After a heady six week career to date in the publishing game, we've gained new respect for our elders and betters, peers and competitors in this business. Herewith, a quick survey of a few online news sources we find worth reading.

CADwire is a comprehensive portal site from Cyon Research, the folks who also publish Engineering Automation Report and produce COFES, the ultimate, invitation-only, annual schmooze-fest for industry insiders. The big plus here—besides the comprehensiveness requisite in any portal—is the instant analysis of industry news offered on CadWire by Cyon principals Brad Holtz, Joel Orr, and Evan Yares. Collectively, these guys are among the most perceptive and insightful observers of everything CAD, across all platforms and all industries.

AECcafe and its companion monthly 'zine, AECvision, are edited by industry veteran Susan Smith, who has a keen eye for local color and human interest to go along with her in-depth knowledge of the AEC industry and all its players.

TenLinks aims to be the "Yahoo" of CAD, but actually goes Yahoo one better (perhaps "ten better" is more accurate). TenLinks was founded in response to the observation that we don't want searches that return thousands of hits; we just want the best ten links in response to our queries. Under Roopinder Tara, who has edited a major CAD magazine, TenLinks now complements its original selectivity with an industry-wide comprehensiveness.

CADserver, from the U.K., features the irrepressible, trans-Atlantean Martyn Day, who is one of the few people to successfully combine in-depth and hands-on CAD knowledge with supreme mastery of the English language and a flair for the well-turned phrase. Always informative, as well as a joy to read.

CADinfo.NET, by Australia-based Tony Zilles, is a dependably refreshing source of contrapuntal views of CAD from down under.

Saint Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of lost causes, surely must have watched over the Macintosh-based architectural CAD community through many lean and lonely years until Apple Corp's recently revived interest. Architosh, edited by the doggedly determined Anthony Frausto-Robledo, has long served as a guide for Mac-using architects through the wilderness (Window-ness?).

Focusing on a single platform (such as Macintosh) or a single vendor, as in the case of MSMonline and Bentley Systems, sacrifices industry breadth, but makes up for it with focused depth—at least when it's done by someone as skilled as Randall Newton, who edits MSM and writes the "MSM Insider."

CADgurus, edited by the effervescent Mary Ramsey, provides an additional dose of Bentley/Microstation information and hands-on tips. Rounding out the Bentley-specific crowd is Axiom International's Microstation Today, always chock-full of practical information.

Some other time, I'll browse through my favorite resources for AEC management and marketing, as well as some facilities management and plant & process resources online.
JL

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