Today I get the great news: Our own AutoCAD Block Best Practices e-book is approved an can be purchased from AutoCAD exchange store!

The payment is available through PayPal only, with the same price as we offer here.

If you want to purchase it from app store, you can find it under learning tools and productivity tools category. You have to open AutoCAD Exchange from within AutoCAD, you can’t do it just using regular browser.

I also have problem with search tool, so you might need to navigate to the last page of the app list. (Is it just me, or the app have problem with the search engine?)

Here is the sales page on the app store:

This forum is provided for you who purchased our e-books. At the moment we only grant access for you who purchased AutoCAD Block Best Practices. We will add more forums for other e-books as necessary gradually.

This forum is not intended for general discussion, but it is a place where you can ask questions related to our e-books. There are already many great CAD forums out there, adding another one is really not a good idea.

So who is this forum for?

If you have problem following the tutorial, missing exercise files, and other related topics. It is also where you can help the others with that specific topic, share your ideas, showcase your blocks, etc… related to the e-book contents.

For you who already purchased 1st edition of Block Book, are also eligible to register to our support forum. As a bonus to you, you can download the new edition for free! It’s our appreciation for you who supported us to continue running this site.

You need to register and login to the forum. After you login you can find the download link in the support forum.

As you may already know, the new edition price is US$ 14.95.

We provide this free download for limited time, until the end of December. So if you are interested, you need to hurry.

Approval will be done manually, and we need to check your email with our transaction database. It may take time to approve your account.

I hope this forum can be useful for all of us. I hope you like this forum, and our e-books!

First, I would like to welcome all new newsletter subscribers on CAD notes. Welcome to the community. We hope you can help us to grow bigger and can be useful to CAD community.

Just a gentle reminder that you can choose to subscribe to specific applications, instead of receiving all updates on this site. This site covers several topics, and if you’re subscribed and received all updates then you might find them not relevant.

If you see below the subscription form, there are several links that you can use to subscribe to specific topic. You can choose your preferred topic there.

Or you can see the subscription page here:

1. AutoCAD newsletter subscription page
2. AutoLISP newsletter subscription page
3. Revit newsletter subscription page
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There are also options to follow updates using facebook (by liking the facebook page) or following our twitter account.

If you want to change your subscription, you can unsubscribed from your current newsletter, then subscribe to topics that you think more relevant.

You can contribute too

You may want to contribute to the communities too. You can submit your tip and tutorial, help us to learn new things. Read the guide here.

Thank you

Again, thank you for subscribing. We hope you like what we’re doing here. We also encourage you to join the conversation. Give your critics and correct us when we’re wrong. Ask us questions. That’s why we provide comment form :)

You may contact us using email, but we encourage you to use comment form. You may have other readers responded to your question quickly than we do.

The winners picked using random numbers generated by random.org. And the rule as set in this entries list.

The Winners are:

15. Victor Danciu: AutoCAD block best practices
18. Steve Ching: Creating your own Revit families
30. Nancy Eaton: Revit Architecture 2011 Tutorial Video Course
4. Bernie Lippold: Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
11. @jaimesMX: SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
36. Nengah Sukerja: Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
28 Insan Gunawan: Amazon.com gift card

Congratulations to the winners!

Please contact me to this email address: info@cad-notes.com using your email. We will send the product key and download link to your email.

We will also contact the winners using facebook message or twitter direct message (or mention if you don’t follow our twitter)

Please send it before 3 June 2011. If you do not confirm your email address before the date, we have to cancel your prize.

For you who don’t win, thank you for participating. We hope we can provide more prizes next year.

If you are need those learning materials, you can purchase the training video from Infinite Skills or purchase our e-book in our e-store.

Have a nice weekend everybody!

What happened in the last 12 months here? We’re not only updating post on this blog, but also had several changes here.

Let’s see the changes later. First, I would like to cover a bit about popular topics.

Popular topics

I don’t want to share the site statistics in details. What I want to highlight is, the interesting trend about topics we covered.

So what’re the popular pages in the last 12 months?

1. 100 AutoCAD tips you should know
2. CAD notes home page
3. The table of contents page, with MicroStation table of contents is the most popular.
4. Revit tip: Creating title block from AutoCAD sheet
5. Introduction to annotation scaling

The 3rd one is the biggest surprise. This blog has AutoCAD post more than the other topics. I expect that AutoCAD topics will be popular here. But no, more people come to read MicroStation tutorial!

Revit is also a popular topic. To be specific: AutoCAD user migrating to Revit! So if you are Revit blogger, cover that topic and you’ll be famous!

New logo

We changed couple of things in the last 12 months. The biggest change probably the logo.

Old logo	New logo

We change the logo to something more CAD-ish. And I hope looks more fancy! So if you see the old logo, yes, it was CAD notes too.

New theme

We also change the site theme to look neat. I very like this theme. I don’t think I will change it again this year. If there are any changes, will be based on this theme.

We also installed mobile theme, so if you use mobile browser in iPhone, Android, Symbian, etc, would be easy to read. Many sites have done this. So I believe we have to support mobile browser as well. Not sure if you guys like to read CAD related topic on Galaxy tab, but if you do, we’ve prepared this site for you!

New social network

We decided to go to facebook too. It’s not easy to maintain multiple social networks, and keep connected. But not everybody like twitter. So they can’t connect with us on our twitter account.

So we create a facebook page where we, facebook users can get connected. If you like what we do and want to support us, go to this facebook page and give us a like ;)

I hope you enjoy being here

I hope you get what you’re looking for here. Please support us to make this site better.

If you find a post that you like, share it to your friends who might like it too.

If you have experience that you want to share, write a guess post so we can publish it here.

I hope we can serve you better!

As we announced in this news, we are having giveaway on CAD notes. If you are wondering if your entry is valid, or has been listed, you can check it here.

The participants are sorted by the time they submit their entries.

Valid entries so far (final update: 27 May 2011)

1. John Glerum: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
2. Belonwu Christopher: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Creating your own Revit families
3. Koes Hariatmo: AutoCAD block best practices OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
4. Bernie Lippold: AutoCAD block best practices OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
5. Jennifer L S Agathe: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
6. Norm Lanum: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
7. Ted Hicks: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Creating your own Revit families
8. Marin Bacik: AutoCAD block best practices OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
9. Jeffrey Kuchta: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
10. @Bgallucci: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
11. @jaimesMX: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
12. @AVILArchitect: Revit Architecture 2011 training video
13. @Nineclubs: Amazon gift card.
14. John Ignacio: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
15. Victor Danciu: AutoCAD block best practices OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
16. Ed Gray: SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course OR Creating your own Revit families
17. Scott Burt: Document management with AutoCAD sheet set OR Revit Architecture 2011 training video
18. Steve Ching: Creating your own Revit families OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
19. @mig20: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Amazon gift card
20. @ScottMoyse: Steam gift card
21. @hhalloyy: AutoCAD block best practices
22. Yanna Griblat: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
23. Yadi Setiadi: SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
24. Khaled Hassan Alsandouby: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Amazon gift card
25. John Ahern: Amazon gift card OR Revit Architecture 2011 training video
26. Jeff Thomas III: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Creating your own Revit families
27. Kimberly Hitchcock: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
28. Miguel Margarito: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design
29. Insan Gunawan: SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course OR Amazon.com gift card
30. Nancy Eaton: Revit Architecture 2011 Tutorial Video Course OR Creating your own Revit families
31. Jo Allen: SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course OR Revit Architecture 2011 training video
32. Fendy TheFire Permana: Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
33. Sri Yulianti: Amazon gift card OR Document management with AutoCAD sheet set
34. Ana Febriana: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR SolidWorks 2011 tutorial – training course
35. Rwinz Cyruz: Amazon gift card OR AutoCAD block best practices
36. Nengah Sukerja: Revit Architecture 2011 training video OR Revit Architecture 2010: Your first residential design

You still have time to join the contest. Submit your entries now!

How we pick the winners

As we mentioned before, we’re just going to pick you randomly. But because you’re allowed to pick your own prize, it’s going to look complicated. I don’t want to explain this on the announcement page, because it might bore you. And not everyone is interested to know the details.

But if you want to know how we’re going to pick the winners anyway, read this on.

See the numbers on the left of the participant name? We will generate random numbers, and will match those numbers with your name. If your name appears first, and if your choice is still available, then you get your prize.

For example:

B, D, C, and A come out as the winners consecutively.

1. B choose Revit training video and Revit family tutorial.
2. D choose Revit training video and AutoCAD block best practices.
3. C choose Revit training video and AutoCAD block best practices.
4. A choose SolidWorks training video and Sheet Set e-book.

So who will get which prizes?

B comes first, so he gets his 1st choice: Revit training video. Easy ;)

D comes second. His 1st choice is already won by A, so he gets his 2nd choice: AutoCAD block best practices.

C comes next. Unfortunately for him/her… all of his choices are already won by the others, so he gets nothing :(

A comes last, but his choice is still available! So he can get his 1st choice!

We continue the process until all the prizes are given.

We’ll record the drawing and upload the video. If your name comes on top, but you get nothing, now you know why… I wish everyone can win… but we have limited prizes…

Again… good luck! I hope you’ll get what you need and make a good use of it.

So this year, we will have even more exciting prizes! See what you can win below…

What you can win

This year we have a couple of sponsors, so there will be more prizes to win. Big thanks to our sponsor!

Our giveaway sponsors

Infinite Skills	Kungfu Drafter

The prizes are:

1. 1 copy of Revit Architecture 2011 Tutorial Video Course from Infinite Skills (worth US$ 99.95)
2. 1 copy of SolidWorks 2011 Tutorial – Training Course from Infinite Skills (worth US$ 99.95)
3. One US$ 25.00 Amazon.com gift card OR Steam gift card from Kungfu Drafter.
4. 1 copy of AutoCAD Block Best Practices from CAD notes.
5. 1 copy of Document Management with AutoCAD Sheet Set from CAD notes.
6. 1 copy of Revit Architecture 2010: Your First Residential Design from CAD notes.
7. 1 copy of Creating Your Own Revit Family from CAD notes.

So there will be 7 lucky winners can win those prizes! If you are interested, then read on…

The giveaway rules

To enter this giveaway is as simple as it can be.

1. You only need to choose which prize you want. That’s it.
2. You may choose two prizes. If you don’t get your first choice, you still have chance to win your 2nd choice.
3. After we end the contest, we will draw participant names. The winners will be pick randomly. By allowing you to choose the prize, it will make sure you get (if you win) what you want.
4. The contest ends on 27 May 2011 (see countdown below), my local time. If you submit your entries after that date, then you are not eligible to win. So if you are reading this and want to win, don’t wait to submit your entry!

How to submit your entries

We want to make it simple. So we choose to use twitter and facebook as your media to submit your entries.

Facebook users

For you who want to use their facebook account, simply type your entries in facebook comment below.

Twitter users

You can tweet your entry by including hash tag #CNgiveaway AND link to this page. To make it easy, you can just click links below. Click links for your choice. Remember, you can submit two. You may edit the text, but leave the hash tag and link.

1. Click this if you choose Revit Architecture 2011 tutorial video course.
2. SolidWorks 2011 Tutorial – Training Course
3. US$ 25.00 Amazon.com gift card
4. US$ 25.00 Steam gift card
5. AutoCAD Block Best Practices
6. Document Management with AutoCAD Sheet Set
7. Revit Architecture 2010: Your First Residential Design
8. Creating Your Own Revit Family

Twitter entries so far

If you submit your entries correctly, you should see your entries below.

Good luck!

I wish you like what we do here. I hope you can make use of what you will win. Good luck for everyone who’s participating! May the luckiest win!

Giveaway countdown

It’s a portable drawing viewer and markup tool. So don’t expect you can draw comfortably in AutoCAD WS.

Imagine it this way:

1. You need to inspect the design, and bring the large papers to the field. Instead bring papers, you can bring a tablet (either Apple or Android).
2. Of course that’s not only the benefit. You can use measure tool. We know that many elements in our drawing don’t have dimension. We need to measure it.
3. You can also add markups. Add some cloud and text, then sync the DWG file. You can notify your partner at the office to make necessary changes while you’re still on the field. When they’re done, you can immediately see the changes.

Yes, there are some basic drawing tools like circle, polyline, line, and rectangle. But drawing in a mobile device is frustrating to me. This application is not built for this purpose!

If you have an Android device, give it a try. It’s free, so why have a second thought? Download the application from Android market now!