Useful Tidbits

There are several good items I've seen over the past week or so I wanted to pass on to you.

Between the Walls, Chris Yanchar's blog, mentions the following:

Marvin Windows & Doors now has ADT Styles for their products. Now if we could just get Pella content!

If you use the link to get to their site, it may not be obvious how to get to it. You first need to install the plug-in's.

Between the Lines, Shaan Hurley's blog, lists some helpful new courses available for subscription customers.

Shaan also mentions that there is the next part of the dynamic block white papers available. You can access these here. All the current white papers (good written technical material from Autodesk) can be found here.

One of those little known Autodesk facts is that you can have your opinions on the help system heard. Learn how to submit comments on Help content in AutoCAD.

Lynn Allen listed a link to her Tips and Tricks webcast. You won't want to miss that!

Speaking of tips, did you know you can get Tips from the Autodesk website?

beside the cursor... Rich Binning's blog, had some good tips on MText.

Mtext too small

Mtext follow-up

Revit News!

Steve Stafford, who is one of the really good Reviteers, is now working with CDV Systems, Inc. CDV is an excellent source of Revit books and training. Steve has been one of many of the hard-working Reviteers that has helped migrate RUGI to AUGI. Congratulations, Steve!

http://www.cdvsystems.com/press_20050727.asp

Hardware Requirements

While you can find the minimum hardware requirements under your product category on the Autodesk website, those listed are just that - minimum requirements. Here's a general more realistic list. If you do very large drawings or do a lot of rendering, you will probably want even more memory.

I'm always interested to hear from others with their recommendations as well.


Processor
1.4 GHz Minimum
3.4 GHz Recommended

RAM
1 GB Minimum
2 GB Recommended

Hard Disk
40GB Minimum
80 GB Recommended

CD/DVD
CD Minimum
DVD Recommended

Pointing Device
MS-Mouse compliant
Wheel Mouse Recommended

Operating System
Windows XP Home (SP2 or later)
Windows 2000 (SP4 or later)
Recommend - Windows XP Pro (SP4 or later)

Web Browser
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (SP1 or later)

Video
Open GL-compatible (latest available drivers)

3DLabs

3D Labs Wildcat VP 870
Driver - 3.1.739.0
Known Issues:
Missing linework is possible when orbiting in Model Explorer with the Shademode Hidden option.

3D Labs Wildcat III 6110
Driver - 6.5.6.13
Known Issues:
With Hardware Acceleration enabled, you may encounter a crash when in Style Manager and when using the arrow keys to quickly scroll up and down through the structural member styles when viewing them in an Isometric view and Gouraud shademode.


ATI

ATI Fire GL T2 - 64
Driver - 6.14.10.6404
Known Issues:
1. The AutoCAD text window is not persistent on the second monitor when you are running dual monitors with Hardware Acceleration enabled.
2. You may encounter a crash on save when you are running dual monitors with Hardware Acceleration enabled.
ATI Fire GL T2 - 128
Driver - 6.14.10.6343
Known Issues: None.


Matrox

Matrox Millennium P750
Driver - 1.6.0.99
Known Issues:
1. The tooltips in the Tool palette are incorrectly displayed once you hover over the camera object with Hardware Acceleration enabled.
2. With Hardware Acceleration enabled, you may notice some color bleed through when viewing the model in an isometric view and Gouraud shademode.
Driver - 1.6.0.99
Known Issues: None.

Recommended
nVidia
nVidia Quadro 4 900 XGL
Driver - 5.6.5.4
Known Issues: None.

Building Solutions Forum - July 21, 2005

I will be part of a special Building Solutions Forum at the Hotel Roanoke next week on July 21st. Autodesk will be here to talk about the future of its Building Solutions products such as Architectural Desktop, Building Systems, Revit, and Buzzsaw collaboration. They'll talk about BIM and where it's headed as well as have demonstrations on these products. I'll be there to give more technical information and productivity tips and hopefully put some names to some faces of clients I talk to via email and phone calls but have never met in person.

If you would like to attend, I'd be delighted. Please RSVP to me before Monday the 18th and I'll add you to the list.

The Hotel Roanoke is well known for its fabulous food and lunch will be provided to all guests. The schedule is as follows.

9:30-10:00 Registration

10:00 – 11:15 Autodesk Building Solutions Division Industry Briefing

11:30 – 12:20 Client Appreciation Lunch provided by EDSI

12:30 – 1:20 Architectural Desktop 2006 Productivity

1:30 – 2:20 Building Systems – MEP Design

2:30 – 3:30 Revit – Building Information Modeling

Other upcoming events in Roanoke, VA

If you would like to try Building Systems with some guidance, I'll be hosting a free workshop to take you through a project and allow you to have hands-on access. This will be on August 12th.

If you have been using AutoCAD for Architectural drawings, you may want to sign up for a free workshop on August 24th where I'll show you some of the differences between AutoCAD and Architectural Desktop and show you how much easier it is to design a project with ADT.

I'm also please to announce that Dr. William Wyatt will be returning in October for a one-day seminar on ADT Roofs. More about that later.

My First New Car!

Imagine my surprise at discovering that Blogger now accepts images to be uploaded directly. What a coincidence that I have an image to post as a test.

My fiance bought me my first new car! He even had personalized plates made for me with the name of my business, CAD Fuel Design. Isn't he just the sweetest thing?

It's a 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser. It's a 2.4L, 16 valve. Plenty of pep. Since we both prefer standard (or manual depending on your terminology), he got it in a 5 speed so it should get decent mileage. We're toying with the idea of adding headers to increase economy and performance. We learned that there are oodles of aftermarket items for these vehicles. He's already been on Ebay and won me vent shades and some chrome add-on items.

It's not any fancy edition, but simply the base model. Many features are standard equipment, but all I really wanted was a car with air conditioning and cup holders. We've never had a vehicle new enough to have factory cup holders, which has become a big joke.

This doesn't mean I'm turning my back on my old car hobby. I couldn't do that if I tried. We still have lots of projects with Jeeps, Studebakers, and Corvairs. No boredom at our house!

We have an '82 Volvo diesel, which is the only foreign car we own. We've been converting it from automatic to standard and are researching converting it to bio-diesel as well as producing our own bio-fuel.

I'm fanatical about being efficient in everything I do and certainly about cars. I used to drive a 6cyl., 3spd O.D. 1950 Studebaker bullet nose as my daily driver and was getting 25 mpg. Our Corvairs get good mileage and since adding headers on our '79 CJ7 it now gets 24 mpg. The only vehicle we have that isn't efficient is his Dodge 4 x 4 truck, but it's for hauling and towing and not a daily driver so I'm O.K. with that.

We name all our vehicles. I thought I was the only one in the world that considered vehicles were human too until I met Peter. He has done the same thing all his life. Each vehicle has a different personality just like your children. Some are more ornery than others.

We have a '65 CJ5 Tuxedo Park edition named Peter Too because he is a baby blue color like Peter's eyes. He is ornery as all get out! He has a very strong personality and really gets jealous easily. We also have a '60 Studebaker Lark 4-door named Hannibal after the famous Hannibal that took his elephants over the mountain. Hannibal is a V8, 3spd. and he has balls! I've even had him on the drag strip.

But I don't know what to name this vehicle yet. It takes a little time to learn the vehicle's personality to find the right name.

So, I'm ecstatic that I have a new car and that I can post images!