Maybe!

Richard, I have to agree with Box when he says the first comes aver as "Hi from Tech Homes" rather than Hitech homes.

I'd be for morphing the existing a little more.

The black over block shape that encompasses the house / home at the same time gives the impression of seriousness and solidness which is good.

The house / home shape is suggested not outlined, which is also good as it could be any house / home, possibly the clients house / home.

I take it that the orange upright rectangle graphically represents the hitech element to be incorporated in the house / home, fair enough.

The company name 'HiTechHomes' is what it is but I think the gray colour of the 'Tech' word should in some way be brought into the graphic logo, possibly as an inner / smaller grey rectangle.

Mike

Hi Guys,

I'm interested to learn what background colour others are using for SketchUp. I find a white background very severe on my eyes and have normally opted for a light green.

Lately I have been trying other alternatives and think what I call soft peach works better

Mike

I thought I'd start a thread on new computers, laptops and slates that are coming on stream and keep it updated. I'd gladly welcome any updates from others also.

I used to love working on my 17" laptop screens and it took a while to get used to the smaller 15" screen that I now have with the BMP Retina.

I have just noticed that Dell have introduced an interesting hybrid laptop, the New Inspiron 17 7000 2-in-1. This package ticks all the right boxes with its 17" screen, sixth generation Intel Core i7 processor, up to 16 GB RAM and either a 1 TB HDD or a 512 GB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics card with 2GB ram , a USB Type-C port, a single USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 port, alongside an HDMI-out slot. The only downside is the 1080p resolution, which comes out to a low 130 PPI.

Maybe this resolution would not be such as problem as even though I have very high resolution available on the MBP Retina I don't always have it set to such.

The starting price looks enticing at $900, maybe enough to soften the lack of high resolution http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-17-7778-2-in-1-laptop/pd?oc=dncwscb6106b%26amp;model_id=inspiron-17-7778-2-in-1-laptop

Mike

@driven said:

It's in the shop…

the driver caused a kernel panic, when I shut down after failing to run it's Uninstaller.app…

it may well be the straw that broke the camels back, as opposed to being fully responsible…

if they can recover the drive, it should have log info to help work out what happened…

otherwise it's some very expensive data recovery attempt…

john

Hopefully you will be able to get your data back. I am now wondering if I should look around and see if its possible to get a good deal for SketchUcation members when it comes to cloud backup.

I was stumped only for the stuff I had in the cloud.

Mike

@driven said:

unfortunately, after testing with the new driver successfully in SU, I noticed an overall slowdown of my entire system…

it continued getting worse, so I tried uninstalling the driver and it locked up my system…

in fact it wiped it out…

I can't boot that mac up after 3 hrs with apple trying to help…

it has all my SU dev work on it, so I hope it's recoverable at a reasonable cost...

I should of sold the ****** thing…

john

Thats terrible news John.

I hope you manage to get up and running again. It would be worth finding out what the incompatible issues are / were.

I had a computer lock up while in New Zealand a few months ago. I could not pin point what caused it other than an app which I had just loaded. Fortunately I had cloud backup and retrieved the files I needed along with the junk that had been stored over the past few years.

Please keep us posted.

Mike

@driven said:

sorry for the thread hi-jack Mike...

john

No problem John. Glad to see John M was able to put you on the right track.

I wonder is there an app that keeps an eye on installed drivers and updates them automatically when new versions become available?

Mike

I've been looking at smart watches over the weekend I was amazed at the number available these days.

I was quite impressed with the IMACWEAR M7 SMART WATCH PHONE http://www.imacwear.com/imacwear-m7/ as it ticked most the boxes for me and could to a large degree eliminate the need to have the cell phone to hand 24/7.

I really like the built in camera as I feel I'd never miss a photo opportunity again Now if I could located a smart watch that has this feature built in https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shock-clock-wakeup-trainer-never-hit-snooze-again--2/x/286680#/

Mike

The untidy wires are bugging me so I designed a simple wire tidier that I'm thinking about having 3D printed.

I stumbled across 3D Printing Price Comparison and it looks like Sculpteo is offering the best price. https://3d-printing-price.all3dp.com

Very realistic

@ntxdave said:

@mike lucey said:

I've had an update from Matt at Packed Pixels and he advises that they are launching a new design in c couple of weeks and at this time we will have a discount Promo Code for Premium Members.

Thanks for sharing all of this information Mike.

Are there any plans to support HDMI?

I have a 17" ASUS laptop and think this could be a neat addition so that I can move the SketchUp trays to the side and have more room to work on my model but HDMI is the only video port I have.

Dave,

I'll ask Matt about HDMI support and revert.

Mike

@mo53ley said:

@box said:

Thanks Mike but its not about me and one discount, it's the huge market out here that they seem to be ignoring.

Hi guys, John from 3Dconnexion here. We're not ignoring Australia / SE Asia but we don't have resources to put someone in place there yet (including a webshop operation). Our first webshop outside Europe / US will open in Japan soon.

One of my colleagues (UK based) is responsible for most of our "emerging markets" (basically anything outside Europe and the US). This includes Australia and he tells me we have a couple of really good resellers over there (Digital3D and LEAP).

Kind regards

John

Thanks for rowing in John and updating on Oz and Asia sales outlets.

Mike

@driven said:

hi Mike,
do you ever encounter the massive memory leak that locks up SU when using 3Dconnexion products?

@John,

the mac plugin is badly implemented, can't be 'turned off' and only recourse is to remove all it's files...

my SpaceMouse sit's unused in it's box...

john

Hi John,

I am not experiencing any 'memory leak' problems when operating the 3Dconnexion devices. The MBPR has 16Gb onboard and I also use the MemoryPro do app.

Mike

I've had an update from Matt at Packed Pixels and he advises that they are launching a new design in c couple of weeks and at this time we will have a discount Promo Code for Premium Members.

Box, I've emailed John at 3Dconnexion and will report back on anything he advises.

@box said:

An excellent writeup Mike.
I can't be without mine now.
But 3dconnexion need to do something about the rest of the world sales.
There was no option to buy from them, and get the discount, for me in Australia or South east asia when I bought mine.
Which makes them very expensive in this part of the world.

Thanks Box. The setup pics don't have the expert photographer touch but at least it shows things as they are in the 'real world'.

That's a bummer about not getting the discount in Oz. I'll email the 3Dconnexion guys and see if there is anything that can be done on this.

Mike

.... nearly forgot! The fifth part of the combo is the CadMouse Pad.

Not all mouse pads are equal! I find the CadMouse Pad to be the smoothest I have used so far, probably due to the 'high-quality micro-textured coating'

Hi Guys,

I'm getting quite a few comments, all good, about my home laptop setup so I thought I'd take a pic and post here.

[attachment=1:8avinby1]<!-- ia1 -->3Dconnexion SpaceMouse, CadMouse & Packed Pixel Setup.png<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:8avinby1]

As you can see I'm on a 15" MBPR and I am using 3Dconnexion's SpaceMouse on the left and CadMouse on the right. The extra screen real estate is being provided by two Packed Pixels, one horizontal and the other vertical.

The setup works well for me particularly when 3D-ing. The CadMouse has become a natural extension to my right hand. Initially I was slightly skeptical about the full palm on position as I had been used to working with a smaller mouse which I operated using a pencil grip but I now find that even after hours working with the CadMouse my hand does not suffer the finger / wrist cramps as I was getting with the smaller mouse.

The SpaceMouse works well with the CadMouse and operating the two in unisons takes no more than a few minutes to get used to. The combo's resulting ease of 3D positioning and creation has really speeded things up for me and no finger / wrist fatigue is definitely an added bonus.

[attachment=0:8avinby1]<!-- ia0 -->SpaceMouse & CadMouse being operated.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:8avinby1]

The only niggle I have with my current overall setup is that there is a lot of wires involved. The SpaceMouse is a Wireless version so no problem there. The CadMouse as yet is only available in wired mode but I believe they are working on a wireless model. The Packed Pixels require Thunderbolt / Display Port and UBS connections for each unit. I think a lightweight and possibly portable docking station would tidy things up. I'll keep you posted.

There is a 20% discount for all SketchUcation members on 3Dconnexion devices. Details may be had here, http://sketchucation.com/resources/3dconnexion-resources and if you are feeling lucky you could win a 3Dconnexion device by becoming a SketchUcation Premium Member (link below).

I am also talking to the Packed Pixel guys about discount for our members and expect to have details in a week or so. I will post details on this thread. In the meantime if you can't wait, Pack Pixels may be found here, Packed Pixels

Mike

The words 'good' and 'Russian Car Design' were never two words I would have used in the same sentence but after reading about Malyshev Alexander's, OneDoorCar, the Mirrow Provocator, I might be about to change my mind.

This 2.7 m (8.86 ft) long and 1.98 m (6.5 ft) wide 'city car' ticks a lot of the boxes when it comes to what a family car should be.

Check out the full details and more images here,
Russian city car leaves convention behind
http://www.gizmag.com/mirrow-provocator-city-car/43303/pictures?thumb=true#picture9

Well said Edson

I discovered SketchUp during the 2000 Christmas holidays and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread ...... and it was and still is

And here is a pic of me with the two guys we can thank for SketchUp, Joe Esch and Brad Schell at the Googleplex 3D Basecamp. I have no idea what I was snarling at or Brad was shying away from in the pic. Joe seemed to be accepting what ever it was.

Mike