Introduction Actually from my viewpoint not engineering because: Engineering takes place at the frontiers of science and technology. It is a high risk activity, based on highly deficient knowledge, with uncertain outcomes. The thing we are concerned with here are established technologies, with an established body of technical knowledge, making planning, design and management based […]
Comparing Calculation Tools
As indicated in previous post I’ve been considering whether to move away from spreadsheets for my calculations. I have previously discussed the use of MathCAD and similar software versus the use of spreadsheets on my personal blog in the post: Electronic Calculations (eCalc’s) . In the previous article my focus was protesting against those who consider […]
Using AutoCAD LT as a simple Geographical Information System
For a simple geographical information system (GIS) not concerned with complex projections of the surface of a sphere onto a 2D surface, nor concerned with features of the landscape such as rivers, lakes, coast lines, mountains, nor with technological features of the built environment such as roads and bridges. The primary requirement is being able to locate a […]
Using Spreadsheets for Engineering Design
The spreadsheets I have released both here and over on ExcelCalcs are all in MS Excel 2003 format, and in the main are dependent on an MS Excel spreadsheet add-in (.xla). As a consequence of this “add-in” the spreadsheets are not usable in OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Further as a consequence of the hardware failure of […]