Kinda OT - Speaking of business uses for our pocket toys....

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Larry - 07 May 2008 23:33 GMT

I have a friend who is VP of the Electrical Division of a fairly large
building contractor. He asked me to find him a way to make changes to
electrical drawings from out on the jobsite then send them back to their
office for more processing and distribution. He was under the impression
we were going to use his laptop in his truck. He was wrong....(c;

http://xournal.sourceforge.net/manual.html#file-format

Xournal, a Linux notetaking/sketching/drawing/etc. freeware has been
recently ported to the Nokia N8xx Linux tablets under OS2008 Maemo Linux.
I've been fooling around with it for my own business making notations to
PDF schematic files downloaded from electronic musical instrument
manufacturers service manuals. I go to the dealer website, download the
manual for the model I want in pdf format, then boot the page of that
drawing into Xournal which uses it as a "background", instead of the
lined note paper it default boots with. I can then draw in layers on top
of the background making any notes and changes I want to the Xournal
layer(s) and convert the results back into PDF files I can send to anyone
or store on my schematic SD card monster for future reference....all
without the TYPING I hate so much.

The business/industry use of this really nice Linux freeware is amazing!

Well, instead of loaning these billionaires my tablet and going without,
I got them to buy one for my friend to try out my idea.

His office staff can scan a piece of a hard drawing into a PDF file or
parse an electronic file piece to PDF, email it to his tablet which he
boots it into Xournal and carries it right into the jobsite where the
problem is. He can then use his stylus to draw right onto the PDF
drawing next to the problematic equipment the fix for the problem or make
modifications to the plans, etc. A quick email of the Xournal'd results
back to the office for printing or emailing to the
architects/engineers/whoever needs to see it.....almost in realtime,
while he's talking to them on the phone!

There are way cool uses for these little toys we haven't figured out,
yet. His boss ordered 8 more N810 Linux tablets for the other divisions
to try out. I'm even going to get some consulting fees setting them up
and showing them all how to use them. The stylus on the tablet screen
beats the hell out of trying to draw something onto the screen of the
laptop with the finger pad or mouse....(c;

Another neat "mind mapping" tool just got ported to the tablets,
Labyrinth.
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/labyrinth/
http://www.gnome.org/~dscorgie/labyrinth.html
I can see this thing bringing a whole new era to job mapping, even with
pictures, drawings and documents to the tablets. It's in its infancy
(alpha) but even I haven't crashed it yet....(c; I'm not sure all it can
do.

So many apps.....so few hours.....(d^:)

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George - 08 May 2008 02:17 GMT

> I have a friend who is VP of the Electrical Division of a fairly large
> building contractor. He asked me to find him a way to make changes to
> electrical drawings from out on the jobsite then send them back to their
> office for more processing and distribution. He was under the impression
> we were going to use his laptop in his truck. He was wrong....(c;

But thats a kludge because someone has to convert the little section of
the drawing to a PDF. There are a number of programs that will allow you
to open/save a native Acad dwg that already exists on a company server
on a device running Windows mobile for editing or just to do red
lining/annotation. I also do that on a small tablet that has quite a bit
more screen area than (which isn't a bad thing) those little tablets and
is still quite portable.

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Steve Sobol - 08 May 2008 03:15 GMT

> But thats a kludge because someone has to convert the little section of
> the drawing to a PDF. There are a number of programs that will allow you
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> more screen area than (which isn't a bad thing) those little tablets and
> is still quite portable.

Considering the recommended hardware to run Autocad -- at work, we sold a
computer spec'd specifically to run AutoCAD 2007 -- I'm surprised you're able
to do ANYTHING with a DWG on a WinMo device.

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Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol

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George - 08 May 2008 13:27 GMT

>> But thats a kludge because someone has to convert the little section of
>> the drawing to a PDF. There are a number of programs that will allow you
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> computer spec'd specifically to run AutoCAD 2007 -- I'm surprised you're able
> to do ANYTHING with a DWG on a WinMo device.

Agree that you can need a pretty serious machine on a designers desk
especially if you are doing 3d stuff but Autocad doesn't need a lot of
horsepower to do the simple stuff like redlining/reviewing on a small
screen.

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Larry - 08 May 2008 14:59 GMT

> Agree that you can need a pretty serious machine on a designers desk
> especially if you are doing 3d stuff but Autocad doesn't need a lot of
> horsepower to do the simple stuff like redlining/reviewing on a small
> screen.

But, who has time out in the field to screw around with Autocad's drawing
program. The guy stuck up in an electrical box needs to draw his
findings and ideas on a drawing, QUICKLY - not like a draftsman, and send
them back to the office for resolution, parts, missing items, shoddy
workmanship. He doesn't give a sh.t the line isn't perfectly straight
and he has no time, stuck up in the box like that on top of a ladder, to
TYPE. He wants to point at the problem, draw in a solution with personal
notes to show what he's done or what someone else needs to do, as in my
friend's case.

Autocad is just way too cumbersome to drag around on a jobsite screwing
around with all that drafting crap he doesn't want or need. That's for
the draftsman.

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