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Main CAD issues in your office


feargt

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I always write protect the original drawing forcing a file name change if someone changes anything in the file; i.e.: DRAWING-D01 might become DRAWING-D01 Rev A.

 

This must make for a huge amount of storage and backup for your system.

But storage aside its a good idea keep original dwg files aswell.

I have set up the same thing but only for drawing pdf's.

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Hi,

 

I was just wondering what are the main CAD issues that are experienced in offices.

 

For example where I work one of the main problems prior to recently was convincing the powers that be for the need to invest time in updating our working methods and standrds to increase productivity by utilising newer functions of Autocad releases.

 

They were of the opinion that as long as we were using the latest release that that meant we were being as producitve as possible.

 

So what are the main issues in your company and why?

 

Thanks

 

 

It's not an office, but the CUI files are always being deleted. The students at my school have no respect for the hardware and software. It's sad.

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Well at school, the IT guys come in once a week and delete everything off the computers other than what is absolutely needed. So if you have work saved on them, you better hope you have a flash drive or external hard drive with you. Thankfully for me, I carry my life on a flash drive. Also, I have backups on flash drives. So basically that's 3 copys of everything that is important. That an encrypted files keep prying eyes out of the work stuff.

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Well at school, the IT guys come in once a week and delete everything off the computers other than what is absolutely needed. So if you have work saved on them, you better hope you have a flash drive or external hard drive with you. Thankfully for me, I carry my life on a flash drive. Also, I have backups on flash drives. So basically that's 3 copys of everything that is important. That an encrypted files keep prying eyes out of the work stuff.

 

I don't blame the IT's for deleting all the "crap" off your computers. That way you are able to keep the computer's speed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

here most of the time i'm drafting as built drawings..

planers from other company gives us blue prints and

after project is constracted, we draw the as built to

submit it to the planers... and it always took long drafting

as built coz, i manually have the blue prints (paper) in my table

and its like copying the whole drawing only minor revision. i ask our

boss if we could have the cadfile of the drawing so the work would only

be modifying, not creating the whole drawing from scratch...

but they told me that its ok just do what you are ask to do..

 

(im only giving them susgestion on how to make my work more faster and less

time consuming......

 

here, im the only one who user autocad....

so when i arrive here. i have to make

my own. standards...

coz. the man before me.. all the old files are not

in uniform, some have differents title blocks and etc....

its just hard. that all as built drawings and new drawings are

my responsibilities... they should get another drafter who will help me....

 

 

 

 

there was a time when i was told to draw two plans

and told me to do that at the same time so i can finish it

at the target time.... (how am i supose to do that...

if only we have 2 or 3 drafter here...

it wouldn't be that hard.

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I think my main problem lies with "Boy Genius" and a certain bald headed Autodesk salesman that pops in to the office every three weeks for less than one hour.

 

Just because you could open up and edit a drawing in the morning, don't mean in the afternoon it still can be done. Boy, is most certainly in love with the bald headed salesman, for they coo one another 25 out of the thirty minutes of the visit. Not long after the salesman leaves, then certain drawings one by one cannot be used without the error message about some unknown (or new) Menu. Cannont state how many times I have seen: Menu.xxx cannot be found, do you want to proceede with ACAD.mnu? Yes, then open up the drawing and after some stumbling only about 30 of the lines are visable. When a client says "Why am I being billed for work, when essentially nothing has happened since the 5th of two months ago now?"

 

Our C.E. office varies in size from 5 to 15 persons, each with some sort of a terminal. I tend to work on 5-7 projects at one time. Maybe one item gets all of my attention during the week (per my timecard), but is nice to go back and see that since three weeks ago, nothing has really changed on another one. We hire consultants (like a favored traffic engineer, and a certain Land Scape Planner) and they do one little phase of a project. We have to get on the telephone every so often and ask: What we downloaded from you on the 20th, is that still accurate? No, then we need new updates so your phase of the project is correct at bid time then. Don't matter, for Boy Genious has altered the Menu, and maybe cannot see it then.

 

I sort of dread when just after noon, the saleman pops his head into my door, gives a quicky HELLO, and then continues on to the rear. What is going to change today then?

 

Work went south back near end of 2008, and we really have not gotten any biggie projects since then. The office doors have actually not been opened up but for the contract cleaning crew. I dunno who is doing anything, for am not a partner in the firm, so am out of the loop of communication. The sign is still good on the door, but I think the telephoned in changes to projects are being done at one of their homes now.

 

I would like to see a more uniform Autocad MENU in place, customized or not, but one only that can be set and used on the server. Then, maybe, no more afternoon surprizes. Tried to contain the newsest version of some MENU on to the computer of Boy Genious, but since we all work off of a server, it bleeds around. As we work on huge acreage projects, the whole thing is done in Paperspace, (or it won't fit) and about 25% of the time some item on that new MENU don't like Paperspace, and then things get revised within minutes back to how they were the day before.

 

Oh, Boy Genius is the In-law to one partner, so if the time came, I would be first out the door before he would take a hike.

 

 

Wm.

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I would like to see a more uniform Autocad MENU in place, customized or not, but one only that can be set and used on the server. Then, maybe, no more afternoon surprizes. Tried to contain the newsest version of some MENU on to the computer of Boy Genious, but since we all work off of a server, it bleeds around. As we work on huge acreage projects, the whole thing is done in Paperspace, (or it won't fit) and about 25% of the time some item on that new MENU don't like Paperspace, and then things get revised within minutes back to how they were the day before.

Wm.

 

Are you handy with script files?

 

Back in the DOS days when I was responsible for the look and feel of AutoCAD, I kept the master of the mnu, pat and lin files on the server in a secure location.

 

Everytime that someone booted their computer, the batch file would overwrite their copy. Of course, this was before it was all stored in files found inside of the user directories, but I bet there is still a way to do it.

 

It was always so much fun to listen to people wonder where their "improvements" to the menu went ... :D ... DAILY!

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Are you handy with script files?

 

Back in the DOS days when I was responsible for the look and feel of AutoCAD, I kept the master of the mnu, pat and lin files on the server in a secure location.

 

Everytime that someone booted their computer, the batch file would overwrite their copy. Of course, this was before it was all stored in files found inside of the user directories, but I bet there is still a way to do it.

 

It was always so much fun to listen to people wonder where their "improvements" to the menu went ... :D ... DAILY!

 

 

Up until about two years ago, Boy Genious used to pass around a floppy disk to everyone which I think contained Updated xx.mnu and Updated xx.bat files. Now he does that via inter-office connections, while we are off at lunch. Lets say, we have version five currently (then) loaded on to each computer. He would load version six on to one of the Boss' computers, and the main secretary. Let them check it out for one or two days, and then if it worked on theirs without problems, then version six got loaded onto ours during one of the sneaky lunchtime sessions.

 

Boy Genious would hold back on version seven on his, as after a week or so, it was not fully tested. There were often bugs in his version, for I think the computer software vendor used Boy Genious to sort out any bugs, and be the main tester. But, a week or two later, when we got back from lunch, we all would find a rebooted system and version seven then loaded up. Work OK or not, he would continue to work on drawings same as ours, and thus we often got the error message, things don't work anymore. The secretary rarely got one for Acad was not loaded onto her computer. But, the thought counted. Whichever on of the Partners got the new version was often off on vacation or GONE, and that was counted as time of use per Boy Genious.

 

"Oh, I will set my computer to whatever everone else is using, and we will be back to before by this afternoon tehn"

 

 

 

Wm.

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