I just ordered a VariCAD license, after playing with the demo for a while (it's not perfect - for one thing, 3D import capablity would come in mighty handy, and it's not there yet - but it seems like it'll pretty much do what I need in a mechanical CAD package, at a decent price, and it runs under Linux). This involved an international credit-card transaction, via WorldPay.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was the credit card company, wanting to know if I'd just used my card. Guess they're alert over there.
Now to see if VariCAD tech support will explain why, after being fed the license key, their program gives a weird error message about not being upgradeable, and refuses to run. I have a feeling I left out a step somewhere, but, as seems to be typical, the licensing process isn't clearly documented in engineer-comprehensible terms.
(I expect it'll get sorted out. If memory serves, I had a minor SNAFU with EAGLE when I first bought it, but all's been well since.)
Hmmm... also need to order some IPC standards, and some new cutting tools. Especially cutting tools. That random chunk of steel I tried to machine yesterday turned out to be some nasty grade of stainless. Took the corners right off my best 3/8" endmill. Heeere, carbide, carbide, carbide! (Picking up some lumps of mild steel - and/or annealed tool steel - might be a good idea, too.)
Update: Looks like my VariCAD license problem was a function of having downloaded the version for Debian, which is out of date (took some fiddling to install it under Debian-unstable, too - it's built for the previous version of KDE, so I had to muck about with old libraries). I grabbed the .rpm for Fedora Core 2, converted to .deb using alien, and it installed without complaints, took the license key, and seems to be running happily ever after.
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