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Devon T. Sowell
Carlsbad, CA
I am a SolidWorks & PDM Consultant
Interests: reading, computers, exercising, traveling, hanging out with my family
Recent Activity
Jon is a visionary and he has pulled off many amazing accomplishments. Good luck in the future.
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 13, 2011 on Farewell and best wishes to Jon Hirschtick at The SolidWorks Blog
Farewell and best wishes to Jon Hirschtick
Early last week, SolidWorks founder Jon Hirschtick let employees know that he has decided to step back from SolidWorks and begin the next phase of his career. From the first days of the company (when it was known as Winchester Design Systems), Jon has embodied the SolidWorks philosophy of focus...
Perhaps a single track in the rear with steering in the front, skids or wheels. Think snowmobile.
Look for photos of WWII jeeps that had 4 driven wheels in the back with removable tracks and front steerable wheels.
Cheers,
Devon
Commented Jun 2, 2011 on Designing the hot rod baby buggy: your help needed! at The SolidWorks Blog
Designing the hot rod baby buggy: your help needed!
The Let’s Go Design team is moving full steam ahead on our third project, the Hot Rod Baby Buggy, and we're starting to design bigger pieces of the stroller. But there are always challenges when you're developing a new product, and our team is no exception. Currently, we have a situation that we...
Retractable wheels seems like a good idea, polymer wheels perhaps.
A more complicated idea is a a clutch that could be disengaged so the tracks would disconnect from the motor and freewheel.
Devon Sowell
Commented Jun 1, 2011 on Designing the hot rod baby buggy: your help needed! at The SolidWorks Blog
Designing the hot rod baby buggy: your help needed!
The Let’s Go Design team is moving full steam ahead on our third project, the Hot Rod Baby Buggy, and we're starting to design bigger pieces of the stroller. But there are always challenges when you're developing a new product, and our team is no exception. Currently, we have a situation that we...
That's an ambitious project, for sure wow.
Devon Sowell
Commented May 20, 2011 on Recreating the U.S.S. Missouri with help from SolidWorks at The SolidWorks Blog
Recreating the U.S.S. Missouri with help from SolidWorks
I recently learned about an interesting project we're sponsoring here at SolidWorks. It's the work of a gentleman named Donn McKinney, who hails from Yorba Linda, California. Donn is a fan of the World War II-era Iowa-class battlships built for the United States Navy, and he has decided to att...
Interesting, thanks for posting.
Devon Sowell
Commented Mar 17, 2011 on Celebrating the Patron Saint of...Engineering? at The SolidWorks Blog
Celebrating the Patron Saint of...Engineering?
In my short tenure at SolidWorks I have learned that more things are connected to engineering than I ever thought possible. Take St. Patrick’s Day. I could tell you about all the beer mugs or beer taps or Irish products designed with SolidWorks, but that would be expected. But, did you know that...
I'll always remember Jeff Ray calling and leaving me a message. Was he upset with something I posted on my blog? Nope, he called me to apologize for a reported bug in a service pack, I was blown away. Later, I got to know him better and he always was a first class act.
Devon Sowell
Commented Feb 10, 2011 on Jeff Ray: A Gentleman Walks Off the Stage at The CAD Insider
Jeff Ray: A Gentleman Walks Off the Stage
Jeff Ray introduced the new CEO in front of thousands gathered in San Antonio, Texas, at SolidWorks' big annual bash. Until recently, Jeff had been CEO. This was the last time Jeff would address the users this way. He is moving on to a new position at Dassault Systemes, the mother ship, as EVP o...
Congratulations and good luck Jeff. See you at SolidWorks World.
Devon Sowell
SolidWorks Partner
Commented Jan 5, 2011 on An update on the organizational changes at SolidWorks at The SolidWorks Blog
An update on the organizational changes at SolidWorks
I have some news to share with everyone today. After nearly eight years here at SolidWorks, including four as CEO, I have accepted a new position at Dassault Systèmes headquarters in Vélizy, France. In the next few days, I’ll be leaving my office in Concord, Massachusetts and hopping a plane to ...
Very cool, looking forward to the conference.
Devon Sowell
Commented Dec 13, 2010 on Apollo 13 Heroes to Headline SolidWorks World 2011 at The SolidWorks Blog
Apollo 13 Heroes to Headline SolidWorks World 2011
Two men who helped save the Apollo 13 crew 40 years ago by finding ingenious solutions to catastrophic mechanical problems will headline SolidWorks World 2011, the world’s largest gathering of the engineering and design community. Their heroics provide an inspirational example of engineering und...
Interesting. I love 30 miles north of the San Diego,CA harbor and I've never heard of this project.
The City & County of San Diego are flat broke, like most cities in California. Where will the money come from?
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 31, 2010 on San Diego's Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge at WorldCAD Access
San Diego's Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge
by Roopinder Tata, Tenlinks.com AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (Bentley Be Inspired Conference), Oct 26, 2010 - It's a wonder bridges get built at all. Public outcry seems to increase in proportion to size, and therefore big bridges suffer the most. San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate bridge took 50 ...
Interesting. I love 30 miles north of the San Diego,CA harbor and I've never heard of this project.
The City & County of San Diego is flat broke, like most cities in California. Where will the money come from?
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 31, 2010 on San Diego's Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge at The CAD Insider
San Diego's Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (Bentley Be Inspired Conference), Oct 26, 2010 - It's a wonder bridges get built at all. Public outcry seems to increase in proportion to size, and therefore big bridges suffer the most. San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate bridge took 50 years of convincing. Forces amas...
Thanks for the information.
I tried using Amazon Hosted Cloud Servers, but they turned out to be too expensive for my business model.
In my opinion, we're all in "wait and see" mode. Will the benefits to implement a workflow change justify the costs? Wait and see.
Cheers,
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 26, 2010 on Jon Hirschtick Talks Platform Shifts and Online Data Security at The SolidWorks Blog
Jon Hirschtick Talks Platform Shifts and Online Data Security
A few weeks ago SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray posted an update addressing some of the questions that have come up following the announcements made back in February at SolidWorks World 2010. One of the things that Jeff touched on was the commitment SolidWorks made to supporting three platforms—the desk...
Thanks for the new information, very helpful.
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 5, 2010 on Following up on announcements we made at SolidWorks World 2010 at The SolidWorks Blog
Following up on announcements we made at SolidWorks World 2010
Eight months have passed since we took the stage at SolidWorks World in Anaheim and talked about cloud technology and the benefits it can bring to the product design process. As I travel around the world talking to companies and visiting user groups, I’ve noticed the same questions keep coming u...
Looking forward to seeing the complete chair at 2011 SolidWorks World.
Devon Sowell
Commented Oct 1, 2010 on Welcome to our new blog! at Let's Go Design
Welcome to our new blog!
Hi everyone, and welcome to the new Let's Go Design team blog. In the coming weeks and months Jeremy Luchini and the Let's Go Design team will use this platform to give you updates on new projects, peeks into some behind-the-scenes action, and talk about things that inspire their decisions. To g...
Interesting.
As you know, dimensions in a SolidWorks Drawing can be imported from the 3D model or created in the Drawing file.
Does this application work with both types of dimensions? What about dimensions that have been "fudged"? Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of these lately.
Thanks,
Devon Sowell
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
Commented Sep 24, 2010 on PAS Creates CMM Code from SolidWorks in a Flash at The CAD Insider
PAS Creates CMM Code from SolidWorks in a Flash
CHICAGO (IMTS), Sep 13, 2010 - Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) may have added much precision and automated much of the task of ensuring a part is actually manufactured to its specification, but someone still has to do all the drudge work of keying in feature dimensions and other GD&T. Until...
Interesting.
As you know, dimensions in a SolidWorks Drawing can be imported from the 3D model or created in the Drawing file.
Does this application work with both types of dimensions? What about dimensions that have been "fudged"? Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of these lately.
Thanks,
Devon Sowell
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
Commented Sep 24, 2010 on PAS creates CMM code from SolidWorks in-a-flash at WorldCAD Access
PAS creates CMM code from SolidWorks in-a-flash
by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) may have added much precision and automated much of the task of ensuring a part is actually manufactured to its specification, but someone still has to do all the drudge work of keying in feature dimensions and other GD&T. Unti...
nVidia Fermi-equipped graphics boards
$1,200.00 - $5,500.00, ouch!
Commented Jul 28, 2010 on The nVidia plan: To shatter coffee breaks due to ray tracing at WorldCAD Access
The nVidia plan: To shatter coffee breaks due to ray tracing
Oh for the good old days, when hidden-line removal on AutoCAD Release 10 would take all weekend, running on an 8MHz AT clone. Fast forward by 20 years, and we find nVidia is threatening our comfortable way of life: What used to be an excuse for a coffee break is now a real-time experience when r...
Editing CAD Models online and a cloud hosted simple CAD PDM app are two different issues.
Simple CAD PDM will come first.
Editing CAD models in the cloud is a long way off in the future.
Devon Sowell
Commented May 16, 2010 on Perhaps, one day, you will run AutoCAD natively in Chrome Web browser at WorldCAD Access
Perhaps, one day, you will run AutoCAD natively in Chrome Web browser
Google's The Chromium Blog is reporting the beta release of its Native Client SDK [software development kit]. Known as NaCl (ie, sodium chloride, salt) for short, it is a compiler for generating x86-32/64 binaries from C/C++ source code. Here is how a CAD program could be converted to run in the...
Devon T. Sowell is now following DesignSmarter
Apr 8, 2010
SolidWorks is telling their customers to take it or leave it, bad, very bad message. More and more of my clients want to drop SolidWorks Subscription Maintenance.
SolidWorks Service Packs DO NOT provide new Features, they can't. Why? Because if you're using Service Pack 0 and I'm using Service Pack 5, we CAN'T EXCHANGE FILES!
Devon Sowell
Commented Apr 7, 2010 on Is it even legal to deny bug fixes? at WorldCAD Access
Is it even legal to deny bug fixes?
Josh Mingus writes today about SolidWorks denying bug fixes to users -- that is, for users who aren't paying an annual subscription fee. I'm a bit of a lone ranger, in that I just about never contact a software company's tech support line. I find that it's usually faster for me to figure out th...
Great interview! I've seen Anna in action at Auer Precision and her SolidWorks skills are very high. Anna and Len have designed some amazing stuff.
Devon Sowell
Commented Mar 26, 2010 on Five Questions Friday with Anna Wood of Auer Precision at The SolidWorks Blog
Five Questions Friday with Anna Wood of Auer Precision
Name: Anna Wood Hometown: Mesa, AZ Title: Design Engineer Company: Auer Precision (www.auerprecision.com) Auer Precision is a leading global provider of engineered process solutions for the life sciences, medical, microfluidics, semiconductor, defense, automotive, and industrial markets. Auer...
Good points Ralph, I agree.
Devon Sowell
Commented Mar 2, 2010 on The fallacious credit-card-on-the-Web analogy at WorldCAD Access
The fallacious credit-card-on-the-Web analogy
As they tried to promote this murky thing called "SolidWorks on the Web," Dassault Systemes executives used a number of analogies. One ran something llike this: "Some years ago, nobody would give their credit card number over the Web; today, everyone does." This analogy was supposed to parallel...
Great post, Austin, thanks for the information.
Devon Sowell
Commented Feb 24, 2010 on More on the new technology shown at SolidWorks World 2010 at The SolidWorks Blog
More on the new technology shown at SolidWorks World 2010
Earlier this month at SolidWorks World 2010 in Anaheim, we gave attendees a glimpse into some powerful new solutions that we’re currently developing. Over the past few weeks we’ve been watching and reading all of the various blogs, forum posts, and news articles talking about what we showed. We ...
Matt-
Thanks for the correct info.
Devon
Commented Feb 17, 2010 on Oh my! Dassault revenues down 9% on the year at WorldCAD Access
Oh my! Dassault revenues down 9% on the year
No wonder PTC is gloating. Dassault Systemes reports its fiscal year 2009 revenues were down 9% from last year. The 1.25 billion it earned in Euros works out to about $1.7 billion in US dollars. The biggest collapse was in subscription (maintenance or service) revenues, which dropped like a sto...
RE:The biggest collapse was in subscription (maintenance or service) revenues, which dropped like a stone in Q4, down 24%, 19% on the year.
I hope SolidWorks is now considering revamping the subscription maintenance program.
Devon
Commented Feb 12, 2010 on Oh my! Dassault revenues down 9% on the year at WorldCAD Access
Oh my! Dassault revenues down 9% on the year
No wonder PTC is gloating. Dassault Systemes reports its fiscal year 2009 revenues were down 9% from last year. The 1.25 billion it earned in Euros works out to about $1.7 billion in US dollars. The biggest collapse was in subscription (maintenance or service) revenues, which dropped like a sto...
Finally, California has a plan to shut down most ocean cooled power plants, including the one in my home town, Carlsbad, CA.
Devon Sowell
Commented Feb 8, 2010 on SWWX Photo Albumn at WorldCAD Access
SWWX Photo Albumn
You can tell when you are getting near the coast along California when you see the stacks of the power plants, which use ocean water for cooling: The port of Los Angeles: The plam tree grove next to the Anaheim Convention Center: SolidWorks ceo Jeff Ray hosting the opening keynote addre...
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