Lynn Allen's Blog

Twas the Night before AU!

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Americans.  I trust you all had some turkey and pumpkin pie!  We had about 11 around our table last Thursday as well as four little dogs (I must admit I do love the commotion).  I believe a good time was had by all and to me that is what Thanksgiving is all about...being grateful for good friends and family.

And now the biggest Autodesk event of the year, AU, is nearly upon us!  I arrived on Saturday - needing plenty of prep time before the festivities begin.

Twas the night before AU

Twas the night before AU and all through the halls
Not a creature was stirring, (except for in the malls)

The registration packets were hung by the Check-in booths with care
In hopes that the attendees, soon would be there!

The future AU attendees are nestled all snug in their beds
while visions of classes danced in their heads

Have they packed up their clothes, are they ready for their flights?
How they are looking forward to seeing all those Las Vegas lights!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
The first AU attendee, with all of his gear

He was dressed in AUGI logo wear from his head to his toes
I knew in an instant he was here for the show

He was wide-eyed and cheery, as happy as an elf!
And I smiled when I saw him in spite of myself.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread

For AU is all about networking and learning
Increasing productivity (and maybe even what we are earning!)

He spoke not a word but went straight to Hall B
Signed in, got his badge, then turned and waved at me.

AndI heard him exclaim as he strolled out of sight
Happy AU to all, and to all a Good Night!

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A Great Big Welcome to all the AU attendees on behalf of the AU Team - we can hardly wait to see you!.

 

Sign up for a Sneak Peak at the Future AutoCAD at Autodesk University!

I have been so caught up on all things AU that I have been neglectful of "the blog".  As a quick catch-up I enjoyed a great seminar in Hong Kong last week and was terribly spoiled by Richard Chan and Bill Marr, two Autodesk employees.  They were the perfect hosts and I felt right at home.  Below is a picture of Richard, myself and Bill right after our seminar.

 

Hong Kong is such a beautiful city and my visit there was entirely too short!  A big thank you to them both for their fantastic hospitality and I look forward to returning!

We are preparing for all things AU this week (only a week and a half away - Yikes!).  Yesterday we held our annual AU Primer webcast providing a nice comprehensive review of the week's activities (along with some key tips for having the best AU possible).  It will be posted soon on the Autodesk University website (I am assured) so stay tuned!  We had a few technical difficulties but hopefully got the job done!  My cell phone went off right in the middle of the presentation (Lynn...please remember to turn your phone off!) and one of the speakers fell asleep...no really...he fell asleep!  I won't name any names because the poor guy took a redeye the night before and felt terrible about missing his cue (I did my best to cover his slides) but I must admit that was a first!  Ahhhh the thrills of live webcasts.

View the slides for the AU Primer.

Sign up to see the future of AutoCAD at Autodesk University:

And I've been asked to help recruit for a sneak peek at future 3D AutoCAD functionality at Autodesk University (where do I sign up?).  If you are attending AU and want to meet the key members of the AutoCAD team and get an up close and personal glimpse at some future AutoCAD features than be sure to click here!  You'll also find some other sneak peak offerings on the same website!  I think I might just have to join you!

I'm off to work on my AU Classes!

Two Short Days in Taiwan

I enjoyed a great seminar in Taipei where I did a presentation that covered some of the key features to hit AutoCAD in the past few releases.  Below is a picture of the banner from the event.

   

I was fortunate to have many of the Autodesk Training Center (ATC) instructors in the audience.  They were kind enough to pose for a picture we with me after the event.  The lovely woman in pink is the Autodesk ATC Manager in Taiwan, Cathy Chang.

   

Derek Fang, a fellow Autodesker,  was kind enough to drive me to and from the event - imagine my surprise when I walked out and saw his car (see below).

 

Derek is a big Boston Red Sox fan and has two great big stickers on his car letting everyone know it!  He even took his English name from Derek Jeters...WOW!  (Matt Murphy would be so proud).  Baseball is very big in Taiwan.

Yesterday I visited one of our largest customers in Taiwan, an engineering firm called CECI.  They have over 1100 Engineers and have undertaken some of the region's biggest civil, architectural, structural and electrical/mechanical engineering projects.  After my presentation they were kind enough to take me to out to lunch at a fabulous Chinese restaurant...although I wasn't too sure about eating the Sea Cucumber (pictured below).  They assured me that Sea Cucumber can make you look younger so I went ahead and tried it (tastes like seafood jello).  The very hospitable Dr. Ronald Wu is pictured with me.  Dr. Wu insisted that I stay longer in Taiwan next time to visit some of their projects (and I intend to!).

 

Do I look younger yet?

A great big thank you to the Taiwan Autodesk team who were such great hosts and hostesses.  My experience in Taiwan was a great one and I look forward to returning again.  A special thank you to wonderful ViVi who worked very hard translating me for the two events.  I think she worked harder than I did!

Tomorrow I do my final presentation in Hong Kong...

An AutoCAD Hip Tip on Annotation Scaling Displays

I've had quite a few emails asking me if I speak Chinese (because I have been demoing using the Chinese version of AutoCAD).  No - I don't speak Chinese - but I do speak AutoCAD!  All it takes is a little practice to use the software in a different language.  The icons are the same - the placement in the menus and dialog boxes are the same.  If you really know AutoCAD I bet you could use the Chinese version too (but then why would you?).  Trying to put myself in the audience's shoes I thought how very difficult it must be to fully grasp what I am presenting when they don't understand anything on the screen!  Imagine someone trying to show you AutoCAD pointers with an AutoCAD in a different language. 

A group of us went touring yesterday and visited the Digital Stoneexhibit where the artwork was designed using Autodesk products.  It was truly amazing - unlike anything I'd ever seen.  We also visited some of the sights in Shanghai - below is a picture of Joseph Wurcher, Shaan Hurley, Ray Eisenberg and myself in front of the traditional Chinese Starbucks.  :-)  Matt Olding, one of our fellow tourist buddies, took the picture of us (thank you Matt).  Shaan must have taken 1000 pictures that day - if you have some spare time on your hands and want to view them be sure to visit his Blog.  And I just noticed he had a shot of me up on his blog as well!  I look a little dumbstruck in the picture below - don't I?

   

I am off to Taipei, Taiwan today (doing a seminar there tomorrow).

An AutoCAD Hip Tip on Annotation Scaling Displays:

If you use Annotation Scaling you've no doubt run into that irritating ghosting that occurs when you select an annotative object.  For example - if you have a dimension that has multiple scale factors attached to it you get to see a ghosted version of all those scales when you select it.  The figure below shows an example of a dimension looks when it is not selected:

   

And the following figure shows what it looks like when it's been selected.

 

Ick!  Well there is a top secret system variable (at least I had a hard time finding it) called

SELECTIONANNODISPLAY that magically turns off all of that ghosting.  Just set SELECTIONANNODISPLAY to 0 and you'll be much happier! 

As for me...I'm off to the airport now!

AU China!

AU China was a great event and the attendees seemed to be very pleased.  After much practice I was able to do my AutoCAD Tips and Tricks presentation using the Chinese version of AutoCAD 2009 (hoorah!) and I get to do a few more presentations next week in Chinese as well (Taiwan).  My goal next time is to use the Chinese version of Inventor while I am out here...I wasn't quite brave enough to tackle that this time.  The attendees were ultra nice and it was a really great experience.  Below is a picture of me during my presentation (it's a tad dark).  Can you tell it's in Chinese?

 

The One and Only Shaan Hurley was also there doing a fantastic presentation on AutoCAD Futures.  It was a treat for me to get to hear his presentation as well (and I learned a few things!). 

 

Joseph Wurcher of Autodesk University fame (be sure to visit the AU Blaug) and Jay Tedeschi(also a fellow blogger for Manufacturing) along with one of our fellow Autodesk Coworkers Merene Ong and Emiko Umeno for a very nice Chinese (what else?) dinner.  Emiko is taking the picture (and noticeably absent).

 

A good time was had by all (even though I dropped my beef into my tea - I need to work on my chopstick technique!)

It is raining, raining, raining here in China and we are supposed to do a bit of touring today - yikes!

Bring a Buddy to Autodesk University for Free!

This just out - on November 5 - the first 100 people who sign up for Autodesk University can bring a buddy for free!  That's fantastic!  If you haven't signed up for AU yet then be sure to do so on November 5th and enjoy this 2 for 1 special.  We've never done anything like this before - I am so excited about this great opportunity! This all starts at 9:00am Pacific Time on November 5 so make sure you set that alarm and get your fingers ready.  And then...of course...be sure to vote!  :-)

Click here for more information:

If you aren't one of the lucky ones who get the free buddy pass you can still get one for $595 (I believe there may be a limited number of those available too so don't delay too long).

The fine print:  This "Buddy Pass" does not include a hotel room and you can't preregister for classes.  (We didn't want to play unfair to those who have already signed up).  But it is still an amazing opportunity for one of your colleagues. 

As for me...I am off to another Autodesk University...AU in China!  I'll be practicing on my Chinese AutoCAD version during the verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry long flight!  (and yes...I will be using the Chinese version of the software...Yikes!)