b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Thursday, August 4, 2005
Amazing On Demand Manufacturing
If you’re worried sick about all the outsourcing to China, losing sleep over the wholesale shift of manufacturing jobs to the Asia-Pacific region, and constantly banging your head on the wailing wall of “free” trade please have a look at the future – www.emachineshop.com.
A friend in the modeling business pointed me to this site and it is, in a word, amazing. If you’ve ever tried to have any custom manufacturing done you know what a nightmare it is just to get someone to quote your project. Getting it approved – i.e. making sure it can actually be done the way you want it done – is nearly impossible. It doesn’t matter where you do it – here, Singapore, China, wherever – it’s all the same. One giant, expensive, unreliable pain in the ass.
CAD programs made it possible to design complex objects via computer. CNC machines made it possible for those drawings to become complete machining instructions. 3D printers made it possible to build accurate models without investing in tooling and dies. But none of these things were connected in a way that helped the small innovator get to market. And none were especially affordable.CAD programs are renowned for their steep learning curves and hideous license fees. 3D printers still run close to a half-million dollars. And getting a CNC shop to talk to you about your small project? Priceless.
eMachineShop has automated this error-prone process and removed the need for human intervention in the frustrating estimate/quote/approve cycle. They provide a free, – yes, free – CAD program you can use to design your project. When you submit the drawings you get an automatic approval. If the machine you want to use can’t do the job you get suggestions on how to change it. You can do one, or thousands. And you get a quote right away. You can do what-if scenarios to your heart’s content and no snarky sales guy is going to bitch about your changes.
I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing – this CAD software must be crap. Well, eMachineShop is the brainchild of Jim Lewis, founder of Micro Logic Corp. and developer of the venerable PIM Info Select.His software is not crap. And this idea could change everything. All kinds of niche products become viable, and the information gap between regular people with ideas and manufacturing specialists with access just got crushed. This is what happens when smart software people put their minds to things, and it’s why all the moaning about outsourcing and China may be moot in the long run.
I can already think of at least two dozen people who, with a few thousand dollars, can now launch new businesses around cool ideas they’ve had for years. If you ever had a product idea but didn’t know where to begin you owe it to yourself to check out eMachineShop.com
Terry Frazier at 10:13 AM
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Thursday, May 5, 2005
Update on Skype Performance Issues
I got some help from Skype tech support on the CPU usage issue. In addition the list of conflicting programs listed on the Skype site, I was instructed to turn off the built-in speech recognition function in Windoze:Also, be sure to turn off Windows XP speech recognition feature. The speech recognition engine kicks in when you begin a call and can cause your CPU to run at 100%. Turn off the speech recognition by opening the Control Panel and selecting Regional and Language Options. On the Languages tab, under Text services and input languages, click Details. Under Installed services, click Voice Recognition under the language you are using, and then click Remove.
I didn't even know this was on, and removing it did make a significant difference in performance. Skype still hogs CPU at logon, and whenever I initiate new activites, but it doesn't seem to hang during calls, or when I send an IM during a call. I tested it for about 15 minutes this afternoon and results were acceptable.
Terry Frazier at 5:54 PM
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Monday, April 18, 2005
Personal Productivity Tools
Helpful personal productivity tools and add-ons from Jack Vinson. Theres several here I already use and some others that sound quite useful.
Some other tools in my space
I wrote a few days ago about my PKM System, where I focused on email and file management, and I discussed some of the flow of my work. There are some other tools in my suite that help me with the flow of my work: anagram, BlogJet, Movable Type, MindManager, Outclass, AddEmailAddress, Firefox, AdAware, SmartList to Go, Flickr, Skype and emacs. Details below the fold. [...More]
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