Disqus - Latest Comments for CADbloke

Re: What’s The Most Underhyped Twitter App That You’re Using?

CADbloke — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:07:09 -0000

Gravity at http://mobileways.de/products/gravity/gravity/ is a native app for Nokia S60 phones. It's quite feature-rich and sexy-looking. It's a pay-for (US$10) but it has a trial. Worth every cent. Try the alpha releases too - they have all been stable for me and have nice new features. You can always roll-back from within the application.

Re: What’s in a name? More on building brand you

CADbloke — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:27:09 -0000

If you're registering domains then don't forget there's .com, .net, .info, .biz, .org, .tv, .com.au, .co.uk (you get the picture) that you need to commandeer too. I know at least one high-profiler who should have known better who is being held to ransom for Tens-of-thousands for a .com version of their localised URL.
Then there's Gmail, hotmail / Live (good luck!), Yahoo, Skype ... (you get the picture).

Personally I maintain 2 brands, my professional one & my private one - just in case someone makes me an offer I can't refuse for my professional brand & product. The real 'me' is not for sale.

Re: A traditional Spanish village instead of Silicon Valley and the launch of a startup

CADbloke — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:17:08 -0000

I'm glad you liked "Zen". It sounds like you chose a really good time to read it too. Your startup sounds like a gem of an idea. If it is a pleasure to use then it cannot fail.

Re: To Splurge Or Not To Splurge

CADbloke — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:58:45 -0000

I see 700 000 000 000 examples of how Wall St has pwnd Washington. If we prop this system up then these fat cats keep their power and your elected government retains its lack of control over then engine room of your country. This system of individual and corporate greed and exploitation needs to fall.

The world will still turn and the sun will still shine. It will be rough for a while no matter what is done at this stage. $700bn can buy all sorts of eventual outcomes - which one do you want?

Re: The business philosophy that I always follow

CADbloke — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:18:34 -0000

If 41 years has shown me anything it has shown me that you're right on all counts. Stick with it because it has worked for me... when I eventually figured it out.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - my favourite quote from Walden. It refers to an earlier comment on bravery. My greatest fear is not of death but of mediocrity.

Confidence, founded in passion and competence is a powerful ally. Confidence in isolation is an empty promise.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to suit their environment. Unreasonable people adapt their environment to suit themselves. Therefore all progress is solely due to unreasonable people.

I would cite Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig) and Walden (Thoreau) as my 2 most influential reads. Walden will take a while .. a couple of years at least. It induces much pondering. If you read them, read Zen first.

I'll leave you with 2 quotes from Zen

"and what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good - need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" (Plato)

"We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives"

Re: The Entrepreneurial Coder is cool!

CADbloke — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:57:16 -0000

Hi Eiso - yes, I'm it for the results. I no slave to geekness nor to any language although I'm leaning heavily towards .NET simply because of the RAD aspect, Visual Studio's IDE & the vastness of the /NET library. The fact that AutoCAD only runs on windows has a lot to do with it too.

Mine is a business venture - basically I'm automating some process and using a database to track changes in the process of designing broadcast systems. My approach is different to that of existing solutions in that I respect existing procedures which generally involve drawing the designs in AutoCAD. My aim is to analyse the designs and find errors & omissions as well as track changes on both the design and installation side.

The target market is ... well, it's me and people who design television stations. I plan to offer it as a service rather than as a packaged piece of software because it will need setting up for each design environment and on-going tinkering. It's the sort of thing I can lob in (international travel - cool), set up & nick off, administering and tinkering remotely.

Even if I never get an external client it will streamline my job a lot which means I can charge by the job and my effective hourly rate goes up ... lots. Presently most places do a lot of the design process manually and it is horrifically error prone. The network I am at these days has about 60,000 cables to keep track of. Other automated solutions hijack your existing workflow and force you to work their way. Engineers don't like change much and they don't have time to learn new shit. My theory is that if my system needs any RTFM then it's a failure.

My project isn't open source but that's not to say I have no plans to contribute to the ether that is the on-line community, and also to the community that I plan to market to. I plan to blog my opinionated methodologies on AutoCADding in the manner to which I am accustomed. I also plan to write some helper tools for AutoCAD, some of which may be offered free of charge.

Enough about me ...

Your chosen path sounds like an interesting adventure. You have a tenacious and rabid curiosity which is the one thing you will need to make your life interesting. That will scare the shit out of the doubters and nay-sayers. F**k 'em.

Re: The Entrepreneurial Coder is cool!

CADbloke — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:33:48 -0000

I don't know about 'cool' but I think that coding with intent (to solve a problem) is more fulfilling than just coding to write clever code and impress other monkeys.

I've spent about 2 years gathering my initial requirements & re-learning coding for my upcoming major project. Apart from some VBA & LISP in AutoCAD to automate some boring tasks, my last major project was a 9-screen graphical adventure game on a Vic 20 in the mid 90's.

I wrote that for the same reason I am writing my new project. Yes, I'm going to write code because I love what I can make a computer do for me.