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Articles by Adam Stone

Other than my personal life and hobbies I am all about the system integration and A/V industry. I started in 1981 as a “TV delivery specialist” for the Good Guys a west coast CE chain. From there I started my own big dish satellite installation company which morphed into a home theater installation company in the early 90’s. I got out of the installation business in 1996 and went to work for an electrical contractor as project manager of their residential division where I was exposed to the complexities of old school/analog job costing, estimating, blueprints and project scheduling. Being a long time PC geek and creator of some database driven estimating tools I knew that there had to be a better way to deal with these complex projects. During the course of my employment there I was exposed to Visio as an easy to use drawing tool. After spending some time with it I realized that I could hook it up to a database and automate many of the disparate processes I needed to do to accomplish my tasks. That let to the formation of my current company D-Tools which is the leader in the marketplace with thousands of companies using our design, engineering and business management tools. My direct contact information is on the About tab.

D-Tools/Visio Motorized Shade Shape
09/30/2011 – 1:47 pm | Comments Off
D-Tools/Visio Motorized Shade Shape

A customer requested a motorized window shade shape this week, specifically a Lutron Sivoia Shade.  After taking a close look at the specifications I saw that it was not that much different than our current …

One Visio Equipment Rack Shape to Rule Them ALL!
09/28/2011 – 2:38 pm | One Comment
One Visio Equipment Rack Shape to Rule Them ALL!

I was thinking about better ways to draw and manage equipment rack shapes in Visio for Six.  Equipment racks and their components are interesting objects to create in Visio because there are probably over 50,000 …

RealPic’s Now
09/16/2011 – 9:15 am | 2 Comments
RealPic’s Now

Family issues kept me from CEDIA this year but I heard that one of the most anticipated features of SIX was the use of real pictures (RealPic) to represent actual electronic components when using Visio …

Automation is as Automation Does Pt. 2 – Automating Social Media
05/25/2011 – 5:20 pm | Comments Off
Automation is as Automation Does Pt. 2 – Automating Social Media

I think it is pretty safe to say that social media is not a fad and is here to stay. At D-Tools we have always had a social media presence but it was getting …

The Big But Post
05/18/2011 – 2:57 pm | 4 Comments
The Big But Post

**Updated**
So if you read my last post you know I am on an automation kick here at D-Tools. Just trying to make everyone’s job a little bit easier. In that post I …

Automation Is as Automation Does: Part 1
05/03/2011 – 2:53 pm | Comments Off
Automation Is as Automation Does: Part 1

I was planning on writing this business process automation post last year but my wife got really-really sick, really-really quick and I have been out of the office for the past eight months taking care …

What’s new in Visio 2010
04/18/2011 – 3:11 pm | Comments Off
What’s new in Visio 2010

We are going to start shipping Visio 2010 with all NEW purchases of versions of SI5.5  soon and as the resident Visio geek I thought our customers and readers would appreciate a heads up on …

Manufacturer Vantage Point (MVP) News for February 2010
02/24/2010 – 2:28 pm | Comments Off
Manufacturer Vantage Point (MVP) News for February 2010

D-Tools MVP manufacturers realize the importance of bringing you their product information and have chosen to support the D-Tools user community by joining the program and making their product data directly available through D-Tools SI …

How D-Tools Uses the Mass Email Functionality in Zoho CRM – Part 2: Contacts
12/23/2009 – 3:48 pm | Comments Off
How D-Tools Uses the Mass Email Functionality in Zoho CRM – Part 2: Contacts

In part 1 of this series I went over How D-Tools Uses the Mass Email Functionality in Zoho CRM to send targeted mass emails to their leads. In part 2, I will go over …

How D-Tools Uses the Mass Email Functionality in Zoho CRM – Part 1: Leads
12/23/2009 – 10:06 am | One Comment
How D-Tools Uses the Mass Email Functionality in Zoho CRM – Part 1: Leads

In the selfless spirit of the holiday season, and the selfish spirit of knowing I write better for an audience, I offer my colleagues and readers another in depth, how to articles on how D-Tools …

Google SketchUp Tutorial
12/21/2009 – 2:15 pm | Comments Off
Google SketchUp Tutorial

What James Cameron did for the movies with Avatar D-Tools is going to do for system integration.  As much as I love a rack elevation or floorplan done up in Microsoft Visio it just …

Announcing the D-Tools WikiBlog
04/28/2009 – 4:19 pm | One Comment
Announcing the D-Tools WikiBlog

We are pleased to announce the launch of the D-Tools WikiBlog, your new source for technical information about D-Tools software. On the WikiBlog, you will find a complete, up-to-date knowledgebase, helping you find the information …