Go ask a molting yak this single question, “Are you using SolidWorks materials??!!” If it does anything other than say yes, you have total freedom to boot the fur right off his confused face.

However, if he is using SolidWorks materials, pull a stump up to the waterin’ hole and prepare to show him how to solve a little problem he may be having. A problem where the appearances don’t update when a material is changes. There’s a simple fix and if your flaking yak friend uses templates, he’ll want to update those right away. Here’s how.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I fell down a flight of stairs at the Anaheim convention center after some new features for SolidWorks 2011 were previewed at SolidWorks World, but that’s not gonna stop me from spitting up blood to tell you about them.

Last week, we talked possible enhancements, but this is different. These are real features you’ll see in the next version of SolidWorks. Yeah, you haven’t even upgraded to SolidWorks 2010, but come on, SolidWorks 2010… so last decade.

If you’re familiar with the TED conference that highlights some good (and some not so good) “ideas worth spreading,” you’ll know how tough it is to get into the conference, not to mention their book club.

That is unless you’re an inanimate piece of hardware showing off new tech at the conference. 3DConnexion got the props this time when Google’s Jason Holt displayed his 20 percent time project called Liquid Galaxy. It’s been out a while, but still, it’s oh so sweet.

Ya know, there are dreams of computer hardware coming to life, devouring your lunch and snacking on your soul, but that’s nothing compared to when they go all ‘Voltron’ on you and start battling it out with each other.

Verbatim has a good idea of what this would be like and they let your join in the fun. It’s the Verbatim Championship in sweet monsterific Flash 3D. Create media monster, send to battle, beat the queen. I canceled all my appointments to try it out and provide some slick screenshots for you. Here we go.

You just can’t shove that much butter into hat that tiny and expect it to fit over your face. First apply the butter, then the excitement, followed by the hat and a healthy dose of these links. Tae Young Choi – Some call it concept art. I call it capturing motion and intensity like none…