press release today for SolidWorks 2008. It’s currently in the last stages of Beta and can be purchased, but there is no published timeline of when it starts to ship. Some may not think so, but I see a lot of benifits coming out in this release. I also see where…

The SolidWorks Users Group Network site has put up a page listing the bloggers within the community. Lovingly called “the blog squad,” they are the ones that you’ll usually find over in the sidebar links on any of the blogs. There’s good info and personal insight into a lot of the different applications SolidWorks is…

The launch of SolidWorks 2008 is quickly approaching and even though you may just be getting use to some things in 2007, the new version has some features that could bring you to the edge of your seat. If you’ve seen the preview demo, the new interface may be the first thing that stands out,…

The larger elephant usually has more of those birds on it’s back, and that, my friend, is the answer to your question. Mixart.com – unique interface design and photography World’s Largest TV – great for home videos and only $53k. Flash photo gallery for flickr and picasa – best one out there and FREE. Put…

Getting SolidWorks into India isn’t anything new, but it seems a push is being made, at least with headlines. A load of articles came out June 12th about SolidWorks in India. What’s interesting to me is the reported amount of license given away. That’s the way to saturate a market segment. Hope they at least…

Today, SolidWorks launched the final Beta version of 2008. This means the launch is right around the corner and it’s the last chance you’ll have to get in on the beta testing. You can be assured that there will be a whole slew of news, podcasts, and video coming out so keep your feeds running…

Have you ever thought a car could be designed in SolidWorks? Well, it’s being done right over in Sweden by Koenigsegg. Their latest production car is the fastest street legal car on the market clocking in at over 800 HP with speeds topping at 245 mph. That’s crazy fast and they used SolidWorks to make…

I was looking into SolidWorks search trends and discovered that cloth diapers had a higher search volume than SolidWorks, so all the post from now on will be about cloth diapers and the best ways to clean cloth diapers. I kid, although I hear baking soda or oxy-clean works wonders, especially if you’re looking for…

SolidWorks released news today of Hypen Design using SolidWorks for their product development. This look like a really cool company. They hail form the London, UK and do some really slick product design for some pretty big clients like Virgin Mobile, Speedo and Mattel. They’re work is impressive – take a look at it here.…

Allright, so the last person that opened up your 1,000 part assembly hid a bunch of stuff and now it’s looking like a barren wasteland of nuts and washers. Before you spend hours traversing through sub-assemblies and revealing your wrath to that person, take a look at this. Step 1 With a quick flick of…

Oh yeah! I’m feelin’ it today. you feelin’ it? yeahhh, you’re feelin’ it!!! Sputtr Search – a clean, simple way to search things that matter Flick-a-day – watch yourself grow older each day. 250 GB Portable Hard-drive – all your stuff in one tiny place. Display your invention to the public – let everyone know…

Matt Lombard will love you. Order from here. I just got mine and it ‘s the best SolidWorks book out there.

When you’re sitting at home alone gazing into the light fixture and wondering if you caught all the changes in a drawing that was just released, here’s an absolutely simple way to wake up early, go in before anyone else finds out and do a drawing file comparison. Make a .PDF of the first drawing…

Interface design is getting a lot more interesting lately. It probably has a lot to do that fancy Microsoft Vista coming out and the multi-touch interface craziness going around. Spacetime has jumped in headfirst with a new search/browse interface. What does it do? 3D Search and browsing with plans to implement email, music and RSS.…

Throwing up before you speak may come naturally to some, but there’s some other items that may help relieve the pressure of speaking in public. Not only can these help you when speaking publicly, they can also help when training someone, relating to and working with others and finding out how you can help people.…

A while back SolidNotes had a post that talked about the Select through transparency option. I thought it was interesting and didn’t have this blog up at the time, so I’d thought I’d write on it now. This tip will allow you to get some better performance and allow you to do some things you…

I was on a trip recently and pulled off into a gas station when I saw this incredible beast of a truck pull up next to me. It had sponsorship decals all over it and down on the passenger side door I saw the good ‘ol SolidWorks logo. I was wondering what the relationship was…

Standing up at a wall or sitting at a fancy table to read your email? Working with one hand or two? Which would you prefer? Either way, within the next year or two, you may be performing your daily computing tasks in a much more interactive way instead of calmly hunched over your desktop. Two…

In the vein of new interface technology coming out, Sony is debuting a razor-thin display that can bend. People are already imagining the possibilities. One way I see this being used is to provide a more environmental interface with a larger resolution to work in, and I literally mean work IN. Imagine being surround by…

A group of unruly penguins came up to me, bit my kneecaps and told me to tell you about these sites. Distressed Font Gallery – I love fonts and these are some of my favorites. (via) The stories of Sasquatch – 40 artist, including two of my friends put this together. Music videos allowed on…

Can you imagine that just about everything in front of you right now has had a dimension on it at some point. Everything except that apple over there to the left. the Big Guy upstairs has an automated routing programs for that kinda stuff. Everyone probably has some opinion about how to dimension something, but…

Have you ever wondered what people out there do with SolidWorks or what the possibilities are? Well, here’s some kind of unusual ways of making money with SolidWorks that may give you ideas about what you could do or get in to. These are things that I and others have done in the past and…

What happens when you take an artist, turn him into a software developer and stir in some Java OpenGL? Answer: Mark Napier and some funky looking stuff Play with some of the links on the right side at his site. I made this with one of his programs. Now this isn’t done in SolidWorks, but…

In the states here, it’s Memorial day. Our three-day weekend we turn into four, our day we mow the lawn or paint that last wall. I want to thank my grandfathers that fought, bleed, cried, laughed, went to serve, came home to live and helped me never have to wonder what it is to be…

Ok, I’m at the end of this series (Part 1 and Part 2) on Acrobat 3D and I’m going to finish it off with how it would work for data exchange of an assembly. I’m going to do what most would probably think of doing first and open up a SolidWorks assembly directly into Acrobat…

Here’s the freshest, unwashed, totally natural and incredibly entertaining and informative sites I came across this week. nVidia and Capcom announce Lost Planet Release – watch the demo, it’s incredible. 34 places to get Design Inspiration – if nothing is inspiring you this will help. Web2.0 layer styles – to use in Photoshop and make…