BIM and Beam - Three Buses in a Row ;0)

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It may be pure coincidence, however since my posting on the 31st January about the lack of effort and posting over at BIM and Beam since Wai Chu moved on from Autodesk from the five nominated Authors (The Famous Five), postings on BIM & Beam are now like London Buses. Nothing for ages then three all come along at once (usually one after the other and not side by side as the picture above).

Squeezed out into the blogger-sphere just after my posting and before midnight on the same day, actually making it two posts in January is  Autodesk ForceEffect Version 2.0 Now Available!

This posting is about a free app available for Apple iPad and iPhone from the iTunes App Store that allows engineers including structural engineers to model and simulate concepts. Real time solving capabilities provide immediate feedback on the performance of a design, enabling you to bring engineering to the point of the problem.

No Author credited for this posting which is a real shame because you don’t get to see which of the famous five suddenly burst into life. Nice posting, actually had something to do with structural engineering.

Then as if a Bear being poked with a stick.......

Two postings ON THE SAME DAY – Bly me!  

The first posting is about  Operating Systems support change for Autodesk products Reporting that there has been an important change to the way Autodesk are support Operating Systems for Autodesk products.  This change directly impacts the Revit family of solutions.  Please see the following link for the change and important details Microsoft Windows Vista Support FAQ, it says

Again NO AUTHOR CREDIT, So no answer as to which of the Famous Five Authors is alive, breathing and blogging?

Then as if to answer the question Pawel Piechnik posts  New structural content for Revit Structure is available straight after on the same day.

It appears Autodesk (Pawel) thinks that they have just uploaded some new country specific, structural .rfa content and templates in the Subscription Centre for you to download.

The delivery includes content for Brazil, Russia and Spain Yipppppeeee for them

However it looks like Pawel may have jumped the gun with his posting because three readers have reported that they can not find the material on the Subscription Centre and are requesting a hyperlink!

OK, ok, I know we asked for some action and more postings on your blog, but you could have scheduled the posting for a couple of days in the future, to make it look like you are continually active on our behalf, or at least ensured the material was actually there before you told the world about it......

I know we the User and never happy :0(   The Headmaster now says  "6/10 Better". Now a plug for things UK based ;0)

Autodesk have asked for feedback about what’s missing out of the box for the UK users, so unless you actually helped Paul Oakley gather feedback for Autodesk – don’t complain if when a similar package arrives for the UK it does not have in it what you would like.

Nuff Said

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Q: What's happened at BIM and Beam? - A: Nothing Much

Since Wai Chu the Ex Product Manager for Revit Structure left Autodesk, five people have been allocated to take over his Blog BIM and Beam. And it has to be said it looks like they are just names because since Wai's departure there have been very few posts

4 Post in November (I think Wai was still with them then)
0 in December
1 by the skin of the teeth in January, about a non Revit specific Autodesk Blog in French for god sake.......

The individual who are supposted to be supporting what was a good Revit Structure resource are

Brian Haines
Gary Wyatt
Pawel Piechnik
Sarah Hodges
Tomasz Fudala

So there should be at least Five (Revit Structure Specific) postings a month if you only do one each guys

Two of you are supposed to be specifically taking over and sharing Wai's responsibilities on our behalf. Please introduce yourselves formally on the Blog and at least make it “look as if you” are supporting Revit Structure and it’s users. Because at the moment that isn’t the impression the blog is projecting…

Consider this a kick up the rear from your readership

4/10    See Me ... Do Better ! – The Headmaster ;0)

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Victor Meldrew Moment - Fixing England 's Economy

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Saw this, loved it had to share it:-

Dear Mr. Cameron,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing England 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan..

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. ~ Ten million job openings - Unemployment fixed

2) They MUST buy a new British car. ~ Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage. ~ Housing Crisis fixed

4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university. ~ Crime rate fixed

5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week ~ and there's your money back in duty/tax etc.

6) Instead of stuffing around with the carbon emissions trading scheme that makes us pay for the major polluters, tell the greedy bastards to reduce their pollution emissions by 75% within 5 years or we shut them down.

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

Autodesk Givith and Autodesk Taketh Away

The Gumby Award goes to the Autodesk Revit Structure Development Team for yet another .

We’ve had

• The Inability to turn off the content library from being installed.
• Missing Templates
• Missing Content
• The wrong shortcut Icon used on Insulation
• And Now…. Where have the Localisation Enhancements Gone? 

With the release of 2010 there was a lot of fuss made about Localisation Enhancements from Autodesk.

What are Localisation Enhancements? I hear you cry…

Basically because Revit is a USA produced and based product and the Americans speak “English Jim but not as we know it” they use construction terms that are different to those that we use in good old Blighty

So Localisation Enhancements really means country specific terms

The following USA terms that have been in the product pre 2010 were changed in the UK installation, but just to confuse the user the online Help, CHM and shortcut files still reflect the US terms.

USA Term	UK Term
Girder	Primary
Joist	Secondary
Horizontal Brace	Plan Brace
Purlin	Tertiary
Coping	Notching
Coping Distance	Notching Distance
Remove Coping	Remove Notching
Coped	Notched (mostly appear in warning messages)

Spot the Autodesk Givith and Autodesk Taketh Away

If you would like to see the reinstatement of UK terms within Revit Structure – Don’t forget that we are still waiting for stirrups to be renamed links in the RC detailing side.

Then send an email to Ralph Pullinger, using This Link that will automatically generate a subject title which will enable Ralph to collate the amount of people that are unhappy about the removal of UK construction terminology from within Revit Structure. Please add any other concerns you have to the email.

Ralph has assured me that not only will he will read them, that once he has collected them all, that he will pass them onto the Autodesk development team in USA to support the request he has made to have this fixed.

If you don’t email Ralph then you are not supplying him with the UK ammunition he needs to do his job which is helping us, the UK Users get from Autodesk and Revit what we need.

 

10 Days in the Future there was a Hotfix for the Missing UK Termonology 

Loading Revit 2012 Missing Content

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I reported about the problems with not installing and missing content back on the 15th April - David Light has posted about it on his blog on the 10th May, however his process was for Windows 7.

For Windows XP

1. Open the Windows Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.
2. Highlight your 2012 Revit product and choose Change/Remove
3. In the subsequent Revit dialog, choose Add or Remove Features.
4. In the Select Content section, choose US Metric.

IMPORTANT - Make sure that you keep the United Kingdom ticked because if you don't it will remove all your UK Content so you end up with the missing templates but you will have lost all of your UK families.

How do I know this, because I didn't and after 15-20 minutes I had lost my UK Content.

5. Click Next to install the content.

We the UK users should not have to install USA content, and this does not address the missing European Specific content that is also missing see my review document click HERE to download

Autodesk - what you should have done was fixed the problem and not have recommended a bodge. The UK Library should have been fixed and a download made available.
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Dr Who: The Adipose Care Guide

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OK "I don't believe it" ... that there are those of you out there, that don't watch Dr Who!

It appears to me that most Revitheads also like Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr Who and Scfi generally  it must be all that 3D stuff models and animation!

That's also why I'm enjoying experimenting with the 3DConnexion mouse - No I'm not using it on Google Earth and pretending to be Superman flying!

If you find an Adipose walking lost down a street, here is how to look after him or her.

My ones name is "Jor" because he looks like half of Jordan (you know Katie Price the EX Mrs Peter Andre )....

I could have called him "Dan" but I would have felt like a RIGHT TIT

"Matron can I go and sit in the comfy chair now please?....... No No not the comfy chair!

 

They sent my Census form back!!

 

 

In answer to the question, 'Do you have any dependants?'

 

I put, 'Asylum seekers, gypos, smack heads, unemployable  bar stewards , the cast of The Jeremy Kyle Show, Northern Rock, RBS and half of Eastern Europe!'

...apparently this wasn't an acceptable answer.

The Royal Wedding

Happy St Georges Day

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The unofficial 'anthem' of England from the poem written by William Blake. A tribute to the generations that have gone before us to preserve that 'green and pleasant land' for 'England & St. George!'

Make St.George's Day a Bank Holiday

The World Is Going MAD!

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Is it me or is the World including the UK going mad?

I don’t normally do politics, but It has to be the Victor Meldrew coming out in me as I turned 53 last week.

In February the BBC Reported that the" £4bn fleet of new RAF Nimrods were being scrapped thus creating a "massive gap" in British security” but somehow saving money!

2nd March the Daily Mail reports that “Hundreds of British servicemen and women currently risking their lives in Afghanistan face the sack within a few months, the Ministry of Defence admitted last night.”

Now in March we are off to monitor the Libya “no fly zone” to stop Gaddafi bombing his own people, and we have just scrapped our new spy planes. Yesterday I watch one of Gaddafi’s plane being shot down outside the opposition stronghold of Benghazi on the TV.

RAF Tornado jets, which are also due to be de-commissioned along with the sacking of their pilot, have joined in the operation to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya as the international community swung into action against Muammar Gaddafi.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed Stormshadow missiles were launched from Tornado GR4 fast jets, which flew 3,000 miles from RAF Marham in Norfolk and back.

The UK government is going to make, Hundreds of Servicemen, Policemen, Firefighters, Local Authority Employees and Teachers etc. redundant to save money and fix the economy.

D’OH

All these people will be looking for work during the “credit crunch” which the new term for a world wide recession, and will be claiming unemployment benefit.

Governments and Local Authorities have never understood the bigger picture when it comes to financial matters, and can’t see that what they are doing to save money from one area or budget, is only going to cost them more in another area or budget.

And now that the UK has rushed in because of the, “special relationship” that the UK is supposed to have with the USA, and the Black Gold in that Area of the world.

The UK will now be at even more threat from terrorist attack and a prime target next year with the Olympics.

Buy hay, they will just keep reducing the police force and other emergency services…… it's not as if we might actually need them some time soon!

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The  World will say it "Team America" all over again.....Mr President

"I have an idea, we will get the French and the Brits to go in first!"

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Politically Correct Christmas Wish II

Last year I wanted to send a seasonal greeting but with it being so difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone, I came up with the Politically Correct Christmas Wish MkI.

Greeting Mk II is known to Alpha and Beta testers as Miserable Old Git or MOG for short.

Seasonal Greeting II also ticks another governmental objective as I have now recycled 95% of it from last year making minor modification and improvement to the design.

So without further ado here is Seasonal Greeting or Wish Mk II

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practised with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2011, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great, not to imply that the United Kingdom (apologies to those of a republican persuasion) is necessarily greater than any other country, and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher. Disclaimer:

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

I am considering opening up the product Seasonal Wish on subscription which means that you will receive fixes to typing errors as they are found and a Subscription Advantage Pack half way through the term of your subscription that will create more bugs than it fixes and provide you with nothing of real advantage at all. Thus I apologise in advance for the term advantage being used at all in the service description.

Due to the current economic climate, next years Seasonal Wish III is likely to be a refurbishment project, as governmental expenditure is currently being geared more towards refurbishment and not new build. Unfortunately BIM and Revit is not really suitable for this task regardless of how many videos and seminars by Autodesk may be produced or held, and Microsoft Word will be used for the task.
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Autodesk University On-Demand is Demanding!

  >>>>>  So why do I give Autodesk a hard time?   <<<<<

I Wonder Why?

 1) I log in

 2) I find the On Demand

3) I try and download the material

 4) It tells me to log in

I log in Again back to step 1)

After a number or tries, re-tries, shutting down my computer

starting again, etc etc etc......

ARHHHHHHHHHH just make the bloody thing work Autodesk will you!.

Autodesk Unviversity 2010 ~ Virtual Washout Day 2

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OK it’s been snowing here in the UK, we have about four inches out on the footpath and I’m up bright and early 6:00, so I think I will have a look at AU 2010 Virtual to see if I can try a few On-Demand classes that I could not get into yesterday.

They all say “This session is currently not available”

What is the Autodesk definition of ON-DEMAND?

In my book it’s when you want it! And Wikipedia agrees saying “ On Demand - a telecommunication service made available when the customer requests it

Looks like another crap day in the Autodesk University Virtual world, and why are all the delegates you can see all from the far east?

Have they not heard of equal opportunities and racial equality, where are the token White, Asian and Black person in the environment?

Let’s have a politically correct virtual world !

Currently attending AU Virtual is like being in a 3^rd rate Kung Fu movie, I keep waiting them to start knocking ten bells of something (four letter starting with S and ending in T and kind of sums up the AU Virtual Experience so far) out of each other.

OK I give up, I will wait a couple of weeks then harvest all the good stuff
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So what is Project Vasari and why waste time on it?

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There are many bloggers out there getting very excited because Autodesk have released a technology preview called Project Vasari, I'm not one of them!

What is Project Vasari?

Take a look at David Lights Revit Blog, Steve Staffords Revit OpEd, and The Revit Kid

David Light “ Absolutely loves it! I had heard through the grapevine that Autodesk where working on something special, a kind or LT version of Revit.” David also says “There are some which will not get that excited, because if you use full Revit then you already have access to this functionality so Vasari may not offer anything new.”

David has it right there, for Structural and MEP Engineers that already have Revit, the fact that Autodesk are spending valuable time money and resources cutting back the code from Revit to create a kind of Lite version that will be superior to Sketch up seem to us to be complete and utter waste.

Autodesk still has so much that does not work properly in the full version of Revit, that we pay big bucks for, and that we keep on subscription in the constant hope that they will provide or fix the basic tools that have been moaned about by users over the last few years.

Will Autodesk be giving a version of Vasari or Revit LT when finally released away free like Sketch up?

Will there then be a Vasari or Revit LT professional version, that you will have to pay for like Sketchup Professional?

Normally Autodesk buys off the competition, buying the user base then if the product is any good it replaces what they are currently selling. Cast your mind back to Generic CADD which was bought and sold as an AutoCAD Lite before they killed and then replaced it with a true cut down version of AutoCAD LiTe within a month of an upgrade.

ADT got dropped in favour of Revit, It seem to me that if they can’t buy Sketchup to get its user base and then kill it, then they are going to try and compete with it.

Why call it Vasari?

David Light has his own ideas about why the name Vasari has been used, however according to the historian Richard Goldthwaite, Vasari was one of the earliest authors to use the word "competition" (or "concorrenza") in Italian in its economic sense. He used it repeatedly, but perhaps most notably while explaining the reasons for Florentine preeminence, in the introduction to his life of Pietro Perugino.

Autodesk spend some of our money and fix the darn Basics in Revit like the Text Editor, so that it give at least the functionality that AutoCAD has enjoyed for many years .i.e. Subscript, Superscript fractions etc etc.

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As I've not been invited to Beta Test RST2012 and thus not bound by any NDA, I'm speculating that there is very little in the way of advancement on the Structures front for Revit2012 and I'm likely to be disappointed next year like I was with the SAP for RST2011 this year.

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Revit 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack ~ Bloggers day

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* Extended Worksharing Capabilities

* Extended Design Analysis Capabilities

* Extended Project Collaboration Capabilities

* Q&A

I will leave it to Revit OpEd   Revit - David Light   Do U Revit?   and CADD Help to fill you in.

We are still playing around with Worksharing and trying to find Architectural firms to work in partnership with on projects in Revit. So at the moment Extended Worksharing Capabilities is about as useful to us as a pushbike is to a goldfish.

In as few words as possible, I'm underwhelmed!

I was looking for something for everybody in this SAP, some fixes and tweaks, a bit like last year when they finally got it to work on UK Computers.

IMHO it’s the basics in Revit Structure that need fixing, I want to be able to schedule pile layouts without relying on my software provider producing an add-on for Revit to bridge the gaps in what should be basic functionality wihtin the program. I want to be able to RC detail and schedule without dropping out to ASD.

The Architects and the Sustainability LEEDS BREEAM and MEP Users got something Extended Design Analysis Capabilities.

USA and Japanese Engineers get a couple of extensions. Looks like very little else for UK this time around.

Autodesk, the clue is in the word "Subscription Advantage Pack", but at the moment I'm at a loss to see any Advantage for UK Users, well at least until I can read the read me and see what bugs they have fixed, and if they are more or less than those they have introduced with the SAP.
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TLA’s or Three Letter Acronyms and Mnemonics

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During work and particularly in the construction industry we are surrounded by TLA’s. Computers have use TLA for the file extension for years up to the new crop that can have FLA (you guessed it Four Letter Acronym extensions. Autodesk have spent years’ taking people to court and arguing about who owns the rights to the term dwg for DraWinG!

With texting on mobile phone, my 18 and 16 years old daughters seem to talk a completely different language to the Queens English I learnt at school, my youngest daughter Kelly exclaiming “O.M.G.” in a posh voice, when she saw that I had actually finally got a round to spring cleaning and tidying up my study this weekend.

At work we spend an awful lot of time completing PQQ’s (Pre-Qualifying Questionnaires) these days just to get on the possible selection list for schemes. Recently a Partner completing a PQQ emailed me and asked could we produce drawings in IFC and what was it?

So I promptly informed him that IFC standard was developed by the IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) to handle 3D file data. Major CAD (Computer Aided Design or Drafting) vendors helped to develop the standard and the tools to support it.

The IAI is a division of the ISO (International Standards Organization), the body that controls the IGES and STEP data standards. The IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) standard is being used in leading construction projects in Europe and beyond. IFC is used as a basis for the Building Information Modelling (BIM), a 3D model of the building project and a rich source of information shared by all the project participants.

Then I proudly informed him that Revit can export IFC files of three varieties, and it is all about the “I” for Information in BIM. I asked him to find out what information they actually wanted to capture and how they were intending to try and use this file format and the data.

He sent me an email for the originator of the PQQ which simply said “Sorry – I mean ISSUED FOR CONSTRUCTION. (IFC) “

So take care and don’t ASSUME or it may make an ASS out of U and Me
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Gumbys working for Autodesk Support!

Do you ever wonder what happened to the Gumbys when Monty Pythons Flying Circus ended?

They went and found jobs at Autodesk Support, but these days they make the “end users brains hurt”



1) End user (Me) with support centre access tries to login and submit a support request

2) The online form can not be completed because there are no products listed to pick from, thus the request for support can not be made because I have not filled in a required field!

3) I telephone our contract administrator to ask if he can see our products listed on subscription centre ~ "YES"

4) Only difference we find is he is not using IE8 but Firefox

5) I download Firefox

6) Install Firefox on my computer.

7) Try to re-submit a support request and still can’t see the list of products on the support request form

8) I telephone our Reseller and inform him of the problem.

9) Email from Reseller stating that the user access within the subscription website is controlled by our contract administrator and AutoDesk suspect that you have not been given access to the Product Support area of the Subscription site. (Strange as I’ve been posting requests for the last year?)

10) As requested by Autodesk, I check with my contract administrator and see if this is the case or not. He promises me faithfully he has not altered anything; he has a poke around and can’t find anything wrong or any setting to reset

11) I email the Reseller to inform him what our contact administrator had done and said and asked him “Bottom line …… can they just fix the bloody thing so that I can post support requests?” A not unreasonable request thinks me.

12) Reseller emails me and asks for my login name

13) Email my login Name to Reseller as requested (his got my name and company name but OK)

14) AutoDesk have now asked whether our contract administrator can raise a support request on the subscription site as to why this is happening too me??!

Apparently AutoDesk Support cannot help with this matter and it needs to be raised directly with AutoDesk Business Centre through the support request (unfortunately Resellers do not have direct contacts with this area of AutoDesk).

15) I email my Contract administrator to ask him to make the request

15 Steps not including what has happened between the reseller and Autodesk and a day of wasted time, and all I want to do is submit a Support Request!

I do hope they can fix this after recieving his request

"My Brain Hurts!"   Bloody Gumbys . . . . . . . . 

The pain stops after a little while, if you stop hitting your head against the wall!

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Happy St. George's Day

Autodesk Subscription Access is Temporarily Unavailable ~ I wonder why?

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Time to Tax the system. Revit Architecture 2011 is available for download immediately for subscription customers!!!! 4/15/10 7AM EST.

Looks like Gregory Arkin is psychic

It must be getting better, now at least It only thinks I have forgot my password

Perhaps Autodesk should have invested some money they saved on DVD's on hardware!

And Autodesk are thinking of Cloud Computing..............I don't think so!

3.0 Hours later and I still can't get in ..... I want to punch someone or something

So Frustrating AGHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Morphing, turning into a cross between the HULK and Victor Meldrew again..............

After about 5 hours I did get in then spent until 2am in the morning downloading.
I should have used the download manager as I got to 99% then Blammmmmy gone...

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