I am a builder. I can’t escape it. It’s how God fit me together when he jumbled up some creativity, problem solving skill and passion to help others. After building many websites from scratch (mostly for customers that have moved on), I’ve learned that there are tools out there that can make it easier. WordPress is one of those tools. When you understand how WordPress (WP) works and learn your way around customizing it with Themes, Widgets, Plugins and Settings, you can coax it very quickly to produce a very functional, connected and professional website (www.swtuts.com is a WP site that I admire). My goal for every customer is to make them look good while using my skills to meet their technical needs. WP helps me reach this goal every time AND results in a website that anyone can customize/edit.

Installing WP on my server is easy because each hosted site has a selection of available tools called the EasyApps Collection. While WP is famous for its 5 minute install (which requires setting up the database and uploading the files manually), the EasyApps installation script on my host makes it even easier. When you initiate the script, it asks you a few simple questions and then builds a smooth sailing, easy editing, quick customizing, wonderful website in just a few minutes (sorry for the alliteration there, I got carried away).

First, WP needs to install in a folder on your web server and you need to choose a name for that folder. The default is “/wordpress”. I usually change it to something more generic like “/site” or something very specific to the site I’m building. The folder may come up from time to time in working with and sharing your site so you do want to choose carefully. Consider a link http://BoogerBall.com/wordpress/the_original_story.htm vs. the same link to http://BoogerBall.com/savem/the_original_story.htm. The former tells the world what tool you use to manage your site. The latter keeps it simple and adds some intrigue to your link. For BoogerBall.com, I will choose “bb/” as it is short and sweet and relevant (and not too gross).

Next, choose a login and password. This script creates both an SQL database and an initial WP admin user with the same credentials. Because WP is a database driven tool, your site loads fast and information you add to it can be used in many unique ways. Behind the scenes, it may seem more complex than a simple html site, but up front it is much simpler to manage (consider the work of changing the look of a simple html site – page by page vs. the simplicity of installing a new theme in WP – in seconds the whole site has a fresh look).

If your host has a script like mine, you will immediately want to upgrade your WP install to the latest version. WP has instructions on their site how to do this. If you’ve installed version 2.7 or later, the updates are automated (click and wait a moment). If not, you will need to use ftp to upload and download the latest files. For ftp, I recommend an easy tool called FileZilla – its free and it has a cool name that makes me think of a giant green lizard breathing fire into my website – making things happen. You will also need a text editor for a step or two.

Some people use WP as simply a blog tool. They have a regular “www…” site and then have a link to their blog “www…/blog”. I prefer to use the blog tool as the entire site, taking advantage of all of its cool features. To do this, you will need to configure WP to run from the root folder of your site so www… connects directly to the WP pages. This simple tutorial makes that possible.

As WP is primarily a blog tool, it’s prudent to understand how you might make it work for a fully featured website. Content on a WP site takes two forms, Posts and Pages. Pages are designed to be mostly static info that doesn’t change very often. Most WP themes have a menu bar that automatically makes a button for each Page. For the sites that I’ve helped launch, Pages are used for the About page, a Contact page, a Calendar (linked to a Google Calendar) or other basic but important information. Posts are designed to be the primary authoring tool for the WP site. Some of my customers use Posts to share what’s new or to document a monthly report. Articles such as this one are perfect for Posts. Posts are sorted on a WP site by date so they produce a running history of the content you’ve added. Posts have the ability to be organized with Categories and Tags which further extend the navigation possibilities. If you are selling something, each item may be placed on its own Post and each Post can have a Category (For Sale or Sold) which will help sort the content. There are many possibilities, but understanding Pages and Posts will help you make the most of WP.

WP has many additional features that make it a powerful ally in web design. Plugins are one of those features. Many free plugins exist that you can install directly inside your WP control panel. Some favorites that I use are Image Widget, Simple Hit Counter, Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form and Subscribe To. If I have helped with your site, you already should have these installed. Themes are another one of those features. You can download and install new themes in a flash from inside WP. If you’re code savvy, you can customize a theme using the built-in Edit Themes tool. I usually find a theme that looks swell, download it and customize it to make it more swell. Another feature that makes WP a cool tool are just the basic WP settings that give you a whole host of controls over your site (including automatic search engine registration). Best of all, each of these features will be the subject of a future post (so much to say, so few keystrokes).

So there it is. It took me more time to ink out the words of this post (yes, I do write all of my posts on paper before “going online” – call me obsolete) than it took me to turn BoogerBall.com into a fully functional, searchable, Google savvy website. Now all I need is content and creating quality content is where your time should be spent. WordPress makes that possible.  Now that BoogerBall.com has its start as a WordPress site, the next step is to customize it.

“I use SolidWorks to design any type of frame because the Weldments tools make it so easy.”

Did you go to SolidWorks World this year?  I missed the big event but I learned that it was recorded and posted online.  If you shift the timeline on this video to about 5:25, you will catch Mike Puckett and Avelino Rochino introducing us as “Rock Stars”.

I highly recommend becoming certified, not because the test is easy or hard, not because it will make you stand out above the crowd, but because it will stretch your skills.  Stretching means learning and learning is something you should never stop doing. It was fun to support SolidWorks with some cool images, but I’m no Rock Star!

Last July, the pastor of my church began talking to me about a new program he wanted to start called Family Style. The idea was for a daily devotion time shared by the whole family. Just 15 minutes a day to make a connection between the family and God through prayer and Bible reading would produce lasting benefits for individuals, their families and the church as a whole. I was excited about the idea because most churches I’ve attended have taken over the responsibility of the spiritual training of children that has been abdicated by their parents (especially their fathers). This plan gives parents the tools (Biblical devotional materials), encouragement (reinforced every week at church) and accountability (read on) needed to enable success. Pastor Tim’s desire was to encourage the whole church to participate for one year and to keep track of our progress using dimes and that’s why he was talking to me.

His idea was to have every family bring one dime to church for each devotion they did during the week (up to 5). We would then place those dimes in clear plastic tubes that could be on display at church to show our progress. Washers painted blaze orange (called “wildcards” by Tim) would serve as replacements for missed days (nobody’s perfect). As the display fills with dimes and washers we can see in a tangible way our families growing closer to Christ.

The first question he asked was if I knew where to buy clear plastic tubing in the right size for dimes and something to cap the ends with. I pointed him the the place that has everything, McMaster Carr (www.mcmaster.com). I’ve used McMaster Carr for years as a source for everything from metric fasteners to raw materials to tools. Most of my customers rely heavily on their quick delivery and low quantity requirements. From McMaster, Tim ordered 7 pieces of 1” clear acrylic tubing that were 6 feet long (click here for link). As it turns out, I already had a whole box of white plastic caps that fit perfect in the 3/4” ID tubing (if you send me a note, I will share) but you can also buy them (black color) at McMaster (click here for link).

So with the key materials in hand, my task was to come up with a way to build an interesting display. Here are my first concept sketches. The finished product was simply a refinement of these concepts based upon discoveries and choices made along the way.

Upon receiving the tubes, I discovered that they were actually a bit longer than 72”. This was a blessing in planning the cut lengths as I could ignore the width of my saw blade in my calculations. After some trial and error, I came up with a cut list resulting in 19 tubes measuring from 6” to 42” in 2” increments. A few pieces leftover could serve as a sample in presenting the idea to others. I used masking tape to protect the tubing as I cut each piece to length with a miter chop saw (my favorite power tool). Be sure to make your cuts quickly as the tubing will melt if you cut it too slowly.  Scroll to the end of this post to find a link to the PDF drawing showing a detailed cut list for the project.

Next I made a quick drawing in SolidWorks to get an idea of how to make the spacer blocks. As you can see from this drawing, each spacer block is made from standard 1 X 3 lumber which measures 3/4” X 2-1/2” and is cut to 9” long. A standard 8′ piece of 1 X 3 can make 10 spacer blocks with only a few inches of waste. This means that I needed 4 sticks of 1 X 3 to make the 36 spacer blocks. Scroll to the end of this post to find a link to the PDF drawing showing detailed plans for the clamp block.

A miter chop saw and a small drill press proved to be the perfect tools for making the spacer blocks. First I setup a stop block to assure that each of my spacer blocks were cut to the same 9” length. Then I set the saw to miter at 45° with an adjustment to my stop block and I cut the corners off of all 36 spacer blocks. Using a 1” Forstner bit and the drill press setup with a simple fixture (made from some of the leftover cutoffs), I drilled the 72 holes in the correct locations (centered 6” apart). I highly recommend using a drill press for this step to assure the holes are straight and parallel to each other (critical feature). After that I used the drill press to drill a pilot hole in the sides of the stop blocks for each clamp screw. I ended up with 2-1/2” deck screws from the local hardware store. They look good and they clamp well (in retrospect, you might consider a shorter screw as some of them broke through ever so slightly when clamped tight). A 1/8” hole for each screw is small enough to assure a good grip on the #10 size screw but large enough to keep the wood from splitting. After drilling pilot holes as deep as I could, I placed the blocks back in the chop saw for the final cut – in half. It’s important after this step to keep the matched halves together so you might consider using masking tape as a temporary tool. Before jumping into the best part of the project, assembly, I recommend placing one half of your clamp block back in the drill press and opening up the 1/8” hole to 3/16”. This guarantees your clamp blocks will actually clamp as the screw will slip through one half and grip in the other.

At this point, you may choose to apply some type of finish to your clamp blocks. Paint, wood stain or clear coat are all possible finishes for wood. We chose to keep our clamp blocks “au naturel” so we could move right on to assembly without waiting for things to dry making this a one afternoon project.

On to the best part – assembly. The first step is to cap the bottom of each clear acrylic tube. Push the cap with even pressure against a hard surface to encourage it in. These caps have barbs that hold them well in place so you can be sure that you will not lose a whole tube of dimes in an embarrassing pile on the floor should you decide to move your display (or take it to a convention like Pastor Tim). Next, assemble the clamp blocks with your fastener of choice making sure to leave them a little loose for final assembly. Finally, begin attaching the clamp blocks to the tubes in an alternating fashion, spacing them as you go.

The beauty of this display is that it is fully modular. If you are concerned about the overwhelming task of filling a huge display over a long time, only attach 5 or 6 tubes together at first. Consider alternating the sizes in a random way rather than a steady increasing progression. I found that it is possible to tighten the clamp blocks to a point that the assembly is rigid but it can also be pushed, pulled and twisted into new shapes without adjusting the screws. It’s quite fun to play with the thing to make unique configurations.

The practical use of our Family Style display is quite remarkable. Every week the kids go up front and place their dimes or orange washers into the tubes. The smallest and largest tubes filled first (Pastor Tim used extra caps to seal them up). The distribution of washers and dimes shows that our church is not perfect (all dimes) nor is it willing to give up (all washers). The display is a constant reminder of our spiritual growth as a church family and a continual encouragement as it slowly fills up each week. And it is fun (the kids keep changing it so it is always different)!

I couldn’t resist doing a few quick designs in SolidWorks for fun. Maybe they will inspire you. Download the assembly and give it a try yourself. If you don’t have SolidWorks 2011, make an announcement at your church and I’m sure you’ll find some engineer nerd like me that is eager to have some fun helping you.

Techincal notes – a dime is about .050” thick so every inch of display will hold 20 days of devotions.

Aside from the Family Style program, this display concept can be used to visibly track any type of growth campaign (good deeds done for the community, days sober/cigarette free/free from ______, fund raising, etc.).

It’s also important to note that this project was an undertaking of my entire family. My kids ran the chop saw and the drill press, assembled the clamp blocks and made several cool variations of the final display. Don’t miss out on this cool opportunity to spend time working with kids!

Here are some things you can download for more info:
McMasterAcrylicTubing.pdf
McMasterPlasticCaps.pdf
ClampBlock.pdf
Tubes Cut List.pdf
HeartAssy3D.pdf (3D pdf’s require newer versions of actobat reader and allow cool 3D navigation – click and drag in the window)
DimeDisplaySW.zip (2M)

First, the 3 members must be made using one “Structural Member” feature in SolidWorks.  This means that you cannot use any weldment profiles that have undercut features such as the 80/20 profiles that I have posted here.  Build your structure using multiple Groups (SolidWorks will not allow 3 members in one Group to meet at a corner so you will need at least 2 Groups).  While still editing the “Structural Member”, click the magic pink dot that represents the intersection of the 3 members in question.  This brings up the Corner Treatment override tool.  This is where the secret lies!

Clicking through the >> and << arrows, you can see all of the corner treatments that will be applied at this intersection.  Notice the Trim Order box changes from 1 to 2, etc. as you click through the choices.  The secret is to change the Trim Order for both intersections to the same number.

Notice the revealing message that pops up when you do this, “Two or more groups have the same trim order.  Same trim order groups miter each other and no other end condition options are available.”  The big hint is to make them the same and then they will all miter each other.  For more details, you can also search the SolidWorks Help for “Weldments – Change Corner Treatment”.

Here is a sample SolidWorks file (in SW 2011 format).  3CornerMiterExample

In learning how to design logos for several customers, I continue to research logo design and I have found that there are some basic fundamental requirements for an effective logo.  You’ll notice that I did not say “good logo”.  This is intentional because the judgment of logo design is an entirely subjective thing.  I’ve designed a logo or two that were very effective.  I thought they were “good” but my customer did not. 

Here are the essentials:  an effective logo should be simple (representing the very essence of the product or service), memorable (unique in it’s market segment), re-creatable by others (skilled in the craft), scalable (legible at the size of a postage stamp and at the size of a billboard), use as few colors as is reasonable (the more colors, the more cost), and be recognizable both in color and Black & White.  Each of these general requirements has a rich history linked to the processes of printing, publishing, digital presentation and advertising.

A logo may be made of two different elements, namely the Mark and the Word Mark.  The Mark is a graphic of some type.  It may or may not include text elements.  The Word Mark is some amount of text that usually accompanies the Mark.  This logo has a Mark represented by the tilted “K” and a Word Mark represented by the text “Kirk Builders”.  Some logos are only made of one of these elements.  Often the desire is that the Mark becomes recognizable even without the Word Mark.  The challenge is to balance all of these fundamental requirements and actually design an effective logo.

So armed with this knowledge, where do I start?  Always start with what you know.  BoogerBall.com is a website whose purpose is to feature a story about how to make a BoogerBall.  The concept was developed from the mind of a guy with no sisters who was barely 20 when he became the father of a four year old girl.  He thought it would be fun to tease her about saving his boogers and 14 years alter he was still enjoying the idea of saving his boogers in a big BoogerBall for his daughter.  The original story appeals to people on two different levels:  first, as an actual step-by-step instruction about how to really make a BoogerBall and second as an absurd fantasy about what would happen if you actually saved your boogers for 14 years.  Both levels of appeal speak directly to one demographic – 12 year old boys.  Only a 12 year old boy would take pleasure in the thought of saving boogers in a BoogerBall for 14 years to give it to a girl, and only a 12 year old boy would have the interest in actually exploring how to produce a BoogerBall from household materials (alas, at heart, I am still a 12 year old boy).

Now, what does that all mean to the point of our logo design effort?  Well, it seems prudent that the logo feature an image of the BoogerBall itself as the Mark and the word BoogerBall(.com) as the Word Mark.  It also seems like a good idea that the logo be clean and zippy enough that a 12 year old boy would want to wear it on a shirt.

Developing a successful Word Mark starts with selecting a font (or type style).  Fonts are so important to an effective Word Mark.  The text needs to be appealing but readable, memorable but simple – the complexity of the font should not distract from the overall design of the logo.  I have collected so many fonts that it is sometimes difficult to choose just one.  I usually start with an idea (clean and zippy and appealing to a 12-year-old boy) and then jump into my favorite tool, The Font Thing.

On my computer, I have two folders of fonts.  First, like you Windows users, my c:\windows\fonts folder contains all of the fonts I’ve installed over the years. 

Second, my server has a folder 000.AVSI \800.Templates \806.Fonts that contains a host of additional fonts that I’ve purchase, downloaded for free or received through some software purchase.  The Font Thing is a tool that enables viewing samples from both folders with ease.  You can download this free tool here (if you’re running Windows 7 you should read this post about making it work on your system).  Once installed, you can type in the text you’d like to sample, adjust the sample size and scroll through every font you own.

After scrolling through hundreds of fonts I chose these six as being zippy and appealing to a 12 year old boy (me).  Using Adobe Illustrator, I started some Word Mark concepts.  With the word BoogerBall.com as the basis and the font as the main design element, we start a clean design using layers to accentuate the words.  The color green is an obvious choice for the text which is placed on the top layer.  Behind that. a layer of white that has a larger line width really makes the green text stand out.  Finally a layer of black outline at the back clearly defines the edges of the Word Mark.  Putting all these together gives some interesting choices for word marks.

An aside about color choice - this topic is worthy of its own post as there are so many ways to choose color and so many factors to consider.  In choosing the color green, I decided to return to my offset printing background and choose a common color of ink.  Many print shops offer colors of ink at no additional charge on certain days of the week.  This means that on Monday they will load up a press with Pantone® Red and Tuesday with Reflex Blue, etc.  If you want red printing you can have it for free if you can wait until Monday to have it printed.  Otherwise they will charge extra to clean out a press and put your special ink color in it.  I have a Pantone® chart (Pantone® is a brand of ink commonly used by print shops) that is one of my favorite tools to choose color.  From the chart I chose Pantone® Green as the basic color of my Word Mark.  Illustrator enables accurate color choices of Pantone® colors by using the built-in Swatch Libraries.  My basic Pantone® Green is RGB 0-168-144, CMYK 100-0-59-0.

Back to the font choice – LetterheadFonts.com produces some of my favorite fonts.  Although I’ve not had the resources to purchase many of their excellent fonts, I do own a few that I love.  Speedstyle is a font that is commonly used to write driver’s names on their race cars.  It’s just the font that I think would look clean and zippy on a shirt.

So here’s the Word Mark that I came up with.  It’s not perfect but i think it’s effective.  The next step (for another post) will be to add a graphic (the Mark) to complement the Word Mark – probably an image of the BoogerBall itself.

The last time I added 80/20′s new profiles to my library, I was so excited about the new smooth fractional profiles that I skipped the metric profiles altogether.  Looking back I’ve discovered the new metric profiles are truly unique as they’ve added curved sections (along with a few more LITE profiles).  The presumption is that people will make interesting frame assemblies with 30°, 45° and 60° angled corners in place of the standard 90° box frame design.  I love them and only wish they came in the fractional series as well.  I decided to attempt a design that would highlight the unique capabilities of these profiles.  C3-8020 is the result.  He certainly is not traditional 80/20 frame design, but he looks very cool.  You will have to pay extra to get him anodized gold, but I think it would be worth it.

I’ve uploaded all of the new profiles to 3DContentCentral as before AND I’ve placed them all in one slender zip file here.  Enjoy!

CurvedProfiles (1.4Mb)

Company policy states, “Thou shalt not send proprietary engineering data to anyone outside the company.”  This is, of course, for good reason as your engineering design data is what differentiates you from every other competitor, it’s who you are, it’s your life blood and deserves protection at all costs (within reason).  Enforce the policy and you upset the customer or worse yet, lose the sale.  Send them the production drawing and you slowly erode the value of your intellectual property and run the risk of your competitor or customer stealing your design.  Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) can help, but they are a pain because you have to get lawyers involved and they’re difficult to manage.  Some customers just will not sign them – what can you do?

The solution:  Customer Use Drawings.  Customer Use (CU) drawings are just what they sound like, a drawing made for a customer to use.  They are different from production drawings that contain every detail needed to manufacture something.  The information they offer is sufficient for the customer to make proper use of your product in their application.  The level of detail will vary widely, but you can always expect a CU drawing to have less detail than a production drawing.

Companies handle CU drawings in different ways.  Some will assign a completely different drawing number to a drawing that is designated for customer use.  This can be challenging if you do not have an efficient way to link CU numbers to production numbers.  Initial drawing creation is fairly simple as you can just take the production drawing and do a Save As to the new number.  Then add, delete or change the drawing for customer use and you’re done.  As you can see, one major limitation of this method is that now the production drawing and the CU drawing are no longer linked to each other.  They might be driven by the same part or assembly so major design changes will carry through, but they will now have independent revision histories.  The engineer/designer assigned to make changes at some future date needs to be careful to update both drawings separately.  This doesn’t always ever happen.

Another method for creating CU drawings is to use the same drawing file for both.  With this method, everything comes from one file so updates are simple.  New drawing numbers do not need to be created and managed, making the search for the CU drawing the same as the search for the production version.  Drawing creation is even easier than a Save As because you don’t need to delete anything.  The only drawback that I can see is that if you revise a production part from A to B and change a feature that doesn’t show up on the CU drawing, you may still want to output a revised CU drawing to be consistent.  I recommend hiding the revision history on a CU drawing so this change may be nothing more than renaming the file (if you have the revision level in the filename).  Having a different drawing number for the CU drawing enables independent revision histories.  Most cases for the application of CU drawings, however, involve special one-time circumstances where a customer is asking for something out of the ordinary like the dimensions of the “small thermal exhaust port right below the main port”.  A typical configuration drawing of the entire assembly would never include such inconsequential dimensions as no customer would need them (except yours).  A CU drawing could be quickly made of just the “exhaust port” so the customer could be sure their “product” will fit inside.  These cases are usually one-time requests that vary from customer to customer making separate revision histories unnecessary.

The tool that makes it possible to create production drawings and CU drawings from the same file is Layers.  If you have a 2D CAD background like I do, you have probably worked with layers before.  At WDI, like most firms that design products that fit inside buildings, we would design an entire themed attraction in one 2D drawing file using a different layer for every discipline.  Each drawing sheet would have only certain layers showing and all the others hidden.  In the 3D realm, this seems foreign to some, but the old rules still apply and layers make CU drawings possible.

In SolidWorks, the first thing you might consider is to turn on the Layer toolbar.

This gives you easy access to all of the layers and the button that brings up the Layers dialog box.  Things you can control with the Layers dialog box include layer name and description, layer visibility (on/off), object color, object linetype style and object linetype thickness.

By default, SolidWorks places all objects on a special layer called –None-.  This layer is special because it doesn’t really exist.  It cannot be turned off nor changed.  I mention it as if it were a real layer because it can be selected from the Layer toolbar when you are choosing what layer to place an object on.  Placing an object on the –None- layer makes it always visible.

I created a few standard layers in my drawing templates.  First, a layer called NOSHOW which is a dumping ground for important information that may be needed to make a drawing but you don’t want to show when creating output.  Currently on the NOSHOW layer are dimensions used to define the titleblock.  SolidWorks lets you hide things at will but it’s not always easy to unhide them if you do not know they are there.  The NOSHOW layer makes it easy to see what’s there but meant not to be shown.

In addition, a layer called FORMAT where I put the drawing format (titleblock, border, etc.) enables me to turn off the sheet format when I want to print a copy of the drawing with just the drawing views and no titleblock.  Having a titleblock implies officiality, completeness, design verification, drawing checks and approvals, assigned part numbers, etc.  No titleblock implies a quick sketch, a negotiable design, a work in progress, not complete nor official, open to discussion, etc.  There is a time and a place for both making the FORMAT layer a valuable tool.

The other two layers I created are CUSTOMER USE and NOT FOR CUSTOMER.  Placing data on these layers and turning the appropriate layer on or off makes creating CU drawings a reality.  To create a CU drawing from a production drawing, simply select the items that are not for customer (CTRL-Click to select multiple items) and place them on the NOT FOR CUSTOMER layer by selecting the layer in the toolbar.  Turn off that layer by launching the Layers dialog box and clicking the light bulb icon beside it and click OK.  Change your current layer from -None- to CUSTOMER USE by selecting it from the pop-up list in the toolbar.  Add any details that are customer specific including a note that says CUSTOMER USE DRAWING.  Any items left on the –None- layer will show up on both the CU drawing and the production drawing.

By hiding the CUSTOMER USE layer and showing the NOT FOR CUSTOMER layer, you can see what the production drawing will look like.  I usually place some text on the NOT FOR CUSTOMER layer somewhere outside the printable area that says, “THE ANNOTATIONS ON THIS LAYER ARE NOT FOR CUSTOMER USE”.  This helps the user to know what layers are turned on or off.

The final step is output.  It is always a good practice to save engineering documentation in a neutral file format, preferably one that is difficult to edit.  Many companies use PDF files for their released documents.  The Save As tool in SolidWorks includes a PDF option, making creating PDF’s easy.  I typically recommend using a filename that captures the moment in time for the file.  For example, a drawing 84848.slddrw could be saved as 84848.pdf but the next time it is revised, a new PDF would overwrite the old.  How would you know what version of the file you had?  Saving it as 84848 Rev A.pdf creates a snapshot in time at Rev A for this drawing.  A revised drawing would become 84848 Rev B.pdf thus preserving the older version.  If your revision system doesn’t include revision tracking, you might use the date instead, as in 84848 07Jul10.pdf.  For a Customer Use drawing, I recommend appending CU to the end of the filename so they sort next to each other in your file system (e.g. 84848 Rev A CU.pdf).  Adding “CU” to the end makes it clear what the file is intended for.

My drawing templates are setup to include both the CUSTOMER USE and the NOT FOR CUSTOMER layers but they are both turned off.  All drawing is done on the –None- layer.  The CU features lie dormant until I get that call for some obscure question about the size of my exhaust port compared to the size of a womp rat.  Since I’ve never seen a womp rat and I’m not sure what the customer really needs, I send them a CU drawing of the exhaust port and everybody is happy (for now).

For your convenience I’ve created a detailed printable tutorial that you can download here:  AVSITUT-0017 CustomerUseDrawings Rev B.

SolidWorks 2010 files for this tutorial can be downloaded here:  CustomerUseDrawings.

Update:  Special thanks to GabiJack.com for the idea of placing a downloadable pdf tutorial at the end of this post.  Her tutorial on Modeling a pair of scissors is an excellent example.

That being said, a website is an easy way to get the ball rolling when it comes to communicating with people, assuming your target audience is “online”.  Since the product I am trying to market is really nothing more than a story (How to Make a BoogerBall), and my target audience is curious people like you, I really need a dedicated website to make it available to the public.  As a product development consultant, I’ve developed a few websites in my career (printncut.com, daleblanshan.com, samuelschutz.com, jasondionne.com, larishconstruction.com, mattwhit.com, etc.).  Most of my potential customers know they want a website but don’t always know what’s involved to have one, so here’s a bit of info about actually owning a website.

Some background first:  The Internet is nothing more than thousands of computers all over the world all connected to each other in one big network.  A website is nothing more than a small clump of files stored on one of those “web server” computers.  When someone types your website address into their browser, their computer sends out a request into the Internet.  The first stop is a Domain Name Server which has a list of all of the domain names (www.averyswellidea.com is a domain name) and the actual address of the computer where the website files are stored (67.202.70.14 is its IP address).  Then the request gets bounced all around the world until the correct location of your website files is found.  The files requested are then broken up into little chunks and sent back through the network to their computer where the chunks are reassembled and organized for viewing by the browser.  It sounds complex, but the process happens millions of times a day and is actually very efficient.

With that background in mind, there are three points of investment involved in owning a website.  The first is the purchase of a domain name.  This is usually an annual fee situation where you pay to reserve and use the name you want for your website.  There are many companies that sell domain names, Network Solutions being the most well known.  I use a service called NamesDirect.com because I happened to buy my first domain name from them several years ago.  I’ve been pleased with their service so I’m still a loyal customer.  I did a domain name search and found BoogerBall.com was available.  So, I purchased BoogerBall.com, BoogerBall.net and BoogerBall.org.  Buying the 3 most common names assures me that if I pursue using the Internet to market this product, there will not be a competitor that will use the same name to hinder my marketing activities.  I recommend this strategy to all of my customers as the cost is minimal, but having the name secured can be priceless.

The second point of investment in the process of owning a website is web server hosting.  You need to rent some space on one of the thousands of web server computers out there.  This is usually a monthly fee commitment that varies widely depending upon all of the features you need.  Of course, if you plan to have a big, security intensive website, or if you don’t play nice with others, you will probably want your own server.  BoogerBall.com will probably never need its own server.  I rent space from Steadfast Networks which has proven to be an excellent host and has made it so I can host sites for my customers (all of the sites mentioned above are hosted by my company).

The third point of investment for owning a website is in the actual design and maintenance of the site.  This can be a one-time, flat fee or a perpetual monthly expense.  It all depends upon your level of expertise, the complexity of what you need and what you are willing to pay.  I’m not an expert but I have learned that for my customers, creating a blog website powered by WordPress has been the best balance of cost versus capability versus self maintainability.  I can build it and they can maintain it, both with relative ease and aesthetic excellence.  You will notice that most of the sites listed above are powered by WordPress.  That is how the latest version of averyswellidea.com was developed.  So BoogerBall.com will become a WordPress blog site and that is a story for a future post.  -Amos

In the design phase, however, the grooved profiles drive me crazy.  I use SolidWorks to design my frames because the weldment tools make it so easy.  But, when you make a drawing of an 80/20 frame, it looks like a big blob of thick black ink spilled all over your page. Every one of those grooves creates 2 lines and the standard single-width profile has 4 grooves per side.  A view which would normally have a few lines per stick of 80/20 has many.  What a mess this makes if your views are small because your frame is large (and who makes a 1:1 scale drawing of something as simple as an 80/20 frame?).

Smooth profiles to the rescue.  Thank you 80/20. I just completed a design for 3 new frames and they are going to look so nice with the new smooth profiles.  In addition to the improvement on the drawings, working with these in 3D is also much improved. The big black blob thing is also a problem in 3D but more importantly, it is much easier to mate other parts to your 80/20 frame because you do not need to zoom in so far to pick the correct face to mate to. All of those grooves always had a vertigo effect on me forcing me to pan/zoom/rotate my model to reorient myself. The smooth profiles are much better.

But wait, there’s more! The title of this post implies more to be discussed. So, here it is: I downloaded all of 80/20′s new profiles from their website and did some work to convert all of them to SolidWorks 2010 weldment profile library features. They are all available for individual download at 3DContentCentral. Also, for your convenience, they are all here in one chubby zip file. Place them in your weldment profile directory and you should be able to enjoy all of the benefits of smooth profile frame creation that I’ve mentioned above. Special thanks to Van Graves who provided quality control on these. I finished them late last night but had to fix them all this morning after he pointed out some missing critical features. Working as a team is always better than going it alone. -Amos

SmoothProfiles (3MB)

Update: if you’re looking for all of 80/20′s old profiles (the groovy style or the metric products), I’ve already made those available here.

What is “branding”?  Branding is more than a catchy name, an easily recognized logo and a cool tag line.  Branding is the entire persona of a product.  Color, sound, smell, other product association, user demographic, market placement, event sponsorship, etc. etc.  It’s the whole package.  It’s the clothes you wear, the accent in your voice, your cologne, the church you attend, the friends you keep, the places you eat, the car you drive and what brand of facial tissue you blow your nose with.  So, if I were interested in marketing my booger ball product, how would I go about “branding the ball”?

The first thing to consider when developing a product into a brand is its name.  Names have always been important for me.  One of my customers had me working on a new machine that was to be their flagship product of the future.  It was going to include all of the key features of the successful products of their past at half the cost.  It was going to trump the competition.  The name they chose was “Model TBD”.  Now, I understand that the design phase is still early in the product development process, but a product this big deserved a name.  I couldn’t stand working on the project.  Nobody wanted to take responsibility for naming it, so I did.  We called the project the Lancer.  It wasn’t the greatest name, but it did inspire some of the true vision of what the product was to become.  It was much better than TBD (to be determined).  Eventually the marketing department named the product something different, but at least it had a “code” name to help inspire us.

Every project/product I work on needs to have a name so I am always coming up with names for products.  A good product name should describe the product.  It should be easy to say and spell (most important today in the internet age where address is everything).  The name also needs to fit the overall theme of your product (e.g. a sophisticated product needs to have a sophisticated sounding name).  When working on a name, I usually search available domain names (website names) that I might use to market the product.  I also search the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) to see if the name has been registered as a trademark.  I do an internet search to see what else is out there in cyberspace.  I share the name with some of my friends and family to see what they think of it (in business, this is called a “focus group”).  I also say a prayer because I realize that my creativity comes from God who made me and He inspires me to come up with clever names.  All of these activities put together usually results in a suitable name for my project/product.

As it turns out, my story about how to make a booger ball, naturally leads to its own name.  The term “booger ball” is self descriptive.  A search on the USPTO site reveals only 2 registered trade marks including the words booger and ball and they are both expired.  A domain name search reveals boogerball.com is available.  The last thing that makes sense for this name is to combine the words booger and ball together into one word.  The website name does that naturally, but having a unique word (even if it is a combination of two common words) makes it easier to protect the name.  So from now on, I will call my product the BoogerBall.  Everywhere I need to talk about a ball of boogers, I will use the new word BoogerBall.  This is swell because the two words alone are nouns but together they can be used as an adjective.  A BoogerBall box is a box used to hold a ball fabricated  from rubber cement.  Capitalizing the two B’s hearkens back to my computer programming experience where I designed numerous database solutions for small companies and all of the field names were descriptive but mashed together with caps to make sense of them.

As I said before, branding is much more than just a name.  Now that we have established the name, we can focus on the many remaining facets of branding.  More to come…  -Amos