FREE DESIGN REVIEW?!?!

I just stumbled upon this post by Autodesk blogger, Shaan Hurley. This post is announcing that Autodesk Design Review, Autodesk DWF Writer and Autodesk DWF Viewer are now all totally FREE! Here are some highlights from Shaan's post:

Import DWG and DXF Files Import AutoCAD® DWG™ and DXF™ files, including the latest 2007 format, directly into Design Review with full fidelity and accuracy.

Markup Enhancements: Rotate Objects and Symbols Rotate text, rectangles, ellipses, and other symbols, including symbols containing raster images.

Combine 2D and 3D Designs Share, review, and mark up both 2D drawings and 3D models in a single file; adding, deleting, reordering, and renaming sheets and models within the Navigator window.

Round-Trip Reviews Increase team productivity with inline markup tools that enable you to round-trip designs quickly and easily back into Autodesk design software—without the need to reenter information.

Batch Printing Print multiple DWF files, customize print settings, and save batch printing configuration for later use with the Batch Print wizard.

Preview, Select Preferences, and Print Select preferences, preview files before printing, and print files to scale or at another scale with the same high fidelity as in Autodesk design software, including the printing of 3D designs.

Need the low-down on all things DWF? Check out blogger Scott Sheppard 'Beyond the Paper'. And for more about Design and Building Collaboration check out 'Connected'; a new Autodesk blog by Alex Willingham, Jason Pratt and Mike Gemmell. 

Thanks to Beth Powell and Bobby Jones for pointing out that the comments on my posts for the last two months don't seem to be working. I'm not sure what's wrong yet, but, I'll keep tinkering! If you'd like to comment directly to me, feel free to drop me an email, I love to know that people are reading! I haven't had much time to play with my blog recently (hey, I've got tags now! I'll be assigning them to all of my earlier posts as I find the chance). EDIT: right after I made this post, comments miraculously started working again. Shazam! am I ever powerful!?!?! ;-p 

I have been so busy recently, but, I did take a nice weekend off to just relax. I forced myself to leave my laptop at home and flew out to San Rafael for some time with my husband and a chance to hang out with our augi friends. See some pics here and here. 

When the AUGI Board were in meetings, all I did was relax and read. I had just been loaned a few series from David and Leigh Eddings. I managed to read the first three books in the Belgariad series by the time I returned home on Sunday night. Now, I'm not normally a fantasy reader anymore, but, I was talking to one of my favorite Mechanical contractors at work about the Lord of the Rings movies and he offered to loan me some of Eddings' books declaring that I would love them. And I do. 

 Friday night we went out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant called the Wild Fox; where I had the most AMAZING lamb shank. Donnia and Lynn did mention that this was the same restaurant the BoD were at when my dearest was being grilled about the possibility of us being engaged... which resulted in this post and a flurry of newsgroup gossip and unexpected telephone calls while we were picking up my engagement ring. 

Saturday night Lynn invited the BoD over to her house and I consider myself honoured to have been allowed to tag along. Lynn is a great hostess and an AMAZING cook. While she was taking care of the fabulous food, her husband Craig showed us around the house, and Craig's son, Conner, served us drinks. An AMAZING dinner from start to finish; Thank You! Lynn and Craig for having us over; we had so much fun all evening! 

The weekend was much too short, but, it was a much-needed break for me. Now, Mike and the other Board Members might disagree about how much of a break they had while out there. They work pretty hard and were totally knackered by the end of their trip. 

 A highlight from this week... I got a NEW COMPUTER at work. It's 4x the machine the old one was and I'm no longer using Office 97! I've joined this millennium! God Bless the IT guy, I'm such an odd case and he handled my assertions with remarkable aplomb (some of the guys who don't know me as well just blow me off and think because I'm not in IS that I don't know what I need when it comes to my PC). By the time I left work today I'd finally installed (including service packs et al) Autodesk Map 3D 2007 along with all of the other little bits and pieces.