Blogger Blog list reviewed and added

Head over to the blog if you are in an RSS reader and look at the new "My Blog List" that is on the right side a bit down. This is available via Blogger in draft but I was not able to Import subscriptions from Google Reader using IE7 as it just hanged, but when using FireFox it worked even though the import was really slow.

The new Blog List gadget is right now only available if you log in to Blogger in draft.

Here are settings available and how to add from Google Reader.

               

I just wish it was updated in real-time if a Google Reader tag is selected so any changes you make in Google Reader is directly reflected in Blogger.

Head over to the blog and look at it.

See also Blogger in Draft blog

Future-dated posts to Blogger with Live Writer

Blogger now schedules future-dated posts is no longer beta. Now I just wish Windows Live Writer (WLW) add support for this. It warns me about not supporting this but it sure does work if you just click on Yes. This is great news.

Novedge Pulse and CadKicks as one-stop sites for CAD news

How do you keep up-to-date with CAD news?

TenLinks.com and CAD digest most of you knows about as it's been around for long.

CadKicks.com has been running for a short while now. CadKicks.com is a community based news site. Individual users of the site submit and review (kick) stories, the most popular of which make it to the homepage.

Now comes another CAD related site Novedge Pulse.

It’s a new free area of the Novedge website where blog posts, Press Releases, tutorials, and other pertinent information is collected, organized, and presented in a simple and clear way. At Novedge Pulse, you can also vote for each item with a simple and effective thumb-up, thumb-down system.

A glitch I've mentioned to Franco is that if you use PgUp and PgDn as a keyboard junkie you will miss some of the content. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Do you read/contribute to sites like this? Do you care? Do you not like it? Are they just stealing content on your cost? Do you find new blogs this way?

Personally I rarely visit sites like this but I can understand that they are useful for some and I don't mind that they aggregate snippets from my blog as long as they link back in a good way as they do and not just put up plain copies like many splogs do.

I have my doubts on how valuable the ranking is based on that it's probably only a handful that will bother to do the ranking.

What's in it for me? I checked how many referrals I've got so far and found 6 from CadKicks and 0 from Novedge Pulse and some of them could have been when I myself tried the sites.

Both these new sites have a lot of work behind to set things up to be user and community friendly so give it a try.

Via email and seen on the Novedge Blog.

Find commands in Office 2007 and AutoCAD 2009

You know what you look for in Word, Excel or PowerPoint but cannot find it in the Ribbon. Now with the free Search Commands this is so much easier.

Do you know for example where you can find the command to Insert Form Field?

It is found on the Insert tab and under Quick Parts. Took me a while to find the first time.

Or click on the Search Commands tab and enter "field" and there you have it as well as other related commands.

Hoover with the mouse over any of the results and you find more information including where it is found.

BTW. Similar functionality is included already out-of-the-box in AutoCAD 2009.

And here are the matches using Search menu.

 

The Microsoft Office Lab Website and Blog. This is another blog to keep a watch on as more useful tools will be released.

What does Encyclopaedia Britannica say about CAD?

Not much actually but you should be able to read the full article computer-aided engineering thanks to the Encyclopaedia Britannica WebShare initiative open for web publishers and bloggers.

computer-aided engineering in industry, the integration of design and manufacturing into a system under the direct control of digital computers. CAE combines the use of computers in industrial-design work, computer-aided design (CAD), with their use in manufacturing operations, computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)....

Have you seen a non-digital computer?

Tried searching for BIM but there was nothing found. Architecture on the other hand had quite a large article that you only can access via the link from this site unless you have access to it as a subscriber.

the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. The practice of architecture is employed to fulfill both practical and expressive requirements of civilized people and thus embraces both utilitarian and aesthetic ends....

This link will hopefully take you to an image of Pont du Gard, Roman aqueduct, Nîmes, France, by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, during the Augustan period.

One good reason to blog is having full access for a year on Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The table of contents on the Architecture page did not work good at least in IE7 as I hardly could navigate without having the list automatically scroll.

Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009

The free viewer Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009 is available now. It is a great 3D viewer and with great performance on even very large BIM models created with AutoCAD, Revit or several other applications.

A good news is the support for 3D DWF files as they can be created without the need to have any of the full versions of NavisWorks and if you have tried with a really large model in Autodesk Design Review you will probably find that Freedom handles it much better.

www.autodesk.com/navisworksfreedom

When running the downloaded exe file Autodesk_NavisWorks_Freedom_2009_English_Win_32bit.exe (126MB) it says it will install in C:\Autodesk\NavisWorks Freedom 2009 but what it actually does it to extract all files required to run the setup to that folder and then the real install starts.

New Features

Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009 contains a number of key enhancements for this release.

Interface Enhancements

• .NET GUI Modernization - Up-to-date look and feel including new icons, improved control bar docking and tabbed control bars.

• The Selection Tree Control Bar - Shows the internal structure of the loaded NWD, allowing direct navigation through the tree list to required elements in the project.

• The Properties Control Bar - Shows all properties of a selected geometry item.

• TimeLiner Playback - Abitlity to play back a TimeLiner sequence.

• Animation Playback - Ability to play back viewpoint and object animation.

• New Editor for Global Options. - A change from complex tabs to a logical tree structure, making finding options much simpler. Also making global options sharable across multiple PCs through import and export.

• Viewable Comments - Ability to view comments recorded in NWD files.

Display Enhancements

• 3D Text Support - The visualization of 3D text brought into other NavisWorks products from AutoCAD and MicroStation, and exported in the NWD.

• Parametric Support - Any parametric data brought into other NavisWorks products and exported in the NWD will be displayed in Freedom. This data increases cylinder accuracy, and dramatically reduces the memory footprint to load and display them.

Operating System Support

• Microsoft Vista Support - Full support for Microsoft's latest operating system.

• 64-bit Support - Support for 64-bit versions of both XP and Vista.

File Formats

• Autodesk DWF support - Freedom is now capable of reading and displaying Autodesk’s DWF Design Review format. (comment by me: only DWF files with 3D content as this is a 3D viewer)

For more about NavisWorks see this previous post.

Windows Vista indexing sidebar gadget

and after a while the index is up-to-date

I rely heavily on being able to quickly find information on my computer and among my emails in Outlook so this is a useful gadget.

It's easy to pause the indexing and also force it to index now with the latest Windows Search 4 update for Vista. Previously I used a couple of home made shortcuts for that purpose to a couple of cmd files with:
NET START "Windows Search"
and also
NET STOP "Windows Search"

Thanks Brandon Paddock for making it available. Get it via his blog or directly here.

I got an error that it could not find the adaptive.vbs script file but it was easily solved by adding an "en-us" folder and move the vbs folder there.

Autodesk Draw important application using Google Gears

Project Draw from the Autodesk Labs is recognized among the so far few applications using Google Gears.

If you are on a plane or on the beach you can work with drawing a flowchart or a Windows UI mockup using the free Draw.

Via Google Operating System blog

Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0 toolbar in AutoCAD 2009 and CUI bugs

If you want the Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0 toolbar in AutoCAD 2008 or AutoCAD 2009 here is how you can do it. It requires that you have Adobe Acrobat 8.0.

With some work I achieved this result and unfortunately it was not because CUI was so stable and easy to use. But it is also AutoCAD Ribbon version 1 so hopefully this works better after some hotfixes, service packs or at least in AutoCAD 2010.

As a starter use the APPLOAD command. Click on Startup Suit Contents and add "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\PDFMaker\AutoCAD\2007\PDFMAcad.arx".

It should then look like this on the command line:
Command: appload
PDFMAcad.arx was added to the Startup Suite.

This created some menu files and images in this folder on my PC:
C:\Users\<user>\appdata\roaming\adobe\acrobat\8.0\ACAD-7001-409

In AutoCAD 2009 it will look this this with the Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0 toolbar loaded.

Now I want to move the toolbar to the Ribbon.

Run the CUI command. Select pdfmacad.cui.

Right-click on the toolbar Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0.

Right-click on Ribbons Tabs and add a new tab named "PDF".

Drag and drop the ribbon panel that was created into the PDF tab.

 

Click on Apply.

Select All Customization Files and click on the current workspace and you find that you see the right pane change.

 

Select pdfmacad.cui again. Here you should be able to click on Customize Workspace on the right pane but I got an error. Instead expand Ribbons Tab on the left side so you see "PDF". Drag and drop that one to the right side on the Ribbons Tab there.

 

Looking in CUI two panels are listed. One is unnamed that obviously just creates an empty panel and cannot be deleted. Another bug.

The workaround was to click on it and set the Show property to No.

Now I want to make the icons side by side and add some text below.

I try to drag the command on Row 2 to Row 1 but nothing happens. Another bug as I can drag the command from Row 1 down to Row 2.

After deleting Row 1 and showing the text it look like this.

But I don't want a separate Tab. I would like to move it to the Output tab.

I tried different methods like transferring the panels between the cui files but even though it looked right in CUI the result was just an empty panel on the Ribbon tab. Buggy again.

I even tried another approach.but was not able to get it to work because of several bugs in CUI.

Right click on the toolbar and select Customize.

In Customize User Interface (CUI) expand "Customizations in All CUI Files" and the right part of CUI by clicking on the black arrow at the bottom.

Click on the command "Convert to Adobe PDF" so you see the Button Image.

Click on Edit and in the next dialog box click on Save As and place the image where you can find it later. Do the same with the command "Convert to Adobe PDF and Send for Review". Notice that if you in the button image editor click on Save As the first time you end up in you Documents folder. If you cancel it and click again you end up in the Icons folder. Bug again.

One location could be something like this if you have Windows Vista:
C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2009\R17.2\enu\Support\Icons

Click OK to make sure things are saved and that the next step will work. If not you will get the menu file corrupted in the following steps due to some bug.

Start CUI again by right clicking on the toolbar like before and expand the panes.

Now right click on "Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0" as seen below and select "Copy To Ribbon Panels".

Now the Ribbon Panel "Acrobat PDFMaker 8.0" is available.

Right click on it and select Copy.

Navigate now to the Ribbon Tabs and locate Output -2D and select it. Right click and select Paste.

Bummer. It didn't work either. To achieve the best result you should create the Ribbon Panel manually.

doPDF another free PDF printer

This freeware has worked pretty good in my small tests and does not require GhostScript, works on Vista and also 64-bit systems.

If you plot from AutoCAD and use TrueType fonts they will be converted to text if you make that change in in the plotter properties.

You need to change the Properties of the plotter (Plotter Configuration
Editor)>Device and Document Settings>Graphics>TrueType Text to "as text". Save this to a PC3 that you use.

Another thing that is great is that it's free even to print to PDF for commercial usage.

Test of the PDF converter was done using AutoCAD 2009.

http://www.dopdf.com/

Add any good or bad comments on your experience of it below.

Measure and markup a DWG without AutoCAD

Autodesk Design Review has the ability to import a DWG or DXF file. It is automatically converted into a DWF and you can use all Design Review's tools.

If DWG TrueView is not good enough as it will only report the distance to the command line and the area command is pretty basic consider using Design Review instead.

Here is what the distance look like in DWG TrueView 2009. It is nice that it's now possible to measure but it's still not that user friendly.

And here is the area reported. Notice that for each point you snap there is no indication on where you snapped previously.

After importing a DWG into Autodesk Design Review 2009 it's a snap to measure, especially areas. Wish this was included in AutoCAD as well.

Windows Search 4.0 Preview installed

This was good enough reason to make me install Windows Search 4.0:

Great improvements have been made with regards to performance. Even now as Preview, Windows Search 4.0 has query response time about 33%faster than search queries in Windows Vista RTM.

Restart of the PC was needed.

I recommend doing the installation the last thing you do and leave the computer running as the index needs to be rebuilt. If you have Outlook make sure to have it up and running as well or the mailboxes will not be indexed. I also suggest that you run SCANPST to fix any potential problems with your PST files.

Many hours later the re-indexing was done. It really is a notable speed increase when searching among the thousands of emails.

For more see the Vista blog post Announcing the Windows Search 4.0 Preview

DWG TrueView 2009 includes measuring ability

DWG TrueView 2009 is Autodesk's free viewer for DWG files and is found here: http://www.autodesk.com/dwgtrueview

The big news are:

• Measure objects with these new inquiry commands: Distance, Area, List, Locate Point, Region/Mass properties, and Object Snaps.
• Enhanced UI with the addition of Ribbon Navigation
• Measure objects with these new commands: Distance, Area, List, Locate Point, Region/Mass properties, and Object Snaps
• Navigate drawings in 2D and 3D with SteeringWheel
• Enhanced 3D view selection with ViewCube
• Restore views and play new "animated" views with ShowMotion

It is quite a big install on almost 200 MB for the 32-bit version and bit more for the 64-bit version.

DWG TrueConvert is available from within the program and can convert from and to different versions of the DWG format.

DWG TrueView 2009 can be installed side by side with for example AutoCAD 2009.

Here is a tip I maybe should keep quiet about as I might sell fewer licenses of SmartPurger because of it. You can with some limitations batch purge drawings using DWG Convert as there is an option to purge included and even "Check and Fix Errors" (When active, drawings are checked for the presence of errors. Drawings are automatically recovered if errors are found).

Silent installation of DWG TrueView 2009 could be done with a VBScript like this:
on error resume next
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
runstring="msiexec /I ""\\DWGTrueViewx86InstallImage\DWGVIEWR.msi"" /qb! " & _
"INSTALLDIR=""C:\Program Files\DWG TrueView 2009"" " & _
"ACAD_SILENT_LICENSE=YES"
WshShell.Run runstring,1,true
msgbox "Ready"

This previous post describes more details on silent installation.

For more important details like how to handle drawings created with a vertical like AutoCAD Architecture or 3:rd party applications that creates custom objects see the FAQ.

FolderShare - free file sharing in the cloud

I've used FolderShare from Microsoft for PC to PC sync for some months recently and pushed it to the limits synchronizing files over Internet larger than 1GB (2GB is the limit) and with a file count of just less than 10,000 files (10k is the limit and a bit low in my opinion) and it has worked really good except a few hiccups. Now there is a new version and a new blog and it should be even better. It has crashed a couple of times though.

Keep files in sync across your computers.
Share folders with friends.
Access your files from any computer.

When I moved a bunch of files from one folder to another FolderShare only sent a move message so the files were not sent over Internet something that would slow down things.

Some features missing are being able to sync the desktop, shortcuts (.LNK), excluding file types, files or folders. It can also be useful if it was possible to synchronize a whole drive.

For sync on a PC only or on a network SyncToy is a better option.

Highly recommended as one of several Microsoft's useful freeware.

Ps. answers to some common questions on the FolderShare blog.

Windows Live SkyDrive gives away 5GB storage space online

I earlier wrote about Windows Live SkyDrive Beta and now it is released with an increase of up to 5GB free storage space.

It's nice that you can have private and public folders as well as invite certain persons.

Since it was released from Beta I have tried it a little and found that the downside is that the upload size is limited to 50MB per file. I made a spanning zip file with 49MB files and tried to upload them. There is a way to upload multiple files but for some reason a bug limited me to only get one of the files uploaded at a time.

Except for wishing the 50MB limitation to be removed it would be great to select multiple files for quick download, delete or move.

Via the SkyDrive blog

Network license news in AutoCAD 2009

Prior version support is the new thing for the 2009 products (soon to be available) when it comes to network licensing. When new licenses are generated for subscription customers the license file will allow the current and three past versions to run.

Autodesk Network licensing tools include the Network License Manager, the Network License Activation utility, the FLEXnet (sometimes still referred as FLEXlm) configuration tools, and SAMreport-Lite. SAMreport-Lite from Macrovision is still the old 3.6 version from 2006. If you want something better, easier and more flexible consider JTB FlexReport that among many things supports all your other vendors FLEXnet licenses as well as features like combining of multiple versions so you can make sure you follow your subscription contract.

Software Requirement Notes:
Windows Vista 32-bit
Windows XP 32-bit
Windows 2003 Server Edition
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows 2000 Server Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 is still not mentioned but probably works anyway. Windows Server 2008 SP1 is neither mentioned but I think it will work with the 32-bit version. 64-bit OS seems still not to be supported. Virtual machines like Microsoft Virtual PC or server and VMWare

AutoCAD 2009-based products require FLEXnet version 11.4.1 (or 11.4.100 as it says) or later. If you are currently using a version of FLEXnet that is earlier than 11.4.1, you need to upgrade to version 11.4.1 or later.

The most simple way to upgrade is described here. The latest version of the FLEXnet files are found here except the AutoCAD daemon adskflex.exe that is found on the installation DVD.

Version 11.4.1 of the FLEXnet license manager that ships with AutoCAD 2009-based products is backwards compatible and will administer licenses for the Autodesk 2008-, 2007-, 2006-, 2005-, 2004-, and 2002-based products as well as products from other vendors.

57600ACD_2009_0F is the FLEXnet feature code for AutoCAD 2009.

The registry hack to change from SLM to NLM will not work with AutoCAD 2009 so if you have a standalone installation you need to uninstall completely before installing the network one. Using the registry hack, the cascading licensing service doesn’t install, so cascading will not work, if you install network version then PLU doesn’t install and user will not be able to transfer his license.

Lambda expressions and mapcar with VB.NET in VS 2008

I've started to work with Visual Studio 2008 and it's great to see that lambda expressions are supported, something I'm familiar with using in AutoLISP.

I also made a simple .NET variant of the mapcar function. If you have another way or better way let me know.

Module Module1
    Sub Main()
        Dim f1 = Function(i, j) If(i >= j, i & " is " & j & " or more", i & " is less than " & j)
        Console.WriteLine(f1(1, 0))
        Console.WriteLine(f1(-1, 1))
        Dim s1 = Function(x, y) x + " " + y
        Console.WriteLine(s1("Jimmy"</