NOVEDGE blog

Grab this Kinemac Special! Best Value on Animation for Mac

For this week only we're having a special on Kinemac: only $124

For this week only we're having a special on Kinemac -- half price! Kinemac runs on Macs and is a powerful and easy-to-use 3D real-time animation and presentation software. If you're in the market for a Mac animation product at an extremely attractive price, or are looking specifically for a great deal on Kinemac, this is the time to buy. At only $124 per copy you should take advantage of this opportunity that will only last one week.

Cristiano Sacchi

Another RhinoJungle Successful Contest!

We want to thank everybody who designed banners and cast their vote

After the successful poll contest on RhinoJungle in May, we were excited to run another contest. If you are among the few who don't know yet, RhinoJungle is a free online community for Rhino 3D users and enthusiasts. The results of the poll gave us great inspiration for that new contest, since quite some of the RhinoJungle members didn't actually like the banner that was on top of RhinoJungle ;-). So a new contest was born: design a new banner!

For 2 weeks, members of the jungle could submit their designs. Six members took the time and effort, and gave it a shot by submitting several designs to us. One of the members even submitted 10 (!) different designs. After this submission period, it was time for everybody out there in the jungle to vote on their favorite banner. We found references to the voting page on Facebook and Twitter, and this resulted in a lot of votes, wow!

there was one winner: Kevin Stead from Scotland

It was great to see that a lot of different banners got votes, but there was also clearly one winner: Kevin Stead from Scotland, member of RhinoJungle since the very beginning (March 2009). His banner got by far the most votes, almost 40%, and is a great representation of RhinoJungle, with all the logos, a screen shot of Rhino and a mysterious jungle on the right hand side. Kevin will receive a copy of Ron K.C. Cheng book "Inside Rhinoceros 4" kindly offered by the author. You can see Kevin's banner on the top of every RhinoJungle page. The other banners are still visible online on the RhinoJungle contest results page.

Kevin will receive a copy of Ron K.C. Cheng book "Inside Rhinoceros 4"

We want to thank everybody who designed banners and cast their vote. You made this contest another success in the jungle, and inspires us to run contests on a regular basis! So check out the jungle (sign up if you haven't done so yet) and stay tuned for all the excited things that are happening in the jungle where all the Rhino animals live!

Mirjam Hart

Who are the Rhino Users? A Poll on RhinoJungle Gives Us Some Answers

I'd like to share with you some more results from a recent poll we did on RhinoJungle, the online Rhino 3D users community. The results will give us a better picture not only of the RhinoJungle community, but also of the average Rhino users. I'm not going to throw a bunch of numbers to you, instead I'll put it in happy colored graphs.

According to the poll, the average member of the RhinoJungle community is a male in between 26-35 years old. He is a designer and he is using Rhino 3D and AutoCAD the most. He found the community through the Novedge website, and he appreciates the videos and forum the most. Unfortunately we don't know what kind of car he drives or if he has a Golden Retriever, but we're glad to know our members a little bit better. Do you recognize yourself in the description as given above? Here you can find all the results, so you can make up a profile yourself.

By the way, we are running a new contest on RhinoJungle! The poll wasn't only intended to know our members better, but even more to get feedback about the functioning of the community. Based on that, we're having a contest where you can design a new banner to replace the one we're displaying now on the top of each page of RhinoJungle website (apparently some of our members don't like that banner too much). The lucky guy or girl will win a copy of the book 'Inside Rhinoceros' by Ron K. C. Cheng and of course will get eternal glory on the community. So check out RhinoJungle.com, sign up if you're not a member yet and get out your creative skills!

Mirjam Hart

What does the Poll on RhinoJungle Tell Us?

In 25 days, 30% of the members took the poll on RhinoJungle and we welcomed many new members.

Thanks you, and welcome!

We support RhinoJungle as a place where you can interact with other Rhino users and to find answers to your questions

To us, this poll has been a great success. We are happy with the response rate and we got some great feedback about how we can improve the community and what you value the most in this jungle. Some of the feature requests are easy to implement (like a gallery where you can post pictures of your work), some are a bit harder (like a different language). But with everything we do, we need your help! We host this community for you, our members, to offer you a place where you can interact with other Rhino users and as an informative resource to find answers to your questions.

One benefit of the many feature requests is this: you can do it yourself! Here are some examples from the poll:

• A product comparison section: several members would like to have the opportunity to compare products to help them decide which one they would like to use, or which product suits their needs best. I would say that the forum section could be an excellent way to do this. You can start a topic if you have a question about which product would be the best for you or if you want to write a review about a product. On the website of Novedge we also compare products, but we compare purely on technical specifications, since we don't want to favor one product over the other. For example, take a look at the Flamingo product page (Scroll down at that page or look at the screen shot I added to this blog post.)
• WiP/Final work section: as a designer, you like to show your work to other people. Through their feedback and comments they can give you inspiration or help with problems you may have encountered. So why not post your picture in the gallery and write something about it in the Me & My Work forum?
• More users and more participation: Did I already tell you can do it yourself? ;-) Invite your friends, colleagues, family, neighbors, or whoever you know who may be interested, and spread the word. Don't have a Rhino-related question at the moment? Start a social talk-topic and tell us about the great weekend you had, or a jobs-topic and tell us about the job opening at your company, or let everybody know you are looking for a job. It's all possible! Whether as a blog or a forum topic, or even as a video, we welcome all.

These are just some examples of things users would like to see at RhinoJungle. Unfortunately, there are also some things we cannot change ourselves, as we depend on Ning (the webhost of this community), like cropping pictures after you've uploaded them, using uploaded pictures as profile pictures, or letting the chat bar flash when there is any chat activity.

One last thing I want to mention about the poll: the header. We know, we're not perfect. But I strongly advise you to keep a close eye on the jungle, there has been perhaps a murmurr of something in 2 weeks or so that has something to do with a new header and a contest. Ooh, did I say too much?

Mirjam Hart

Join Novedge for an Internship in San Francisco

Novedge and San Francisco. Can you think of a better combination?

For the past few months, I've been interning here at Novedge in San Francisco. As a Dutch student this has been an amazing opportunity for me, and I'm still enjoying every day of it. Novedge is a great and inspiring company to work with, and San Francisco is just an amazing and interesting city. Can you think of a better combination? But unfortunately, all great things have to come to an end at some time, which is also the case of my internship. After my final presentation in July, I will be graduated and ready to start working, which I will do at home in the Netherlands.

The tasks I am doing here at Novedge cannot be discontinued, you just can't abandon a successful community right? Therefore Novedge is looking for another intern that can continue my job. American or not, it doesn't matter. The previous intern was Italian, I am Dutch, so you are....?

How does a tweet help grow a community?

The main tasks of this internship are taking care of all the social media that Novedge is involved in, like Facebook, Twitter, the blog and several online communities Novedge hosts. How do you build an active community? How can a Facebook page lead to more visibility for a company? How does a tweet on Twitter help grow a community? Just some thoughts that kept me busy, and that are still not fully answered.

some basic Rhino or 3D modeling skills are desirable

Novedge is the world's largest and most rapidly growing online CAD/CAM store. Their office is located in downtown San Francisco where you will be exposed to all the aspects of running a business, which is really interesting. Because managing RhinoJungle will be one of the main responsibilities, some basic Rhino or 3D modeling skills are desirable. You also have to be fluent in English, both in speaking and in writing. The internship will be unpaid (yes, the financial crisis has also reached the west coast), but some expenses, such as the flights, will be reimbursed. Ideally, the internship starts as of July 2009 and lasts for at least 2 months.

If you are interested in this position please send your cover letter and resume to info@novedge.com.

Mirjam Hart

Novedge in the World of Social Media

On March 2nd, Skittles shook the world by changing its homepage to a big social media playground; when navigating to skittles.com you found yourself in a stream of Twitter messages with the tag #skittles. For 24 hours this was a big hit, but there was no filter, and also abusive tweets from pranksters about the company and its products turned up at the homepage of Skittles. The following day, the homepage was redirected to the fanpage of Skittles on Facebook, with almost 600,000 fans. Via the menu option 'chatter' you could still enter the Twitter stream. Today (March 4th) the homepage of Skittles is redirected to the Wikipedia page about Skittles.

Many people expressed their opinion about this campaign; some called it a genius and innovative move (although risky), others called it an utter failure, 'the worst thing to ever happen to social media branding'. But the fact is that Skittles got huge media attention during these days, everybody talks, tweets, and blogs about it (including us).

Incorporating social media in companies is a hot topic nowadays. This doesn't mean that when you'll navigate to our website next week, you'll end up at Facebook or Twitter, but it is very interesting to see all the developments in this field! How far are companies going to attract people with the use of social media channels and to have them interact with each other and the company? What is the best channel to interact with your (potential) customers? There are so many options to choose from, just think of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, (corporate) blogs, communities. So you subscribe to (some of) these channels, and then what?

Novedge is exploring the mysterious but wonderful world of social media too by launching a big campaign.

Novedge is exploring the mysterious but wonderful world of social media too by launching a big campaign. Novedge has a page at Facebook and LinkedIn, our news source Pulse already has 141 (and counting!) followers at Twitter as @_Pulse_, and our community SpaceClaiming has 580 members. And of course, we have this blog :-). But besides that, Novedge is also starting a new community, called RhinoJungle (with its own Facebook page). This community is set up especially for the users and fans of Rhino and all Robert McNeel products. With facilitating these communities, Novedge wants to offer an extra service to our customers, to create a platform for sharing ideas, questions and 3d-work.

With this adventure Novedge aims for more direct communication, growth of members of our communities and a growth in followers on Twitter. We believe that the world of social media is boundless.

Mirjam Hart

For more information on this topic, take a look at this foldier sPression, an online collection of the Novedge social media activities.

Novedge Pulse Pushes the Limits of Social Media for CAD

Blogs are an important source of information. We all know this. Most of us started bookmarking one CAD blog and going back every day to read the new posts. It was a nice way to stay updated while drinking a morning coffee. Soon, we found our attention and time split among a set of cross-referenced blogs. Gradually we realized that going through all this interesting stuff would take up a good slice of our morning, more than we could afford. This was the moment when we switched to an RSS reader. In the beginning, the RSS reader worked perfectly. It reduced the time we dedicated to blogs and news with minimal compromises. But before we knew it, the amount of blogs and news exceeded the time budgeted. At this point the more adventurous of us began experimenting with Digg and Delicios, and found, unfortunately, that they didn't work. Digg and Delicios are general tools that can't be customized to focus on our specific areas of interest. At this point I realized I could create something new, something that would take the best of available technologies and rescue CAD users and professionals, giving back the pleasure of the morning coffee-CAD news ritual.

take the best of available technologies giving back the pleasure of the morning coffee-CAD news ritual

Today Novedge Pulse processes the feed of about 350 different sources, matching each post and news with a database of over 550 authors. Each author is clearly recognizable by his picture, and fully traceable with a link to his LinkedIn profile and his Twitter page. Posts and news are grouped together on a daily base. Readers vote on each item with a click of the mouse -- either promoting it with a heart beat or demoting it with a heart burn. The collective preferences of Novedge readers dynamically creates a list of the most interesting and relevant posts as they appear on the Internet.

Novedge Pulse processes about 350 different sources, matching each post and news with a db of over 550 authors

I receive feedback from Pulse users almost every day. My goal is to improve usability, adding a few select features while keeping Pulse as simple as possible. I recently released a new version of Novedge Pulse with some important improvements and tuning. Now I have additional reasons to believe that Novedge Pulse is the most advanced source of information in the CAD and 3D graphics online world. Here are the reasons for my statement:

• Novedge Pulse collects information from about 350 sources and matches each news item with a database of over 550 authors.
• All news and blog posts are gathered and published on Pulse in real-time.
• Readers can easily vote on every single item with just a click. This simple rating system lets the best posts and most interesting news of the day quickly emerge at the top of the page, while pushing the less important items towards the bottom.
• Novedge Pulse contextualizes each news and blog post. Based on the type of information and availability, each item shows a link to the author profile on LinkedIn, the author page on Twitter, the source RSS feed, and for companies, a link to the corresponding Yahoo! Finance pages. This is valuable for readers who want to be able to quickly verify employers, affiliations, and resumes of every blogger.
• Novedge Pulse can be browsed by date and by author, selecting different levels of detail. The page will remember your preferences the next time you come back, without requiring a login.
• Each news or blog post can be easily identified and linked by a permalink. Text and video comments are also enabled on every item page as way to complement the comments on the original blog page.
• All news and blog posts on Novedge Pulse can be easily republished thanks to a public RSS feed. Publishers don't have to worry about annoying ads. Pulse is free and the RSS feed is ads free.

The number of visitors to Novedge Pulse is constantly growing, pushing Novedge to improve the service and allocate more resources to guarantee a better and more reliable service. We are committed to support and extend Novedge Pulse. Make Novedge Pulse your first website in the morning!

Franco Folini

Measuring the Pulse of the CAD Community

A lot of information is available over the Internet for professionals like you and me working with CAD, CAM, AEC, and DCC systems and technologies: blogs, Press Releases, tutorials, comments, product reviews, etc. In order to access this wealth of information one option is to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters, activate all sorts of Google notifications, and spend most of the day digging in an overcrowded e-mail inbox.

A reasonable alternative is to organize some of the information sources into an RSS reader such as the one offered for free by Google (Google Reader).  However, a lot of interesting stuff is not available as RSS feed.  Another downside is that RSS Readers are intended as personal tools and thus lack access to others' opinions and ratings.

Wouldn’t it be great to have all this information well organized in a single place, already sorted by relevance and quality based on the opinion of other users with similar interests? What about without annoying ads?

This place now exists, and it's called Novedge Pulse. It’s a new free area of the Novedge website where blog posts, Press Releases, tutorials, and other pertinent information is collected, organized, and presented in a simple and clear way.  At Novedge Pulse, you can also vote for each item with a simple and effective thumb-up, thumb-down system.

I would recommend giving it a try. Feel free to express your opinion by voting for the items you judge most interesting or boring. And if you have a blog, Press Release, product review, or tutorial you would like included in Novedge Pulse, just send an e-mail to pulse@novedge.com

Franco Folini

Novedge is Looking for a European Intern

Novedge is the largest online store for CAD, CAM, and 3D graphics software.

We are offering a seasonal unpaid internship in our friendly environment this summer (flexible – about 2 or 3 months, between June and September). We are looking for a college student or recent graduate from Europe. The intern should come from a scientific or business background (Computer Science, Economics, or Engineering preferred). A personal interest in computer graphics and web 2.0 technologies is a plus!

Novedge will cover flight expenses and accommodation

The selected person will collaborate with us in reviewing and expanding our products catalogue, handle a few business development projects, and run some of our online advertising campaigns. We need a person that is fluent in English (mostly written, but also spoken) and is active, dynamic, and enthusiastic. We offer an incredible professional experience with the opportunity to learn how a large online store works behind the scenes.  Our office is located in the thriving downtown of San Francisco, with easy access to the city’s convenient public transportation system. Novedge will cover flight expenses and accommodation.

If you are interested please send your resume to folini@novedge.com.

Franco Folini

Is Google Fair?

Let’s start with the facts.

A few days ago I was working at the data feed for a Google service called Google Base, previously known as Froogle. It’s an online service that allows sellers to upload a list of products with price and description and lets users search online for products to compare prices, shipping fees, and seller ratings.

for Google Base, PayPal is not a syntactically valid option

The new Google Base accepts a feed in a few different formats. One of the most flexible formats available is RSS 2.0, a popular XML format.
The accepted payment type is among the optional information sellers can provide for each product. The following is a snippet of the XML code I submitted to Google. I’m confident that you don’t need to be an XML guru to understand this code:

<g:payment_accepted>
    MasterCard
</g:payment_accepted>

<g:payment_accepted>
    Visa
</g:payment_accepted>

<g:payment_accepted>
    PayPal
</g:payment_accepted>

A few hours after the upload I received a notification that the syntax of my XML feed was not valid. Here is the error message I got:

cvc-enumeration-valid: 
Value 'PayPal' is not facet-valid 
with respect to enumeration 
'[Cash, Check, Cheque, Visa, MasterCard,
Discover, AmericanExpress,
WireTransfer, GoogleCheckout]'.
It must be a value from the enumeration.

Translation in plain English: You specify that your online store accepts payment by Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. For Google Base, PayPal is not a syntactically valid option, while GoogleCheckout is.

Is this just an oversight? Should we blame the omittance of PayPal on a Google programmer who perhaps forgot to include PayPal (Google Checkout's competition) in the list of payment options?

Or is this a poor implementation of the Google motto “Don’t be evil”?

Franco Folini

P.S.: According to this online Google Base Schema (line 419) PayPal is a syntactically valid option for payment, while Google Checkout is not even listed.  I guess this is not the Schema used to validate my feed. I would not recommend to check the XML schema if you are not familiar with XML.