More Information about Trimble

In the wake of yesterdays announcement that Google has sold Sketchup to Trimble, we've been doing a little more reading on Trimble to see what they're all about.  This excerpt is from their investor relations page:

Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling ofthe field and the back office.

There is also this video that shows a run down of what industries they're involved in.  (Thanks to David Pillsbury for sending this in)

And if you are interested, a link to their current stock price:

So far it looks like they're a very capable company.  Hopefully this means a bright future for our favorite modeling program!

BREAKING: Sketchup has a new home

The Google Sketchup blog is reporting today that they have sold Sketchup to another company, Trimble.  After Google has been axing many of it's "Labs" products, and streamlining operations, I am not entirely surprised about this.

Here are some excerpts from the announcement:

That’s why I’m sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We’ll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble’s commitment to invest in our growth, we’ll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.

It's worth reading the entire post.  From the sounds of it they are going to keep Sketchup the same, and develop it even further.  If that's the case, I'm all for it.  Trimble looks to be a GPS solutions provider.  Since Google originally acquired Sketchup to augment their mapping products, this could be a very good fit.

There is also a great FAQ on the Trimble website that is worth reading.  I'd be very interested in hearing everyone's comments on this.

There is also a discussion going on over at SketchUCation if you are interested

KBTribe Chat "Leveraging Technology"

Twitter is always alive with brilliant conversation if you know where to look.  If you're in the Kitchen & Bath Industry, it sometimes can be hard to find those great conversations on Twitter.  Thankfully, instead of sorting through billions of tweets, Twitter users in the K&B space come together each week for lively, like minded conversations in the form of a Twitter chat. You can see all the details on KBTribe chat here.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to host this week.  My topic was "Leveraging Technology"

I feel that the kitchen & bath industry is really lagging behind in technology.  In fact, I did an hour and a half talk about this to a buying group in Atlanta just last week.  While this industry is lagging behind, designers are really interested in technology and want to use it!  Here are the five questions that we discussed during the chat:

1. What's your favorite "app" that you use for work on your smartphone or tablet?
2. If you could have any type of app invented for your smartphone or tablet, what would it be?
3. Do think your manufacturers are doing well in providing you with the tech you need? (Apps, good websites, spec books, etc)
4. Do you store anything on the "cloud"?  If so, what and how?
5. What software are you using to create drawings?  Do you like it?

There were some really interesting responses to these questions, and I learned some things that I didn't know before.

One of the biggest opportunities for vendors and manufacturers is digitizing their data.  People don't want paper spec books anymore, they want instant access to data on all devices.  There was certainly a lively discussion about that.

For the full transcript, click here.

Again I would like thank the folks over at KBTribe chat for generously offering me the hosting gig for a day!

3D Warehouse Access Issues inside Sketchup

UPDATED: SEE BELOW

Over the past few days I have noticed that some of the component collections you find in your components window aren't accessible within Sketchup anymore.

It appears that all of the collections except for "Transportation"  and "Playground"  are effected.  Since these categories are just essentially bookmarks to the 3D Warehouse, I assumed that Google had perhaps moved them online, and thus broken the link between Sketchup and where they reside online.

This doesn't appear to be the case, as these collections are easily accessible in your browser.

Since I use these just about everyday, I was really scrambling to find a way to get them back easily.  After I found them in the browser I realized that I could download the models I needed, and then go to "File>Import" and select Sketchup models on the bottom, then select the component file I wanted.  This is a tedious process at best.

The faster solution is to open a browser window next to Sketchup, find the components in the 3D Warehouse with your browser, then just drag them into Sketchup.  This appears to only work on a PC, not on a Mac.  Right now Mac users are stuck with the tedious method.

I wondered if anyone else was seeing this issue, so I checked around online and I found these threads:

SketchUCation

Google Sketchup Help Group

Is anyone else seeing this issue? if so, please let us know in the comments.  We will be keeping this post up to date as this develops.

Update:

It appears that Google is aware of the issue and is working on a fix now.  We'll keep you updated.

Update 3/11/2012

Just opened Sketchup and it appears the issue has been solved!  Thanks Google!

Brizo Blogger 19 Contest Winner

Brizo has always been very outgoing and friendly to the design blogger community.

Over the past few years they've invited bloggers to come out to Fashion Week in NYC to participate in wonderful design challenges with them.  I was lucky enough to be one of those.

Back in November they reached out to all of us and gave us a challenge:  Design a bathroom with the new stylish line of Jason Wu products they are releasing.  I did, and while I didn't win, Kerrie Kelly did.

You can see her winning design here.  Great work, and it was a nice touch with the Jason Wu quote!  Congratulations!