Novedge Pulse™ of Jeff Mirisola

I’m 35,000 feet above the U.S. in a plane fighting headwinds that are going to cause me to be 35 minutes late, which they didn’t tell us until after we were airborne.  On the one hand I want to curse United for not having WiFi on board, but where I somehow ended up in economy plus (awesome amount [more...]

I posted this almost 4 years ago, but a post on Eng-Tips.com riled me up again. It deals with “smart” part numbers, so if you don’t care you can stop reading now. For those of you who are still reading, and have read the original post, I’ve added on a bit more. OFF-TOPIC SOAPBOX RANT [more...]

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to play with a few different computer systems; Xi, Boxx, HP and Dell. While the first three were desktops, and pretty much equal, the Dell is my M4600 and a bit lesser than the others. Unlike other hardware reviews, I’m not going to list the system [more...]

This interview has been a long time coming. I first reached out to Mark back in September, but I didn’t mark his response and it got buried. I apologized to Mark for my disorganization. He, graciously, accepted my apology. Without further ado, let’s learn about Mr. Mark Lyons. Mark grew up in Marlboro, Massachusetts as one of [more...]

You all know we have a SolidWorks user group in Seattle, right? The Seattle Area SolidWorks Power User Group (SASPUG) was founded in February 1996 and, as I’ve been told, is the olded user group in the nation. Today’s version has a website, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Our next meeting will be March [more...]

Just to keep you all interested, here’s what’s coming up in the next few posts on Jeff’s Tool Shed: Boxx is sending me one of their computers so that I can kick the tires and test it out. The cool thing is that I had an Xi at work; had being the operative word there [more...]

One of the things I enjoy about SolidWorks World is seeing all the technology out there that one can use with SolidWorks, be it hardware or software. Leading up to the show, I was contacted by Julie Reece, the Director of Marketing for Mcor Technologies. Unlike most marketing people who ask me if I’d be [more...]

Once again this year, SolidWorks held their Internet Correspondent contest and the winner was Chris Scott from Jacksonville, Florida. That, for this post, is neither here nor there. Chris fulfilled a need I had; to interview someone who had never been to SolidWorks World before. While I remember my first time (who doesn’t?), I wanted [more...]

Sometimes life gives you lemons, other times it gives you Bacardi and coke. Monday, at SolidWorks World 2013, it gave me the latter. I remember being bummed when I heard that there would no longer be a CSWP event at SolidWorks World. It had become too large, apparently. I’d have to say that it was [more...]

I’m quite sure that any number of bloggers and reporters will be talking about today’s general session and how SolidWorks has had a hand in designing Skynet and how our future robot overlords/killers have become aware. Where I feel like some sort of accomplice, I apologize. I also am not going to rehash the coolness [more...]

Where to start… As has become my custom, I was waiting in line for the general assembly early. I like to be up front for them, it’s just how I roll. Also, as usual, the energy was almost palpable. As the time grew near, and the crowd swelled, it started to get quite “cozy”. Thankfully [more...]

It’s Sunday at SolidWorks World 2013 and I’m well rested and not hung over. Considering the day I had yesterday, that actually started Friday, I’m doing well. It’s probably a blessing in disguise that a certain CAD journalist from England was unable to make the trip. Today is an easy day for most people. There [more...]

That’s right, a month from today and SolidWorks World 2013 will be over. Five-thousand attendees will be heading back from whence they came, probably exhausted and, thankfully, I’ll be one of them. This year I’m going to try to get to more breakout sessions, so that I can then report about them. It seems [more...]

SolidWorks World 2013 is just under 2 months away and I’m so happy to be going this year. It was tough not being able to attend last year, but my reasoning was sound. I’m not sure what I’m excited about most, seeing old friends, reconnecting with the partner channel, seeing what new products are out [more...]

Since I started becoming more involved in the SolidWorks community, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people. Just a couple of weeks ago, I got to meet another. I’d first heard of Bob Jensen when I sent out an email to our local user group trying to drum up people interested [more...]

When I started in my new position I found it odd that they were using ePDM. As far as I was concerned ePDM was for large design groups, not 1-2 designers. In the back of my mind I started thinking about how we’d cleanly transition from ePDM to PDMWorks when the subscription was up. I’d be [more...]

This has been a dark secret that now needs to be brought to the forefront. We’ve all seen it, many of us have dabbled in it, some still do it. Configuration abuse. There, I said it. I know it’s not pretty and something some would rather not discuss, but I just can’t stand by idly without [more...]

Let’s get this out of the way right now, is this release going to blow your socks off? No, I don’t believe it will. There are, however, aspects of it that will definitely ruffle your skirt/kilt/bathrobe (*ahem*, Mr. Mings). Some of the stuff was just “eh”, but that’s to be expected as well. If everything [more...]

With my crap-tastic memory I can’t remember when I first met Matt, but I do know it was out on the internet. Matt’s been an active member of the SolidWorks community for years contributing in the various fora out there and through his blog, SolidWorks Legion. Matt was a very driven teenager, unlike many of [more...]