TECHtalk: autocad, technology and gadgets

Although this may be a little late after its introduction in 2006, I just had to post about my love for the Sony Reader. You can read a little more about its history here. I've used it for almost one year, and it is the best tech gadget I've purchased in the past 5 years.

Quite simply, it does have its limitations (see below video), but it fits perfectly into my life. I love to read, and will have three to four books going at one point - by using the Reader, I can do that, without having to carry around those books - I have them all in one small, portable gadget. Plus, it's the best option available in Canada.

The following review highlights why Amazon Kindle is much better than the Sony Reader, but this should have a disclaimer saying that it's for US residents only because the Amazon Kindle is not coming to Canada anytime soon. Great review nonetheless, so here it is:


Amazon Kindle 2 vs Sony Reader Review
Uploaded by ebookreadersresource. - Videos of the latest science discoveries and tech.

Although I have never written on this blog before, I am a team member and as such, I thought my first post should be about something I know. I'm sure I'm not the first to discover this, but I thought I'd share with the readers of this blog a little tutorial on how to rename files in batches in Windows.

I came upon this while downloading photos from the digital camera. I wanted to use a date system to name files, with a number for the file for that specific date. For example, March 31 - 2007 (1), (2) and so on. I had 50 or more for each day, so doing them one by one was not only time comsuming, it was annoying.

I looked around in Windows to see if there was a quicker way, and found one. Here's the tutorial part...

1. While browsing the files on Windows Explorer, select all the files you want to rename.
2. Go to File on the top menu and choose Rename.
3. This command will open one of the files to be renamed. At this point, type in the name you want to rename all the files to like March 31 - 2007.
4. Hit Enter.

Windows will then automatically rename the files for you, in no particular order, from 1 to whichever number of files you selected to rename.

Have fun!
Lenita.

Hello, it has been a while since I have posted anything on my blog and some friends have been asking if I still maintained this blog. The answer to all those that have been asking is yes. I have just been very busy with work and life, and of course it’s summer, which means my free time is close to zero.

For this posting I’m going to write about the best way to plot drawings received from other consultants and/or clients, which is something that one of my colleagues asked me recently. When I receive those drawings most of the time I also received the PCP files (PCP file is a pen settings assignment file).

So when you open the cad files you type in your command line the PCINWIZARD command that lets you import the PCP file that you want use in order to plot the file with the right settings and line thicknesses.

I hope this posting gone be useful to someone and please if you want to contact me use the email fsalgado@gmail.com and not my blog’s comments section. It’s easier, and you’ll get a faster response!

Labels: Autocad

Today’s posting is about a resource that I use in my drawings. Every time I use this in my drawings, when they get reviewed by other technologists, they ask me how I was able to do it.

The resource I’m talking about it the ability to rotate my drawings in paper space without changing anything in model space.

Normally, people would rotate the UCS, which is never a good option, or they may choose to use DVIEW/Twist by using MVSETUP in layout/viewport. Instead, I use the Align/Rotate option. This only rotates the drawing in the viewport, not modelspace, thus preserving your coordinated setup and any preset UCS.

In today’s posting, I am going to discuss a very good computer program for those AutoCAD users like myself that aren’t as familiar with the Imperial system as someone who went through North American schooling. I still have to use it everyday, which basically meant that I had to become familiar with it quickly. Feet and Inches Calculator, a program from Finch Software was and still is a great aid for me. You can download it from their web site at www.finchsoftware.com.

According to the company:

You can use this calculator to easily convert from inches to feet - feet to inches - inches to millimeters - millimeters to inches - fractional feet and inches to decimal feet or decimal inches! To convert between units just enter the number you want to convert and select the unit you want to convert to

It also includes other modules like the toolbox that can be useful for those involved in steel detailing and the resource browser which is nothing more than a resource library that you can build and is always accessible on your system tray. Try it, it’s a great tool.

Until next time,
Fernando Salgado

A few weeks ago a friend and old coworker from Portugal asked me how to turn the entity selection in AutoCAD back the default. The purpose of this is so you don’t need to press the shift key to select a group of AutoCAD entities (which is very annoying!).

At the time I just emailed him the solution, but since I have received more requests related to the same problem I decided to post it today on my blog.

To control the entities selection mode in AutoCAD you must turn on or off the system variable named PICKADD. So when you use the shift key to add new objects to your selection the PICKADD system variable is set to 0 (off).

In other words, you can activate (or deactivate) the use shift to add to selection mode by setting the PICKADD system variable to on (1) or off (0).