Sixclear in the News

Sixclear in the News contains press releases and other news happening in and around Sixclear. Receive email updates on Sixclear news and more. LabVIEW is a trademark of National Instruments

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Launches Lunch & Learn Webcasts

Sixclear, an Austin, TX based technology company, kicks off Lunch & Learn LabVIEW Training Webcasts

The community of LabVIEW’s most advanced users has grown and diversified over recent years, from LabVIEW Architects summits to forum meetings to a robust online community. Add to it now Sixclear’s Lunch & Learn series.

“LabVIEW’s user base and applications have steadily grown, and so its champions and architects are diving into uncharted territory at every turn,” explains Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear Co-founder. “We saw the need to showcase the new tools, techniques, and practices that build our LabVIEW community in an open forum with no certification prerequisite, or even a need to pre-register.”

Lunch & Learn webcasts are presented online at least monthly for an hour over lunch, central time. The topics presented thus far range from packed libraries, to new toolkits and frameworks in LabVIEW. Live attendees can ask questions to presenters, and the videos are then posted on Sixclear’s YouTube channel.

“This information is freely accessed and distributed, no need to sign in to attend the webcast or view the final YouTube video,” Shahrani says. He adds to stay up to date, attendees can voluntarily sign up to receive updates on future Lunch & Learn sessions.

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Sixclear Includes Remote Consulting Hours with LabVIEW Training

Sixclear, an Austin, TX based technology company, offers free LabVIEW remote consulting as a follow-on to their LabVIEW training course.

"After a week of LabVIEW training, you finally feel capable of programming that cyborg you’ve dreamed will be your buddy since childhood," explains Brian Spears, head of LabVIEW instruction at Sixclear. "The reality though, is that next week you’re playing catch-up with everything you put off during that week of training."

Spears explains that’s why Sixclear has always included its online course to classroom attendees to review and expand upon concepts learned in the classroom.

"That’s still working well, but we want to take the next step to ensure the success of customers’ training investment by including remote consulting after the course," Spears says.

Effective through June 2015, every student in Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training onsite or regional receives an hour of remote LabVIEW consulting with a Sixclear instructor to use after the course as they develop their own LabVIEW applications. Students of the online training will receive a half hour of consulting any time within their access period.

"We teach LabVIEW for a living, the students that get the most out the course are those that jump into a waiting LabVIEW project the week after the course. To show we mean business, we give a bonus half hour to anybody that schedules their consulting session the week after."

Spears encourages future attendees to visit sixclear.com/labview-training for information on onsite courses and sixclear.com/regionals for the regional course schedule.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear's 6 Tips for NIWeek 2014 Success

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner specializing in LabVIEW Training and Development, gives 6 tips for NIWeek 2014 success.

Now in its 20th year, the annual NIWeek conference in Austin, TX draws an average of 3000 engineers and scientists from around the globe to learn and collaborate on automation, test, measurement, and control applications. This year’s conference falls August 4-7.

Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear Co-founder, offers an additional 6 tips in addition to those published a few years ago. National Instruments itself trusts his advice, as he is the featured speaker in the NIWeek promotional video.

Tip #1:Keep your eyes peeled for Twitter tips!

Unofficial meetups, impromptu gatherings, once-in-a-lifetime occurrences are all yours to digest by simply keeping up with @NIWeek or #niweek on Twitter.

Tip #2: Plan, then back-up plan

LabVIEW Champion, Michael Aivaliotis, collaborated with a few others LabVIEW gurus on his VI Shots Live meetup to create an unmissable list of recommended NIWeek presentations. However, the fire marshall may not condone your plan to just walk into these at the moment they begin. They’ll be popular, so either be early, or have a good backup plan! What’s the best way to plan backups? Take a look at the next tip…

Tip #3: Use the mobile app!

Like showing up to an empty room? Or realizing with bewilderment that a speaker is talking about a subject totally foreign? Plans change, sometimes last minute, grab the mobile app, stay up to date, and easily see your personal schedule after you log in.

Tip #4: The LAVA BBQ

It’s the best time all week to thank the LabVIEW champs that have saved your neck on the forums. An unofficial event that’s gotten so big, NI now features it in the official program. Pay before Aug 4th to save 5 big USD. Plus, with more door prizes than attendees, you’re bound to come out ahead, and be well fed. Then, win Sixclear’s Fitbit One door prize to work off all that Texas BBQ.

Tip #5: Streaming is the key(note)

Last year, NI started streaming the morning keynotes online. If you followed the previous tips and network late into the night, then set your laptop alarm to wake you to the sounds of the morning keynote from the comfort of your bed. Of course, even those who can’t attend the conference can take part.

Tip #6: Symposia! Fora! Summits! Are you a (big) physics nerd? Do you have your eyes on the next big technical horizon? Maybe you didn’t know about the Big Physics Symposium, the Cyber-Physical Systems summit, or several others that happen during NIWeek. You may have to take an elevator and walk to the other side of the convention center, but these events are well worth your attention.

Shahrani welcomes visitors with more questions to swing by booth 436 for more NIWeek tips and information on Sixclear LabVIEW Training and development.

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Sixclear Gives Away LabVIEW Training to Nonprofits

Sixclear, an Austin, TX National Instruments Alliance Partner, offers its e-learning LabVIEW course free to nonprofit organizations.

Following fast on the heels of gifting its Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals online training to FIRST Robotics participants, Sixclear now has expanded free access to qualifying nonprofit organizations.

“Once the flood of giving starts, it’s hard to staunch the feelgood flow,” explains Brian Spears, director of LabVIEW education. “Our friends at nonprofits are often working from the heart, without the benefit of a large budget, so the efficiency gains from LabVIEW are even more valuable.”

Spears explains that a lightweight validation process is in place to ensure nonprofit status of potential LabVIEW students.

“Visit sixclear.com/nonprofit to be guided through the validation process. If it takes longer than instantaneous to be validated, you’ll have access to our test drive course in the meantime,” says Spears.

The audience for the Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals course is any user with little to no knowledge of LabVIEW. The course covers all topics on the National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) exam, as well as data acquisition and instrument control.

“It’s essentially what most in the industry would consider to be a foundational LabVIEW course,” finishes Spears.

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Sixclear Launches First Robotics Competition LabVIEW Training Site

Sixclear, an Austin-based technology company, increases free access to LabVIEW learning resources for FRC participants and mentors.

For 22 years, the FIRST Robotics Competition has been an effective tool in getting middle and high school students worldwide interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies. Students, aided by mentors in their schools or communities, form teams to design and build robots to compete in international events. The necessary resources those teams require have always been provided by interested technology companies like Sixclear.

Sixclear's Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training prepares users with little or no LabVIEW experience to design and program complete applications, including those running on a FIRST robot.

"There are plenty of options to program the FIRST robots. LabVIEW is a leading choice for that software, and we're proud to offer LabVIEW training free of charge to these budding engineers and scientists," explains Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear President.

Sixclear first began offering its LabVIEW course to FIRST competitors in December of 2012, and distributed free training to hundreds of students and mentors throughout that season.  "We received a bunch of really pleasant notes from participants in the program, explaining how they went from no knowledge of programming, to building the code that eventually ran on their competing robot. That made us smile," adds Shahrani.

The current season sees a rollout of a new website for easier access to Sixclear's LabVIEW training:sixclear.com/frc.

"Students and mentors can visit us there and get immediate access to the training," continues Shahrani, explaining that with a new online vetting process, participants no longer need to wait to be given manual access.  "Sign up and you can be learning LabVIEW for free within minutes," concludes Shahrani.

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Sixclear Updates LabVIEW Training Online Course to LabVIEW 2013

Sixclear, an Austin-based National Instruments Alliance Partner, updates their Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Online Training to LabVIEW 2013. The new release of National Instruments LabVIEW rolls out every year at NIWeek. Eager users comb over the new features to incorporate them into their code to improve efficiency, reliability, and performance. In the case of Sixclear, these new features are also evaluated for inclusion in their Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training.

“This time around there are some very cool improvements to LabVIEW events that have been added to our course,” reports Brian Spears, head of LabVIEW course development at Sixclear. Added features include the Event Inspector Window, flushing the event queue, and user event priority.

Some other big additions to the course include new bookmarking capabilities while developing, attaching block diagram comments, and automatically including NI drivers in installers.

“As always, the new features have been taught in our instructor-led courses since August, but now the online videos have been updated with that content, so now our larger base of online users can take advantage,” adds Spears.

Sixclear also reports that LabVIEW users who have not signed up for their LabVIEW training can view some of the added LabVIEW 2013 videos on their LabVIEW programming video blog, VI High, viewable at blog.sixclear.com.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner based in Austin TX, celebrates 5 years of business with a LabVIEW training discount.

Statistics on small business survival aren't particularly encouraging. According to the US Small Business Administration, only about half of those businesses see 5 years in operation.

"People ask us if it was really that bad starting our business in June of 2008, at the beginning of the worst financial crisis in 80 years," recounts Brian Spears, Sixclear Co-founder. "We just have to throw back our heads and laugh and laugh because, yes, yes it was."

Early investment in developing, recording, and delivering a fully online LabVIEW training course put a strain on the young company, which remained solvent by developing custom LabVIEW applications, a practice which continues today.

Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear Co-founder, continues, "But things got better, much better after we released our online LabVIEW training in January of 2010."

Since then, Sixclear began delivering that week-long LabVIEW course in the classroom, both at companies' facilities and open-enrollment locations.

Though still a privately held company, Sixclear leadership indicates that the company has grown by double or triple digits in each year of their existence. The company now offers other LabVIEW-based products and services besides training.

To commemorate their anniversary, the company will offer a buy-two-get-one-free deal until the end of June for their flagship offering, Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training online. Spears describes it as "the most generous discount we've ever offered." 

Instructions

To take advantage of our 5 year anniversary special, simply check out at sixclear.com/labview-training by clicking on any 'Buy' link, or visit sixclear.com/buy. If you purchase 3 licenses, all 3 will have immediate access and we'll refund the cost of one. If you buy 2, send us an email with the request for the 3rd and we'll manually enable that user.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Gives LabVIEW Training Freely to Women With Unique Attendance Restrictions

Sixclear, an Austin-based National Instruments Alliance Partner, offers its online Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training free to all women where local custom restricts LabVIEW training attendance. Sixclear hosts week-long regional LabVIEW courses in an increasing number of venues worldwide. New locations are requested and vetted through an online request form. Brian Spears, who manages Sixclear’s course delivery, explains: “If enough requests for a location come in, we do our best to get a course lined up.” However, there are factors restricting some engineers abroad from learning LabVIEW in traditional training settings. “We have people training with us from all over the world, representing many cultures and social norms,” Spears explains. “We were recently contacted by women in Saudi Arabia asking for a training course specifically for them since, by local law, they are not allowed to be trained alongside men. So we decided we could help those people by offering them our online course.” Spears clarifies that Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training takes users with little to no LabVIEW knowledge and teaches the curriculum outlined in the National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) Exam, as well as data acquisition, instrument control and other topics of interest to beginning LabVIEW programmers. “We know LabVIEW training and certification are a plus on any resume, and bringing affordable, quality LabVIEW training to students worldwide is Sixclear's primary goal.” Spears encourages all women living or working in an area where they are unable to attend technical training courses alongside men to sign up on Sixclear’s website in order to be contacted for the free training.

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Top Six Mistakes Made by Beginning LabVIEW Programmers

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner and LabVIEW training company, shares a list of common mistakes by new LabVIEW developers and how to fix them.  As both a LabVIEW training and consulting company, the developers at Sixclear see a lot of code made by new LabVIEW programmers. Some novice errors can have a huge negative impact.  “We built our Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals course with lectures, exercises, and solution videos to address these and countless other concerns,” says Brian Spears, head of Sixclear LabVIEW course development. “We also update our VI High video blog with short snippets for the same sort of questions. So we’ll point to more information from these resources for each item in our list.”  Problem 1: Race Conditions Caused by Local and Global Variables. Locals and Globals are blissfully simply to set up and use. But overuse leads to code that gives inconsistent data, hangs, or crashes.  Solution: Use data flow and wires for sequential operations. For parallel operations, bring in data transfer mechanisms like queues, notifiers, and functional globals.  More information: Unit 3 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One - Functional globals and parallel operations Unit 1 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Two - Queues and notifiers VI High 9 & 10 - Data flow VI High 42 & 43 - Functional globals Problem 2: No Error Handling. If an error occurs, the code comes to a screeching halt and gives a cryptic error, leaving the operator scratching a confused head.  Solution: LabVIEW can fly a plane or lead a rover across Mars. But not if you’re using Automatic Error Handling. The error cluster is easy to use! We can gracefully exit, fix, or prevent erroring applications from being a problem.  More information: Unit 2 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One - Error handling VI High 46-48 - Error handling Problem 3: Stacked Sequence Structures. They unnecessarily hide code, require sequence locals which break left to right data flow, and more frames generate more locals which creates more clutter.  Solution: They’re in the palettes, yes. But only to maintain backwards compatibility with someone who already made the mistake of using them. Use data flow and error clusters instead.  More information: Unit 1 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One - Data flow VI High 48 - Data Flow with the error cluster Problem 4: Overuse of Express VIs and Dynamic Data. The true data type and operation is hidden, so you may think you’re coding correctly when you’re actually getting erroneous data.  Solution: There’s nothing wrong with using Express VIs to prototype code and tweak parameters in operations like digital filtering and performing power spectrums. But see what native LabVIEW VIs and functions the Express VI uses under the hood, and use those in your completed application instead.  More information: Unit 1 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Two - Express VIs

Problem 5: Non-intuitive User Interface Eyesores. The User Interface is the face of your code, it should smile welcomingly to your user. Too many times we see it sprawling, overlapping, and garish without clear design.  Solution: LabVIEW gifts us tab controls, decorations, and alignment/position tools to make a real looker of a UI. Use them. Your users will like you.  More information: Unit 2 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One - User interfaces VI High 1 and 2 - Front panel color and conditionally disabling front panel objects Problem 6: Not Using Type Definitions. This can cause hours of frustrating rewrite when it’s time to expand or update your code. Using type defs from the start saves you a world of timewaste.  Solution: Good code can change over time with minimal effort. Use type defs in most cases enums and clusters are used.  More information: Unit 2 of Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Two - Type Definitions

Spears encourages new users to take advantage of the final days of Sixclear's March promotion where access to Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One is free for a month.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Gives Away First Course in LabVIEW Training Series During March

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner out of Austin, TX, grants free access to the first of two courses in their Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training series. Effective immediately through the end of March, new and existing users of Sixclear’s online LabVIEW training can receive free access to Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One, the first of two courses in the Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training series. Sixclear’s president, Jassem Shahrani, explains that Sixclear recently opened up the full training series to nonprofits, most notably participants and mentors in the First Robotics Competition (FRC). Besides FRC signups, a large influx of new users from other institutions signed on. “Revenue and buzz increased, as did our general feeling of satisfaction in helping people learn LabVIEW. So we thought we’d try giving away a large portion of the training for free for a limited time and see what happens,” Shahrani explains. Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals One contains basic LabVIEW concepts geared to new users and comprises approximately 25 hours of training time. “A full list of topics is found on our website, some of these include the LabVIEW environment, data types, basic structures, file IO and error handling, variables and parallelism, and basic architectures like state machines,” Shahrani says. Shahrani goes on to mention that the content in Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Two can be seen grayed out in the online training environment, allowing users to decide if they would like to continue their training with the second course, including such topics as data acquisition, instrument communication, events, executables, property and invoke nodes, and type definitions. “Both courses combined prepare users for the National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) exam and constitute a solid base of understanding for developing in LabVIEW,” Shahrani finishes. To gain access to the course, new users should sign up at sixclear.com/try. Users with an existing sixclear.com profile can sign into their online profiles and receive free access.

[sixclearnews-blog]

VI High LabVIEW Programming Video Blog Hits 100k Views

Sixclear, an Austin technology company, celebrates 100,000 views of their LabVIEW programming video blog: VI High.

Last year, Gangam Style was the first video to hit a billion views on YouTube. Flashy, catchy, sexy, and fun, the video exploded the career of the artist behind it, PSY.

Less popular perhaps are YouTube technical training videos, but in the year and a half since Sixclear launched VI High, a steadily increasing and devoted fan base has developed.

Brian Spears, primary author of VI High, comments, “100,000 views may not seem like a lot, but it’s tough to keep up with Gangam Style or endless adorable kitten videos on YouTube when we have real technical content presented in informative and mildly entertaining videos. No fluff. If you like fluff, I encourage you to cuddle one of those kittens.”

All of the 41 VI High episodes, most around 5 minutes, are geared to help beginning users learn LabVIEW. Topics range from popular subjects such as events and property nodes, to some longer, more detailed videos on data encapsulation.

Every year VI High walks through all the new features of LabVIEW applicable to a beginning audience. Additionally, the video blog features episodes specifically designed to help users prepare for the National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) exam.

“She stopped in mid-stride and said ‘hey, I passed the CLAD exam from VI High!’. Upon congratulating her her face lit up ‘Oh you’re the voice on the videos! You’re funny.’”

The lighthearted tone of VI High matches that of Sixclear’s full course, Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training. Spears comments: “The full course is a week long. The brains of happy trainees are able to suck up much more LabVIEW knowledge than those literally bored out of their skulls.”

Spears encourages LabVIEW users to subscribe to their YouTube channel to get the latest episodes upon their release.

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Sixclear Gives LabVIEW Course Freely to FIRST Robotics Competitors

Sixclear, an Austin-based National Instruments Alliance Partner, offers its Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training free to all participants in the worldwide FIRST Robotics Competition. The international high school FIRST Robotics Competition has attracted a slew of tech-company sponsors in its 22 years. Add now Sixclear to that list, an Austin-based provider of LabVIEW training and development. “We were contacted recently by a FIRST team in Minnesota,” explains Brian Spears, developer of Sixclear LabVIEW courses. “They were using LabVIEW to control their robot and asked for a little help getting their young developers up to speed on a shoestring budget. One word came to mind: free.” Spears explains that it’s not just the holiday season that has Sixclear in a giving mood. “We believe in FIRST Robotics’ mission: to inspire interest and achievement in science and technology. Our LabVIEW training can not only help a student potentially win the competition, but give them invaluable skills for a lifetime of technical accomplishment.” Spears clarifies that Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training prepares users to take the National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) Exam which is focused on developing LabVIEW code on a Microsoft Windows machine. However, the code run by robots used by FIRST competitors runs on a National Instruments cRIO controller. “If the competitors are using LabVIEW, they’ll need some LabVIEW basics training like we offer anyway, then we can point them in the right direction to get further guidance on developing LabVIEW code on a cRIO platform.” Spears encourages participants in the competition to complete the Sixclear FIRST Robotics LabVIEW Training registration form for course access.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Increases LabVIEW Training Locations While Drawing Customers Back Home

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner out of Austin, Texas, pushes a fourfold increase in LabVIEW training locations, while simultaneously unveiling the “Austin LabVIEW Vacation” to incentive customers to train at their Austin headquarters. Sixclear has delivered its Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals course online and in the classroom to beginning LabVIEW users for the past 3 years. On Monday, Sixclear announced the newest in a series of initiatives clearly aimed at cracking the classroom LabVIEW training market. The technology company expanded the cities in which it holds LabVIEW classes from three to fifteen. Added to the familiar Austin, Madison, and Silicon Valley locations, Sixclear now holds week-long basics-level LabVIEW courses in Columbus, Denver, Baltimore, Tampa, Raleigh, Los Angeles, Knoxville, Philadelphia, Portland, Boston, Phoenix, and Atlanta. “As much as we’re excited to travel to our customers, we’re also making it easier for them to come to us, which is why we’re rolling out our Austin LabVIEW Vacation package”, says Brian Spears, director of LabVIEW training. “Today it’s 78 degrees and I’m sitting outside in shorts. Our next Austin course is two weeks away and the weather won’t be much worse,” Spears brags. “Some conditions apply, but if you’re coming in from out of state, your flight is on us. Just tell us you’re coming in for the December edition of the Austin LabVIEW Vacation and we just deduct it from the $1999 price tag.” Spears explains that the reduced cost of delivering the LabVIEW course in Austin is passed on to course attendees, while holding the training downtown allows customers to save further on expenses while enjoying the city. “Our instructors live here, and we have some truly great training facilities in the heart of downtown Austin. So come on down, stay nearby, and walk to the training and everything else Austin has to offer without even needing to rent a vehicle.” A full description of Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training, as well as the schedule for all upcoming classes can be found at sixclear.com/labview-training. Conditions to qualify for Austin LabVIEW Vacation:

Qualifying for the Austin LabVIEW Vacation is easy. Just show us that you live outside of Texas and that you’ll be flying in for the course. Then we reduce the cost of the training by the cost of your flight, up to $500. If you’re flying in from outside the United States, please contact us in order to qualify for an even greater price reduction. We also ask that you don't fly first or business class, Sixclear is growing but we're not a publicly-traded company quite yet...

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Overhauls Regional LabVIEW Training Course

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner, splits its classroom LabVIEW training into two courses, combined with the full online course, to reduce cost and time required for students.

Sixclear has been in the LabVIEW training business for almost four years. Its online training course was released in January of 2010, followed later that year by week-long instructor-led courses on-site at customers’ facilities. Earlier this year, regional courses were rolled out at venues hosted by the training company.

“Coming to a regional course is like landing at Ellis Island,” says Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear President. “Students gather from across the nation and abroad, from different companies and industries, with all kinds of technical backgrounds.”

Shahrani maintains that the students tend to learn as much from each other as from the instructor.

“We still are the lowest-cost provider for instructor-led LabVIEW training on the market,” states Shahrani. At $1999 per student for the week of training, Shahrani’s claim holds water, especially as the online version of the course -- containing the same curriculum as the classroom course -- is given to the students to review and expand upon for the next 6 months.

Shahrani continues: “However, that cost is still out of reach for many users. Plus, it’s often difficult to take a full week off work.”

To that end, Sixclear is now offering the 5 day course in two parts: 3 days of Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals I and another 2 days of Fundamentals II.

“Our biggest hangup for not rolling this out sooner was our experience of teaching LabVIEW over the past decade. Students may sign up just for the second half of a basics course, only to come in entirely unprepared and struggle through it in frustration. Or they only have time for the first part, and so get the bare bones of LabVIEW, but return to work expecting to contribute and realize they’re still missing vital knowledge.”

Shahrani explains how Sixclear addresses this by giving the full online course to all attendees, even if they only come for half a week. Online access is granted as soon as students book the course, so they can start before they show up.

“Now, if you just take Fundamentals II, there’s no need to wonder if you’re ready. Just look over the online course and you’re up to speed. And if you’re only taking Fundamentals I, you won’t miss crucial sections in Fundamentals II like data acquisition, instrument control, or building and distributing executables."

Shahrani invites users to try out the new format at the next regional course in Madison, WI on November 26, or Austin, TX on December 3.

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Sixclear Provides LabVIEW 2012 Update to LabVIEW E-Learning Course

Sixclear, a National Instruments Alliance Partner based in Austin, Texas, releases a LabVIEW 2012 update to Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Online Training.

One of the primary goals of National Instruments LabVIEW 2012 release was to make LabVIEW more approachable for new users. A LabVIEW user now starts a new application with a project pre-loaded with code, instead of a blank VI. New templates and frameworks also replace aging templates in order to help users start complex applications faster.

“We couldn’t be happier about this increased emphasis on new users, as they’ve always been the core of our training base." says Brian Spears, head of Sixclear LabVIEW instruction.

Spears continues: “As we do every year, Sixclear evaluates the new features and frameworks for inclusion in our LabVIEW training. We then update our lecture material, exercises, and solution code immediately. So all of those updates were added to our instructor-led courses back in August.”

Spears goes on to explain that the videos to the online course have now been updated to the latest version in Sixclear’s LabVIEW e-learning environment.

Current users of Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals online are able to access the updates with no additional charge.

Not all users immediately update to the latest version of LabVIEW. Typically, the larger the organization, the longer users standardize on a given version. Spears explains that Sixclear has designed the course to be backwards compatible with older versions of LabVIEW, including 2011, 2010, 2009, 8.6, 8.5, and 8.2.

“That’s something that you can’t get from other LabVIEW training providers," Spears says. "We understand that upgrading can be prohibitively difficult and users may still be stuck on a version from 5 years ago. We get that, and we’ll train you in that version, online or live in the classroom.”

Some notable features in the LabVIEW 2012 update include:

-Automatically concatenating arrays leaving loops

-Conditionally processing loop outputs

-Choosing where to cleanup wires

-New Context Help options

-Performing the same operation on several objects simultaneously

-Customizable label placement

-Evaluation of new templates and frameworks

A free Test Drive of the course is found at sixclear.com/labview-training.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Overhauls Price of Online LabVIEW Training and Unveils Site Licenses

Sixclear, an Austin, Texas engineering startup and National Instruments Alliance Partner, drops the price on its online training and announces tiered site license pricing to appeal to larger companies.

“Everyone benefits from this pricing change, from the single user to the megacompany of 1000 LabVIEW devotees” says Brian Spears, Sixclear Co-Founder and head of LabVIEW instruction.

Effective immediately, Sixclear has cut the price of its most popular Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training from $899 to $549. Academic access to the same training drops to $249.

Additionally, Sixclear announces a tiered model for site licenses, geared for training multiple users at a single company, lab, or academic institution. At the lowest entry point, 10 users can learn for $2500. The top tier offers unlimited users for $10,000.

“We’ve led the way in LabVIEW e-learning for the past two and a half years,” says Spears. “We couldn’t be happier: we’ve recuperated our original course investment and recently benefited from technical streamlining and economies of scale”, referring to migration earlier this year of Sixclear’s web infrastructure to Rackspace Cloud Files and Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN).

“All that means is that we can deliver our video LabVIEW course more affordably to more people. Price and availability should never be a hurdle to benefiting from LabVIEW’s incredible productivity gains.”

Full pricing information can be found at sixclear.com/labview-training.

[sixclearnews-blog]

Sixclear Announces Lucid LabVIEW Training

Sixclear, an Austin, Texas technology startup and National Instruments Alliance Partner, announces the Lucid line of LabVIEW training.

Sixclear LabVIEW Fundamentals training has been on the market since January 2010. Recently, the company announced a new name for their training program: Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Training. The name change is occurring for two reasons. First, Sixclear provides more than training, making a distinctive, sticky name for their training offering advantageous.

“Clear has always been the focus. It’s in our name, after all,” says Jassem Shahrani, Sixclear President. “’Lucid’ conveys that clarity but also adds a visual aspect, which is the other crucial component of our online LabVIEW instruction.”

Sixclear believes the new brand better communicates the company’s core focus on clarity. Shahrani explains: “The lessons are built around self-paced, visually-oriented online training videos, backed up by exercises and quizzes. Solution videos show the instructor walking through exercises step by step so there’s never a chance for frustration or delay.”

Second, the name change allows Sixclear to expand its LabVIEW training catalog into territory outside of the basics level. The former Sixclear LabVIEW Fundamentals course has now been renamed to Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Fundamentals Training.

Sixclear points users to a new video at sixclear.com/labview-training detailing more information.The course will still be offered in the same three formats: Online, On-site, and Regional.

“If you’re an existing customer, don’t worry: nothing is changing under the hood,” Shahrani finishes. “If you’re a new user, come and see why Sixclear Lucid LabVIEW Training is the clear choice for learning LabVIEW today.”