blads blog

Something a bit different this time around, another alternative varietal favourite of mine in ... Trincadeira  is one of a number of Portuguese red wine varieties which have been introduced into Australia. In early days it was used extensively used to make a port style wine. Rich in colour, with good acidity and rarely an excess of alcohol, Trincadeira or Tinta Amarela (if you are speaking to a Portuguese Douro producer) makes wines of serious quality when ripe. Properly ripened, it has vibrant raspberry fruit tempered by herby, peppery, spicy, floral complexity, and it can age well. Typically, in Australia, it is used in a blended capacity, however there are now a number of wineries producing a single varietal wine.  One of which,as mentioned is a particular favourite of mine... Patritti Wines .  Patritti was the first Australian winery to release a Trincadeira red wine under its official Portuguese varietal name. Recently their 2012 Trincadeira wine wa...

Torbreck 2007 Old Vines Shiraz Another stunning Shiraz, (or as my US friends call it a "Syrah"), however this time it is from the famous Barossa Valley.   I was pleasantly surprised with this wine as it had fantastic fruit-driven sweetness, reminiscent of a traditional home-styled Italian/European red wine. Not something that I expect from a wine from 100-year old vines. Deep garnet red in colour with flickers of purple, the wine’s high-toned aromas of black cherries, five spice, crème de cassis and spring flowers are supported by a rich core of roasted earth, liquorice, and provençal herbs. The palate offers a soft latent richness and silken-like texture with subtle notes of crushed cherries, plums and earth - all neatly wound by a taut spine of acidity and ripe supple tannins and fruity sweetness. Oh my god, it was Gorgeous!!!

Australia's most popular grape varietal, Shiraz is full-bodied with high alcohol, and vibrant berry and plum on both the nose and palate. Some years ago I discovered the Mitolo brand and it’s was a very good surprise, indeed!!!   Today's selection is a Mitolo 2006 Shiraz 'G.A.M.' (the initials of the Mitolo children, “Gemma, Alexander & Marco”) wine has an opaque purple-ish colour, has an aromatic array of roasted coffee, violets, lavender, pepper, Asian spices, blueberry, and blackberry liqueur.  In the mouth it is velvety-textured, deep, concentrated, opulent, and altogether hedonistic.  The focus is on McLaren Vale fruit from Willunga, which is located towards the most southern part of the district. Thankfully I have other bottles of this vintage, as it has been suggested that it will drink well through to 2020.  It is definitely a personal favourite.

OK I promised fellow Redstack  co-worker and Blogger, Damien Jovica  to write a review on this blog of a wine that I've had during the past week, usually at "Wine O'Clock, Friday afternoon... so that end, I'd like to present to you all, my first "Wine of The Week" - a glorious 2008 Symphonia Tannat. What the heck is a Tannat, you say???  I am a big fan of Alternative varietal red wines and I found this variety some 7 years in NE Victoria.... and WOW what a stunner!!! For the uninitiated, Tannat's homeland is the South Western area of France, and one of its synonyms, Madiran, is also the name of an important appellation in that part of the world.  Wines of this variety are notable for their very high levels of tannin. Tannat wines are also very high in polyphenols - these are good chemicals in wine that keep your heart healthy (according to researcher & author Roger Corder in the book " The Red Wine Diet "). T annat's have a reputat...

Recently Autodesk gave me the opportunity on relating my experiences with their new Stereo Panoramas feature It was first posted by Autodesk .  See   Rendering Pro - My Stereo Panorama Experience by Bill Adams A still of the interior I later rendered as a stereo panorama

ULTIMAKER 2 Having a 3D Printer can open up a world of customization faster and closer to home. With the Ultimaker 2, you can personalize the objects in your life and have fun doing it. Designed for both the novice and the skilled, the Ultimaker 2 is well built and easy to interface with, and it creates stunning 3D prints. For its large build sizes, included accessories, robust software and print-quality score, the Ultimaker 2 wins!!! Every inch of the Ultimaker 2 is designed to create the most effortless and enjoyable 3D printing experience ever. With ground-breaking 20 micron definition and near silent operation, it’s a leap forward in accurate 3D printing. Everything's taken care of from the moment it’s out of the box, it’s ready to go. Intuitive software quickly and intelligently prepares your design for print. A radial scroll wheel allows for adjustment to speed and heat even whilst it’s printing. Long print jobs come with the reassurance of hours upon hours of conti...

If there were ever a time to upgrade your AutoCAD license it is now! So what's new? Whilst there doesn’t seem to be any one “new” thing, there is a plethora of product enhancements to existing commands and features. One thing that isn't new is the DWG file type, yes AutoCAD 2016 will still run on AutoCAD 2013 DWG. Here’s a brief list of some of the new enhancements and features…          Snap to geometric centre.  A new object snap mode – geometric centre, or GCE at the command-line – allows you to snap to the centre of closed polylines, whether regular or irregular.           REVCLOUD command has some new options.           The DIM command has been updated. The command has combined all dimensions creation controls into one command. Simply type DIM on the command line and right-click. Thankfully, I no longer have to find or remember the commands for the individual dimension types.   ...

The place that  Revit  holds in Australia's architecture and construction scene is simply undeniable. Since the time I became one of Australia's first users of the software back in the early 2000s, I've seen its presence Down Under grow in leaps and bounds, and for good reason. But where does the appeal even come from in the first place? I think the solid backing and reputation of Autodesk, who owns and produces Revit, certainly has a part to play. In addition to its technical superiority there's a huge worldwide support base to fall back on, and that definitely lends it an aura of credibility. There are certainly a lot of other products out there - many of which I've used at some point - but it's clear that few come close to Revit. It's become even better over the years. With a new rendering engine, you can do a lot more things with it than before. From incorporating structural and MEP disciplines to point cloud compatibility, it's a much more slic...

This release has many small improvements and one major feature that changes the way Scan To BIM is used for piping with the addition of an “easy button” like feature called Auto-Find Pipes. This feature when used will scan the entire point cloud or a selected area and look for pipes then create matching pipe runs using native Revit geometry .  A video playlist of some of the items in 2015.1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRxAXG3D8Lk&list=PLGzJTXx9gbj-bLDzD9N8DpjnvCl-qMqBl&index=2 A few more items in this release to make note of: Help File is now web based, we can edit and update for all users at any time (ie add a more detailed example)   More Tutorials, added via the app but pulling from our youtube playlist for STB 2015. Tweak to Deviation, smaller numbers and Grid Deviation now supports placing numbers in the grid view (center of each grid) as shown in the video above. The Adjust Pipe feature has now been moved from the Create Pulldown Menu t...

It seems very fitting that a UAV was captured by a remote camera "on a special delivery run", particularly as Shaan Hurley is an avid UAV-affectinado.  Once again we celebrate another birthday, it's 11th this year for one of my favourite blogs / bloggers.  " Between The Lines " celebrates its 11th Birthday, on Wednesday 21st August. Hearty congratulations to you Shaan.  Your blog has both inspired and supported me and many others, in numerous ways, so in keeping with previous years' traditions,  it would be totally remiss of me not to provide another "special delivery birthday cake" to celebrate this great blog… Enjoy your "cake" Shaan  & Happy 11th Birthday  " Between The Lines " 

Well, I for one couldn't be happier...  not only are Redstack a great bunch to work for, they are now an Official Apple Reseller.   Earlier this week I received my new Laptop skin and today my new 15" Retina MacBook Pro laptop...  Here are a few unboxing ceremony images of my new MacBook Pro Retina Display   –  2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7  processor , 16GB RAM,   1.0Tb flash storage  with it's custom designed  Nuvango Laptop skin ...   Redstack can now offer a broad range of Apple hardware solutions - they can be part of a bundled solution including all your hardware, software and accessories.  We can install your software and deliver a ready to go solution straight out of the box.

Recently in an Autodesk blog "In The Fold" - it was announced that Autodesk aced the buildingSMART BIM interoperability challenge held the beginning of this year. When self proclaimed BIM (Building Information Modelling) and FM (Facilities Management) geeks get together for friendly discussion, COBie nearly always get mentioned in some form or another. So what the heck is COBie? COBie is an acronym for " C onstruction O perations B uilding i nformation e xchange". Its purpose to exchange information that is gathered during construction to be passed on to a building's facility manager.  COBie defines the way this information shall be structure and the formats that should be used. Autodesk are continuing to work on data exchange protocols and as such now have extended their COBie Toolkit for Revit to their 2015 product line or download the toolkit now delivered

Keeping Your Mac and Windows BootCamp Clocks in Sync This has annoyed me for some time, however I’ve stumbled upon a simple registry edit fix… Essentially, the incorrect clock setting happens because OS X use GMT time while Windows tries to synchronize with your local time zone, getting confused when you reboot between the two. Apple's own Boot Camp drivers for Windows are supposed to fix this problem, though some users have noticed that it still happens even with the drivers installed. ·         To fix it, boot into Windows, click the Start button and type regedit.exe in the search box ·         Hit Enter and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation ·         Right-click anywhere in the right pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value ·         Name it RealTimeIsUniversal , then double-c...

Well its offical... After many years' trading as a   well known and established multi-award winning Building Designer. I have decided on a career change... I will be now working as an Applications Engineer for   Redstack Pty Ltd . Redstack (formerly IMAGINiT Technologies) is a leading provider of design technology and services to engineering and architecture professionals. With over 15 years of local experience, we provide the expertise, training and support to help companies realise the full power of their design technology.

In keeping the  with a time-honoured tradition, I'm happy to present the 2014 Edition of the  CWC  Calendar… The AUGI CWC Calendar can be once again be downloaded from the AUGI Coffee Without Cad forums here [Note: You must be logged into the AUGI Forums to view this the calendar] thanks to all at #AU2013 who participated in "wearing" the "official AUGI hat"

  T he Board of Directors is the governing body for AUGI. They are involved in long range planning, vision casting, high level management and most importantly, positive member interactions. The board is responsible for the overarching direction of the organization. The Board possess a passion for Autodesk products and services and they are committed to sharing knowledge amongst the AUGI membership. Specific goals for the organisation vary from year to year, but the underlying theme – that AUGI is all about users helping users – is constant. This year, I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as a candidate for the  elections of the AUGI Board of Directors.  I encourage you to see what all the candidates have to say at  http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?1415-AUGI-Board-Candidates-Discussion-%282013%29 . As a candidate for the current election of the AUGI Board of Directors , I am pleased to announce that voting is now open .

IMAGINiT celebrates their renewed focus on the Asia Pacific market with a new brand, special offers and the launch of redstack.com.au IMAGINiT Technologies ’ Australian division , a leader in providing technology solutions to organizations with engineering, architecture and design capabilities, today announced it has rebranded to Redstack ™ . With the adoption of the new Redstack ™ brand, the new redstack.com.au responsive website is being launched simultaneously. The rebrand is the positive outcome of the company’s growth and success in the Asia Pacific market. With local ownership, Redstack™ are dedicated to growing their operations in local markets, while continuing to leverage global partnerships. For more information, register for upcoming brand launch activities including a webinar and live events at redstack.com.au/events . Redstack™ provides a range of software, services, training and support and will act as the exclusive partner ...