Connected

A word about margins

It's a new world of electronic drawings, but we're still dealing with those pesky things called margins.

When you make a DWF file in AutoCAD it's important that you consider what margins to specify, and here's why.

Think about your office setup. You have your computer and your printer and your trusty AutoCAD. You want to print a set of drawings. Click Plot, select your plotter/printer (probably already selected), and click "OK." Out it comes in all its glory. Chances are, you've tweaked and honed your settings over the years to get it to work perfectly...on your print device.

But now, you're being asked to produce a DWF file. OK, no problem, same process, right? Not quite. When you print to a specific print device (your office plotter), that device's driver communicates with AutoCAD and tells it what the physical maximum printable area is. AutoCAD uses that information to set up your layout or your plot. (Most physical hardware printers can't print all the way to the edge of the paper; the printhead only travels so far.)

DWF, on the other hand, is a virtual printer. It can print all the way to the edge of the (virtual) paper, with ease. So something that looks beautiful in a DWF file, centered, all the way to the edges, clean, etc., might very well get chopped when the recipient prints it to his printer (which again will have a different "printable area").

Solution? Be less greedy and more wasteful in your use of paper. That's right. Try not to build your title blocks and your layouts to go all the way to the edges that your device supports. Dial it back to a 1/4" margin on each side and you'll be pretty sure that your DWF file will print fine just about anywhere.

How do you do this? Open the Plot dialog in AutoCAD, select your DWF printer, click Properties, and then Modify Printable Area of the sheet sizes you most commonly use so that all borders are 1/4". Then modify the same for your hardware print device (they'll have to match, since you'll be printing to both pretty commonly.) Then rejigger your title block and layouts so they fit correctly on the new, wider-margin paper you've created. A few test plots (both to the plotter and to DWF) and you're ready to go.

It's a complex topic, but worth mastering. Let me know if you think I should do a YouTube video like this, on the topic of margins.

Who Says Microsoft Isn't Fun?

Field Device for Project Teams?

At Fry's this weekend I got a chance to try out one of those Samsung Q1 Ultra devices running Windows Vista. Pretty snazzy. Nice touch-screen, split-qwerty keyboard, thumb mouse a la PSP. Not too heavy, either.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/15/hands-on-with-samsungs-q1-ultra-ultra-mobile-pc/

I think the thing would make a pretty good field device for many of our PM customers. They were about $1200 at Fry's, which isn't insanely expensive. I didn't try Buzzsaw or Constructware on it because it wasn't hooked up to the Internet, but everything else was AOK.

What do you guys think? Is this a viable option for use in the field?

Happy Birthday Smiley Emoticon! :-)

:-)

I know many people aren't fans of emoticons, but personally I've always felt that they were very useful in converying the emotion behind your statements in emails, etc.  I saw this post talking about the 25th Birthday of the smiley emoticon.  What suprised me most was that somebody actually knew when it was first introduced. 

Apatar

I have to tell you guys about this incredible tool I saw today called Apatar. It allows you to hook data sources together - like SQL to Salesforce, POP3 to XML, or Buzzsaw to RSS (or any combination thereof.)

It's visual, so you don't have to do any coding. If you're working with the Buzzsaw API, you really owe it to yourself to check out Apatar!

Electronic Plan Review with Autodesk Buzzsaw

We have had many requests from customers to share eReview techniques on Buzzsaw.  I've posted a 'How To' video on YouTube that outlines a few ways this can be accomplished on Buzzsaw.  Please share or forward if you know of anyone who may also be interested in ways to reduce the use of paper with electronic drawing review.

eReview Video

Also, let me know if this is helpful and if there are other collaboration topics you'd like to see in this format.

Google Gears and Digg

Yo!

I'm big on the idea of distributed client applications, which are a bit different from web-based applications in that much of the software executes on the client, not the server. There's lots of development in this area, enabling developers to build these types of applications. (AJAX, AIR, Silverlight, etc etc.)

Now this guy Brian Shaler is demonstrating a way to push web application tasks (like searching) out to the client for more rapid performance, using a tool from our New Search Overlords called Google Gears.

I especially like this quote from Brian's post, which nicely wraps up the benefits of distributed client apps:

When functionality is pushed to the client, the client will generally see a substantial performance increase and unbeatable application responsiveness. This is because there will be a 1 server to 1 client ratio, as the client would be running its own server. Meanwhile, the usage of server resources for these repetitive tasks is reduced, potentially saving companies money on hardware or minimizing the effects of rapid success, known as "Growing Pains".

Go CPM development team!