Thursday, October 30, 2008

What does Upfront CFD have to do with Halloween?

Well, probably more than you thought. Little bit of fun here. I modeled a pumpkin in SolidWorks, brought it into CFdesign and ran a flow and thermal simulation to predict the air flow behavior due to the candle burning.

Obviously, this post is mostly in fun. But it does point out a few things.



  1. Pumpkins are fairly complex geometry, modeling the "seams" etc. Many meshers would require extra care in capturing that level of detail.
  2. No need to model a "flame" when you are simply interested in flow effects, how to "vent" an enclosure with an extremely high temperature.
  3. There are more and more ways that Upfront CFD can be used to improve even the simplest of designs.
Happy Halloween, everyone! Be Safe!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Microsoft is Earning Some Street Credit with Cloud Computing Initiative

I never really had a strong opinion one way or the other on Microsoft. There are others that have really strong opinions. MS is often the butt of a joke and often the scapegoat of many digs. Apple has been making fun of them via commercials for the last few months/years. Microsoft has recently countered with their own campaign and, as expected, received even more criticism. I have to admit, I thought the commercials weren't that bad. Even the Seinfeld/Gates version. Maybe its me, but I thought they made their point.

Recently, I installed Vista on my 32bit laptop and more recently, on my 64bit desktop. As expected, I struggled to get started as Vista seems to have more rules and gotchas than XP etc. But once you get the hang of it, I really like the interface and the workflow. So, more and more, I am digging Microsoft.


This week is the big Professional Developers Conference where MS rolls out all of their new plans for the future. Click on the logo to see streaming and recorded video sessions. Man, all kinds of really cool things are coming. As expected (by me at least), MS is thinking in the clouds. They are rolling out a variety of really cool cloud computing offerings. My favorite one right now is Microsoft Live Mesh. Think of it as an online synchronization, storage service.


So, I created a Live Mesh account online. I then "added" my devices (laptop and desktop, both with Vista) to my account. Apparently, windows mobile and Mac devices are coming soon. Mesh provides 5GB of storage space online. Surprise, surprise it didn't seem to like Firefox. I can create folders in my Mesh account and choose to have them sync with each or all of my devices. In other words, I can work on a file of any kind on my laptop, save it to the designated "sync" folder and as long as I am signed into Mesh, it will automatically sync it to the folder online, as well as my other devices selected. If I am not connected, it will synch the next time I'm online. Mesh also provides Remote Desktop capabilities. So, I can use it as a conduit to access files between computers and other devices. Performance for Remote Desktop is fairly slow at this point. But Mesh is in its early phases and I expect performance to improve with time.

For a guy that works on a variety of projects both in the home office, while at our corporate office or simply while traveling, Mesh is an awesome tool to enable working in a Virtual environment out here in the clouds.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Upfront CAE should drive innovation, not validation

Anyone that has used, seen or even heard of Upfront CAE will admit that it has come along way in the last 5-10 years. The software developers try to make it as easy as possible. They strive to make the UI slick and modern, guide you through the process and provide you sound answers to your questions. They even provide answers to questions, you probably didn't think about.

But I think many of us get focused on "the number" - pressure drop, max temperature, Cv, whatever. I think we all should take a minute, step back and try interpreting what design decisions to make, based on the information provided.



There is so much information that can be provided, but we as engineers have to think of the various techniques and pick "our favorites". For example, there are a variety of ways to determine the pressure drop in a system (cut planes, summary files, bulk data, probing) - which should I use? Very simple, the one the fits your process. But ask yourself, ok, that is the value. But what is causing that value, where are the recirculation regions, where is the largest gradient -- do all of these occur where I expect them to occur? If not, why? Sometimes there will be large gradients in a gap, for example, not much you can do about that. But often gradients are happening in other regions of the model - those you can fix.

Same applies to all of the CAE problems out there. Keep pushing yourself to ask, why, and what if, and how can I improve my design. The information is there, we just need to know how to use it.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Go Phillies!!

Ok, I won't even pretend to claim to be a huge fan of baseball, nor have I really followed the Phillies this year. However, I am definitely jumping on the bandwagon and will follow them as they are now headed to the World Series. Plus, I scored tickets to one of the home games. Not bad for a bandwagon-er. ;-)





It is really awesome to see some positive news coming out of the good ol' City of Brotherly Love. Horns were blasting all night. Watching the news last night, I thought 'this can't be good'. 1000s of people in the streets going insane. So far so good. We do tend to get a bad rap. Maybe its justified? Oh well, deal with it.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Reconnecting with Music -- check it out LIVE

I'm not sure about you, but my life seems to be surrounded by music. I am by no means a music guy - can't play an instrument, can't sing etc.. There are people that are way more into it. But, I am a huge fan. I usually have an ipod or headphones connected to itunes, online radio, pandora as well as a list of others. When I am in the car or not in my office - I am streaming XM. Even after all of that, I still get bored and want more. Here are some of my favorites..

Live Music

PHISH
Counting Crows
Grateful Dead

Internet Radio

WXPN - Philly - awesome NPR station based out of U of Penn
Y-Rock - old school alternative rock station- internet only
Pandora - customizable Internet radio;really cool

Satellite Radio

XM

I have been on a big kick lately of listening to live music. My wife and I just saw Counting Crows at the Borgata casino in August. Awesome show in a really small setting. Hard to commit to going to shows live, but there are alternatives. There are a host of ways to grab some live music - either via itunes, amazon, band websites, my space - whatever. Go out there and see what's playing, the selection is endless.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

What would life be like with a netbook?

I am about to jump on the netbook train. If you are not familiar with the term netbook, check out the previous link to give you the low down. The easiest way to think about it; it's a small laptop that is designed to be mostly used to access the Internet. Lightweight, small hard drive , 9-10" screen, no CD-ROM etc. So, many people are probably thinking that it is a laptop to simply browse the web? Well, not exactly.

It is true that most of the interaction you have with the netbook will be via the Internet. But it goes beyond simple web browsers. It is a new way of thinking about computers. It is leveraging "software as a service" (SaaS). In general, the hard drives are very small, so most of the application and data is hosted "online". So, the need to be connected most of the time is a fundamental requirement. Probably not exactly feasible today, but with the adoption of 3G networks, it will be only a matter of time before we are connected all the time. Plus many applications like Google Docs allow you to mark files "offline".



I think when looking at a netbook, you have to keep it all in perspective. Being a CAD/CFD guy, I know that netbooks are not designed to drive these types of tools.

So here is a quick list of the essentials....

Operating System Ubuntu Linux
Office Applications OpenOffice & Google Docs
Voip & IMs Skype
Web Browsing Firefox
Email & Calendar Gmail
Online File Storage box.net
Work CRM System Salesforce.com



What's missing? Well, making the move to Linux always has it's drawbacks (netbooks are available with Windows). Here is a quick rundown of applications I need to replace - itunes, Snagit, Evernote..

Ok, so the big question, why spend $500 on a netbook??? For me, there are a handful of reasons.
  1. Portable device to travel with to reduce having to drag out my M6300.
  2. Inexpensive way to reacquaint with Ubuntu Linux.
  3. An easy way to experiment with an SaaS lifestyle.
  4. Expose my kids to computers & Linux at a very early age.
  5. A lightweight option to use when I'm in "web mode"
I am looking forward to reporting my findings. I expect some bumps in the road, but really excited to see the market that this product is trying to serve. I love seeing the videos out there showing how easily kids are picking up Linux. The idea of a Linux 'remix' has some huge potential moving forward. Remix is just a fancy word for customized UI of Ubuntu Linux.

When you are the "Big Dog", you must consistently deliver!

Everyone, big and small, strives to be the best at what they do. Right? Only a select few ever reach the status of the "standard", "best of the best" or the "Big Dog" in their market. Look at Microsoft, Apple, Google etc.. I think we can all agree that they dominate in their own right.

But look at what happens when you become so big that you are are constantly criticized for not delivering -- Microsoft. They are still doing well for themselves, but becoming more and more vulnerable. Not to mention, losing market share. Google is new and young enough that they are doing great, but things can quickly change if they slip, even once. Take Chrome, for example, people jumped all over some of the inefficiencies. Personally, I like it, but will stick with Firefox for now.

Now, let's take a look at Apple. I have always been a fan. In fact, I just returned from the Apple Store with my 6th ipod. (I recently dropped my shuffle in the ocean). In general, I have always been happy with my ipods. I use them constantly and some have stopped working over time or I just wanted an upgrade.


But let's take itunes. Where to start.. For an application that updates itself more than any other application I have ever seen, it leaves ALOT to be desired. Sure it is functional, but for the core product of their music business, I expect way more. Some people argue, 'well, it is free'. Totally bogus excuse as it is the front-end of the money making machine for Apple.

I am sure that many of the issues that I have are operator error, but.. I don't care. I have GB's of music that I purchased on itunes as well as the above mentioned box of ipods. I have purchased countless songs on itunes that I already had on CDs simply because it was easier. So, I consider myself a good consumer for Apple and have the right to rant about itunes.

Here is a quick list of the things that irritate me...
  1. User interface is becoming old and outdated - medium irritation
  2. Play list management is clunky - minor irritation
  3. Randomly, it creates duplicate songs in my library - huge irritation
  4. Switching my library from one computer to another is a nightmare - HUGE irritation
  5. No way to access previously purchased songs - online backup -- medium irritation
  6. Loses path to external drive; resets to default -- huge irritation
I am sure that there are simple fixes to the above, but to me, I don't have the time or the patience when it comes to this sort of stuff. I expect it to be as close to perfect as possible and want you to continue to WOW me every time. If you don't, I will then begin to look for the next big thing. Major expectations on my part, I know. But that's what you should expect when you are the "Big Dog".

This relates to all markets. As a member of a fairly small company, we live and breathe thinking we are the standard. We work each day "earning" your business. Are we perfect? Absolutely, not. But we strive everyday to exceed your expectations. My point here is not to brag, but simply state the facts. I think everyone should work each day as if they were the standard and strive for perfection. In the software world, there will be bugs and imperfections. But the harder we push ourselves to deliver the entire package each day will result in happy customers.

The idea here is that someday you might be the next 'Big Dog'. The catch is that it doesn't get any easier. The bigger you get, the higher the expectations.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Sick of FTP's, shared and external drives -- cloud computing is alive and well with box.net

I have 3 and counting external drives that I have countless amount of data stored for the infamous, "just in case" situation. So, we are talking about ~500GB of data. Some of it is necessary for immediate access and some of it, would be awesome to share with others.

I have easy access to an ftp site and it works, for the most part. It doesn't have a very slick interface and it is a real drag to "share" and "collaborate" with others. People constantly struggle accessing ftp sites.

I started cruising around looking for an alternative. A friend sent me a link to dropbox.com. Looked interesting, but fell short on some of the features I needed. I then found box.net. Here is a breakdown of the comparisons.


Not to mention, it will quickly become a staple for those that are entering the "netbook" way of life. I think what I love most about box.net, is that they have really seem to have thought of quite a few things - such as emailing docs via Google Mail & Outlook, working in conjunction with efax, blogger, zoho, twitter, facebook etc.. So, from a user's experience, I love that it is a multi-dimensional product. They even scored a deal with Autodesk to upload and translate certain CAD data.

Here is their CEO giving some of the details...



But, the biggest announcement is that they are partnering with Dell and are being bundled as a part of the new Dell mini 9. I love where all of this is going. I am going to see if I can score a Dell mini 9 with Ubuntu fully loaded and begin living and computing via the clouds.

Friday, October 03, 2008

How do "You" prefer to receive Technical Support?

For anyone that visited this blog for the last few weeks, noticed the option to vote on "how do you prefer to receive technical support". I should have been a bit more specific on what type of product etc, but I was really interested to see how people would respond. Initially, I was a bit bummed at the number of responses, but a fellow blogger mentioned that if you get a 2% response rate that is about average. I am proud to say, I received a response of ~6%.

Not surprising, the answers are a bit spread out. In my experience, individuals all learn differently and all like to search for help differently. I think it is the responsibility of the various vendors to know their user base and ensure that they provide support in a format that is catered to their users and not simply what is best for the vendor.

Interestingly, you see the two extremes are the most popular. That is some folks prefer to call and talk to their support engineers and the other extreme, some prefer to learn via video. Click the image below to enlarge.


Not to stereotype, but I find that support preference is partially governed by the generation of the engineers you ask. I think we are simply comfortable with what we know or how we were taught. Meaning, in the past, support was only available via phone and user manuals, then email became popular, and now videos and user forums seem to be popular. We have engineers that obviously span all of these options. But I think all will agree with the following, "We want the correct solution to our problem, in the fastest amount of time with the least amount of effort." Each person has their own tolerance and limits of these factors.

An interesting option, that I intentionally left it out, is "chatting" with support folks. Personally, I love it - used it today to talk to Dell and to my wireless provider. What do I like about chat?

  1. Allows me to receive support and answer the phone, respond to emails etc while I am trying various suggestions provided by support
  2. I don't have to sit on the phone and wait for them to look through the database, pull up my records, place me on hold while he checks on some things.
  3. Plus, as with Dell, they email you the chat so I now have a written record of what to try when and if I ever have that problem again.
Personally, I love it. Can you receive "chat" support for CFD or for CAD? For some things, yes. Some things, no. If it is something real quick that you want to go back and forth with support, it can work. If the problem is a bit more sophisticated, you may need another medium. The point is, you should have the option that solves the problem the way you want to solve it.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

PHISH is back!!!

Completely non-CFD, non-CAE, non-CAD related post. In fact, no technical content whatsoever.

But sometimes, it is just nice to take a step back and post something on the personal side. One of my favorite bands of all time have been on hiatus (break-up) for the last 4 years. They are scheduled to play three shows in Hampton, VA in March.






I have seen them in the past and hope to see them again when additional shows are announced.I have a few GB of live digital phish shows, that is what is loaded on my ipod and what I am playing in the office.