Microsoft offering around 150 free e-books

If you have a hankering to learn SQL Server,  Visual Studio, SharePoint Server,  Office, Windows, or virtually anything that Microsoft develop then Eric Ligman, Microsoft's Sales Excellence Manager has a treat for you on his blog.

For the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence, there are 145 (I counted them) individual files available for download in a variety of formats to cater to your preferred method of media consumption.

If you were looking for something to occupy your time while eagerly awaiting an appearance from Santa this Christmas, I think Microsoft have you covered.

Scroll down his blog for the full list.

GrabCAD - over 100k models to download

We posted a couple of years back about the launch of the GrabCAD community, where you can share and download models of everything from cars to gears, and animals to aliens.  Their library now holds over 100k+  models in total across various CAD formats.

While not everything is useful for engineering, there are still some good reasons to use the community.
You can:

• View the model browser of a part you need to design and get tips on methods and technique 
• Supplement an animation with extra background models (remember to give credit)
• Test out your new 3D printer with something quick and easy
• Use test geometry to run through your simulation package
• Test the import functionality of your CAD application by downloading non-native models

Autodesk Labs - Project Chronicle

If you have a need to capture interface workflows from within Autodesk products for the purposes of training or as webinars for your clients, Project Chronicle is now available on the Autodesk Labs website.

It combines video and audio capture with a timeline which displays the specific command clicks, dialogue box, file, and product used at each point in time, in sync with the video's playback.

There is a site dedicated to publicly available user created Chronicles here which already has around 600 uploads already, but users can also upload private Chronicles to keep their information and know-how to themselves and their organisation.

Project Chronicles will be available as a free download until 1st February 2014.

Micro Concepts Ltd 'Open Doors' event a huge success!

On the 7th November 2012 Micro Concepts Ltd hosted its second 'Open Doors' event giving its customers the incredible opportunity to come and sit the Autodesk Certification exams for FREE. The response from our customers was fantastic and more than twenty five exams were taken by our customers.

Free Online Image Editing and Sharing Tools from Autodesk

Pixlr products are free online and mobile image editing tools and utilities for creating, editing, and sharing images. From full-featured image editors for people who want to quickly create a custom image for a website or Blog, to fun apps that apply retro filters to your photos, to simple utilities for fetching and sharing images, Pixlr provides a variety of tools that start up fast and are simple to use:

• Pixlr Editor - A free, online, full-featured image editing and creation tool.
• Pixlr Express - A simple and immediate online tool for quick image adjustments.
• Pixlr Grabber - Fetch images and screen grabs from your desktop and browser.
• imm.io - An image sharing service that allows you to upload an image and share it with friends via a link in just one click or with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and more.
• Pixlr-o-matic - A fun and playful post-process darkroom where you can experiment with different effects, overlays, and borders. Get Pixlr-o-matic on the web or from the Apple iTunes Store.