APS3000 Machine & Stringerless Blanks

General Discussion
21
Quote:

Wrong, that is incorrect. My ex-partner cooked the books and my current partner designed and engineered virtually everything, from day one.

But wait a minute, aren’t you the guy, maybe with a friend or two, that took our software, decompiled it, and then packaged it into something with another name.

I’ve seen the source of BoardCad, you guys were so lazy that after taking our code, you didn’t even change the names of the methods. There are unique things that we named that are currently in BoardCad. BoardCad looks very similar to Aku Shaper (APS3000), the feature Ghost Board is a good example.

If you have proof that your ex-partner cooked the books and you didn’t get what was rightfully yours, why don’t you sue him? The IRS would probably be very interested too…

I still have a hard time understanding that if you work for a guy designing a machine, you own the design. There has to be very peculiar contact in this case or the business laws in Australia must be very different from here, because here consultants or employees does not own the right to the products they develop, in full or partly. I don’t think that’s normal anywhere else either unless it is explicitly expressed in the contract. It’s certainly not the way it is with my current employer which is an US based company.

The only thing that is the same in BoardCAD and AkuShaper is the encryption key. You know it and I know it. It was the only way I could keep improving the code I wrote for printing templates that was incorporated in APS3000/AkuShaper as suddenly I could no longer open my .brd files, that situation was certainly an inspiration. Everything else in BoardCAD is written from scratch though there are a few textbook examples incorporated in the code. The AkuShaper and BoardCAD doesn’t even use any of the same extension libraries. But please prove me wrong. You know where to find the code.

With the logic you’re using then you must have reverse engineered Shape3D since your program have similar features as Shape3D. You and I know that isn’t true. Miki have been involved in both those projects and it shows. We’ve had the pleasure to be able to use ideas from both those programs (and others) to our liking, so the programs end up similar much in the same way as OpenOffice is similar to Microsoft Office. If we’re guilty of stealing something, we’re guilty of stealing ideas. But I’m guessing most of those ideas wasn’t yours in the first place.

The major difference between my ethics and your ethics is that I get no money out of this. 'Nuff said.

regards,

Håvard

22

Lots of the features in the former APS3000 software were developed from idea’s shapers, designers and operators provided. All three softwares have merit. It is unfortunate that your partnership disolved it has opened doors for others. We recently partnered and shipped our APS3000 to Shooting-blanks EPS foam in Carson Ca if anyone needs machining contact Mike @ 310 885 4990.

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oh Havard, now you gave it away. he will sue me for sure. Am doomed now. I was kind of honored to be called a real con pro and getting used to the fact that I am not who I thought I was. I could have started a new career…

Then I looked into some documents and reality came back.

First APS3000 machine officially operational including software (Shape3D): June 23 in 2000. This G-day event has been documented by a government official. This is long time before Jimmy even entered Australia for the first time in his life or met with me. And two years before I met Mike Rickard in person.

Mike Rickard, Jimmy Freese new partner, started working for me as a contractor/employee in february 2005. A few years more or less, someone out there who cares?

Before Mike Rickard was contracted and started to build the machines, two other engineering companies had been contracted and did build machines 2, 3 and 4.

Sam, who is responsible for the beautiful APS3000 logo, was hired by me to draft the machine so Mike Rickard could build them. He used machine 1 as the original. That machine is today owned by Feral Dave. Sam also drafted the drawings for the patents some years earlier.

Just as a side note: even if Jimmy’s claims were true, they would not give him the moral, ethical or legal right to steal my idea and/or IP. Full stop.

I first worked with Emmanuel on Shape3D, then, with all the experience I had made over the years I worked with Jimmy and Ralph to create the APS3000 program. After that I gave BoardCAD and Shape3D V8 my support and my machine, the APS3000, is today sold with Shape3D V8. Have a look at all these programs and yes, you will most certainly find parallels. I am proud of every single one. I still do have all the documents and the hundreds of emails exchanged to support my claim.

I do hold a legally enforcable patent for the invention (surfboard shaping apparatus) here in Australia. And I have applied for patents in the US. Please ask legal advice what that means.

I will continue to sell the APS3000 with Shape3D V8 as the software. This guarantees professional software support and development and to all the amateur shapers out there I recommend the combination of the free version of Shape3D and BoardCAD. Together, these programs are very powerful in regards to design as well as print and DXF output. And they are easy to use too. Pitty Emmanuel and Thomas did not want to add solid 3D to the free version of Shape3D but I fully respect their decission.

Jimmy Freese can take any time legal action against me but he has no right to make the claims he made before he gets the judges verdict.

If you own an APS3000 and have an issue with EPS, please contact me and I will give you all the information needed to make the most beautiful EPS preshapes there are. with or without stringer.

Wouter, you find an APS3000 at UWL in La Rochelle (www.uwl-surfboards.com)., France. Am sure Renaud will look after you. And there are quite a few in England too, Newquay and St Agnes are great places for a surf… and Ireland…

I also want to anounce that I learned to surf in the meantime. Marcel is a great teacher and I enjoy doing it standing up.

I want to express my special thanks to Burt and Frank. Those guys helped me through the hard times, they came up with ideas and solutions and they really did have an influence on the APS3000.

please visit my website www.aps3000miki.com

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It’s been excellent working with Miki and having the support of Havaard. They have been very generous with their time and knowledge. Miki responds to all my inquiries in a timely manner with great diligence. These men are both assets to my shaping.

I still design with the APS3000 v 1.13 one of the earliest version of the software. It’s great software. I truly appreciate Jimmy and Ralph Freese’s effort and knowledge to develop it with Miki.

However, when Jimmy Freese invaded my HD with his “Aku spider” I decided to never ever have any association or business with him or Aku Shaper. When I opened APS3000 and landed in Aku Shaper I was amused. When I saved that file it became a .brd file that would no longer open in APS3000 I was not amused. Lucky for me I caught on with the first file and did not have to do the work to convert my entire data base back to APS3000. Yet, Jimmy continues to post that he is an ethical businessman / software engineer and that Miki and Havaard have plagiarized his “work.”

(Aku Shaper will tell you the connection (spider) is to provide the end user with updates to the software. Personally I prefer to choose which upgrades I want to use and when I want to use them ! No one should access your HD without first asking and receiving your permission. I will not make any assumptions about their motive(s) for being “in” your HD, but it’s my opinion that it may do some things to serve their own interests, perhaps more than being a “service” to the end user.)

Miki and Havaard have my full thanks for their knowledge and integrity. It bothers me considerably to read Jimmy’s negative posts about Miki and now about Havaard. Hopefully, I won’t become a target of his attacks for posting. We’ll see.

Jimmy. Good luck with your machines and your software. I do wish you the best in business and in life. I’m not a “hater.” Just stay out of my HD. That’s not cool !!!

Kind regards to all,

Steve Coletta

Natural Curves Surfboards

25

Oh no, this is getting silly again.

Yes, Miki is currently being sued in an Australian court the name of many of your methods and variables are the exact same as ours.

This is the end of me on this thread.

What’s likely going to happen is that Miki will get more of his friends to write bad shit about us. He’s good at that.

Jimmy

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Wrong again Jimmy. I do count Miki as a friend. But you insult my intelligence to propose that he’s asked or motivated me to post. It’s YOU, sir, with your posts and invasion of my HD, who has motivated me to post. Ironic indeed. I clearly see the source of your problems - too concerned about everyone else and their opinion. Just keep making good machines and good software for those who want your products and leave the rest of us alone. Please.

Kind regards,

SC

27
Quote:

the name of many of your methods and variables are the exact same as ours.

Naturally some variables might be the same, it would be weird if I called the variable to hold the shaper name something other than shaper f.ex. As we all know, it’s the name of the functions and variables that make the program, not the sourcecode in the functions… But honestly now you have me curious, I might need to do some checking myself…

For anyone wishing to check Jimmy’s claims, the source code for BoardCAD is available here. A good tool for decompiling java can be found at here. Happy hacking.

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This post was about gettting stringerless blanks on an APS3000! No reference to anyone in particular, but could you keep it relevant please.

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…I recommend the combination of the free version of Shape3D and BoardCAD. Together, these programs are very powerful in regards to design as well as print and DXF output. And they are easy to use too.

…

Miki,

Would be nice if you popped up more often with these recommendations.

The new BoardCad v1.0 alpha looks slick versus what it was 5 mos. ago.

Looks like I’ll have to get some value from it.