- The next leap year where Feburaury does not have a full moon is 25721.
- The current definition of the term “Blue Moon” dates back to March 1946, in which Sky and Telescope magizine mistakenly misinterpreted the definition of the term from 1937 Maine Farmers’ Almanac. “Blue Moon” originally referred to the third Full Moon in a season which has four Full Moons2.
- Atheists outnumber all but nine organized religions in the World.
- The skin of a polar bear is black. Though the fur appears white, it’s actually clear.
- More often, you will use more gas making a left turn than making a right turn.
SolidWorks World 2012 on LinkedIn (show peers that you are attending)
If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you might consider creating one. LinkedIn is a great tool to connect with peers, potential employers/employees, consultants, and display your career information in an interactive manner on your own terms. If you already have an account on LinkedIn and you are attending SolidWorks World 2012, then it may be beneficial to goto the SolidWorks World 2012 event page on LinkedIn to state your attending status. Showing others that you are attending SolidWorks World highlights that you are participating in an event that potentially expands your skill set (see SWW12 Justification Letter). A side benefit is that this page provides an additional outlet to connect with other attendees to build up your contacts.
As of right now, several events have been set up on LinkedIn for SolidWorks World 2012. Feel free to join the others, however, I recommend joining the event page created by Matthew West, DS SolidWorks Social Media Manager.
SolidWorks World 2012 Top Ten Voting is in full swing!
The annual vote for the top ten requested enhancements for SolidWorks World 2012 is in full swing right now. The format for this year’s Top Ten changed from previous years. Last year, some ideas didn’t get noticed if they were submitted late in the process. As a result, they received fewer votes, not because they weren’t desired, but because they didn’t have as long as other ideas to gather votes.
For SolidWorks World 2012, the system is more fair. All ideas where submitted prior to voting. On January 3, 2012, voting was opened. So far, the response has been great, with some surprizes. If you haven’t done so since the 3rd and you have an active subscription, check out this year’s Top Ten list, and place your thumbs-up or thumps-down for new functions that you’d like to see added to SolidWorks. It doesn’t take too long to go through the list, so I would actually encourage anyone to vote on as many items as is practical.
All the ways SolidWorks Legion communicates in Social Media
The use of Social Media has blossomed in the Information Age. There is a lot of variety available. SolidWorks Legion is now automatically published to several outlets in one form or another.
- RSS feed, with a partial or full preview. It has been employed for republishing snippets at a variety of sites, including SolidMentor, and is the backbone for several other feed systems, including personalized sites like Netvibes.
- Twitter, with title and link.
- Tumblr, with title and link.
- Posterous, with title and link.
- Facebook, with partial preview (a Facebook app is also available, though I’ve not seen use for this yet)
- Google+, with partial preview (not automatically published at this time)
- Linkedin, via my Profile page with partial preview.
The amazing thing is the SolidWorks Legion has followers on all of these sites. Many of the followers are the same across the sites, but many are not. Though Facebook is has become the de facto standard, its top status is by no means guaranteed in the long run. Due to the nature of Twitter, Facebook and Google+, the content of each of these outlets varies a bit beyond the articles that are publised on SolidWorks Legion.
On Twitter, I publish SolidWorks Legion content to my personal Twitter account, fcsuper. I talk about a lot of different things through my Twitter account, many of which have nothing to do with SolidWorks, CAD or Engineering.
SolidWorks Legion uses Tumblr and Posterous in a similar manner as Twitter, to post just the article title and links. Though followers are light on these sites, they do generate some hits.
On Facebook, I’ll often post extra interesting links to other blogs and news articles. However, SolidWorks Legion has not had a Google+ page long enough to develop it’s own personality there. I like the formats of both Facebook and Google+ because they allow me to publish links in an attractive and informative matter, mixed in with additional content. They also allow me to crudely track the reach that each article achieves.
In addition to these avenues, another form of Social Media is taking off. SolidWorks Legion doesn’t have an outlet in these (yet), but image sites have really expanded in the past few years. Sites such as Flickr, Photobucket and deviantArt have increased the social element with engaging tools such user generated contests, groups, favorites, comments, notes, embedded links, and other functions now common in Social Media.
Then, of course, there’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room, YouTube (this link is to my personal channel). Again, SolidWorks Legion isn’t publishing there yet. YouTube is now a tremendous resource for all sorts of content, including thousands of SolidWorks videos.
The average person involved in Social Media doesn’t need to think about the variety of options available. You can choose for yourself which medium is best to suit your style. A publisher needs to think about all of these outlets, to reach as many people as possible on their own terms. As such, sites like SolidWorks Legion post across multiple outlets. Fortunately, there are many tools that make this fairly easy.
SolidWorks World 2012 just a month away
Partner Pavilion
The Partner Pavilion is a great place to meet tons of SolidWorks partners, checkout new technology, and three areas that showcase many advanced products created using SolidWorks products.
Registration
There is still time to register before the Early Bird special expires on January 20, 2012, $100 off the fee of the Full Conference Pass.
As a matter of a discloser reminder, the author of this article is a DS SolidWorks employee, though this article does not represent an official work of DS SolidWorks nor was it reviewed by DS SolidWorks. Please note the FTC 16 CRF Part 255 notice in the right menu of this website for further details.
What’s new in SolidWorks 2012: Magnetic Lines
Just over a year ago, 3DVIA was showing off something called Magnetic Lines. In 3DVIA, Magnetic Lines are a documentation aid that allows you to quickly line up any type of objects with each other by attaching them to a common line. Most notibly, Magnetic Lines can be used to quickly align item balloons on assembly drawings. Many users asked the question, if it is in 3DVIA, why not have it in SolidWorks. Well, the SolidWorks team took the request seriously. Within one year, they introduced Magnetic Lines in SolidWorks.
Unlike 3DVIA, SolidWorks’ Magnetic Lines only control item balloons. (SolidWorks has other tools to align annotation notes and drawing views.) You can add a Magnetic Line to your drawing with the Magnetic Line command from Annotations toolbar or the Annotations tab in the CommandManager.
This will enable you to draw a line on your drawing with two points, thus forming a Magnetic Line. You can drag one end of the Magnetic Line through the center of an existing balloon to attach it to the line. You can also drag a balloon onto a Magnetic Line. Magnetic Lines are only visible when the command is active, or when a balloon is selected.
Once balloons are attached, they can quickly aligned in any direction by dragging one end of the Magnetic Line. They can also be moved in unison by dragging the Magnetic Line from the middle.
To detact a balloon from a Magnet Line, click on the balloon to drag it off of the line. In my opinion, just about everything with this new tool is intuitive and easy! It is a powerful new drawing aid that makes organizing balloons on assembly drawings much easier.