Monday, November 23, 2009

AU 2009

The posting has been pretty thin lately, but it's because I have been focusing on my class for this year Implementing Revit MEP A to Z. I hope to meet people in Las Vegas that read my blog and also meet people that write the blogs I love. Happy Thanksgiving to all. See you in Vegas!

Friday, October 09, 2009

AutoCAD Text Messaging

Sometimes you forget how cool a tool is until someone else sees you use it and they remind you it kicks butt. I had that experience this week when I added the preceding alert dialog box to a users AutoCAD screen after fixing a problem for them when they were not at their desk.

The really cool thing is you can add these dialogs simply by typing them in on the command line. In the screen shot below you can see that you start with (alert "then put your message in quotes and close with a" ). To get a new line in the dialog just use a backslash followed by the letter n.

These boxes can also be called in lisp routines and macros forcing users to click OK before proceeding. I like to use this when they are about to do something that cannot be undone, something that will take a long time, or something that has great potential to jack a drawing up. Pretty much anytime you want the user to verify they know what they are getting into. Otherwise, they are awesome for messing with people. You can send messages like;



Thursday, August 27, 2009

Stardock Fences Organize Desktop Icons

For Windows users your desktop can be like your house. Some people keep it ridiculously clean, some people are hoarders and most of us are somewhere in between. As a support person I see a lot of desktops and sometimes I cringe as I look for an AutoCAD or Revit Icon over two monitor full of icons for who knows what.

A friend of mine, Todd Behning recently turned me on to Stardock Fences. This program can group your desktop icon together in logical groups that you can create. It has another interesting feature that hides selected groups when you double click on your desktop. It's a total geek thing, but I am loving the fences.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

New Purge Options

I wrote a lisp to clean up drawings that includes a -purge with an A option. I used this because the -purge command has had the ability to purge registry apps for a while now.
Today I ran that lisp and an exploded hatch disappeared each time I ran it. I couldn't figure out why until I noticed some extra goodies in the -purge command.
Command: -purge
Enter type of unused objects to purge
[Blocks/Dimstyles/LAyers/LTypes/MAterials/MUltileaderstyles/Plotstyles/SHapes/textSTyles/Mlinestyles/Tablestyles/Visualstyles/Regapps/Zero-length geometry/Empty text objects/All]:
My exploded hatch was full of zero length lines. Wouldn't you know it. I have to say I like the empty text object purge a lot. Bravo Autodesk.... bravo.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Recession Proof Your Job

I know people who have recently been laid off. Good people. I bet all of you know people who have got the bad news. Perhaps some of you have lost your jobs. It Sucks. I have been one of those people myself. Losing my job changed my life... for the better. I'm different now. I made some changes that I wrote about in my very first post. Ten Common Sense Secrets for the Lazy Drafter.

I really believe what is written there. If your boss can't do business without, your job should be as safe as his. The hard part is sustaining your efforts. Everyone is working extra hard right now and not complaining about a thing. You need to keep this up over time. It's like a diet. The weight will come right back when you start eating again.

How do you protect yourself from an economy that is taking out talented people everyday? You take your lives to the next level. You will be recognized when you do and rewarded.