I battened down the hatches just like he said, and mister, I tell ya, that’s when it happened. Slimy little tentacles slipping in, all through the cracks, scarin’ the kitty and tryin’ like mad to get to these links. slimy!!

James Roper – Oh, it’s colorful no doubt. Plus it makes you think, I could really use a stiff drink about now.
Office 2010: The trailer – It’s so geek, it’s chic. Copy and paste, over.
StormTrooper 365 – 365 days of stormtroopers doin’ their thang. It will be, there’s only 98 so far. That should do for now.
Get Zombified – Cuz ya know, it’s big in Europe and if everyone had a hunger for brain, we’d all just get along better.
How average U.S. consumer spends paycheck – Like you need to be shown, but yeah, you need to be shown, visually, with pretty colors.
Technologic Overkill – Not only does this video feature a cute little robot, it was entirely shot on an iPhone 3GS. Overkill me.
Top 10 Ironic Ads from History – C’mon! Asbestos and Cigarettes are harmless! Oh for the good old again, or maybe not.

There’s a new 3D modeling playa in town and you don’t have to dink around with any messy features or geometry to create. It does, however, have to already exist. You’ll also need the ability to “maintain perpendicular & spatial distance between photos within a sequence” to take a few snapshots.

After that, it’s a simple upload. And as long as the 10-15 images overlap 80-90%, you’ll be all set to have a nice 3-dimensional bump-map automatically generated. Here’s a bit more.

The technology behind the 3Dsee website is an 8 year stint into the research of 3D imaging by Dr. David McKinnon from the Queensland University of Technology.

Instead of 3D animators working from a set of photos to model an object or using a cumbersome laser scanner, this software can create 3D models directly from a series of photos, which is a great time and money saver.” – _PhysOrg

To render it, you’ll need a program like MeshLab (Free) to import the .ply format file. From there, you can save it out with a format (OBJ, 3DS, COLLADA, etc.) accepted by most rendering programs. Try it out. Get your bump-map on.

Via Slashdot

For the somber souls chained to 5 minute boot times and 100% CPU usage, take heart. Early yesterday morning, Google announcment Chrome OS.

Yes, another OS, but this time one with all the characteristics you would expect from a product put out by Google, namely, speed, simplicity and yeah, totally open-source. An open-source OS. That big news for any type of app developer, but this has one more aspect that completely changes how we’ll play each day.

See you soon. We’re moving to the web
So, Did you think a Google OS wouldn’t happen? It’s slated for consumerism late 2010. Developers and the open-source community will get it later this year. The announcement was made right on the cusp of Microsoft making their own huge announcement come Monday about Office being delivered completely over the web. Convenient huh? Nevertheless, what Google is cookin’ up is bound to put the fear in an OS or two.

The OS is the Web
If you wander over to the announcement you’ll get the general idea of what Google is planning for this OS. It’s going to be initially targeted at Netbooks, like the Eee PC or MSI Wind, but will later move to workstations. The interesting point is where the development is going to take place. Remember, this is going to an open-source OS.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

The web is the platform. With Google going strong after OEM’s and product partners, you can imagine this means a lot of apps are going to be moving to the web. And why not, if you have an Smartphone, with Windows Mobile, Android or the iPhone OS, you know you can do many day-to-day tasks on those systems alone.

What will happen with CAD/PLM?
So, this poses the question about CAD/PLM Apps being developed for the Chrome OS and the curiosity if Google has the foresight to approach CAD and PLM companies to join in the fun. Nost likely the Chrome OS will be using it’s O3D API, so I would say this opens up a whole new dawning of 3D CAD apps. Whether it’s the big players or new developers… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Update!: – To get a little perspective in all this, be sure to read the Fake Steve Jobs write-up (Thanks Frank!) on Google’s OS Shenanigans. The best point he makes… Nobody uses the Chrome Browser. Something I thought about. Everyone is using iPhones and Firefox (I don’t count IE since it just plain sucks) A minuscule amount of traffic comes here from a Chrome Browser. I get more from Safari. But still, could an open OS from Google knock some market share out of Apple/Microsoft?

And you thought governments and retirement homes were the only powers fettered with the chains of conspiracy and hidden intrigue. oooohhhhh nooooo. Deep within the bowels of the CAD/PLM system lies long hidden speculation and neatly disguised patterns of cover-ups not seen by us in the trenches of engineering, design and manufacturing.

Be warned!! Some of these may be true, some may be totally made up, and some, yes some may even put your life in danger just for looking at it.

1. Carl Bass (CEO AutoDesk) and Bernard Charlès (CEO Dassault Systems) were a wrestling duo, secretly planning the take over of CAD/PLM Industry.
   The picture says it all…
   
2. Aliens Robots created different CAD formats to make use all grow prematurely old.
   You know this is a strong possibility. It’s either this or the early development of CAD formats was manipulated by an alien race, or aliens posing as humans or humans that just hate other humans and want to make things difficult. Some people think this is changing.
3. ‘Direct Editing’ was first thought up after someone ate too much and said, “Ohhh, my skin hurts.”
   Most likely factual, but no way to confirm since many people eat excess quantities of food and then complain about having soreness. However, it could be narrowed down to anyone in the CAD industry with bad skin and a sour face.
4. PLM was initially an acronym for Product Lifecycle Mayhem
   But the original creators decided ‘Mayhem‘ sent a negative buzz as opposed to a positive buzz. So, it was changed after someone sneezed and a small piece of mucous hit the word “Management” on a Workplace Efficiency Seminar poster.
5. There actually was a SkunkWorks project to make scratch n’ sniff Rapid-prototyped 3D CAD parts.
   It was ended due to time constraints and the ’smell’ always ending up as the foul odor in a damp trunk of a Toyota Corolla. Some suspect it’s a continuing project with sightings of RP vendors inadvertently nosing products during presentations.

Another? YES!

DS is dumbing down SolidWorks (and keeping out advanced features) to distinguish Catia as high end software.
OOOOoooo, now there’s some food for massive pondering. Thanks Phil!!!

Now that you’ve read this, you are most likely in danger of being chained to a drafting table and subsequently tortured with words like “ease of use”, “collaboration”, “productivity”, and “scalability”. RUN… or stay here and discuss.

OOoooo. Is this really a question that needs to be asked? Everyone uses 3D right? and if they don’t, the should be slapped upwards and forced to partake of the goodness that is 3D geometry.

Do the manufacturers you work with use 3D data to create parts, build assemblies or get information not provided on drawings? Or do they just stick with good ol’ paper to keep production rolling? I’m thinking there’s usually a mix, but there’s benefits with 3D data a lot of shops may be missing. Whatcha think?

Should They Use 3D?
So maybe a manufacturer only uses 2D CAD, PDF drawings or 2D templates to create parts? (How lame right. Get with it!) Should they try to use 3D data though?

It’s easy to quickly say yes, but what’s interesting in this regard is how engineering can provide data to manufacturers. Engineering that uses 3D data has the options to output everything from 2D drawings to 3D geometry. If they can provide the 2D data to manufacturing for how they work, do shops really need to try new ways to use 3D? I think they need to look at in the scope of their existing processes and how they can work with different data engineering can provide. What do you think?

Image via Flickr

Oh now behave yourself. It’s a simple question, but one we can throw a truckload of speculation at and shake it vigorously to come up with all sorts of outlandish ideas. ya down?

Mozilla Labs launched their Open Web Tools Directory today. It’s the new central repository mish-mash of design and coding tools to aid the most hardcore web developers pour their creations onto our screens – all of them available for the price of free. Now, what happens if we apply this to the whole 3D CAD/PLM space… besides pure mayhem and ensuing violence from VAR to partner product?

Open wide
I’m not talking open CAD standards or open-source CAD. I’m talking a place where developers, from the CAD/PLM companies to the third-party pushers, have a place that centralizes apps to produce CAD/PLM related products, models and services. Sure, having an open-source for the developers would be part of it, making it a common source an even bigger plus.

Now, put it on the web
Being able to have a central location for helps that help develop offline products is one thing. But as we look at SaaS (Software as a Service) apps having a little more potential and gaining more interest, you can’t help but think of the possibility that much of the development will be happening for online development. Add the open aspect to that and you have some big change happening in the whole design, engineering and manufacturing marketplace.

Now make it all Social-ly
Ya just can’t have a warm cozy web presence without some social aspects. It’s all the rage. Kids are putting it in their soup and CAD developers in their software. The obvious benefits for something like a Tools directory is feedback from the people using the tools, not just ways to connect people or collaborate. Not a reason to use ‘Web 2.0′ (so 2006) in product literature.

Who will start it?
Maybe we’ll see some fresh faces in this area, but my hope is that we’ll see some innovation in how products are deployed and how support is extended to a community of CAD/PLM users and developers. Looking at a small segment like the Open Web Tools can bring up a lot of ideas about where CAD/PLM can be pushed. Yeah, it’s basically a list of free apps. Maybe that doesn’t make a big difference. maybe that’s how you take over the freagin’ world.

Anyway, head over to take a look at the interface (in Firefox to see the fancy Canvas action). If you’re a web developer, it will interest you. If you have no idea what the heck this is all about, you can at least appreciate the way in which the tools are presented. Is something like this out of the range of CAD/PLM development?

I see that look in your eye. You want to see some sweet bicycle convertin’ design that makes falling off your bike and hitting a street sign look like fun again.

Well, here it is. It’s called the ZWEISTIL [two style], named by the designers, Stefan Wallmann and Daniel Knüpfer, for it’s unique variable frame construction that gives you the ability to drop it down cruiser style and turn the heads of the hunnies… or just save some gas.

Stefan fills us in on the greasy details. I think you’ll like the way he explains it.

Note from Josh: I hope you take just a few minutes to read through the account on the design of this bike. It touches on a lot of aspects that get overlooked in the design sites that throw up the pretty pictures but leave out the detail about how products actually get to the final stage. This project goes way beyond just creating some nice models to render. It shows proof of concept through full-scale working models. A task that isn’t quick and typically takes a few iterations to hash out all the issues.

The Idea
At first, our intention was, to discover new ways of riding with human power, thus inventing a new human-powered vehicle as answer for problems like air pollution and jammed cities, as well as the decreasing fit- and increasing fatness of mankind. The thought was simply to get people moving, without wasting valuable resources.

At first, different concepts popped up. Detailed investigation through some gyms made a concept evolve that was to be the perfect exercise-machine: to use as many muscles as possible and bring that force onto the road.

The First Concept
The first concept was created to be propelled in different ways: by arms, legs or both. Like a recumbent bike, a rowboat or a mix in between. The first thoughts about this bike were sketches and technical drawings, followed by small mechanical mock-ups created from LEGO parts. At this point we knew the principle would work and decided for a 1:1 mock-up. This three-wheeled monster we called “Eisenschwein” [Pig iron] utilized several freewheel hubs from scavenged bikes, as well as a “specialty part” for the tilt and propelling mechanism.

However, this was only the first small step to the ZWEISTIL. We decided the Eisenschwein’s footprint was too big for riding everyday and not very easy to handle, to put in a car, or drive on the sidewalk. So, we went away from the all-exercise-bike towards a more commuter-friendly vehicle that would provide more incentive to switch from a car to a bike.

A Recumbent That is Not a Recumbent
We went to Germersheim, a fair for specialty bikes (zillions of recumbents, velomobiles and the like) and from that, knew what to do: a recumbent that is not a recumbent.

Our research revealed that indeed, people had thought about such concepts before and created versions themselves with two seats, two bottom brackets and two handlebars or with some kinds of flip-over seats and handlebars, so they could stop to convert their bike back and forth, but our bike wouldn’t require you to stop.

The Final Process
We now knew what the bike had to do. We knew we needed a dampening spring to lower the frame SLOWLY. We skipped the backrest on the prototype for ease of building. The spoke and hubless front wheel were just for fun. For a bike that converts while you ride it, we also knew that the steering mechanism had to be “different”.

We printed two pictures, a normal bike and a recumbent, using them as an underlay to have the two final positions for the saddle, bottom bracket and handlebar. We then took some cardboard strips and needles to try out different frame geometries (using the needles as joints) to come to a frame that does what we wanted: translate from bike to recumbent.

It was time again for another LEGO prototype. This is the part were SolidWorks would have been a really great help. We needed to figure out a switchable frame with several joints and multiple dependencies. I know this could be done much easier in SolidWorks, but we had very little practice with the program and very little time to get the project done, so we relied upon our good ol’ model-building skills.

The LEGO prototype brought us far enough to build a first switchable bike prototype. Because of the lack of mechanical pre-planning, we welded the frame and cut it apart and welded again… and again, until we had a high-and-low-bike that lacked the desired degree of freedom, but proved that you could switch positions while riding without terribly injuring yourself.

Back in the metal workshop, it took us a rushing 2 days to set up the frame up. No time compared to the following tinkering and fiddling with the said mechanics (designers, not engineers remember…), but after a lot of work, we got it done. With countless aches and burns (freshly welded metal can be really hot even if it doesn’t look hot…) and punctures (Daniel put a spoke right THROUGH is index finger! the filthiest spoke I have ever seen!) we were finally riding a working prototype. You may notice the sense of pride in the video below.

The Finished Concept
Until recently, no computer programs were used in the design. We took a shortcut by using Photoshop for rendering of the bicycle, thanks to Scott Robertson’s great bicycle rendering tutorial. Additionally, we quickly made a foam model in 1:3.5 scale, painted it and presented the finished concept bike for our diploma thesis.

How 3D CAD Could Have Helped
For sure, the technical aspect of the vehicles innards could easily have been done in SolidWorks and the tilt mechanism (which had to be fixed later) would have profited from a thorough pre-calculation. Well, we´re designers, not engineers. (We kept that as mantra throughout the process). SolidWorks would have helped here in a way that we clearly could have skipped the cutting and re-welding by allowing proper planning of how the frame should behave. This slowed development of the final frame. It was a lot of trial and error, but also a lot of fun.

Admittedly, after a few months we realized the last steps to be quite a dead-end street for good industrial designers. We were asked many times if there was CAD-data that could be used for casting/molding processes. We wished many times we had the digital concept! Programs like SolidWorks could have helped immensely with the prototyping process (not every part of the process!) and at the same time make it a lot easier to prepare the product for manufacturing later.

Cost calculation could have been a lot easier as well. On the other hand, when only working digitally, many aspects of a product get lost, especially concerning usability and ergonomics. One can get great insights from a full-scale mock-up (we did several, also in wood using the exact dimensions) that would be impossible to have on the screen.

We were also aware of the possibility for rapid prototyping of a scale model, another point at which having the 3D data would have helped. We are good model builders and that kept the process fast, but it would surly would have speed up everything a little bit.

In the end, going almost completely analogue (except for final rendering) made the speed of the process possible for us. We had a mere 3.5 months to work on everything including pre-thinking, the Eisenschwein, the Highlowcycle (another variant) and finally the ZWEISTIL. With the additional research and design process, finding a way to do it in SolidWorks seemed inappropriate for us.

This would be totally different for a skilled user. I’m sure we would have really appreciated skipping some of the greasy hand moments, but (and here comes the nostalgia) we wouldn’t miss it! Time in that metal workshop was great – welding things and getting dirty, grinding, drilling, making stuff! Once there was a professor standing in the workshop telling us that he was teaching next to the courtyard (that was our testcourse) and every now and then he had to interrupt his lectures because all his students were staring out of the window…that felt just great.

Well, your now you know the process of making the Zweistil. I guess , as you may be quite keen with 3D CAD, you may have figured out some more way where the programs would have helped in the development.

If you would like to contact either about the bicycle or other projects you can reach them at stefan.wallmann@gmx.de or daniel.knuepfer@gmx.de

Let me ask you this. Have you ever been so determined to have consistent 3D geometry, that you paid someone to feed you Pad Thai while you linked dimensions on your model?

No? Ok, so maybe that’s for special occasions. But if you’re interested in saving some time and eating Pad Thai on your own, you’ll like this tip.

Randy Simmons, an Application Engineer/CSWP with 3DVision Technologies put up an
interesting little trick to get your parts to think there’s a thickness in parts extruded as thin parts. Typically this only happens when your creating sheet metal parts using sheet metal features, but this little diddy allows you to have a “Link to Thickness” option no matter what your extruding. Here’s the breakdown.

1. Extrude as a Thin Part
This works for parts extruded as thin parts. After you extrude it. Double-click on the extrusion and either double-click and select Link Values… from the pulll-down or right-click on the dimension and select Link Values… Click to Enlarge.

2. Thickness
Add Thickness as a variable name.

3. Link to Thickness enabled
Now you’ll see the “Link to Thickness” option enabled in the extrude property manager.

The nice thing. If you become enraged and unlink the dimension, the “Link to Thickness’ Option stays intact… Actually, I’m not sure you would want this, but it keeps the part from breaking. Thanks Randy.

Son: But Ma, I can draw my own photo!
Ma: Nope son, you attach robo arm to you.
The last drawing you did of yourself was hideous and misrepresented. Besides, the robot captures your best features dear.

Thomas Ricker states it best, it’s “a device that snaps your photo and then forces you to draw your own face by dragging your bound hands around until the portrait is complete…too lazy to make the portrait itself.”

Ok, in all seriousness though, this could actually be a good use of tech for people who enjoy drawing portraits but lack the arm control or upper body strength to put pen to paper. Thank you robot, thank you.

Via Engadget

“Bzzzzzzz!”, it went, and suddenly more ice cream than you could catch in your mouth was falling from the opening, along with horses, butterflies and these convincingly brilliant links.

Ivan Santic – You’ll see once you get to the site. The video on the front page then proceed to the gallery.
Can a Smartphone replace a Laptop? – The referenced article is one thing, then there’s the conversation here. I think you know the answer.
Lunchbots – you need steel. throw out the plastic, not the kids, or the yappy dog. steel, it’s durable.
Pioneer Woman Photoshop Actions – It’s sunny out on the ranch, and these actions created by Pioneer Woman will make your photos just freakin’ pop.
Cost of Living Comparison – It’s hard times. If you’re gonna pick a cheap city, here’s one place to start. via Lifehacker.
Coriander Meatballs -You KNOW you’ve been craving it. Cheaper than a box of vino to go with it, whip up a lil’ mint sauce with it you gourmet.
Cardiovascular Paper – It’s all the rage these days. Sport some at your favorite sporting event or just wear into work.

Bonus! GigaPan Time!

Ant! – This is the closest I want to get to an Ant, any closse and it would be too gross.
Parasitic Wasp! – Why? It just gets worse.
SpiderMite! – Small creatures no longer interest me.

Have you ever sat at your table staring into a pile of peas wondering just how a multi-touch workflow would work? Would it be practical for editing 3D content or video content?

Oblong Industries (creators of G-speak) and supreme futurist John Underkloffer unveiled TAMPER at Sundance Film Fesitval this year as part of the New Frontier exhibition. But check this out. John recently gave a demonstration to Makingof.com showing exactly how it all works. Video after the break. It’s happening with video, why not with 3D CAD?

Editing Video with multi-touch and Gestures

Yes, it’s happening. They’ve managed to make the difficult task look even more difficult, or even easier, or even more aerobic… depends on how you look at it.

Why not with 3D CAD?

So, now you’ve seen the possibilities of how it’s being done with a relatively complicated task like editing video. Sure, there’s now 3-dimensional object, but I’m pretty sure they exist in video also. What’s really interesting from a 3D geometry perspective is how they are working with 2-dimensional graphic data and it’s 3-dimensional counterpart at the same time, in a heads ups environment. The object also serve as a point of control for what the user is creating.

So, why not with 3D CAD? With device like the Flux Digital Tabletop we’re getting awfully close to having to get up out of our seats a little more often. Good-bye atrophy. Hello tendonitis.

Via Making of

I’m excited. Are you excited? The crinkly wrapper is coming off and it’s about dang time. Today, July 1st, after two years (and two months) of tinkering with graphics, plugins and a soupy mixture of html code, we’re launching the all new SolidSmack.

It’s shiny, don’t ya think. But that’s not all there is to it. This is a new day for what’s going on with SolidSmack as well. This is also a testbed of sort. One, to find better ways of sharing cool content with you and two, to make it more a more engaging experience for you. Here’s the details on some of the design and what’s to come.

Why the update?
Frankly, the old site layout, while minimal, was getting a bit blotchy, dated looking and difficult to manage. We just can’t have that now can we. I also wanted an easier way to add content, experiment with different web technologies on the site and yes, slap some ads up in your face to get a little support going.

The theme I’m using, and it’s versatile backend, allows me to do this and really, to do it much easier than before. This makes the site much more dynamic and able to change quickly. Some things you’ll see, some things you won’t. The point being, we’re gonna put the top down, have some fun and see what this site can do. So, you might be wondering what the site is running on.

What’s it running on?
I’m building a whole About section for the site that will give details on everything from the framework to the fonts. For the time being though, here’s some quick facts

• Hosted on Hostgator
• Running on Wordpress
• Rockin’ the Thesis Theme (aff) Framework
• Uses Icons from the free Function Icon Set
• Took over 1 year to design

What you should check out
If you’re seeing this in a feed reader or email you won’t be able to enjoy some of the features in the sidebar and footer area. So, yeah, you should definitely visit the site. There’s a few things you’ll want to come back repeatedly for.

The sidebar
Right now there’s ways to connect with me via Friendfeed. There’s polls! Delicious polls. A new one every week or so. And there’s the Disqus Combo Widget where you can see what being discussed and who’s discussing it.

The Footer
I love this area. It slides back and forth. There’s nine areas that I’ll be adding different content to occasionally. Currently, there’s ways to connect via Google Friend Connect. See some of the top CAD sites and see post by different criteria.

The Archive Page
The Archive page is where you can find posts organized by category and view post based on popularity and randomness.

Some things we’ll be trying out/looking into
Since I hold a high regard for complete randomness and highly useful information for you all, we’ll be trying out a few things.

• Real-time blog posts (Like this one, see below)
• Guest Posts (contact me if you’re interested)
• Cloud Apps
• Broader Content
• Video

As always, please let me know what you think, what’s annoying, what’s cool, what you would like to see and how the site could be better in any way. Thanks for helping SolidSmack go this far. Let’s kick it up a notch or two.

Oh no, you not gonna do it are you? please, no, no. YES. Slowly step away from the rotor. Bolt Circles my friends. Large, circular, equally-spaced bolt circles to turn your manufacturing nemesis into someone that buys you cakes on holidays. Manufacturers have a special place in their heart for “B.C.” , and as engineers we want to appreciate the power of creating them easily.

Now, in SolidWorks, you have a few options, but if you’re a square plate with no circular edge to be seen, using the plain old Circular Pattern feature just won’t cut it, but there’s a tool that will.

Have a look at the image below. That’s a heckuvalotta holes huh. It’s easy to create that equally-spaced circle of holes using a circular pattern because you have that circular edge for it to follow. Now let’s look at how to do it when you don’t have a circular edge.

Bolt Circles with Circular Pattern are easy, but what do you do when you don't have a circular edge to select?

What to use when you don’t have a Circular Edge
The fastest way to get a bolt circle without using a circular pattern is to use a Curve-Driven Pattern. But there’s also a quick way to create the curve you want to use.

Step 1 – Create a reference
Using the Hole Wizard (Insert, Features, Hole, Wizard…), select your Hole Size and using the Position Tab in the Property Manager

Step 2 – Create a Curve Driven Pattern
Create a Curve Driven Pattern (Insert, Pattern/Mirror, Curve Driven Pattern…) and select the feature to pattern (the hole) and the reference circle. Note: You’ll have to right-click on the Hole Feature sketch and select Show to be able to select it.

So there ya go. A beautiful Bolt Circle to make any classy machinist have a happy day on the Drill Press.
Image via Flickr – Beige Alert

I’m not saying that one day robots will eat and digest you for energy, but I am saying. Especially given the state of two minds that are creating carnivorous robots that run on the juices extracted from various pests and their materials.

This one grabs flies, mice or other small creatures, scrapes them into a microbial fuel cell vat of bacteria that breaks down the biological material into pure robot-loving energy. No word on if the vat removes the fibrous material or if it’s dishwasher safe.

Enjoy your dreams of being slowly digested. The ‘Matrix’ scenario is sounding better all the time.

They can gain energy by chomping on flies and mice…The pests are lured in and digested by an internal microbial fuel cell. – _{New Scientist}

Although they currently rely on a main power source, is likely the could extract enough energy to be fully powered by their captured prey. Ya gotta human ingenuity.

Via Hack a Day

How many ways do you think there are to share content online? hundreds? thousands? Who cares, cause we’ve boiled it down to four. Exactly four sites that are changing how people post content and interact online?

Not only are these the coolest places to be online nowadays, they’re the quickest and most versatile ways to put up your thoughts, consolidate your social activity and post just about any kind of media you want people to know about. So, get your amazing food mold photos and thoughts on abolishing insect repellent together, you’re about to go post.

Why the four?
There’s a lot of ways to put crapalicious meaningful content online. However, there’s only a few really good ways to enjoy doing it while having it all make sense. Whether you’re just wondering about posting content online or consolidating how you already do it, these are bound to interest you.

I’d also like to add, there’s a direction content distribution on the web seems to be drifting mindlessly toward. There are types of real-time aspects creeping in, but this is just one feature of what browsers and web apps will apply toward the continuous streams of online content generated each day. These are four that are showing the types of features being added to applications development and content distribution. They’re not perfect, but they’re ones to get familiar with.

These four below would currently be considered blog or micro-blogging sites or platforms, but in actuality, they’re more like thought-streaming or content-streaming apps. They allow you to put content online in different ways, and likewise share it in different ways. Here’s the crew of them. While they’re separate apps, you’ll notice when you get into them, that they have features which allow them to work together.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed is real-time content being delivered as fast as you can create it. You can see the content streaming in real-time on the public discussion page. This seems a bit noisy , I agree, but the value is on the people you connect with and the other features like consolidating all your social site activity, posting via email, document attachment, groups, threaded comments, and great bookmarklet, widgets and other tools.

Posterous

Posterous is making it extremely easy to post content online as well as consolidate your activity. The great features Posterous has are being able to auto-post to your other social sites, like Twitter, Facebook, etc., post via email and have as many Posterous sites as you like on one account. You can also subscribe to other Posterous users.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a lot like Posterous with not as much a focus on distributing your content to other sites. They have an incredibly easy interface to use, a lot of tools, widgets and a third-party developer site which allows you to extend the ways you use Tumblr. You can also follow people and create as many blogs as you like on one account.

Wordpress.com

Wordpress is one more will be familiar with. It’s a full blog platform that allows you to quickly customize the site and post content. The integration doesn’t work quite the same, but since it uses RSS you can link it to other sites. Wordpress has an extremely strong community, lots of development and many ways to customize.

Which is best?
These are all the range of web apps currently out that are pushing web technology in the area of content distribution. They don’t create or organize the media for you, they’re simply an outlet for all the stuff you want to get off your head. The best for this is a tough call between the two, FriendFeed and Posterous. Freindfeed allows quick posting via web and email and allows file attachment. Posterous takes away the boundaries typically associated with blogging while keeping the whole process familiar. It’s dead easy and would be the preferred way to learn how all this social media works together. For this reason, I’d pick Posterous with a strong suggestion to also check out Friendfeed, in order to discover how a stream of information is displayed and used online.

How these Apps Will Advance CAD/PLM
Currently, CAD and PLM is a static, somewhat disconnected way of designing and tracking information. It mirrors, to an extent, what typical blogs are today. Content is created, published (released) and consumed (built). The comments come in and splashes of collaboration happen here and there. In an environment similar to what Freindfeed and Posterous are CAD and PLM apps would be feed information from devices and applications able to connect and feed information to the model and designer/engineer/manufacturing. The programs could then immediately feed production systems real-time model data and information based on conditional notifications.

That’s all great for copying what web technology is doing, but CAD/PLM apps can advance beyond this by very simply integrating adaptive processes and more semantic features/search. We all want a better way to find the junk out there about what programs we use, the models we create in them and the discussions going on around them. Not only within the applications themselves, but also within web technologies where collaboration and issue resolutions are happening. I mention this, because there’s people out there thinking about this – people thinking about how we create/use 3D data, how we can automatically generate 3D geometry based on purpose and environment while manufacturing is automatically aware of what is coming and adapts accordingly. Most likely we’ll see a more relevant future web, and I’d like to think we’ll see more relevant future CAD/PLM systems.

Allright, dang, that was deep and all serious and way to long. This wasn’t meant to be an article, but you got me going, so enjoy the added commentary and thought about where we’re all going with CAD/PLM and this crazy web world we’re living in.