Notice of the December 2008 General Meeting

Here’s the text of an email recently sent out to the membership (if you’d like more timely notice of forthcoming meetings etc., please consider joining!):

VICTORIAN AUTOCAD USERS GROUP INCORPORATED (VICAUG INC.)
(C&BAV Incorporation Registration Number: A 13467S)
ABN: 65 553 575 021

Greetings friends
*** Next Vicaug Meeting ***
A quick reminder: Only a few sleeps to go to the next Victorian AutoCAD Users Group meeting is on
6:30pm Monday 1st December 2008
At RMIT
4th Floor, RMIT Building 94, 23-27 Cardigan St Carlton

Yes folks, that’s this coming Monday!

This is on the west side of Cardigan St, just north of Victoria St. Car parking is available at the kerbside or in the centre of the road. There is also a multi-storey Wilson car park right next door, which is open until 10pm (fee payable). Alternatively, the area is well served by public transport: trains to Melbourne Central station and / or trams along Swanston Street.

FEATURED THIS MONTH
Manoj Pandit of Autodesk Australia will be in a remote conference presenting the latest developments in Autodesk Productstream and Vault, as well as fielding questions on any other Autodesk topics you want to throw at him.
Not only that, but Mark Miller will be exploring the use of WIPEOUTS in your drawing work and Peter Godfrey will be showing us a little freeware product which cleans your registry and other parts of your system. It’s known to work well with Autodesk products.
And, of course, our usual TV program so no need to stay at home worrying about missing it!

NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE!
For this meeting only, we are in a new room. It’s the Executive Meeting Room, on the 4th floor. (This is one level below the usual room.) Room number is 94.4.47.
We are in this room in order to be able to use the internet connection for Manoj’s presentation. Follow the pizza gas if you get lost! Next meeting should be back to the usual room.
Due to popular request, we will be starting the meeting a little later (at 6:30pm) than in previous years. This is due to the fact that parking in the vicinity is free after 6:30pm. We will try to start the presentations at 7:00 pm sharp, so the meeting should finish at a reasonable hour. (Although I have to admit that a few of us have been known to congregate on the footpath outside after the meeting and chew the fat until a somewhat less reasonable hour!)

All Welcome!
As usual, food and drinks will be provided, along with the opportunity to meet up with fellow AutoCAD users.
Also, we’ll be showing all sorts of goodies, so bring along your USB memory keys etc. and you can get a copy of some of the items demonstrated.
As well as discussions on AutoCAD Techniques (both good and bad,) the December meeting also features a “round table” discussion of your AutoCAD problems (and hopefully the solutions!)
plus the usual News, Your AutoCAD Questions Answered and friendly chat.

Please note:
The order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Check the Vicaug web page at www.dbm.com.au/vicaug <http://www.dbm.com.au/vicaug> and the blog at www.vicaug.wordpress.com <http://www.vicaug.wordpress.com/> for any late breaking news of this and other upcoming meetings.
A summary of the official agenda for the meeting is as follows:
6:30 Meeting room opened for social chat, food and refreshments
6.45 pm: Open General Meeting
• All in attendance to sign Attendance Book
• Apologies
• President’s Opening address and discussion – as permitted by the President
• Minutes of Previous General Meeting (December 2007) – as circulated in the 2007 “Blog” – to be received and adopted
• Presentations
• General Business and any such other matters that the President, at his discretion, may allow.
9.00 pm: Closure
Note: order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Make the most of your Vicaug membership by coming along and learning, socializing and discussing any topics at all, even CAD-related ones! If you haven’t been to a Vicaug meeting before, don’t be shy – we’re a very friendly bunch!
If you’re not yet a member or need to renew your membership, please consider joining by printing out and completing the form below and posting it, together with your cheque to Vicaug Inc., P.O. Box 466 Elsternwick Vic. 3185. This will ensure that you continue to receive notifications of events, are entitled to vote at Vicaug elections and attend all Vicaug meetings. If you received this reminder, but not other benefits, it most likely means that you are not financial and that your “complimentary” subscription has expired. If you have received this in error, or do not wish to have these reminders sent to you this way, please accept our apologies and advise Peter Godfrey by email at pgodfrey@netspace.net.au and your name will be removed from the mailing list.
Regards
Peter Godfrey
Vicaug Vice President and Newsletter/Blog Editor

Notice of the 2008 AGM and General Meeting

Here’s the text of an email sent to members and friends:

VICTORIAN AUTOCAD USERS GROUP INCORPORATED (VICAUG INC.)
(C&BAV Incorporation Registration Number: A 13467S)
ABN: 65 553 575 021
Greetings friends
*** Next Vicaug Meeting ***
and Annual General Meeting
A quick reminder: Only a few sleeps to go to the next Victorian AutoCAD Users Group meeting is on
6:30pm Monday
4th August 2008
At RMIT
5th Floor, RMIT Building 94, 23-27 Cardigan St Carlton
Yes folks, that’s this coming Monday!
This is on the west side of Cardigan St, just north of Victoria St. Car parking is available at the kerbside or in the centre of the road. There is also a multi-storey Wilson car park right next door, which is open until 10pm (fee payable). Alternatively, the area is well served by public transport: trains to Melbourne Central station and / or trams along Swanston Street.
Our meeting room is called a Studio, room number 9405032. Take the lifts up to the fifth floor, follow the corridor around to the right and the Studio is on the left side, towards the end of the corridor. Follow the pizza gas if you get lost!
Due to popular request, we will be starting the meeting a little later (at 6:30pm) than in previous years. This is due to the fact that parking in the vicinity is free after 6:30pm. We will try to start the presentations at 7:00 pm sharp, so the meeting should finish at a reasonable hour. (Although I have to admit that a few of us have been known to congregate on the footpath outside after the meeting and chew the fat until a somewhat less reasonable hour!)
All Welcome!
As usual, food and drinks will be provided, along with the opportunity to meet up with fellow AutoCAD users.
As well as the AGM (Annual General Meeting), Monday’s meeting will feature a presentation on Blade Workstations by John Belsham from Oasys IT. Not only that, but Zoltan Toth will be showing us a neat way to handle superscript in AutoCAD Text and Mark Miller will be showing us a bunch of AutoCAD Tips and Tricks.
Also, we’ll be showing all sorts of goodies, so bring along your USB memory keys etc. and you can get a copy of some of the items demonstrated.
As well as discussions on AutoCAD Techniques (both good and bad,) the August meeting also features a “round table” discussion of your AutoCAD problems (and hopefully the solutions!)
plus the usual News, Your AutoCAD Questions Answered and friendly chat.
Please note:
The order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Check the Vicaug web page at www.dbm.com.au/vicaug <http://www.dbm.com.au/vicaug> and the blog at www.vicaug.wordpress.com <http://www.vicaug.wordpress.com/> for any late breaking news of this and other upcoming meetings.
A summary of the official agenda for the meeting is as follows:
6:30 Meeting room opened for social chat, food and refreshments
6.45 pm: Open General Meeting
All in attendance to sign Attendance Book
Apologies
President’s Opening address and discussion – as permitted by the President
Minutes of Previous General Meeting (December 2007) – as circulated in the 2007 “Blog” – to be received and adopted
Presentations
General Business and any such other matters that the President, at his discretion, may allow.
Closure
Note: order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Make the most of your Vicaug membership by coming along and learning, socializing and discussing any topics at all, even CAD-related ones! If you haven’t been to a Vicaug meeting before, don’t be shy – we’re a very friendly bunch!
If you’re not yet a member or need to renew your membership, please consider joining by printing out and completing the form below and posting it, together with your cheque to Vicaug Inc., P.O. Box 466 Elsternwick Vic. 3185. This will ensure that you continue to receive notifications of events, are entitled to vote at Vicaug elections and attend all Vicaug meetings. If you received this reminder, but not other benefits, it most likely means that you are not financial and that your “complimentary” subscription has expired. If you have received this in error, or do not wish to have these reminders sent to you this way, please accept our apologies and advise Peter Godfrey by email at pgodfrey@netspace.net.au and your name will be removed from the mailing list.
Regards
Peter Godfrey
Vicaug Vice President and Newsletter/Blog Editor
Note New RMIT Venue!

AutoCAD 2008 Slow Startup Fix

You or your users may have noticed that AutoCAD occasionally takes a ***long*** time to start. Apparently there are a number of issues related to Autodesk’s communication modules. These are the modules which use your net connection to “phone home” to check for updates etc. Sometimes one of these will stop responding and freeze the system until they time out a minute or two later.
They can cause other error too, such as the “pure virtual function call” C runtime error.
Fortunately, there is an easy fix by editing the demand load registry key at
HKLM\Software\Autodesk\R17.1\[ACAD-XXXX:XXX]\Applications\InfoCenterAcConn
Change the LOADCTRLS value to 0 to disable demand loading.
More info from Owen Wengerd’s excellnt blog at http://otb.manusoft.com/2007/09/autocad-2008-slow-startup-fix.htm

Notice of the April 2008 General Meeting

Here’s the text of an email sent out to the membership tonight:

VICTORIAN AUTOCAD USERS GROUP INCORPORATED (VICAUG INC.)
(C&BAV Incorporation Registration Number: A 13467S)
ABN: 65 553 575 021
Greetings friends
*** Next Vicaug Meeting ***
A quick reminder: Only a few sleeps to go to the next Victorian AutoCAD Users Group meeting is on
6:30pm Monday
7th April 2008
At RMIT
5th Floor, RMIT Building 94, 23-27 Cardigan St Carlton
Yes folks, that’s this coming Monday!
This is on the west side of Cardigan St, just north of Victoria St. Car parking is available at the kerbside or in the centre of the road. There is also a multi-storey Wilson car park right next door, which is open until 10pm (fee payable). Alternatively, the area is well served by public transport: trains to Melbourne Central station and / or trams along Swanston Street.
Our meeting room is called a Studio, room number 9405032. Take the lifts up to the fifth floor, follow the corridor around to the right and the Studio is on the left side, towards the end of the corridor.
Due to popular request, we will be starting the meeting a little later (at 6:30pm) than in previous years. This is due to the fact that parking in the vicinity is free after 6:30pm. We will try to start the presentations at 7:00 pm sharp, so the meeting should finish at a reasonable hour. (Although I have to admit that a few of us have been known to congregate on the footpath outside after the meeting and chew the fat until a somewhat less reasonable hour!)
All Welcome!
As usual, food and drinks will be provided, along with the opportunity to meet up with fellow AutoCAD users.
And, in case you were wondering, the presenters and topics for the meeting are…
AutoCAD 2009
with Peter Godfrey and
Tips and Tricks
with Mark Miller.
Also, we’ll be showing all sorts of goodies, so bring along your USB memory keys etc. and you can get a copy of some of the items demonstrated.
As well as discussions on AutoCAD Techniques (both good and bad,) the April meeting also features a “round table” discussion of your AutoCAD problems (and hopefully the solutions!)
plus the usual News, Your AutoCAD Questions Answered and friendly chat.
Please note:
The order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Check the Vicaug web page at www.dbm.com.au/vicaug <http://www.dbm.com.au/vicaug> and the blog at www.vicaug.wordpress.com <http://www.vicaug.wordpress.com/> for any late breaking news of this and other upcoming meetings.
A summary of the official agenda for the meeting is as follows:
6:30 Meeting room opened for social chat, food and refreshments
6.45 pm: Open General Meeting
• All in attendance to sign Attendance Book
• Apologies
• President’s Opening address and discussion – as permitted by the President
• Minutes of Previous General Meeting (December 2007) – as circulated in the 2007 “Blog” – to be received and adopted
• Presentations
• General Business and any such other matters that the President, at his discretion, may allow.
9.00 pm: Closure
Note: order of business may be amended at the discretion of the President.
Make the most of your Vicaug membership by coming along and learning, socializing and discussing any topics at all, even CAD-related ones! If you haven’t been to a Vicaug meeting before, don’t be shy – we’re a very friendly bunch!
If you’re not yet a member or need to renew your membership, please consider joining by printing out and completing the form below and posting it, together with your cheque to Vicaug Inc., P.O. Box 466 Elsternwick Vic. 3185. This will ensure that you continue to receive notifications of events, are entitled to vote at Vicaug elections and attend all Vicaug meetings. If you received this reminder, but not other benefits, it most likely means that you are not financial and that your “complimentary” subscription has expired. If you have received this in error, or do not wish to have these reminders sent to you this way, please accept our apologies and advise Peter Godfrey by email at nospam_pgodfrey@netspace.net.au and your name will be removed from the mailing list.
Regards
Peter Godfrey
Vicaug Vice President and Newsletter/Blog Editor
Note New RMIT Venue!
*************************************************************************************
Vicaug Membership Application Form
To join or renew, print this form out, fill it in and post (with your cheque) to PO Box 466 Elsternwick Vic. 3185
Vicaug Registration Number A13467, ABN 13 391 159 543 . This form becomes a Tax Invoice upon payment in full.
Member name
Company name:
Address:
Suburb
Postcode
Contact name for newsletters:
Contact name for invoices:
Telephone (BH)
Telephone (AH)
Telephone (Mobile).
Fax number
Email address
Area(s) of interest
Other attending representatives
Note the following scale of fees (simple huh?): $50.00 for first attending member and $50.00 for each subsequent member. These figures include 10% GST, being $45.45 subs plus $4.55 GST making a total of $50.00.
This form will become a Tax Invoice upon payment in full of the above dues.
Membership is current from AGM to AGM each year.
The VICAUG Committee has a policy of not issuing or disclosing member information to any outside parties.
In the event of my admission as a member, I agree to be bound by the rules of the Association for the time being in force, such agreement also being on behalf of the other representatives nominated above.
Signed
Date

Tools

It’s about time for a little bit of Friday humour. Here’s one for the DIY/mechanics amongst us.

Found at http://humour.bluehaze.com.au/

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted vertical stabilizer which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned cleco calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, “Oh sh*t!”
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.
SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding< /SPAN> heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.
EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a trapped hydraulic jack handle.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.
BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminium sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.
CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.
AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt, but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.
MECHANIC’S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.
DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling “DAMMIT” at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Moribund Overkill

For quite a few years now, AutoCAD’s Express tools have included a great command called “Overkill.” It’s found in the Express pulldown menu, under Modify/Delete duplicate objects. Or you can simply type “overkill” at the command line.

However, users have complained that it often doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do when you give it a mixture of lines and polylines. If, for example, you select both a polyline and line drawn on top of each other, overkill doesn’t work. Funny that, because I’m sure it used to work properly in earlier AutoCADs!

Anyway, after a lot of stumbling around, and bearing in mind the previous comment, I’ve discovered that overkill seems to be dependent on the PEDITACCEPT system variable. We all breathed a sigh of relief when PEDITACCEPT was introduced to AutoCAD in around version 2004. Naturally, we set it to 1 so we wouldn’t get that annoying message asking if we were sure we wanted to turn it into a polyline (doh – what do they think we were using the pedit command for, then?)

Now, it seems that setting PEDITACCEPT to 1 kills that function in the overkill command. If you set PEDITACCEPT to 0 before you run overkill, then it works. Set PEDITACCEPT back to 1 after you finish and all will be tickety-boo!