Chief's Roof Skill Saw

[rbrodie]

Thanks Allen, will do... I'll bring my computer and we'll roast marshmellows over it.

[ChiefChris]

If double clicking the break tool is the skill saw of framing what is the skill saw of roofing? (ver 10)

I prefer the Porter Cable....

I let my 8 year old son use the skill saw...that's a kids toy.

[Steve C.]

I sure could use this feature right about now. When are you going to share Louis?

[Joe Carrick]

Joe, could you please let us all know about this? I'm in the same boat having purchased the premium package in February... Thanks.

Well, I talked to sales - as I suspected, they want a small fortune for the X1 CD's, even though I only had v10 for less than 90 days when I purchased the X1 upgrade. IMHO, that's a rip-off. CD's cost a couple of dollars to have printed once the master is created. Making those a part of the upgrade from the previous version Enterprise edition should be automatic. CA is not making friends of it's customers by telling them that the trainig CD's for an upgrade is more (actually in my case almost 3 times my upgrade price).

Bad PR !!! :mad:

[Doug Park]

In your case I wouldn't even recommend the full X1 training CDs. Since you already have the ones for V10, the X1 CDs while new aren't really that great of a value to an upgrade customer. Just go for the what's new videos as part of the upgrade and you will be able to look at just the new stuff instead of wading through a ton of other videos about stuff you already either know about or have training that is pretty much the same as for X1. The price on those is $99.

The price of reproducing disks is quite low. The cost of actually creating the content is huge. We are in business to make a profit, not lose our shirts. The later doesn't do either of us any good.

You wouldn't expect a book publisher to send you a new copy of the second edition of a book for free if you bought the first edition. So why are disks any different?

[Joe Carrick]

Just go for the what's new videos as part of the upgrade and you will be able to look at just the new stuff instead of wading through a ton of other videos about stuff you already either know about or have training that is pretty much the same as for X1. The price on those is $99.

You wouldn't expect a book publisher to send you a new copy of the second edition of a book for free if you bought the first edition. So why are disks any different?

Thanks for the advice about what's new stuff for X1. However, remember, I said I'd purchased v10 Enterprise at the end of January. There are a few other customers who are in the same position. Most businesses would consider it just fair to provide the additional content in this case just for the cost of production and handling. It seems to me that you are trying to get way to much for the CD's from customers who unknowingly purchased the top of the line product offering just before you released a new version.

[lavor]

Sorry Joe, I am with Doug on this one. Having worked in the CAD software production industry for 25+ years, CA is a great deal. The CAD software I helped produce cost about $6500 per seat, had no video training so you had to attend class at $1800 per 4 day class, there being 3 classes to take. The software was released once a year and you again had to take a classes to learn the new features - no videos.

I understand where you are coming from, having my own design business and having two seats of the CA software. But in all honesty CA is a great deal. I see the training videos being worth, to my business, about $8500, when you consider cost of the training classes, loss of production while attending class, travel, room and board, etc. Ninty-nine bucks is cheap for virtually the same training, when you want it, where you are, as many times as you need.

[George Godwin]

Since you already have the ones for V10, the X1 CDs while new aren't really that great of a value to an upgrade customer. Just go for the what's new videos as part of the upgrade and you will be able to look at just the new stuff instead of wading through a ton of other videos about stuff you already either know about or have training that is pretty much the same as for X1.

Doug, - Thanks for those honest statements. That is exactly what I did and why I did it. I believe that you gave this same advice in an earlier thread.

[Joe Carrick]

That makes it 1982 when you started. What company? I was the Product Manager for Architectural Cad Systems at CalComp from 1980 to 1985. At that time, it was Intergraph, CalComp and a couple others. The systems sold for $90,000 plus and the software and training were very inexpensive.

Today, software companies don't sell the equipment so they have to make a good profit on the software. But I think this is like selling a car and then telling the custome that they have to pay you an addition 25-100 percent for the key.

Believe me, I know what software costs to produce and I also know that training customers to use it is the best way to get new customers. Satisfied well trained users are more efficient and are the best advertisement for the product.

If I hadn't paid for the full set of videos and everything else in January, I would not expect the videos for X1 (just the differences). This is just a simple matter of purchasing a product and then finding that there was a new version a couple of months later with some rather drastic new capabilities without sufficient documentation.

Hmmmm.......... Maybe Allen's right - I am a little grumpy right now

[lavor]

Started with Calma, San Diego, in 1982 then moved to Intergraph, Alabama. Now in Tulsa with an Intergraph client. The numbers given are our current prices.

[Joe Carrick]

Started with Calma, San Diego, in 1982 then moved to Intergraph, Alabama. Now in Tulsa with an Intergraph client. The numbers given are our current prices.

Ah Yes, I remember Calma. They were in Sorento Valley and if I'm correct were most noted for integrated circuit design software. We hired some people from a Denver based CAD company, but I can't remember the name of that company. Calcomp was the first to use raster displays instead of vector screens.

[mbbailey]

I was a bit put-off by the cost of the upgrade of the training CD's also and don't intend to buy them. However, if they had a reasonable price I would purchase them anyway just to make sure that I have the latest examples of how to use the tools.

I replay certain lessons on occations just to refresh my memory and pick up things that I missed the first two times. The only things that those CDs don't show is the work-arounds that are discussed on this forum. I want to be able to go to just one place to review training CDs.

It may be a mistake to charge such a relative high price for the CDs as it will decrease the number of buyers and increase the calls to technical support. Many people were hesitant to buy the CDs at the old price and I can predict that that number will grow considerably with the new pricing structure. I am sure that there were many discussions about this in Marketing before they did the deed, but there must be a better way to recover cost than to decrease the market. Maybe pay-per-view would work better?

[rbrodie]

Started with Calma, San Diego, in 1982 then moved to Intergraph, Alabama. Now in Tulsa with an Intergraph client. The numbers given are our current prices.

Wow, Lavor, I wonder if I have met you in Huntsville?

It was 1982, my boss Curt Fentress in Denver, Colorado had just paid $.5 M for an Intergraph system for our 30-person office; he asked for a show of hands of who in the office might be interested in learning a "newfangled computer system" called Intergraph --- and by early 1983 I found myself visiting Huntsville, Alabama for 3D training.

At that early time, Intergraph had not even written any 3D manual and my job with Fentress was to write one for our own usage and to teach the rest of the staff. (I remember the "3D instructor" in Huntsville was even struggling with the class at the time because it was so new, and I was able to share my own discoveries in class and we somehow all got thru it.)

Curt Fentress had us all working 3-shifts over 24 hours (just to pay the mortgage on the system). My job (midnight shift) was eating TV dinners and inputting all the high-rise buildings of downtown Denver into our Intergraph system so we could then insert Curt's highrise designs in their midst. We printed out the rough vector imaging... and then brought out our "Gregorian Chant rapidograph pen" tools to try to create a pen-and-ink presentation taking hours and hours and hours.

Here's a sample of what we used to do...

[retire45]

Gee.. I got my first PC (to use Fastcad) in 1990.. I am in the midst of elders! Tell the stories, wise ones..

[styleito]

Hi Rich
If you really want to get back on topic
If I have it right.
Put 2 breaks in the roof plane and drag that up to the peak..
Stop at the peak in X1 and go past the peak in 10,then rebuild (F12)..
Tim O does the fancy pictures..

Back on topic again.

Thanks Allen/Louis,

I would have never tried that. It sounded like a quick way to get the "A polyline crosses itself" warning. But, it seems to work fine.

Thanks Again.