The Virtual Engineer

Google Chrome-esque OS is the future!!

Derrek Cooper — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:54:00 +0000

Always a bit surprised how much debate there is on defining “the cloud”. I suppose there are various ways it can be defined. To me its simple it is “working and living on the internet“. Using applications that are hosted on the web and storing and sharing files that are hosted as well with the ability to access them from wherever, whenever. Plain and simple.

Google is hitting the nail square on the head with Chrome OS or Chromium or whatever they want to call it. Here is an explanation..

I love the idea. Whether it is Google or someone else, I love the whole concept of being connected and interacting with applications on the web. I have been preaching it for awhile now and see it as the future. At least for me. There are clearly applications near and dear to me that require a local installation- for now.

I feel like I am working in a hybrid environment of web based and local. I have a netbook that has a 16GB hard drive (SSD), so I use web based applications as much as possible. Not only to save space, but plain and simple I want to be able to access them from wherever, whenever.

95% of my time on my netbook, I am using a single application – Firefox! I leverage a handful of addons and other applications to access my data.. Such, as..

Gmail – for personal email
Outlook web access – for work email
Evernote web – for all of my evernote data (although web exp isnt the best)
Dropbox web- for all my work data
Echofon- FF twitter addon that sits in the taskbar
Identifox- FF indenti.ca addon that sits in the taskbar
Mozilla Weave- FF addon for synching all of my FF activities
Google docs for basic word proc & spreadsheets
Visual Studio web access – for dev-based activities for work
Lala- to play my entire music library
Hulu for tv/movies

Ok, I think you get the idea. I.m sure there are others that I am missing.

Right now, my biggest struggle is having a “web-based music mgmt” program. Lala is great for uploading and purchasing, but not for managing mp3 players or downloading, once its been uploaded. I’m pretty amazed that someone hasn’t jumped on this. Seems like a logical perpetual revenue stream. I would love to be able to access my music, download, transfer it to my own machines (realize that policing this isn’t easy) but I am willing to pay for it. I hate itunes and think that songbird, banshee and others could pick up significant share of the party if they hook this up. I hate lugging my music around and transferring it from machine to machine.

Anyway, a bit of a rant here on a Sunday…

Are you part of a community or sheeple??!?

Derrek Cooper — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:10:00 +0000

I heard the term sheeple the other day. Not sure why I found the term so funny. The bluntness of it, was what I found most endearing. Got me thinking of the difference between community members and sheeple.

I have been engaged with the Art of Community by Jono Bacon lately. Really great book that gives a wide and specific perspective of life in a “community”. One of the many points the really hit me was what draws people to communities is “…a sense of belonging”. I never thought of it before, but its spot on. Community can mean many different things to you, could be a gardening club, neighborhood civic assoc, technical user group..whatever. But what draws you to these “organized groups”? One could argue its simply for information on a given topic. Could be surrounding yourself with people of similar interests. But, I think if you dive into it a bit, you will find Jono’s onto something. You may have a small sense of belonging or you could be massively involved (borderline “needy”).

I look at “sheeple” quite differently. It takes a sense of decision and commitment to become a community member. It takes very little to “just go with the flow”. In fact, sheeple tend to throw off the curve of creativity, in my opinion. They follow the “norm”, the “way” things are done.

Proud to say, I’m far from sheeple. Doesn’t mean I won’t try something that others are doing, even the masses. But, I pride myself on being open minded and trying very hard to establish an opinion.

I’m a proud member of a number of “communities” – from music, to various technology forums and groups to local neighborhood activities. It’s fun being surrounded by people that are passionate, free thinkers and all have a common interest to make “that thing we all love” better.

How about you?

Festival 8 was awesome, and I wasn’t even there.

Derrek Cooper — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:50:00 +0000

Phish announced that they were planning a 3-day outdoor festival on Halloween weekend, I figured, chances of attending was a bit of a long-shot. But a father of two little ones can always dream.

But, I have to say the “virtual experience” has been nothing but stellar from the beginning. I’ll spare you my opinion on the band and love of the entire experience of what it means to be a fan. But thought I’d share how they are simply doing things different. They are one of the few organizations/companies that have truly embraced the web and social media exactly right. It started off with this “commercial” that was released via twitter and facebook.

PHISH – FALL TOUR 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

They then began the countdown of locations by releasing this “save the date” map. Making it fun to speculate where the festival would be held. The map was kept up to date by eliminating the locations until it was announced that it was in Indio, CA. Of course, continuously updating via Facebook and Twitter.

Halloween is usually a big event for Phish as they historically, perform in musical costume, by covering an entire album of another band. They have played the likes of the Beatles, the Who, Velvet Underground and others. So over the course of the last few weeks, they provided a really clever 100 possible countdown. The winner was the Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St. I listened to it today and it is solid.

For those middle aged family guys, like myself, we were fortunate enough to be kept up to date via Twitter. The main Phish tweets were provided, thanks to…

@PHISH
@YEMblog
@CoventryMusic
@phishtube

There was word that a radio station, the bunny, out in CA would be streaming the show. Not sure exactly what happened, but Live Phish ended up squaring us pretty well with the stream of the show live as well as the option to pay to download.

As far as visuals- I relied on Flickr. Both Phishfromtheroad and a fan, Das38 have posted some pretty amazing shots. Surely not as cool as U2 streaming from LA, but there were a few videos posted to You Tube.

Why bother reading this? This is a clear solid example of how utilizing the web, social media and the tools that exist today can change the way that people think of entertainment.

Why should we care? It strengthens the tribe. I was one of a few thousand people that did not attend, but did everything I could to virtually be there including paying for the set in its entirety. A great example how a website, twitter, flickr, you tube all were used in conjunction perfectly.

I am anxious to see how others will embrace technology to satisfy a massive market of fans that are remote. I’ll see you boys in 3 weeks in Philly for both shows.

Looking for a CFdesign Product Evangelist

Derrek Cooper — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:42:00 +0000

Really psyched to announce that we are looking for a real out of the box thinker to fill a position as a Product Marketing Manager. This is a unique opportunity to work in a young, fast paced environment. We define the cliche of work hard, play hard.

If you have a solid understanding of the CAE software space and want to join a team that is redefining the way companies look and interact with CFD, send us your goods and lets talk.

If Design is all about change; why are engineers reluctant to follow suit?

Derrek Cooper — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:27:00 +0000

Design is all about “what-if” and tweaking and changing and modifying. As engineers, we love to get in and sketch out a concept and run a calculation, tweak a CAD model, alter something in the testing lab to give us what we want.

But yet, engineers are inherently resistant to change. Seems contradictory to me.

It never ceases to amaze me, when talking to engineers that this trait is extremely common. Albeit, mostly in the “older generation” of engineers. Before you take offense, let me shed a bit of light. I think the 45+ engineers simply didn’t have as much choice as newbie engineers of today. So, they are reluctant to change because it isn’t a part of their DNA. I think the generation before them was probably even worse.

There is a comfort level in doing what is known and trusting “the way we do it”. This way has been tested and tweaked and “perfected” over the last 50 years. So, that is how we do it. Are you content with that? Ever feel like it could be improved? Ever question what “old guy Joe” set as the standard in the 1970s and no one has questioned it since? If so, do your homework, propose change- it’s healthy. You will get push back, for sure. But in the end, if you feel strongly enough and your proposal is solid, you will be a hero.

Today’s engineers are all about change, adapting, instant info, things moving at the speed of sound. So, they will come in with some way out ideas and super over excited about their ideas. But the facebook, twitter, google, web generation of engineers are bright. They are coming out of school in droves. They don’t know enough to know it all, just yet. But give them time and listen to their ideas.

Typically, I tend to preach about CAD or CFD or some other specific area. But this plea can be in anything that you work on today. Don’t make a massive project out of it, but look to improve and change and listen for the good of the company/project/team/product, whatever.

If you are sitting there shaking your head as a non-believer of change. I respectively, say, step aside there is a new generation of engineers out there that will pass you by in a matter of time.

Are you settling for status-quo in your MCAD system?

Derrek Cooper — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:07:00 +0000

Do you remember the days prior to having 3D MCAD? What drove you to making the 3D investment? Do the words– parametric, feature-driven, top-down design, associativity ring a bell? How about the concept of “collision detection”? Imagine a 2D drawing updating on the fly as you changed a parameter in 3D. All of the above seemed fairly revolutionary 10-15 years ago. Now, simply, status quo.

Over the years, MCAD has evolved to way more than status quo. The question is — have you? I am not talking about bells and whistle evolution. I am talking about serious productivity enhancements.

Do you make parts that are similar? Do you struggle “re-using” previous designs? Do you find yourself trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? Do you just accept “rebuild errors” as status quo?

I received an interesting email yesterday discussing whether or not the person was going to upgrade to the latest version of their CAD system. By the way, they were FOUR releases back. I doubt it was this particular engineer’s idea not to upgrade. But, I am blown away by the reluctance of companies to not stay current or at least reasonably current with the latest and greatest coming from the vendor they CHOSE??? I am the first to recognize that upgrading takes some time, money etc. But, are you truly weighing the benefits of not upgrading?

Let’s say you are a widget maker.

Are you spending alot of time re-designing? Do you have to start from scratch or are your models built with lots of intelligence so changes are not an issue?
Are you leveraging configurations, macros, design tables?
Do you leverage CAD part attributes for material properties, mass property analysis etc?
Is Upfront CAE just part of the daily process? Or are you spending the time ,it would take to implement this properly, physically testing your stuff because “that’s what we do”?
Are you communicating design ideas and intent via lightweight viewers (every CAD system has them) across your entire organization?
Are you tracking and documenting the lifecycle of your products? Before we talk lifecycle- how about solid revision control and a bone-simple solid ECO system?

I could go on forever. I ask all that are content to stay “status quo“, how long do you think you can hold out? My thought would be to push your engineers to strive to thrive!!! Get them to own it and push them to embrace the tools that you invested in. If you have wrong tool, don’t be afraid to own up and make a plan to fix it.

Time for reflection

Derrek Cooper — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:34:00 +0000

img_0792.jpg
Originally uploaded by derrekcooper

This year has been a fairly slow blogging year for me. Many reasons, many excuses. But, I am back in the saddle, I am more committed than ever.

I am in the process of migrating to WordPress from Blogger. Why, not exactly sure why, but I am making the move regardless.

I have been fortunate enough to be spending this week at the beach with my family. I have no work computer with me, just my little netbook. The web surfing I have done is based on interest, not work.

I have spent many hours with my kids, many long walks with my dogs and a fair amount of time —just relaxing.

Exciting few months we have ahead at blue ridge. Stay tunes, tons of really cool stuff coming.

Where does "open source" fit in the CAE space?

Derrek Cooper — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:44:00 +0000

As the market sits today, unfortunately, I don’t see an immediate fit for free open source software (FOSS) having a huge impact on the CAE market. It could have some, but not huge. I think the reasons are due to the shear size of the market, complexity of the software, size of the developer community and the accountability of the developed code. Big claims, so let me provide a bit more.

The size of the CAE market is on the size of 10s of thousands to 100s of thousands at the absolute most. The size of those that actually have the time/skills to actively develop is a few % of that. Plus, the culture and expectations of the user community is one of dependence on the commercial vendors to handle everything. There hasn’t been an outcry by the user community to provide “the source” or allow access to the internals. In fact, the outcry is usually the exact opposite. The expectations from the user community are immensely high in that they want to adopt a new way of product development (ie simulation), but.. they expect it…

To be super simple to use and implement
Extremely accurate with minimal user input
Reasonably priced
Fantastic support

Surely not claiming that the shear size and complexity of CAE software is the barrier to a FOSS model. I am claiming that the size of the market and the early stages of mass adoption are the limiting factors right now. There is simply not enough demand and resources out there to really make it work across the board.

The CAE space is very competitive and many people still view it as “nice to have”. Until it is mainstream and on the critical path, it will be difficult to see a vendor making the big leap into the wide open world of FOSS.

I am a big fan of the FOSS model in mass adopted applications – firefox, thunderbird, ubuntu, banshee etc… Would love to hear an argument how to take a very competitive, “niche” product like FEA or CFD and make a business model that can survive as FOSS.

Would love to hear alternative arguments to this.

Why aren’t you leveraging CFD?

Derrek Cooper — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Now is the time to vent!?! Ask yourself the following…

Do I design products where fluid flow is a design variable?
Do I design products that I have to worry about heating or cooling?
Am I spending alot of time and $$$ in the physical prototyping phase?
Have we traditionally over-engineered products and a change is needed?
Are my products failing in the field? If so, how much $$ is this truly costing?

I realize that many have considered, investigated and even tried dabbling in the world of CFD. I am really interested to hear your thoughts on the barriers.

Like any technology, it can be a bit overwhelming at first. But there are people in the world that can help. Would like to see some comments from the heart on concerns/successes/failures…

I promise, its not as scary as you might think. No obligation whatsoever, but if you are interested in seeing what CFD can look like in today’s world, check out…. CFdesign 2010

Are you maximizing your CFD investment?

Derrek Cooper — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Something I have been passionate about for the last 12 years or so is helping companies implement CFD into their development environment. Easy, right? I have come to accept that some people get it and others really struggle.The guys that get it are a blast to work with as they want to be successful and are open to change.

The guys that struggle can be a challenge, but can be some of the most rewarding folks to work with. Not much better than watching folks evolve and grasp a new technology that will turbo boost them past their competitors.

I have spoken to countless engineers all over the world that have a bad feeling about CFD. They either struggled in the past, don’t feel up to it or are being restricted by management to embrace it properly.

Check out my buddy, Jeff’s spot on blog post on embracing the business impact of CFD simulation. If you read this and are still a skeptic, that’s cool. Stick to physical testing and hang tight as your competition evolves and leaves you behind.