AUGI Announcements- April 2011
This month I have a few new things to share with you. If you don't know by now, let me be the first to tell you that AUGI has some great volunteers helping to manage and improve our organization. I may speak for the organization while I am President, but I certainly am not the one who makes everything happen! From the forums to our magazines, each and every area has dedicated individuals and we are so better off because of them.
AUGI Forums
Early this year when the vBulletin-based forums went live on the new website, the most obvious thing was that they looked just like they had for years. The big orange banner was back with all the old forum content. The problem was that the main website had undergone a style refresh, the big blue banner. Technically not a problem, but it certainly doesn’t lead to a great user experience. I imagine some people even thought they had left AUGI property and ventured to another website. Well, thanks to Richard Lawrence and others, the forum styles now match almost perfectly with the new website. I say "almost" because there are still a few tweaks to make and some members are even putting in their two cents on additional tweaks and ideas. You are welcome to do the same—here’s the link to the forum discussion: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=129120
Something else coming soon is a major restructuring of the forums. One issue is that there are some Autodesk products missing from the forum list. These will be added very soon, but perhaps even sooner is the restructuring. We will be moving the non-English forums up to the top level, on par with the English technical forums. This will offer the same level of exposure to those forums and allow them to grow as the English forums have. I should point out that about 50 percent of the membership is outside of North America. Once that is done, we will ensure each language forum has the proper FAQ sections, in their own language, and even the AUGI General type sections. Want to help moderate the forums in your language of choice? Contact ed.jobe@augi.com.
Wish List Reborn
Autodesk just released the 2012 version of most of its products. So now what? Install them, of course! But you do know that no software product is perfect. Even AutoCAD, which has been around a bazillion years, could stand to be improved still. Enter stage left—the AUGI Wish List. Well, sort of. It isn’t ready yet. This is really just a message that development has begun on the new Wish List System (WLS) and at this time it should be ready in June. In the meanwhile, most of the product forums have a Wish List category topic (like AutoCAD at http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1202). You can use these to provide ideas (Autodesk does look there) and even bounce ideas off other members. Rest assured once the new WLS is operational, I’ll be letting you know.
We finally got the country chapter portion of the website up and the first entry is the AUGIuk. Did you know that we have more than 8,000 members in the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland)? So now these members have a place to interact, both regionally and in the greater worldwide community. You don’t have to live in the UK to check out what they are doing. Everyone is welcome to read.
AUGIWORLD
Our little magazine has gotten so big! With the recent merger with AUGI|AEC EDGE, the expansion of the release schedule to monthly, and the inclusion of more subjects, AUGIWORLD is plump for the picking! The April issue is 56 pages! If you use Autodesk software, and I believe you do, there is no good reason not to check out AUGIWORLD and gain insight from your fellow members about the products you use. Check it out today! Then, if you want to write, contact the AUGIWORLD Editorial Team via this link .
David Harrington - AUGI President
