Day Two: Jeff Ray, CEO of SolidWorks, says the show has so far drawn 4,400 attendees. In the future, he wants to see more sharing between DS technologies and SolidWorks. He says software developers cannot afford to ''fall in love with their own technologies.'' Companies should never think that they own customers. Nobody does. Customers can pick ...

Day 1: Saturday Jan 19 This year's event is being held in San Diego, Calif., a city I have not visited before. I've heard many stories about its beauty, especially the colored neon lights lining the top edges of highrise buildings. An 11 pm taxi ride from the airport to the hotel showed off the cityscape at night, and the view is ...

This new blog is a continuation of my on-going one, archived here. As mentioned previously, my first love is manufacturing, specifically the shop floor. I moved through the ranks the hard way, in one job, working for a half-crazy, old-world machinist, Frank. His motto: ''You shalt NOT make scrap.'' His was the classic old-fashioned shop -- ...