Last week I was invited to attend a meeting of a few local architects where they discussed the Building Information Model and its relationship to documentation. Before attending I prepared the following document which I distributed amoungst the attendents. In it I aimed to clarify what BIM is (or more importantly what is isn't) and give them an indication of the issues surrounding the concept of BIM from a macro-perspective. Most attendants were very familar with the power of BIM tools such as Autodesk Revit but in general there was a lot of confusion between BIM and parametric modeling. There were also mixed feelings on the capabilities of BIM as a collaboration platform. For the practices involved it had helped internal processes but it was acknowledged that getting disparate information from design team participants into a BIM was a challenging task. Interoperability between various BIM platforms was an issue but there was the greater factor that many people working within the industry still produce relatively 'dumb' (i.e. basic 2D/3D drawings) that need to be practically recreated in BIM if it is to be of use within the model.

What follows is a web version of the printed document I distributed for reference:

Behind the Building Information Model Buzz

The 'Building Information Model' (BIM) is a marketing buzzword that has been heavily promoted by many Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) software vendors. But what exactly is it, how will it effect the way you work and will it solve all of your problems?

A few days ago I wrote about how XenExpress was an exciting Xen distribution that was hindered by a few little bugs. In my case my IDE drives performed very slowly because DMA flags were not being set correctly. This was caused by the fact the generic-ide kernel module had been compiled directly into the Linux kernel (rather than being left as a module).

Thanks to a tip from Partha Ramachandran on the XenSource user forum I added ide0=0 ide1=0 to /boot/grub/grub.conf which stopped generic-ide from grabbing the two IDE channels. This allowed the amd74xx module to correctly connect to and configure the drives.

Its always good to read about old school Oracle databases and Visual Basic frontends being replaced by open source solutions, and it is even better when this news is coming from New Zealand. The New Zealand Electoral Roll now runs on a Postgres cluster distributed between Wellington and Auckland and just to top it off it is running on top of Debian (no fancy commercial Linux for our government thank you very much). By the looks of things development was in the works for a while but at least it has come into reality unlike many government sponsored IT projects. Open source moves like this are great and it is good to see a few of them get publicised in this manner.

Identity presentations can be boring because by and large it is a boring topic full of acronyms, complexities and unresolved issues. This presentation by Dick Hardt at OSCON 2005 breaks the mold so to speak by talking about complicated issues in a very interesting and visual manner. It is worth watching if you are interested in identity or looking for an interesting visual presentation technique for your next Powerpoint/Keynote.

Dick Hardt at OSCON 2005 - Identity 2.0 

I was recently asked to comment on what the pros and cons were of Java compared to ColdFusion and ASP.Net when it comes to Web development. I guess the first thing to get straight with this question is what exactly constitutes 'Java' in a Web development sense.

The basics of the two technologies

The diagram below outlines the elements that comprise of Java and .Net Web development.

Both technologies are very similar as in essence Microsoft based .Net on many of Sun's original Java concepts and borrowed a lot of Java syntax when designing C#. Both utilise managed containers in which code is compiled and executed within. These containers are referred to as the JavaVM or CLR runtime in Java and .Net respectively. Both managed containers have the ability to execute code written in a number of languages, for example it is not uncommon to have a .Net application written in both VB.Net and C#. Whilst not as common the Java runtime is also beginning to support multiple languages such as Python and Ruby. Increased emphasis has come on this ability after the meteoric rise to fame of the Ruby on Rails Web development framework.

The open source Xen virtualisation suite has caused a bit of a stir within the Linux world because it combines the power of VMWare without the proprietary code and cost hassles. Unfortunately Xen is not the most user friendly thing in the world to setup or configure. For a large organisation this is not so much of a problem because they can afford to hire expensive consultants or train their in-house staff. For smaller players or individuals interested in the concept but unwilling to invest hours into training XenSource have released XenExpress.

XenExpress fits on a single CD and can be downloaded without charge from the XenSource website (they do however ask for a few contact details). To setup your very own Xen host you just boot the computer from the CD, answer a few configuration questions like time and network setup and then just sit back and watch as XenExpress turns your computer into a fully functional Xen platform (for further instructions checkout this howto). After installation is complete configuration of the Xen host occurs remotely via a Java desktop application that runs on Windows, Linux or after a little hacking OSX. Most of the basic Xen tasks like virtual instance management and system maintenance can be accomplished through the interface without much effort or reference to the user guide. If you are an advanced user you can also bring up a terminal on the Xen host and run your normal Linux commands as at its heart XenExpress appears to be a slimmed down Red Hat distribution.

Drupal 5.0, an open source content management system (CMS), was released this week. To help new and existing Drupal users (like myself) understand what is so cool Lullabot has created a very nice Drupal 5.0 new features video. The short video is worth watching even if you have never used Drupal or a CMS before as it illustrates many of the new and cool looking administration features that makes Drupal arguably one of the best CMS choices around. After watching the video it looks like I have some work ahead of me this weekend in order to upgrade this site to the new release.

Recently Scott Sheppard from Autodesk blogged about Docupoint Discovery, an intranet/Internet search engine for AutoCAD files. It works by parsing binary AutoCAD files and indexing their textual and numerical content. Whilst it is not super intelligent (i.e. it doesn't make spacial assumptions based on the actual models submitted) it does help Autodesk workgroup users find information faster. The upshot of the Docupoint Discovery system is that you don't actually need a copy of AutoCAD, it reads the binary files into the index and if you need a quick preview it uses Autodesk's own DWF viewer technology to show it to you (now that is really helpful).

A similar set of functionality can be provided if you are an ArchiCAD Mac user by harnessing OSX's Spotlight functionality and the freely available ArchiCAD Spotlight plug-in. With this plug-in installed OSX can index all your ArchiCAD files (alongside all the other relevant project data like PDF files). Then with the next version of OSX (Leopard) or the open-source Weblight server you can search your Spotlight index on the intranet/Internet via a web browser. It does not offer the DWF-based preview option of Docupoint Discovery but for a zero-cost, minimum configuration solution it is not too shabby.

Mozilla Firefox is a far better browser for Windows than Internet Explorer could ever be. It is more secure, standards compliant and its functionality can be easily improved using Extensions. Unfortunately the default installation of Firefox uses a range of icons that are unfamiliar to average users which can lead to some confusion. Fortunately the Internet Explorer icon pack for Firefox corrects this problem by replacing the distinctive Firefox icons with the more run of the mill Microsoft Explorer versions. This extension doesn't add any functionality beyond this but it sure does help out users who don't care what browser they use as long as the visual experience (i.e. the icons on screen) look the same.

On December 29th Jeremy Allison officially left Novell and was able to speak openly about the Novell-Microsoft deal. He provided answers to questions posed Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet and Boycott Novell although it would appear that his answers to the later source were for the most part copied and pasted from his ZDNet interview. What is interesting from the interviews is that the controversial patent deal was included by Microsoft at the last minute (5 days before the announcement). This would suggest Novell was setup by Microsoft, or even worse intentionally withheld information from people within their own company that understood the most about the issues at hand. Whichever was the cause it does not bode well for Novell as it was a lot of negative publicity they could have seriously done without and even avoided if managed more effectively.