July 30, 2007

SolidWorks

One of the main reasons I configured my laptop the way I did (Uber powerful with the best graphics card Dell offers) was not so I could WoW into the wee hours of the night but because I knew I’d be using programs like SolidWorks to do drafting in college. $2,600 later I was primed and ready to draft my heart out. Then came an unhappy realization: I had ordered my laptop with the best version of Windows Vista, Windows Vista Ultimate. Guess what’s not compatible with Vista! SolidWorks.

This posed a problem because I couldn’t use my laptop for the one thing I designed it for. I began exploring the SolidWorks website and doing some research and discovered that they are coming out with a Vista compatible version in 2008. That means MIT won’t get the license for it until 2009, my junior year. This isn’t good. My solution to this whole issue was to just wait until 2008, bite the $90 bullet, and buy the Vista version, not willing to wait a year for the free MIT license.

I’ve been mulling over this whole situation for quite a while and decided that I’d try SolidWorks 2006 on my laptop, even though it isn’t technically Vista compatible. Turns out, SolidWorks Co. lied to me! It works, fine! There are probably some technical issues deep down that mess with some stuff I’ll never use, but the basics and everything I’d ever use work like a charm! The proof is in the picture:



See my pretty little LEGO blocks? I’ll build something cool soon and show you. Until then, don’t let The Man tell you what’s compatible and what’s not!

10 comments:

Paul said...

WoW is evil.

Starcraft II is salvation.

But odds are it's going to be a delayed Parousia...

(I went to a Catholic high school. Does it show?)

Paul said...

Okay, serious post now. I remember seeing your Dell in your first post about it, very nice - a little bit faster processor than my current Inspiron E1505. Glad to hear your program worked.

By the way, I kind of wish I went to your school. Apart from the usual physics and calculus, mine offered absolutely no classes related to engineering whatsoever.

If you still had a Facebook I could just look this up, but have you decided on a major yet? I'll hazard guessing 2?

Anonymous said...

@ paul - obviously I can't speak for Michael, but at MIT you don't choose your major until the end of freshman year, and he's not even started his yet!

Paul said...

@ Anonymous: True enough, but almost everyone I've talked to in the class of '11 has some idea of what they want to do, so it's usually a pretty safe question to ask. :) For example, I'm leaning towards 20, Biological Engineering).

Anonymous said...

True, I can't declare a major until the end of freshman year, but I'm almost positive I'll be going into Course 2. I can't really see myself doing anything else, and besides, if I don't go Course 2 then I can't do 2.007!

Sauza said...

only a few more weeks till MIT! What's up Snively it's been awhile

Anonymous said...

lol, leaving comments on my own blog, I don't do this often!

What's up Sauza? I realized that the only two phone numbers I walked away from CPW with were Sara's and Jon's, meaning I've been out of touch from a lot of people for a while, especially since I ditched Facebook. I'm doing an FPOP (are you?) so I'm heading to MIT on the 19th, which is coming REALLY fast! It's good to hear from you! See you soon. . .

Anonymous said...

Snively! We need to do DITSG. You and Ian are the las question marks. We need to work something out. Email me.

Anonymous said...

you make an awsome penguin by the way.

Anonymous said...

Hey Snively - MIT has a sitewide license for XP and Vista.. so if you want, you can get XP for free.

http://web.mit.edu/software/

There's also some antivirus software and other neat apps.