Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
While I am semi-comfortably seated on my United Airlines flight and traversing all three North-American time zones on my way back to Massachusetts, it’s time to recap what happened at the 2011 Google Geo User Summit United States over the last two and a half days*. Overall summary: Wow, was that ever great fun!!! If […] Read more..
[iframe http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/mini?mid=56c9046a3eb868278a124f4737362fcd&etyp=im&width=400&height=300 420 340] One of the greatest benefits of having a 3D modeler like SketchUp is that creating and sharing explorable representations of real-world objects is extremely easy. It was therefore just a matter of time before Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad appeared on Google Earth. So before the real building gets taken […] Read more..
I frequently get asked how to set up a small-ish CMS-driven (CMS = Content Management System) website for research groups or other entities. Many of these people have learned that maintaining a static website the “old-fashioned way” (e.g. using Dreamweaver) presents a variety of problems – mainly related to inconsistent content or collaborative editing problems. These issues […] Read more..
Now that everyone has had a chance to get to know the new features of SketchUp 8 (like the new solid tools), it is a good time to look at what may be in store for the next release – presumably version #9. Fortunately, as with the last release, a recent survey on Google’s website queried […] Read more..
If a mathematical algorithm based on statistics creates wisdom, then it must be true… maybe. The following run-on sentences were found by Google Scribe by starting with entering a two-word combination and then just pressing return to accept the most likely follow-up words. Some fun. I am stumped by what Google means by “I despise […] Read more..
Just in time for today’s beginning of Google’s Basecamp user meeting (an “unconference” in their words), Google released the eighth iteration of SketchUp, their hugely popular 3D modeling application. This version comes with a few enhancements to satisfy both user bases: Geo-modelers (who create buildings and objects for Google Earth) and planners/designers (who model all […] Read more..
I have blogged about Autodesk’s new online offering – Project Butterfly – before, but today, Tal Weiss, former co-founder of VisualTao and now Senior Software Development Manager with Autodesk, gave me an interesting presentation of the collaboration features that have been added recently. With more than 25,000 documents already uploaded into the system, Autodesk wants […] Read more..