Issue #89: 5 January, 1998

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    Happy New Year from upFront.eZine!

    "Reality means seeing the way it is,
    not the way we want it to be."
     -- Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric


    CADMAX v8.0

    CADMAX v8, from Cadmax, features these enhancements:  For a Test Drive CD-ROM of CADMAX Solid Master and ParaDraft, call +1 (410) 532-2802.
     
    Hansen Version 7 Suite
    The Hansen Version 7 product line, from Hansen Information Technologies, is an infrastructure management solutions for
    municipal and utility clients. Hansen designs, develops, markets and supports packaged enterprise-wide client/server
    municipal management software used to help manage the assets of cities, local governments and investor-owned utilities.
    The company supports over 1,500 installations worldwide.

    OVSoftware is the European business partner, selling the product to Dutch and German utilities and
    municipalities. OVSoftware is a systems integrator and software developer based in Oldenzaal, The Netherlands, with
    offices in Germany. More info from <teugelink@ovsoftware.nl>.
     


    Publishing News

    The Canadian "AutoCAD User" magazine has been sold to Kerwill Publications, the Canadian publisher of "CAD
    Systems" magazine.

     Arnie Williams is the now the Executive Editor of Cadence magazine. Roopinder Tara continues as Editor-in-
    Chief. The rest of the Cadence editorial staff now reports to Mr. Williams, formerly a writer at Autodesk.

     The CAD staff of Delmar Publishers and the Autodesk Press staff have merged into one unit. The move is designed
    to help communication and improve marketing. Meanwhile, Autodesk Press has become the sole book publishing partner
    of Autodesk, after Autodesk announced the termination of its relationship with publisher Addison Wesley Longman.


    Above the Crowd

    A monthly publication focusing on the evolution and economics of high technology business and strategy. To be
    placed on the email distribution list, send email to <listserv@dispatch.cnet.com> with the following in the
    message body: subscribe atc-dispatch.


    CAD and Internet News Headlines

    Autodesk
    WHIP v3.0 viewer now available and now supports paperspace.

    Imagineer
    The Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the comp.cad.imagineer newsgroup is on again. The text for the
    RFD can be found at:
    ftp://www.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/
    then select the file comp.cad.imagineer

    IMSI
    The Beta program for Visual CADD 3.0 is now officially open. Log on to http://www.imsisoft.com/forums.html to become a
    beta tester and download the latest beta version of this 2D design drafting program for Microsoft Windows 95/NT.

    LightWork
    LightWork Design introduced a new family of rendering and
    utility plug-ins for QuickDraw 3D.

    PMTC
    Parametric Technology received US$3.8million order for software and services from Seiko Epson of Japan, as well as
    a $1.2million order from Bang & Olufsen A/S.

    SDRC
    SDRC's I-DEAS Master Series software won 'DesignNews' magazine computer productivity tools award for 1997.

    R13/R14 DWG Quick Viewer
    Drawing QuickVewer provides integrated quick viewing of AutoCAD R14 and R13 drawing files within the Windows File
    Explorer. This freeware Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95 utility does not require AutoCAD to be installed or running.


    Market News

    Microsoft stock fell to a seven-month low over the Christmas-New Year's week as investors grew concerned about
    the bad publicity generated by the company in its battle with US antitrust regulators.

    In its SEC filing, Visio reported the following 1997 revenues for its product line:


    The WorthWhile Web

    http://www.softseek.com
    SoftSeek
    A nice collection of shareware, including the crucial RegClean for cleaning up your computer's Windows Registry
    (no longer available at the Microsoft Web site, since it crashes Windows 95 when Explorer v4.0 is installed).

    http://www.conitech.com/windows
    Frank Condron's World O' Windows
    In addition to other info, this site lists hardware driver updates for 810 vendors. Amazing!

    http://www.news.com/Perspectives/perspectives.html?nd
    Crushed by Microsoft
    The true, first-person story of how Microsoft crushed a small, British 3D graphics software developer.


    Book Review by Ralph Grabowski

    Dictionary of Acronyms and Technical Abbreviations by Jakob Vlietstra

    Subtitled, "for IT, Industrial, and Scientific Applications," this 4cm-thick (1-1/2") book lists 32,000
    abbreviations. The abbreviations are listed alphabetically but I like the layout of the book: the top of every right-
    hand page lists -- in large, 22pt type -- the range of abbreviations listed on the two facing pages. Thus, page 369
    ranges from MIP (Manual Improvement Process) to mksa (meter, kilometer, second, ampere).

     Author Vlietstra's task of collecting 32,000 acronyms is astounding. I know, because seven year ago I collected
    400 acronyms for an appendix in my "The AutoCAD Technical Reference" book -- and I thought that was a pretty long list!

     From this book, I found out that Univac is short for "universal automatic computer" (I only I could own one of
    those!<g>) and that YODA is short for "young opinionated directionless artists". When an abbreviation is specific to
    a country, the two-letter country code follows. Naturally, those country codes are listed in the book, too. The only
    thing missing is a diskette that would let me load those 32,000 abbreviations into my word processor's spell checker.


    Brand New CAD and Internet Books

    InfoEdge has published a report covering all aspects of Internet and intranet technology and management issues.
    Titled "Internet and Intranets: Main Road or Detour on the Path to an IT Strategy?", key features are sample Internet
    Policy and Information Disclosure sections, which companies can copy and adapt to their own needs. Price is US$1,295 in
    book and CD-ROM format. More info from <jwhitney@info-edge.com>.


    Letters to the Editor

    "Hello Mr. UpFront, I really love reading your weekly column. Your help in CAD info-data reduction is greatly
    appreciated."
     -- DW

    "A number of folks here at Autodesk have recommended your newsletter."
     -- IH


    Notable Quotable

    "In the 1990s, two million more Americans moved from metro centers to rural areas than migrated the other way."
     -- Time magazine, 8 Dec'97


    Contact!

    All contents copyright XYZ Publishing, Ltd. Inc., 1998 and all rights are reserved. No material may be reproduced electronically or in print without written permission from XYZ Publishing, PO Box 3053, Sumas WA, 98295-3053, unless otherwise noted.