Novedge Pulse™ of Alex R. Ruiz

Time are tough. Just ask any of the estimated 15.1 million unemployed Americans. Unfortunately, last week I joined the ranks of the unemployed and now find myself scouring various job boards for the perfect position. Of course a good job hunter would leave no stone  [more...]

Today I will continue my long winded tour of  some of the over 200 enhancements in SolidWorks 2011. With so many enhancements it is impossible for me to cover everything, so instead I am highlighting some of the areas I am particularly excited about. I am not listing  [more...]

Early last week SolidWorks rolled out their 19th release of the world’s most popular 3D mechanical design software, SolidWorks 2011. Last month I was lucky enough to be treated to a firsthand look of this year’s release when SolidWorks flew me to Concord for  [more...]

If anybody has told you that 2D is dead, they are either misinformed or just wrong. the fact is 2D will continue to play a major role in the manufacturing environment. Everybody knows that I am a huge proponent of 3D modeling but I have also worked in the manufacturing  [more...]

Today I am breaking one of my personal rules by writing this post. When I started the SolidWorks Geeks I didn’t want to do the “blogging” thing and talk about my feelings and other minutiae. But if you follow me on various social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook  [more...]

Find out about what I have been up to and why I haven’t been writing any new post. Check out the video for all the details. Watch the Video on YouTube Or check out the SolidWorks Geek Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSWGeek Related posts:See  [more...]

Well here it is, part 4 of my rambling descriptions of some of my favorite enhancements in SolidWorks 2011. In case you missed them make sure you check out the first three parts of this series. In part one I cover some enhancements including conditional statements  [more...]

You don’t need a CAD Manager to do the right thing. Miss Me? Things have been quite here lately and I have a very good reason for it. A little over a month ago I started a new job as the CAD Manager for a growing Solar Power company in Southern California. I  [more...]

A good engineer can recite whole sections of his favorite reference book…a smart engineer knows how to find the information when needed. And having a fully stocked reference library can save valuable research time and could have an impact on how fast your turn  [more...]

Trimming and extending lines is one of the first skills that any CAD user must learn. The process is pretty straight forward; the Trim Entities tool is used to trim sketch entities to the nearest intersection and the Extend Entities is used to add length to a sketch  [more...]

It has been quite a while since the last tutorial about the stapler. The last component of the stapler we created was the Staple Cradle.  Before moving on to another area of the stapler, we will need to build one more component to complete the Staple Cradle. Today  [more...]

Just in time for the March 8th release of SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required, the companion site is now live. Instead of including a CD with the book, we opted to do a companion site (www.swner.com). The advantage to doing a companion site instead of a CD is that  [more...]

It is a very common practice to use the Mirror Entities tool to make a sketch symmetrical about a line after sketching one side. Did you know that you can make a sketch symmetrical while sketching? The Dynamic Mirror Entities tool is used to mirror the sketch about  [more...]

Today we will conclude the Indulge Your Sweet Tooth series with an extra long post about PhotoView 360. If you are not familiar with PhotoView 360 (or PV360 for short), you do not know what you are missing. PV360 is a simple but powerful rendering package that installs  [more...]

Hump day is upon us and, as promised, I am bringing you the next exciting installment of Indulge Your Sweet Tooth. This series explains the steps to creating a photorealistic image of peppermint candies. The first two parts of this series explained the process for  [more...]

For the past 3 years, this site has been a labor of love but unfortunately life has a way of getting in the way. I know of many readers who have grown to love the tutorials, tips, tricks and ramblings that I offer but it has been difficult for me to write as much as  [more...]

When the operating system within every individual begins its inevitable shut down process, some question should be asked about the life that you led. How one answers these questions will not gain them VIP access to the ultimate after-party nor will they cause you to  [more...]

As you might have noticed, I am pretty excited about SolidWorks 2011 but then again I am a geek and I get excited about new zombie books, sci-fi movies with lots of explosions and any new gadget that comes on the market. With previous releases of SolidWorks I usually  [more...]

Technical drawings are, in my opinion, the most important part of engineering but often the most overlooked. A good drawing tells the complete story on how a product, tool, structure or other design is to be manufactured or assembled. It may be pretty unpopular for  [more...]

As many of my longtime readers know, I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to write a SolidWorks book. After months of sleepless nights working hard on my first book, SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required was released for sale in March of 2010. Unfortunately,  [more...]

Over the past few years my career has evolved from 3D design to full-on CAD systems management. In fact a couple of months ago I started a brand new position as the Product Structure and CAD Systems Manager for a Southern California solar power company. Unfortunately this  [more...]

I have been waiting to make this announcement for a couple of weeks, I wanted to wait till the right time. Here it goes….I have started a second blog. Before anybody gets upset, I am not giving up The SolidWorks Geek. In fact, absolutely nothing will change here.  [more...]

The No Experience Required Geek Treasure Hunt is now over. Thank you to everyone who played. I must apologize for the late announcement but I have been preparing for the release of SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required. I have added a detailed description of the  [more...]

I have been amazed at the response to the this treasure hunt contest. My clues must have been too easy because the first two prizes have already been claimed. When I was coming up with the clues, I was afraid that I made them too hard and that no one would be able  [more...]

UPDATED WITH CLUE#3 With less then two weeks till SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required goes on sale, I decided to give you a chance to receive a free signed copy.  The list price for the book is $39.99 and a signed copy has got to bring it up to $40.00 at least.  [more...]

On the week before SolidWorks World 2010, I wrote the first post in this series where I showed you how to create the multi-bodied part for a peppermint candy. Today, we are going to finish the part model by applying the appearances to part to finally make it look like  [more...]

I actually started writing this post a few days ago while still at SolidWorks World 2010. It was a well crafted post with tons of big words. It sounded great and I was extremely proud of it…then the alcohol wore off. So this time I am letting the pictures tell  [more...]

Once a year SolidWorks geeks from around the world converge on an unsuspecting city somewhere within the US. This year SolidWorks has invaded a city that is near and dear to my heart to bring together thousands of SolidWorks users to learn, share and connect with other  [more...]

For the first tutorial of 2010, we are going to create this image of a stack of peppermints using SolidWorks and the new features of PhotoView 360. A few weeks ago I came across an image much like this one on IStockPhoto.com and I thought it would be a fun project  [more...]