Officers:

Wayne Tiffany, President

Carl Gauger, Vice President

Jasen Sappenfield, Secretary

Rod Wickwar, Secretary

Charles Durio, Food Chairman

Date:     Tuesday, 8/31/10

Time:    6:30 - 9:30pm

Place:    Automatic Systems, Inc.

9230 E. 47th St

Kansas City, MO 64133

816-356-0660

Main Topic: CAD Admin the SolidWorks Way: Good or Evil?
Guest Speaker: Melissa Appel, SolidWorks Product Definition Specialist

It is my pleasure to announce the details of our next meeting.  A topic that we haven’t yet covered as a presentation at our user group meeting is Installation.  It’s a topic that everyone touches in one fashion or another, whether you do it yourself or have to live with the consequences of someone else doing it.  Wouldn’t you rather know as much about it as possible?

Melissa is the Product Definition person that is responsible for defining that area of the software and I asked her to explain why we should do it her way.  I know that sounds fairly snooty, but it’s a question that everyone needs to contemplate.  Everyone that installs and sets up SW does it in a particular fashion and hopefully for well thought out reasons.  But I want to know more about the possibilities, like what has changed, what are the ramifications down the road of installing one way or another, why I can’t have the option to locate the Hole Wizard files if I don’t install Toolbox, what is the easiest way to update a few clients vs. all clients, what is an Admin Image, how does that affect anything, etc.

Do you have other questions that you would like to have answered?  If so, send them to me and we will try to have those addressed.  This meeting would also be quite appropriate for your IT folks to sit in on so they have a better idea of what’s available to them and why they should be doing things a particular way.  So go invite them – just let me know how many to plan for.

Customer visits:
This time we have a special request.  Melissa is working on a special project with drawings and would like to spend some time with you.  She is also bringing along Monica Granfield, who is a designer in the user experience group and she’s working on the drawings project with her.  This is what they are looking for.

The project: We are recruiting SolidWorks customers for observational customer visits on the topic of drawing creation. The visit would be a half or full day visit and would involve us sitting quietly and observing you while you create and edit drawings (and asking a few questions along the way). Our goal is to learn about how you create drawings by watching you do it: your workflow and the issues you have with the process. We will use this information to help improve future releases of SolidWorks.

So consider hosting these fine ladies at your place of business.  Consider that not only will you have the pleasure of their company, you will have two SW employees at your side ready to write down what you like and don’t like about how you deal with drawings.  Have you ever been frustrated with drawings??  Probably so. Ok then, sign up for a visit – you will not regret it.  They will be here all day 8/31, 9/1, and half of 9/2.

Send me an email with your availability so we can schedule the best route for them.  Don’t let this opportunity go by.

Special door prize:

As you know, once in a while we have something a little more special than the standard stuff to give away at the meeting.  This time we have an offer from a gentleman that is involved with the SW user group in Colorado.  Here is what he had to say.

I’d like to offer a free copy of Template Wizard (a SolidWorks Add-In) as a free give away at one of your upcoming meetings. This is a $295 value.

The default templates that come with SolidWorks are inadequate and out of date. My goal is to help users have consistent, intelligent, and efficient templates. I have dedicated the last three years to developing Template Wizard and www.solidworkstemplates.com to meeting this goal. If you are interested in my offer just let me know and I will send you a discount code that a winner can use to download any template set or Template Wizard for free.

Here is a little about Template Wizard:

The Template Wizard quickly guides you through the process of creating or modifying SolidWorks® templates. In just 8 steps you can have consistent, high-quality templates that follow Best Practices. The Template Wizard helps you with:

•                    Border Design
•                    Title Block Design
•                    Title Block Hot Zone (2009+)
•                    Units and Tolerances
•                    Anchors
•                    Fonts
•                    Document Properties
•                    Property Tab Templates

Template Wizard also has a new feature, the Update Wizard. It will traverse assemblies and folders looking for drawings that meet your criteria and update them according to your needs.

Regards,
Kevin Van Liere

I did reply and we will have a code to give away to some fortunate person.  He sent me a brochure with more info – let me know if you would like a copy.

SolidWorks World 2011:

Registration is now open for SWW 2011 in San Antonio, Texas.  Go to http://www.solidworks.com/swworld2011/ and sign up now to take advantage of the $200 discount.  And don’t forget, if you submit a presentation and are chosen, there is no fee.

Employment:

I received an email 3 weeks ago about a company in the KC area looking for SW help.  I don’t know if it has been filled, but let me know if you want more info.

As many of you know, we sometimes have some group members that are looking for work, whether part time or full time.  If you happen to be one that has work to offer, please keep this group in mind.  Just let me know and I will pass the word.

Food: (Always good)
The menu has not been set yet, so if you have a hankering for something, let me know.  Suggestions?

Location:
If you go to www.mapquest.com and put in the address, it has a good map for you.  In general, ASI is down the hill from the stadiums at 47th St. & Raytown Road.

Mark your calendars and plan on attending. Remember, the meetings are always good information, good company, and good food.  Talk to your co-workers and suggest they also attend.  As usual, please reply to this email with your confirmation of attendance so we know how much food to have on hand.

If you know of people that are not receiving these emails and should/want to, let me know.  And if you know of people that have moved, make sure they keep me updated.

Wayne Tiffany

President