Category Archives: Web Stuff

Huge PDFs? AutoCAD 2017.1.1 could be to blame

Autodesk has yet again demonstrated why continuous automatic updating is no panacea for avoiding CAD update disruption. On the contrary…

If you have noticed some of your PDFs exported from AutoCAD getting huge and unwieldy lately, AutoCAD 2017.1.1 could be to blame. Try uninstalling it using Programs and Features > View Installed Updates and see if the problem goes away. It may also be possible to work around this by going into PDF options and turning on Include Hyperlinks. Source: The Swamp.

Here’s one possible* install history:

  • You install AutoCAD 2017. This defaults to also installing Autodesk desktop app. If this works on your system and you leave it on there doing its thing and consuming your resources, it will attempt to automatically keep your Autodesk software up to date.
  • Autodesk desktop app installed AutoCAD 2017.1. You like this because it has added a couple of nice features. In apparently unrelated news, you seem to be getting more fatal errors and several of your add-ins have stopped working. You decide to do without them.
  • Autodesk desktop app installed AutoCAD 2017.1.1. Your add-ins have magically started working again and there seem to be fewer fatal errors.
  • You get some huge PDFs from AutoCAD but read this post and uninstall AutoCAD 2017.1.1. The PDFs you create are no longer huge, but your add-ins have stopped working again and there seem to be more fatal errors.
  • You read this other post and manually install the AutoCAD 2017.1 Hotfix. Your add-ins start working again. The fatal errors remain.
  • Autodesk desktop app continually and perpetually nags you to install AutoCAD 2017.1.1.**
  • You uninstall Autodesk desktop app. Your system speeds up and the nags go away.

Moral of the story? Autodesk isn’t competent enough to trust with automatic updates. Uninstall Autodesk desktop app. Relax.

* YMMV
** I don’t know if this actually happens (Autodesk desktop app is not going to be installed on any of my systems to find out) but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Autodesk’s big Cloud failure

Back in 2011, Autodesk, some other vendors and many industry pundits were utterly convinced of the inevitable and near-imminent victory of Cloud-based CAD over standalone software. I wasn’t. I wanted to get a feel for how isolated my viewpoint was, so I started a poll and let it run for a while. Here’s how that turned out:
 

As you can see, this blog’s readers were less than convinced about the inevitability of that Cloudy future. Not so Carl Bass, who had this to say in an April 2012 TechCrunch interview:

I’d say two to three years from now, every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online.

 
Here’s what I had to say about that:

So let’s say you’re an AutoCAD user. A successful Cloud push by Autodesk will mean that you and very large numbers of people just like you be using AutoCAD or an equivalent Autodesk product on the Cloud by 2014 or 2015. If that doesn’t happen for you and all the other users of Autodesk products, then that’s failure by definition. Autodesk will have failed to meet its own publicly stated goal, and that’s exactly what I’m expecting to happen …. I am convinced there is a dichotomy between the expectations of Autodesk and those of its customers, and that spells trouble. Autodesk is either going to succeed in pushing its customers into a future they are not expecting, or it is going to fail and be forced to revise its expectations. I predict that the latter will happen…

 
It’s now way past Carl’s predicted online-only timeframe. A successful strategy by Autodesk would mean we Autodesk customers would have all have been exclusively CloudyCADing for a couple of years by now. Is that what happened?
 

Knock me down with a feather, it turns out that Autodesk’s big Cloud-only push has worked out just as predicted, not by Carl but by the readers of this blog. Take a bow, Nostradamuses!

Yes, there are now Cloud-saving options in a lot of Autodesk’s software, as there are in most competitive products. Yes, Autodesk is still attempting (often astonishingly badly) to online-tie-in desktop CAD users. Yes, Autodesk has a lot of Cloud-only software products, even if many of them don’t generate revenue and some of them are headed for the chopping block. Yes, some of Autodesk’s online offerings now have utility. Yes, there are many students and hobbyists out there, often isolated from commercial and production realities, having fun tinkering with Autodesk’s largely free online software and in some cases producing some seriously cool stuff that looks great in Autodesk publicity material.

Real paying customers, using Autodesk Cloud-based products as their primary mission-critical CAD software in a production environment? Not so much. People are still using that terribly old-fashioned desktop software for that. Autodesk has failed to make reality conform with Carl’s prediction.

Why should I care? I care because Autodesk has taken vast sums of money from AutoCAD customers, and is trying hard to extract even larger sums via its compulsory rental scheme. Instead of spending that cash on genuinely useful improvements to the product that is the source of that income and the basis for many of its vertical products generating further income, Autodesk has left AutoCAD to wither on the vine. It has been some years since an AutoCAD upgrade was anywhere near good enough to be worth the amount Autodesk currently charges for maintenance, let alone the trebled(?) amount it likes to think it can get away with charging in a couple of years.

It’s not because there’s no potential for improvement, either. Autodesk gets a lot of feedback about what could be improved in AutoCAD, but ignores most of it, sometimes choosing to do dumb things instead that make things worse. In contrast, Bricsys has proven that it’s possible to make huge strides in improving a straightforward 2D/3D DWG-based desktop CAD application in a single year; Autodesk’s efforts are woefully inadequate in comparison. Meanwhile, by chasing an elusive exclusive Cloudy cornucopia, Autodesk has frittered away a fair fortune on a plethora of production-pointless products.

Autodesk to pull the plug on 123D

The reason you should never rely on SaaS for anything important is that, well, you just can’t rely on it. If the software breaks, or the vendor goes under, or decides that line’s not profitable enough, or just loses interest, you’re screwed. More importantly, you’re screwed on a timeframe that’s out of your control, and probably much shorter than you would like. You can’t just go on using the software until you’re ready to move on, like you can with perpetual licenses.

Thanks for the latest lesson, Autodesk, regarding 123D:

Over the past few years, millions of people have unlocked their creativity with the Autodesk 123D apps and community. We’ve grown from one desktop tool in 2011 to multiple apps across desktop, web, and mobile.

We’re incredibly proud of these products, and even more proud of what you all have MADE with them. But we recognize that the portfolio has become complex. We are making some changes to simplify our Autodesk portfolio and workflows for people everywhere who love to make things. We are consolidating these tools and features into key apps such as Tinkercad, Fusion 360, and ReMake.

Today, we are sharing the news that in early 2017, after we complete this consolidation, we’ll be shutting down 123dApp and turning off many of the apps to new download. Rest assured that we remain committed to providing free tools to hobbyists, kids, hackers, and makers around the world. We value you, your models, and are going to do this consolidation in the right way.

You’ll be able to access and download your content from 123dApp in the coming months. We will make every effort to make sure you will be notified before we make any changes to the apps or website.

What’s next? We’ll be working closely with you, the 123D Community of users, to make sure your questions are answered. We’ll be sharing more details on this blog and our support forums, and will notify you when we start to implement changes.

Autodesk is committed to help people make anything and we are committed to help you continue to do just that. Look for more detailed information in the next few days, weeks and months.

–The Autodesk 123D Team

Whether Autodesk’s definition of “the right way” coincides with that of users remains to be seen. Of course, Autodesk 123D is free and you get what you (don’t) pay for. But if you think Autodesk won’t do this with its paid SaaS products, you’re dreaming. The same applies to any vendor, but Autodesk in particular has a horrible history of killing products and leaving masses of crying orphans to fend for themselves.

Magical disappearing AutoCAD 2017.1 crash information

In preparing to write something about the AutoCAD 2017.1 non-subscription-only update, I came across something slightly strange. Google AutoCAD 2017.1 crashes and you will probably see something like this:

autocad2017-1crashgoogle

What happens if you click that link? Nothing useful. You’re just taken to the landing page for the Autodesk Knowledge Network. The Google cached version of the link takes me to 404 land. Searching within the Autodesk Knowledge Network doesn’t produce relating to the crash in the original link, which seems to be language-pack related. The search wasn’t entirely fruitless, because I did discover that 2017.1 breaks linetype preview images for those of us who prefer a light user interface. But of information about the crashes, I see no sign.

On Twitter, I see a similar story. Some weeks ago, the @AutodeskHelp account reported:

autocad2017-1crashtwitter

Click that link (which points at a page called AutoCAD-crashes-when-you-install-AutoCAD-2017-1-English-Update-on-computers-with-installed-language-packs.html) and you will pay an unenlightening visit to Page Not Found World.

I’m baffled. It’s almost as if somebody at Autodesk has tried to hide something about this all-important first new-regime update and not done a very good job. Nah, can’t be that, there must be an innocent explanation.

If anyone has any information on this or any other 2017.1 crash or instability issues, please let me know.

How to download Autodesk software without the Akamai download manager

Note: this post is now out of date. AVA no longer provides the facility mentioned here. Instead, it tries (and fails) to be clever.

For reasons beyond my understanding, Autodesk chooses to make life difficult for customers and prospective customers who want to download its products by imposing the use of a download manager (DLM) by Akamai. You really don’t want to let such a thing loose on your system even if it works, for reasons that have been explained in previous posts.

Until a couple of years ago, Autodesk allowed prospective customers to get at a direct download link after jumping through a few hoops and ignoring a bunch of bullshit warnings, but in recent times even that small measure of semi-decency has been removed. It became impossible for anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t use the Akamai DLM to try out Autodesk’s products! Here’s what you get these days; there is no direct browser download option to be found, just a downloader stub you’re expected to install and give open slather on your system. Don’t.

autodeskdemodownload-2016

Yes, I know this is marketing lunacy, and several years ago I made Autodesk very aware of this via direct email contact. Still, Autodesk remains determined to hamper itself in this way and there seemed to be no prospect of a solution. The old loophole of using an unsupported browser (e.g. Opera) was closed off a while ago.

But wait! There’s an answer! While researching something unrelated, I came across a reference to the Autodesk Virtual Agent and had a look at it. Lo and behold, that contains a bunch of straightforward DLM-free links to the Autodesk product range!

autodeskvirtualagent

Click on Download Links, burrow down to find your product and direct links to the installers are right there! Use your plain browser, a DLM built into your browser, or a DLM of your choice. Easy! Straightforward! Amazing! Unfortunately, this facility only appears to be available in English.

To sum up, if you want to download an English-language Autodesk product in a straightforward manner:

Here’s the link! (link removed as it is now broken)

Autodesk Answer Day – 27 October 2016

Autodesk is holding another Answer Day to encourage you to use the Autodesk Community (discussion forums). Hop along and get answers to your questions (hopefully), because this is a special day where Autodesk people will attend and be responsive.

Here is the announcement. When is this event, exactly?

Join us on Thursday, Oct 27th from 6:00am to 6:00pm Pacific Time.

Autodesk, if you’re promoting a “global event”, please try to remember that the globe extends beyond the West Coast of America and include UTC (GMT) times in your announcements. Most of us know where our time zones are in relation to UTC, but seeing something listed only in Pacific Time is likely to mean we have to head off to a site like timeanddate.com or thetimenow.com to work it out.

To save you all the effort, Pacific Time is currently UTC -7 hours, so for people outside North America, that means the event is from UTC 1 PM Thursday 27 October to 1 AM Friday 28 October.

There is also a German-language variant of the event on two German forums from 10 AM to 5 PM October 27 Central Europe Time (8 AM to 3 PM UTC). Here is the Autodesk announcement in German, and here is my own (probably terrible) attempt at a German version of this paragraph:

Es gibt auch eine deutschsprachige Variante der Veranstaltung an zwei deutschen Diskussionsgruppe von 10.00 bis 17.00 Uhr 27. Oktober Mitteleuropäische Zeit (08.00 Uhr bis 15.00 Uhr UTC). Hier ist die Autodesk Ankündigung auf Deutsch.

Dear Autodesk Recap 360 team…

…your software (3.0.0.52, came with AutoCAD 2017) fails to allow sign-in (a prerequisite to connection to the cloud) in a secure proxy server environment. This happens (see picture):

autodeskrecap360cantsignin

I am online. I did try to inform you about this problem using the feedback mechanism in the product. This allowed me to type my problem report, but on hitting the send feedback button, I got this (see picture):

autodeskrecap360cantsignin2

I am connected. In fact, I’m so connected I’m typing this post online while reproducing the problem. While this is going on, I’m able to sign in to Autodesk Account, A360 Drive, AutoCAD Beta forums, the Autodesk public forums and so on. What’s happening is your software is trying to do something our firewall doesn’t like. Autodesk has an unfortunate history of doing this sort of thing. Often, things that worked in one release will stop working in the next, and vice-versa, because somebody tinkered under the hood. For example, Application Manager works, desktop app doesn’t. There have been many other examples going back over a decade.

No, please don’t direct me to the knowledgebase article that expects me to drill a bunch of holes in the firewall. That’s not happening. Instead, make your software work nicely, please. Find the bits of code that work, make them standard, and insist your developers use the standards.

Just thought I’d let you know. Other people in the same situation would probably just give up, and you would never know it was happening.

Polls and comments

As part of the site layout changes here, the polls were moved from the right sidebar to the left. The Polls Archive page remains unchanged. The new site layout is responsive, so if you’re using a narrow browser window (e.g. on a phone), the sidebars may be automatically suppressed. If so, you can still get at the current polls using this post.

Autodesk is ending the sale of perpetual licenses. This is:

  • Good (10%, 75 Votes)
  • Bad (90%, 644 Votes)

Total Voters: 719

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Are you now (in 2016) using a public Cloud-based application as your primary CAD software?

  • Yes (9%, 25 Votes)
  • No (91%, 257 Votes)

Total Voters: 282

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How good is Autodesk's customer focus?

View Results

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What is your relationship to Autodesk?

View Results

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Feel free to use this post to comment on any aspect of these polls. From the main page (or search results) where the comments are not immediately visible, you can comment by clicking the number next to this speech bubble icon:

Microsoft demonstrates why automatic updates are a terrible idea. Listening, Autodesk?

I like Windows 10. After some investigation and with some trepidation, I have upgraded two Windows 7 computers and one Windows 8 (ugh) computer to Windows 10. In use, I’m generally very happy with it. It boots fast, works well and most of the more ridiculous aspects of the Windows 8 “let’s assume your computer is a phone” interface are gone. The fact that I can scroll windows using my mouse wheel without first clicking on those windows to obtain focus is a real productivity plus. I would be happy to recommend Windows 10 to all Windows 8 users and most Windows 7 users, dependant on individual needs. I would, but I’m not. Microsoft is entirely responsible for that reluctance; read on.

The one thing I really, really dislike about Windows is the way it pushes updates. With Windows 7 I was always selective about what updates I allowed through and when they were applied. Windows 10 doesn’t give you that choice. It downloads and applies its updates as it sees fit, regardless of the importance of those updates, my bandwidth and the level of inconvenience applying those updates might cause. Windows 10 Professional only allows you to defer updates until the next restart, and will nag you to restart until you give in.

This is bad enough, but the Home version just takes over your computer and updates and restarts whenever it feels like it. Yes, even if you are in the middle of doing something and have unsaved work, and the update process leaves your computer unusable for two hours. I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t happened to a very computer-smart member of my own family. Quite astonishing levels of malicious arrogance from the utter wankers at Microsoft.

I know there can be some very important reasons for keeping your OS up to date, particularly as far as urgent security patches are concerned. But really, given the choice between a tiny chance of some unknown malicious action by some unknown party (that hasn’t yet happened to any computer I’ve been running in over 30 years) and a 100% chance of known multiple malicious actions by Microsoft, which would you pick? Problem is, I made my choice on those three computers a few months ago and now I’m stuck with it.

Microsoft’s arrogance has triggered a minor in-house rebellion; two of my other former Windows computers are now happily running Linux. Five years ago, 100% of the computers in my household were running Windows. Now the figure is 43%, and I’m not even counting handheld devices (that would make it 20%). I haven’t bought a new version of Office in many years. Yes, I know, Microsoft isn’t exactly quaking in its boots, but it makes me feel better to raise the digit in this way.

Various other people are holding back on Windows 10 for this and other reasons, despite the insistent placement of update icons and nag notices. Some of those nag notices have made the news for all the wrong reasons. Last month, many people found themselves updated to Windows 10 without their explicit consent and against their will because Microsoft changed the status of the Windows 10 update for Windows 7/8 users and employed other sneaky tricks.

To Microsoft: that’s a really, really abhorrent low-life scumbag way to behave. These are our computers, not yours. We’re the customers (the ones providing the money) and you’re just vendors (the ones who want our money). Get back in your box and stop behaving like dickheads. Your assholery has been a significant factor in your decline. Give it up, it’s bad for you.

If you’re a Windows 7 or 8 user who wants to stay that way, please don’t disable updates altogether, because that could leave you vulnerable. Instead, I suggest you check out the free utility GWX Control Panel. If it’s too late and you’ve been updated, here’s what you can do. You have a limited amount of time to roll back.

Autodesk wants your software to be updated like this, continually and automatically. This is a bad idea for a whole range of reasons that go beyond why it’s a bad idea for Microsoft to do it. I hope to expand on those reasons later, but this post is long enough already. Trust me, it’s a terrible idea.

Although right now Autodesk is doing a heart-warmingly poor job of implementing this concept, eventually it might get the technical details right and be in a position to force it on you. Fight it tooth and nail. Make your voice heard wherever you can, online and in person. Uninstall, disable or block any software that attempts to do this. Look for any utilities, tips, etc. that stand between your software and automatic updates, and spread that news far and wide. This is an important battle for control over our own property, so please don’t give up.

Navel gazing note: this is the 500th post published on this blog.

AutoCAD 2017 Feature – Share Design View

An interesting new feature of AutoCAD 2017 is Share Design View, which is invoked using the leftmost button on the A360 Ribbon tab or the ONLINEDESIGNSHARE command. The idea behind this command is to create a web-published snapshot of your drawing that can be accessed by anyone with a browser (they’ll need a fairly recent one).

This command works as advertised and provides another option to allow limited access to your design information without providing access to your DWG files. It creates a web page containing a view of your drawing and lets you have the URL (link) so you can access it. You can then share this URL with anyone you want to share the design with. They just follow the URL and can view the design using the Autodesk A360 Viewer (no download required).

Heidi Hewett wrote a fuller description of how it works on the AutoCAD blog that would be pointless to reproduce here.

One caveat: although Autodesk describes the design’s location as secure and anonymous, it’s important to understand that it’s an open location. Anybody with that URL has access to that page. Although the URL is long, complex and probably unguessable, if you email somebody that URL and they start an email forward/reply chain that ends up with other people, all of those people can also access that page and you might never know about it. Also, the index that Autodesk must maintain for all of these pages would be a prime target for hackers looking to steal design content, at which point “secure and anonymous” will be meaningless.

So maybe don’t use this method to share your nuclear plant designs. Also, rescind any sensitive designs as soon as access is no longer needed, in order to limit the exposure time (see About Conferring with Clients and Colleagues Online). The URL stays active for 30 days unless you rescind it earlier.

Autodesk is to be commended for providing this feature and documenting it well and honestly. There is little evidence of the misleading hype about security that tainted Autodesk’s DWF marketing back in the day. Here’s a Cloud-based feature that adds value to AutoCAD with little or no downside. Just be aware of its semi-open nature and use it appropriately.

Note: this feature requires A360 to be selected during installation or deployment creation (which it is by default). If A360 is not installed, the Share Design View button will be greyed out. The command will still exist and will attempt to connect to A360 but will then fail with a Service Unavailable message.

Autodesk desktop app. Worst. Name. Ever. Is the product better than the name?

Autodesk wants your software to be automatically updated so you’re always running the latest version. Let’s pretend for a moment that this is a good idea and have a look at how Autodesk now attempts to do this. For the previous couple of releases (2015/2016), this has been done using Autodesk Application Manager. For 2017, this has been replaced by Autodesk desktop app. Even if you haven’t installed any 2017 products, you may have already seen this kind of thing pop up. Repeatedly.

ApplicationManagerReplaced

Note how there’s no obvious “stop nagging me and leave me alone” option. Autodesk Application Manager’s settings page does include an Alerts tab which allows you to turn off all desktop alerts, but the above message indicates Application Manager has suffered an “end of life” experience so there’s not much point having it on your system.

Before I get onto the new product and how it works, I want to discuss its name. It’s woeful. I have never been less whelmed by any product name than Autodesk desktop app. It’s not even Autodesk Desktop App, it’s Autodesk desktop app (sans initial capitals). It’s dull, generic, uninspired,  and it means nothing. AutoCAD is an Autodesk desktop app. Inventor is an Autodesk desktop app. Graphic Impact used to be an Autodesk desktop app. This is the equivalent of Ford naming their next new car “Ford road vehicle”. It says to me, “We couldn’t come up with a name so we just gave up.”

Having got that off my chest, what about the product itself? What does it do? According to Autodesk, this:

Autodesk desktop app is a content delivery solution. The desktop component installs with Microsoft Windows®-based Autodesk 2017 products and suites. It replaces the previous in-product update components and the Autodesk Application Manager.
 
Autodesk desktop app keeps Autodesk Subscription customers informed of product updates, new releases, new features, and special subscriber-only learning and training materials, as they become available. Autodesk desktop app also delivers and applies critical security patches for all 2015 Autodesk products onwards.

Does it deliver? No. Not for me, anyway. In my secure proxy server environment, it fails to connect, despite Autodesk Application Manager working fine in the same environment. There is a long and unfortunate history of various aspects of Autodesk software switching between working and not working in a secure proxy environment, and this product just added to that history. Things that worked in one release stop working in a new release. Some of them might start magically working again in a later release. I can only assume it’s developers tinkering with stuff and not realising the consequences. Whatever the reason, it inconveniences customers, makes Autodesk look bad at the Internet (again), and throws a spanner in the works as far as Autodesk’s online-driven future plans are concerned.

Besides it having the dumbest name ever and (for some) not doing the one thing it’s designed to do, what else is wrong with it? Here’s a list for starters:

  1. After an AutoCAD install, unless you specifically choose not to install it, it will be installed and will automatically run, getting right in your face when you probably just want to draw things.
  2. It automatically sets itself up to run all the time, using your system resources. I intend to go into more detail about Autodesk web stuff abusing your resources in future.
  3. On systems where it doesn’t work, the user experience is, er, sub-optimal. I won’t bore you with the details, but you are sent on a wild goose chase.
  4. On systems where it works, it calls home and communicates with Autodesk in undocumented ways (“Collects usage data to support users better.”).
  5. On systems where it works, it may repeatedly tell you about updates you have already applied.
  6. On systems where it works, it may not keep you up to date in the advertised manner; some hotfixes are not supported.
  7. It has a Sign In button, which encourages you to get an Autodesk account if you don’t already have one. It should not be necessary to sign in to anything to keep your products up to date. If you’re managing a corporate environment, you might not want your users all signing up for individual accounts without your knowledge.
  8. The whole idea of giving Autodesk unfettered access to update your apps when it feels like it is pretty horrific. That would involve a naive level of trust in Autodesk that it has proven repeatedly it does not deserve. The very application that wants to auto-update so it can carry on doing auto-updating other things is itself a classic example of why you really don’t want to allow that sort of thing to happen.

Let’s say you don’t care about any of that and still desperately want this thing working. What to do? At the bottom of the About Autodesk desktop app knowledgebase article, there is a link: Autodesk desktop app is not able to connect to the Internet. When I clicked it, I got this:

ThisIsEmbarrassingWell….this really is embarrassing. To be fair, the link appears to be working now, so you probably won’t see the above. However, what you do see isn’t any better. The advice provided there is terrible. It’s asking for totally unreasonable holes to be punched through your firewall, allowing whitelist access to a myriad of marketing and other undesirable sites (e.g. Akamai, which has a history of sub-optimal online ethics). I don’t think so.

The best thing I can say about Autodesk desktop app is that you can choose to not install it with your 2017 product. That seems like an excellent idea to me, because this product is a crock. Uninstall it if it’s been installed. Uninstall Autodesk Application Manager if that’s installed, because it’s just going to stop working and nag you to death in the meantime. Then store away this little episode at the back of your mind for future reference, because I’m sure Autodesk hasn’t finished pushing us down this path yet. Push back. Hard.

Autodesk Answer Day – 18 May 2016

Autodesk is encouraging you to use the Autodesk Community (formerly know as forums, discussion groups, newsgroups, etc.) to get answers to your questions by setting up a special day where Autodesk people will attend and be responsive. I don’t know if this includes responding to people’s concerns over Autodesk ending the sale of perpetual licenses, but it’s worth a try anyway. The forum for discussing that particular issue is somewhat hidden. It doesn’t appear among the list of forums, so you would only know it existed if you happened to pick on the Installation and Licensing link and had a look at the header to see the Perpetual License Changes link. But now you know it’s there, you can go and ask your questions. Meaningful answers are not guaranteed.

Here is the announcement. When is this event, exactly?

Join us at our first “Big Bang” Answer Day online event on Wednesday, May 18th from 6:00am to 6:00pm Pacific Time.

Pacific Time is currently UTC (GMT) -7 hours, so for people outside North America, that means UTC 1 PM Wednesday 18 May to 1 AM Thursday 19 May. To calculate the times in your own location, I suggest using the very handy timeanddate.com site or thetimenow.com.

Let’s have your AutoCAD WS 1.6 reviews

Autodesk has just released the latest iteration of its free online CAD app, AutoCAD WS. It’s available directly via your browser or as iOS, Mac or Android apps. This is the closest Autodesk has yet come to showing us what real CAD in the Cloud can do. Autodesk has now had three years’ work behind it since buying the company responsible for this technology. I’d like you to put aside any Cloud concerns you may have and give it a fair go. Please try it out and report back what you find in a mini-review. How well does it work? The customer stories are all from organisations using it as a viewer or for simple markup edits. Is that all it can do, or does it come close to deserving to have CAD in its name?

What do I want you to try? It’s up to you, but I don’t want to waste too much of your time. Why not have a go at something that would only take you a couple of minutes in any AutoCAD release from the last quarter of a century?

For example, I’m sure everyone here could start a new drawing using a template containing your company’s layer standards, insert a title block and populate a couple of the attributes, then accurately draw and dimension a single 2D view of a rectangular plate containing a single round hole. Try to do the equivalent in AutoCAD WS. If you have difficulty with that, try uploading a simple drawing and perform a few simple edits instead. How did that go?

I’ll be interested to see what you came across at each stage of the process. Was the setup process straightforward? What was easy to do in the WS editor? What was difficult? What was impossible? What worked well? What didn’t? What happened quickly? What took a long time? What’s good about the interface? What’s not? Do the commands work as you would expect them to? Please try to describe your experiences as objectively as you can.

Note: I’ve asked a similar question before, but that was some time ago and things have moved on since then.

Carl Bass confirms Cloud-only future for Autodesk – or does he?

As reported by Joe Francica (via WorldCAD Access), Carl Bass has confirmed, in a somewhat ambiguous way, that his Cloud-only vision rules at Autodesk.

I do believe that everything is moving to the cloud.

But…

There are a lot of applications that will [still] be done on the desktop. Whether Autodesk does it or not, I can’t think of a single function that won’t necessarily be done in the cloud.

Still a bit confused? Me too. It’s not clear where this leaves his underlings who have been rushing to contradict Carl’s earlier statements by unambiguously reassuring customers that Autodesk would continue to provide desktop software. Will they now come out with “clarifying” statements that fall into line with whatever it is Carl’s saying here? I doubt it, that would be just too embarrassing. I suspect we’ll see things go very quiet on this subject for a while.

Now we know (or do we?) it’s full steam ahead with desktop dismantlement, what about all those Cloud concerns? Carl does the standard Cloud PR thing of “addressing” that question by restating some of the concerns, ignoring others, but not coming up with answers for any of them other than expressing a vague hope that some of them will go away:

Foremost in people’s mind is security, privacy, reliability, confidential information. Some of those concerns will fall by the wayside.

Asked to come up with a compelling reason for customers to embrace the Cloud, he didn’t:

In many cases, for anyone to move to any technology platform you have to do more than what people have today. So what’s the compelling event? I think what you will see in the cloud is that it will look like every other disruptive technology. Some people will downplay it. Some will poo poo it.

More of the same, then. It’s disruptive, but people with legitimate concerns about that disruption are just naysayers to ignore. With an attitude like that, the chances of Autodesk taking its dubious customer base with it into Cloudy Heaven are slim indeed.

Caveat: I do not have access to the entire interview, so the opinions expressed here are based only on what I do have. It’s quite possible that Carl had something useful to say that didn’t appear in the article.

Autodesk’s social media consultant spills the beans

Ever wondered why Autodesk is putting so much emphasis on social media these days? Why AutoCAD needs Facebook and Twitter commands? It’s because Autodesk pays social media consultants lots of money to tell them about the importance of social media, and how to be social and media-ish. In this video, one of those consultants explains the process:

Who is telling the truth in Autodesk’s Cloud PR trainwreck?

Does Autodesk intend to move all its applications exclusively to the Cloud? That is, online only and no longer available on the desktop? Autodesk people who say yes:

Carl Bass, CEO
Phil Bernstein, Vice President, Building Industry Strategy and Relations
Scott Sheppard, Autodesk Labs Software Development Manager (with private Cloud caveat)

Autodesk people who say no:

Kenneth Pimentel, Director, Visual Communications Solutions
Andrew Anagnost, Senior Vice President of Industry Strategy and Marketing
Clay Helm, Public Relations Manager for Manufacturing, Cross-Platform, Sustainability, and Consumers
Various other underlings who make reassuring but non-specific noises about expanded choice, or who admit to inconvenient impracticalities

There’s huge irony in the way Clay (or Andrew) attempts to paint the shafting of MDT customers as a we’ll-look-after-you example, but I think that’s a deliberate distraction tactic; other than this comment I’m going to ignore it. I’m ignoring, too, the spin about informal interviews, misinterpretation and the like. There’s a black-and-white contradiction here. Autodesk either intends to move all its applications online and away from the desktop, or it doesn’t.

Two men say they’re Jesus
One of ’em must be wrong
Dire Straits – Industrial Disease

So who do we believe? Last time I looked at an org chart, the CEO trumped the lot. The buck stops with Carl. So why is he letting his underlings go around undermining his Cloudy Vision? I see the following possibilities:

  1. Autodesk is going Cloud-only but it’s supposed to be a secret. Carl let it slip out and the underlings have been sent to try to cover the tracks by confusing and obfuscating.
  2. Autodesk is going Cloud-only, Carl had it right, but the underlings haven’t all been told yet and are incorrect in their “corrections”.
  3. Autodesk isn’t going Cloud only and Carl was just making stuff up on the fly. Why? To try to impress what he thought was a specific audience who wanted to hear that. It’s ironic that the nature of the Internet meant that the comments made its way to pretty much everyone, including the customers who ultimately pay his salary.

None of these options makes Autodesk look good. Is there an option 4? Feel free to speculate. Ultimately, the only chance of sorting this out is by Carl Bass himself coming out with a definitive and spin-free statement. Even then, will anyone believe him?

I have lost all trust I had in you
Opeth – To Rid The Disease

I can agree with one thing Clay (or Andrew) had to say; you will get the best idea of what’s to come by looking at Autodesk’s history. So if you’re concerned about Autodesk pushing you onto the Cloud against your will, don’t be. Instead, be afraid. Very afraid.

Why Autodesk’s Cloud push will fail, part 1 – failure defined

It’s probably unwise to make predictions about what is going to happen in technology. If so, I’m about to be unwise. So be it; if I’m wrong you can taunt me about this post in a few years. Here’s my prediction:

Autodesk’s attempt to move CAD users onto the Cloud is doomed to failure.

This is the first of a series of posts that will examine what I mean by that and the reasons behind it. The first thing that’s important to lay out is what I mean by failure. What I mean is that reality will not match Autodesk’s expectation of what will happen with its products moving to the Cloud. What expectation is that?

I’d say two to three years from now, every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online.

Carl Bass, April 2012, TechCrunch interview

So let’s say you’re an AutoCAD user. A successful Cloud push by Autodesk will mean that you and very large numbers of people just like you be using AutoCAD or an equivalent Autodesk product on the Cloud by 2014 or 2015. If that doesn’t happen for you and all the other users of Autodesk products, then that’s failure by definition. Autodesk will have failed to meet its own publicly stated goal, and that’s exactly what I’m expecting to happen. While it might look to a Cloudophile that I’m swimming against the tide of inevitability, I’m not alone here. Let’s examine what this blog’s poll respondents think about the chances of them using CAD in the Cloud:

Cloud chances poll results

(Snapshot taken a couple of weeks ago; more votes but no percentage change since then).

The poll has been running for nearly a year and attracted a sizeable number of votes. More than half of the respondents are convinced that there is absolutely no chance – zero – that they will be using a public Cloud-based application as their primary CAD software in the next five years (by 2016 or 2017, two years beyond Carl Bass’s stated target of universal Autodesk online operation). There is a group of respondents equally convinced that they definitely will be using such an application. However, with only 10% of votes, this group is outnumbered 5:1 among those who feel certain about what is going to happen. If we split all the votes into those who think there’s a better than even chance of a Cloudy future (21%) and those who think there’s a less than even chance of that happening (79%), you can see that the doubters again have a very clear majority, nearly 4:1.

While the usual caveats about polls apply, it would be a very foolish Autodesk executive who believed this poll to be some kind of an aberration that does not reflect the broad views of the CAD community. I am convinced there is a dichotomy between the expectations of Autodesk and those of its customers, and that spells trouble. Autodesk is either going to succeed in pushing its customers into a future they are not expecting, or it is going to fail and be forced to revise its expectations. I predict that the latter will happen, and I will explain my reasoning in future posts.

Autodesk buys more social media stuff

Following up on its acquisition of Socialcam (which was then abandoned by 50 million users), Autodesk has acquired social media platform Qontext from Indian company Pramati. What exactly is this? I have no idea. I tried to find out by reading the Pramati site, but it’s so heavily obscured in trendy but vague corporatespeak it’s hard to work out anything firm. I played Buzzword Bingo while reading the site and won within seconds. Maybe the Autodesk statement clarifies things?

“Mobile, cloud and social computing are dramatically changing the way engineers, designers and architects work. The addition of the Qontext technology to the Autodesk portfolio will lead to new technology innovations that help our customers embrace these disruptive technologies and leverage them for competitive advantage,” said Amar Hanspal, Autodesk senior vice president of information modeling and platform products. “It was great to work with the team at Pramati who have demonstrated a great capability in incubating disruptive businesses.”

Well, that’s cleared that up, then. Apparently, Autodesk has bought a bunch of buzzwords. Must have been running short of them or something. I hope it was worth it.