St. Louis CAD/BIM Meeting on September 10th

There is another meeting of the Gateway AUG coming up. This is for anyone interested in design tools who is in the St. Louis Metro Area.
Our meetings are always free, and you don't *have* to RSVP. Feel free to show up and bring a friend.

Not only do you hear from some local experts about their fields, you can also network and hang out with some really cool folks.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. Please note, our Fall Quarterly meeting was supposed to be the night before the CAD Camp, but, it looks like that event has been canceled. We'll miss the instructors and the chance for some good classes, but, that's all the more reason to try to show up to some Gateway AUG meetings.
If you've got an idea for a topic you'd like to see (or present), please feel free to contact any one of us.


(PLEASE NOTE: the below is a copy of an email sent out to all GAUG members, if you did NOT get this email, please contact nicholas to make sure he has your correct email address)

Everyone,

Here are the details of our next Gateway Autodesk User Group meeting

When: 10th of September - Wednesday - from 6 to 7:30 pm

Where: Masonry Institute, 1429 S Big Bend Blvd, St Louis, MO (google map).

What: "Interoperability between BIM and Building Performance modeling applications like Eco-tect and Green building studio" by Tomislav Zigo

What else: If you are a GAUG member and if you are present at the meeting, you might win a pass to Autodesk University 2008. ($ 1,845 value).

You can RSVP here to make yourself eligible for this AU draw by joining GAUG!!!!

I hope to see you there!

IMMANUEL NICHOLAS IYADURAI, LEED AP

President - Gateway Autodesk User Group

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CAD Manager Survey 2008

Now that I've asked you to take part in the AUGI Annual Salary Survey (for all job titles and all disciplines) and you've given such a great response, I'm going to encourage you to take part in Robert Green's CAD Manager 2008 Survey (if applicable).

He does a great job with this every year, and his results are one of the multiple resources that I keep handy to analyze how competitive my pay is.

The results of my Salary Survey come out in the September/October edition of AUGIWorld Magazine, and the results of Robert's CAD Manager Survey will be in the November issue of CADalyst Magazine (You can find additional results respectively on the AUGI Survey Channel and in the October and November issues of the CAD Manager's newsletter).

From the CAD Manager's Newsletter:

Thanks to all the readers who sent in their comments regarding the survey. I've incorporated a number of questions into this year's survey to reflect reader concerns!

Now the fun begins: Participate in the survey! Forward this newsletter to everyone you know who functions as a CAD manager and ask them to participate. I'm especially interested in getting responses from Canada, European Union countries, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand because these markets haven't been analyzed as completely as I'd like.

To take the survey, just click on this link: http://www.cad-manager.com/survey

Results will be published in the November issue of Cadalyst magazine, and more detailed analysis will be included in CAD Manager's Newsletter in October and November, so be sure to check back!

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Color me Happy, my new Dell is here!

Well, contrary to the cautionary tale from our friend over at Dell, it wasn't held up for two weeks, and my DH has just taken receipt of a brand spanking new 17" Dell Studio for me.

I plan on posting a review on the Tech-Tea blog within the next few days (as soon as I have time), complete with pictures and comparisons to the Dell Inspiron that I had been using.

I'll be happy to be up and running on a fully running machine after all of these weeks banging my head against the wall.


Other tiny updates... the next Gateway AUG meeting is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, September 10th, the AUGIWorld staff is currently working on prettying up the results and article I've given them for the 7th Annual Salary Survey (my 5th as Manager), my first offspring is about to start kindergarten, I'll return to school myself the following week and my second offspring is trying to kick a hole in my abdomen to make sure I really enjoy the remaining 85 days (or so) of his gestation.

Oh, and in case you hadn't heard about it yet:
AUGI Changes Management Companies
Big changes ahead for some of the AUGI programs but the Board of Directors and the Volunteers hope to make it as painless a transition as possible.

The official announcement is here:
http://augi.typepad.com/augi_news/2008/08/augi-news.html

Current volunteering opportunities are listed here:
http://www.augi.com/volunteering/default.asp?page=33

To offer your services for anything else, contact the Volunteering Manager (currently Jennifer Loftfield volunteering@augi.com ).

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Two More Weeks?

Looks like it could be two more weeks before my computer woes are fully resolved. ~sigh~ I'm a little twitchy and feeling technologically crippled.

Please bear with me. :-)

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I miss my Dell computer

I've been having some problems with my home computer (a sweet 'little' 17.1" widescreen Inspiron 9400/E1705 laptop). It's something related to the graphics card and driver.

My #1 IT guy has been propping it along for the past 6-8 months with some hacked versions of the drivers (something about Dell only having propriety stuff, but, stuff that won't work correctly).

We've finally had to give up on that route, as it's no longer good enough and he has been dueling with the Tech Support personnel for a five weeks now.

He's gamely walked through every 'script' they have, and he's also had techs remote into the pc and get the same results he's been getting.

So, they sent out a tech who also couldn't get it to work properly.

They finally sent out a box via DHL, and he packed up the machine and had it sent off with their assurances that we'd get back a working machine, one way or the other.

Well, we got it back quite quickly... that was nice.

Um, what was not so nice? The note inside. Assuring us that they'd tested it six ways to Sunday and found NOTHING WRONG!?!?! Also in the note, claims that they tried to contact us for further information but were unable to do so (which is just BS, because I have no emails from them, and he's had no calls from them, so I don't know if they sent carrier pigeons or what). There was another note that they'd checked the support ticket history for further information and found nothing... and finally ended with the notation to call Dell Tech support for assistance in installing the driver.

:-/ Um. Yeah.

When he called back to complain about them having returned a broken computer to us, he was immediately bumped up the chain of command and the supervisor that he talked to did apologize PROFUSELY and after checking the ticket himself could NOT understand why it was sent back when the problems were clearly documented. He is sending out ANOTHER box for us to send the computer back.

We're happy with his response, but, obviously, we're more than ticked off at the tech who did not make every effort to fix or replace my computer.

I didn't intend for this to be a rant on the Dell service center, but, the point is... I miss my computer. I've been without it for a few weeks now.

I've got work to do.
I've got finals next week and I have papers to prepare.
I need my personal email!!!
I miss having the world at my fingertips while I'm preparing dinner.

It's painful, it really, really is. I twitch at the iTouch commercials where folks are browsing the web and getting maps and telephone numbers so quickly.

~sniff~

Now, it seems that my #1 IT guy has been contacted by a Dell employee who saw his twitter posts... erm, tweets. So, we'll see if that helps.

Hopefully I'll be back up and running soon, very soon.

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Autodesk University 2008 Course Listing

Looks like the AU 2008 class listing is now available!

Of the over 600 classes available across every discipline, there will also be six 'Power Tracks'.
AutoCAD, C3D, Geospatial, Industrial Design, Inventor and Revit

There is also some further breakdown in the Mechanical classes, I think there are five different categories. Customization & Programming and Development are now in two different categories as well.

There are nine Facilities Management/CAFM/BIM classes this year (to check out the class handouts from some of the past courses offered at AU, refer to post “Free Facilities Management Class Handouts”).

FM100-1 - Space Management on a Shoestring Budget: Using Autodesk® FMDesktop™
James Niles - Virginia Commonwealth University - Autodesk FMDesktop
FM210-1 - BIM for FM and Beyond
Bob Fahlin - Autodesk - Autodesk FMDesktop
FM214-1 - Autodesk® Facility Manager: Beyond the Basics
Stephen Komisarek - Autodesk - Autodesk FMDesktop
FM300-1 - It's Official! Autodesk® FMDesktop™ can Make your Practice More Profitable!
Shaun Bryant - CADFMconsultants - Autodesk FMDesktop
FM304-1 - Blue Line to Bottom Line with Autodesk® FMDesktop™: The Real World
Matt Davoren - CADD Microsystems, Inc.- Autodesk FMDesktop
FM310-1L - Autodesk® Revit® and Facilities Management: What's in Your Toolbox?
Clyne Curtis - Brigham Young University - AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite
FM314-1 - Revit®, AutoCAD® Architectural, and AutoCAD® Drawings to DWF™ for FMDesktop™
Arthur Franz - Simple Solutions FM - Autodesk FMDesktop
FM318-1 - NCS Version 4.0: Revisions You Need to Know About
Charles Green - Wilson & Company - AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite
FM500-1 - Facility Management: Down to the Nuts and Bolts
Jon Luby - Raptor Software - Autodesk FMDesktop

Some pretty interesting stuff there with some good instructors. I'll really miss not attending these classes this year (as well as classes for MEP and CAD Management), especially since we FINALLY GET A LAB. I've been waiting for that and asking for that for a few years now. I'd love to hear some reports from those who do attend and participate in this track (either just a personal email for my own information, or a nice writeup that I can post here with proper credit given back to the writer).

Do check out the spreadsheet on the referenced blAUg post for a complete listing of courses and teachers to see what you might find valuable in your industry and discipline.

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Customization: Hot Topics

I thought I'd share with you today, a little listing of some posts I have come across in the customization newsgroup on the Autodesk Discussion Groups. These are just topics that I found fairly interesting to read; I hope you enjoy some of them, too (if you don't want to read through the whole list, don't forget to utilize your browser's 'Find' command to locate a certain topic - CTRL + F).

I've listed the original thread title, the username of the original poster, the date the thread was begun and then a short description of the topic:

Please, Need Help with this problem - Crislem - 6/27/08
application that copies attributes properties and transfers them to all other attributes in the drawing with the same tag in the same block, multiples drawings.

Need a new version of Distance - lsaapedd - 6/5/08
Distance utility shows results in various units (current units and metric units)

Launch Toolbar from Menu - AlbertRKK - 5/12/08
Describes how to launch a custom toolbar from a pulldown menu

Swap Layer Colors - KDispoto - 4/30/08
(see 5/1 reply from Jason Piercey)

Flatten Command - CadTun - 4/18/08
Check out the replies for a couple of Flatten Routines

Block Description at Tooltip - DrewJones - 3/13/08
A couple of simple suggestions for getting block information to show up

Force Anonymous Block redefinition - Hutch - 02/08/08
(any comments on whether Ajo1's suggestion works well or offer alternatives?)

Return Answer using DYN - nvanlaar - 1/29/08
Posted lisp routine adds up dynamic parameters, but, returns results in the command line
Various suggested work arounds, and one solution posted

Move object to z=0 - adwelling - 1/11/08
lisp routine posted to move a selected object to 0 'Z' elevation

I want to delete all mtext with a height 2.5 - syria89 - 1/8/08
users give multiple suggestions for automating the selection and deletion of entities of a specific type

How to replace %%U for {\L on MTEXT - Alex Diaz - 11/14/07
reminder that this is case-sensitive so %%U and %%u are not equal

xref path drive letter - rickdputo - 10/7/07
suggestions on repathing with the Reference Manager (application external to AutoCAD, availabe since R2004)
op made use of scripting with Express Tool 'REDIR' (Express > File Tools > Redefine Path)

Better SelectSimilar Command! - Nrhoads - 6/28/07
Commentary and variations on SelSim command that I'm already so fond of!

Attention All Logitech Mouse / Keyboard Users! - docsaintly - 6/28/07
tips on configuring extra mouse buttons to perform CUI functions in AutoCAD, alternative driver
(I haven't tried this one yet, although I've been meaning to)

*E Anonymous Blocks - Joe Burke - 6/26/07
discussion on type origin of anonymous blocks with certain prefixes (eg. *E, *D, *U & *X) and how to work with them

anonymous blocks - bustr - 3/22/07
link posted to file Unanon.lsp and article listing origins for *U, *E, *X, *D and *A prefix blocks and replacement tips

How to find duplicate text string ? - weechoo - 6/11/07
lisp routine draws lines between identical strings of TEXT or MTEXT
another posted displays a summary report

Insert Titleblock - Brynn-PHi - 5/17/07
tips to user who wants to insert titleblock and get attribute dialog box, rather than the cmd line

Rename Layout Tabs - S Buckley - 5/17/07
lisp routine to rename layout tabs

Plot Multiple Layouts on a single sheet - Ken Dispoto - 5/16/07
flexible lsp routine creates an array of layouts to plot multiple layouts on one sheet

Anyone ever heard of this routine? - Dave Drahn - 5/15/07
moves text in a displacement relative to it's current rotation

Annotative text gets HUGE!! - galleyslave - 5/9/07
lisp routine takes an attribute (or text) and capitalizes it (doesn't work well with annotative text objects)

Batch Processing - Jason@Draftech - 4/11/07
Best practices and resources for batch-processing CAD files (lsp, vba, scripting, scriptpro)

English to Metric Dimensions - jsteve2 - 4/11/07
user wants to use imperial units, but, have them show up with both imperial and metric when dimensioning

How to get an MLeaderStyle object - Allen Johnson - 4/5/07
posted routine provides a method of searching for and returning and mleaderstyle object

Check Numbers - shinji130 - 3/29/07
routine provided to find duplicate text strings, but, user still wanted to know if there is a way to search for text strings missing from a sequence

Simplify polylines - hmsilva - 3/12/07
suggestions for simplifying polylines, removing duplicate vertices, weed.lsp

Rotate view in floating viewport horizontal - theman1771 - 3/7/07
dview twist, ucs and macro suggestions

Compare two lisp files? - hutch - 2/26/07
method for using microsoft word to compare two files

Drawing Compare - Schmid, Martin - 2/25/03 (updates in 08)
methods and software for comparing two drawing files for differences

Applying page setup to drawing - ipower_BH - 2/14/07
routine posted

Load layers from comma delimited text file - Patrick Porter - 2/7/07
two websites given as resources

qselect in command line - varun_bose - 2/7/07
cannot be done, use ssget instead

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