Something to think about when your flight is delayed...

Totally random post. But, wow, check out this video below. It shows flights across the world in a 24hr period. Amazing! Next time you are pissed that your flight is delayed, think of what is going on in the big picture.

Aviation is amazing! Easy to get frustrated when things get delayed etc. Always good to keep things in perspective. Thanks, Jonah, for the link.

What exactly is Upfront CFD & CFdesign?

I am constantly asked, "What do you do?". It then spirals into...

"I work for a really cool software company."

"Wow, who?" (said w. enthusiasm)

"Well, a relatively small company that develops design software for engineers" (said w. enthusiasm)

"Oh, sounds interesting." (said politely)

"Yea, it's awesome, we help engineers create really innovative designs, by reducing the number of physical prototypes, we turn their computers into a virtual prototyping environments. It allows engineers to turn their computers into a virtual flow bench, wind tunnel or thermal test rig!! Allows them to really understand how to improve their product performance by seeing how they work in 3D."

"yea, wow, hmmm...I am going to grab another beer, you want anything!"

I am fortunate enough to work with a bunch of guys that are super excited about what we do. We all spin it a bit different, but in the end, we are all saying the same thing. Here's a classic...

Check out the video above, really solid explanation of what Upfront CFD truly is.

Choosing a CFD Services Provider

Pretty much every engineer will have to seek outside help from a consultant at one point in their career. There are a variety of fantastic service providers out there. But the question always comes out, how to pick someone that is reputable, reliable and affordable? Word of mouth and recommendations tend to be a reliable way to choose the correct vendor. But suppose the help you need is a niche problem or something you have never encountered before - can be quite stressful as you feel as though you are taking a gamble.

I was out this morning early walking my dogs on the trails near my home. Two ladies were jogging by and I overheard the conversation.

"My presentation went over very well. I am really glad I put the time into preparing.... I was able to score four consulting projects out of the deal. I'm not exactly sure who will do them, but that isn't my problem."

Sound familiar? Happens all the time. You often hear the old IBM approach the "Blue is there for you". Implying that due to shear size, they are able to address your needs. But suppose you are new the problem and need that extra bit of attention to help you understand the results of the service provided. The more important question, I feel, is does the vendor have the bandwidth, do they have the expertise, but most importantly - "can they explain to me the solution to the problem in a way that I understand?"

Not completely a shameless plug here, just highlighting what I have found to be valuable to our customers. In the world of CFD, you tend to have two extremes when looking at services. You have those that rely heavily on high end, very complicated problems (requiring a complicated software solution) and those that tend to be focused on design (MCAD VAR) but dabble a bit in engineering services. So perhaps your problem is so complicated that you need a specialist with an extremely complex solution or your problems are super simple that a CAD guy can help. I am sure there are problems out there that fit these categories.

However, I have found that majority of problems out there fall into the middle of the two extremes. Often, the problems require a decent understanding of the physics, but are heavily weighted on the impact of the design. In other words, many of the engineers that I speak to need someone that truly understands fluid flow and heat transfer, but also is savvy enough to know from a design perspective, what design changes to make and why.

Regardless of where your problems fall, make sure that you dig in and trust your gut feel. When talking to a services provider, do you get a good feeling from this guy? Can he provide references for similar problems? Does he speak "my language" or just using fancy terms to impress? Remember, it's your companies money and your reputation at stake.

Where to go for "Help"?!

I am pretty confident that when people are evaluating new software solutions, both big and small, we would all agree that good technical support is very important. Depending on the size or complexity of the application, it is much more important than others. But it also has to do with the individual person. Each person has a different competency and has a certain level of tolerance to figure things out on their own. But probably most importantly, each person prefers to find their help in different ways.

Experience has shown that todays senior engineers are used to the either RTFM (read the fing manual) routine or dialing up their favorite support person and having a chat. Today's new engineers rely a bit more on the instant gratification modell and will surf forums, community sites etc. Neither is right or wrong, just a matter of preference. But I believe that a software community model is a win-win for all.

My definition of a community is a place where I can search the Knowledge Base, access the Help system, read and participate in Forums, view Blogs written on the topic, submit a support question, track my support question and access the support phone number if necessary. Notice that I place the phone option as a last resource. Partially, its a matter of preference and historically bad experiences. But, most importantly, if we as "users" are given the information at our fingertips, it will free up the time of the support team to address those that indeed need a quick chat on the phone.

Dell, for example, has a 800 number to call and you are routed all over the world. I dont care if I am routed to Mars as long as I get an answer to my question. But, they also have the "chat" option. I love this. I can do other things as I am waiting in the queue as well as have a quick live chat in short blasts that almost always gets an answer to my question. Dell, provides a Knowledge Base etc, but it is on the extreme side - way too much info. It would take me forever going through their KB, to realize that my battery is fried and needs to be replaced.

My beloved, Skype, has a great Forum section. They have power users around the world that usually chime in with some tips. But (sorry Skype), their actual support system is really bad. The response time is horrendously slow -- they claim 72 hour response (yikes), but takes more like 4-5 days +. HOWEVER, what skype has that I love is when I submit a question, I pick a category and I am presented with 3 possible solutions prior to submitting. They are obviously trying to enforce the self sufficient model. Again, fine with me as long as it answers my question.

I have posted before, that I am a huge fan of videos. I'd rather do a quick search and be presented with Solutions and a Video that explains the solution. Show me and let me figure it out.

Check out my scientific :) poll here at the top of the page. Interesting that email received the least amount of votes. Why is that? My exhaustive analysis of the statistics reveals that email is not instantaneous enough. If I email support, it goes into a queue just like everyone else. I then receive the typical first email that may or may not answer my question. If if does, great, if it doesn't I am back in the queue. The support person will then have a difficult time tracking our conversation and it goes into an oblivion of misunderstandings.

Point of the rant here is, people are different. They should be given options. It is ok to guide them along the process of being self-sufficent, just make sure you are answering their questions.

Subway Fires & Upfront CFD

It never ceases to amaze me how people use Upfront CFD to solve their problems. Recently, one of the guys on our team, Ryan Abel, has been working on a fair amount of HVAC problems. Check out the image of a subway fire. The image shows the smoke as it is exiting the subway car while at a station stop.

It is really fun to engage with folks that completely appreciate looking at images similar to the one above. Often, this particular audience, are architectural firms. They don't have any formal CFD training and really don't have much experience in modeling the complex physics. But, they have a need to understand from a design perspective what is going on during various situations. What happens when the doors are open? What happens when the exhaust fans are turned on? How long does it take to evacuate the smoke from the space? What is the "visisibility" in the space during a fire?

Sounds familiar..."what if?" Good old "what if". It is one of the fundamental principles of Upfront CFD. It is a blast to work with these guys. Tons of excitement, lots of curiosity, lots and lots of questions. Makes our job really fun to engage with people super excited about the technology!

Game Changer: Evernote!!

I am always looking for tools to make my life more efficient. Efficiency, I have found, is in the eyes of the beholder. But, for me, I have been looking for a digital way to capture ideas, organize thoughts, create lists and to-do lists. I have a mixed match system of word documents, notepad files, physical post-its, emails to self, electronic post-its, tasks in Outlook, a physical notebook (small and large), a GTD folder. The list is endless. I have looked at tools like One Note and Mind Manager - each I am sure are fantastic, but I just couldn't grasp how to use them. I found that I was spending more time dinking with my new system than gaining any efficiency.

In my mind, my life was too complicated to find a single tool or system that can satisfy my needs. So, I gave in to a physical notebook. One of the guy's on our team refers to it as "my little green book". Not sure why I find that funny, I just do. I carry this beast everywhere, jotting notes in different colors, filled with a variety of note taking systems so I can come back and refer to them later. The thought is that in the evenings, I can then quickly extract this info and then enter it into yet another system. Confused yet? Me too.

I stumbled upon Evernote. Stealing from their website.....

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Always one to love a video explanation, check out the above from the Evernote folks. You are probably getting the idea that it is a "web site grabbing" tool? I use it as so much more than that. Primarily, I use it as a list creation and to-do list tool.

But, above all, what I love the most about Evernote is that I can access it from multiple locations --> local application on my laptop, via the web from any machine or my phone. They are all synched at all times. It gives me the best of all worlds.

A couple of things to note of Evernote as a company. They are gaining a ton of points with me as a customer. They have -- a blog, post to Twitter, have a Facebook fan page and have one of the better forums I have ever used. One of the moderators, Engberg, consistently responds quickly to posts.

I am looking forward to future releases. There are certainly things that could be added, but for now, I'm sold.

Poking Fun @ the PTC "For Sale" Saga....

Huge Disclaimer: This is posted in good fun, not looking to cause a national incident. Officially, I am a huge fan of PTC!! :)

A good friend sent me this photo, I thought it summed it all up pretty nicely.


This photo was taken recently north of Tel Aviv, Isreal. Reminds me of a priceless commercial.

PTC is for sale???

I just stumbled across this little gem. With all of the mergers going on, probably not that much of a surprise. If we look at the activity of late - some of it makes sense, some of it not so much.

To me, it makes sense that Autodesk is expanding it's horizons. Expanding its simulation game by acquiring Plassotech and Moldflow. Trying to become the dominant player.

Dassault Systems seems to be aligning itself by renaming/re-branding all of their product lines. ANSYS is just buying everyone and becoming this massive behemoth of a company.

So where does this leave, good ol' PTC? Arguably they are the leaders of PLM. They recently acquired CoCreate to either expand on some of their technology or more likely, gain traction in some of the CoCreate install base to sell MathCAD, PDMLink etc??? Now, they are putting the "For Sale" sign on the window? For $2B?

I have to admit, I am not sure I fully understood why Siemens purchased UGS, so I guess this falls in the same category. Who can afford a $2B purchase? I am not sure anyone in the MCAD/FEA/CFD world, so perhaps another monster company coming in like Siemens?? Maybe Google, Microsoft? How about Apple? One can only wish!!!

Weekend Project: Ubuntu Linux

I have written in the past about my interest in Linux. I have recently downloaded and installed Ubuntu. Certain surveys show that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distributions, approximately 30%. Dell even offers it on certain machines.

The main reason I like this distribution is that it focuses on ease of use and installation. Other Linux distributions are probably just as powerful but can be difficult to use or difficult to install. I downloaded ubuntu and installed on an old machine with no issues at all. I am still working on getting the wireless card to work but I think I have an old machine with an outdated driver.

I also recently took the plunge into the world of Vista. Check out the video above that highlights some of the differences between the two. I still don't believe that Linux will be accepted by mainstream users. But, then again, not sure if that is the targeted market?