google anniversary doodle

Google 17th anniversary doodle showcases lego cabinet of the first google server at Stanford:

Astah: fast modeling

Astah (formerly Jude) is a uml tool that works very well, I only have some minor remarks about the interface:

• did not find a way to make an element unselectable (e.g. when you do not want to multiselect all elements in a package, but not the package itself), like you can in Enterprise Architect.
• you easily select sub-elements when you want to select e.g. a class

Here is a page with some tips for fast modeling from Astah, and a link with keyboard shortcut.
Some more tips

• Association classes: right click on an association, choose convert to association class 

Sequence diagram modeling does not have the same level of perfection in v7.0:

• Astah is in message draw mode, even when not appropriate (if you misclick you add an unwanted message)
• not easy to add methods from diagram to existing classes
• no automatic generation of communication diagrams from sequence diagrams (and vice versa) 
• unlike sequence diagrams, communication diagrams do not
• prompt to add new classes
• support iterations

model translation dictionary

Speaking in tongues: Nice translation dictionary from one modeling notation to another by Scott Ambler