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.

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.

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.

Layer Properties - Mode vs. Modeless

I have noticed a significant speed reduction in AutoCAD 2010 products when the Layer Properties palette is open vs. when it is closed. At first I told my users to turn if off when not in use. Yeah, I can't even I remember every time. The solution (or work around) for now is replacing the the layer command with Classiclayer. Classiclayer brings up old reliable; the Layer Properties Manager dialog box. There is no way to leave it open, it's a dialog not a palette.

If you really lock things down, you can redfine the layer command. For me it works just as well to change the macro in the CUI and change the PGP for LA if you have that kind of control.