Editor's Window

Daily grind: New options for staying on top of things.

It's always a challenge to keep pace with everything going on in the ever-evolving CAD world. The launch of the Cadalyst Daily Newsletter in February has changed the way we cover industry news. We can now report the latest developments (and product releases) right away and follow up with a more detailed analysis, if warranted. There's always a time gap between when we prepare articles for print and when the print issue actually mails out. The daily format eliminates that gap.

Sara Ferris

But the Daily covers much more than news (a good thing, especially on those days when there's not much going on). A particular goal is to increase the number of product reviews beyond what we can fit into the print edition. I'd especially like to feature more utilities, add-ons and training materials—the sort of things that can deliver a big return in productivity gains for a minimal upfront cost. You can also get the scoop on industry events shortly after they take place instead of waiting a month or two.

Here's a sampling of what we've covered in the past month (visit www.cadalyst.com/daily for more). By the time you read this, we'll have at least ten more new articles posted.

• 1. Notes from a CAD traditionalist on how to make AutoCAD 2006 behave more like 2005. Don't like the hover highlighting or the zoom transition effect? Here's how to make it stop.
• 2. Q&A with Rod Masney, president of the SAP Users' Group. He explains how PLM (product lifecycle management) can help small and midsized businesses and identifies key IT concerns today as return on investment, total costs of ownership and security, including the risk management and enterprise security.
• 3. Litmus Design + Architecture envisions a design workflow centered around a relational database and assembled from off-the-shelf hardware and software products to keep costs affordable.

Because the last thing you probably want is something else cluttering up your inbox, we've designed the Daily so you can see immediately what's covered each time. If you want to read more, click through to the full article. If it's not a topic you care about, hit that delete key.

Now that news goes directly to the Daily, we've revamped Cadalyst Newsline and renamed it Tips & Tools Weekly to reflect its heightened focus on CAD tips, resources, deals and freebies. Each issue also features an updated calendar of industry events and a listing of new product announcements for the week.

I invite you to check out our lineup of e-mail newsletters at www.cadalyst.com/newsletters. And don't forget about our Web-exclusive content, which you can find listed on p. 6 of this issue. That's the place to look for information about specific CAD applications, including AutoCAD, SolidWorks, MicroStation, Solid Edge and Inventor. New this year is an AEC-flavored column from Synergis. As always, please feel free send us your thoughts on what you'd like to see us cover: editors@cadalyst.com.