“I’m laid back at lunchtime, but I’m aggressive at crunch time. Let’s get it.” – Jacob “Crunch Time” Mann Many firms out there have figured out how to stabilize in this down economy. The hard layoffs and continued reduction of hours are over (note I didn’t say BEING on reduced hours is over). Many owners are now thinking that their firms will survive. Times will still be tough for a
Can you make a living playing video games? If you work hard. It also doesn’t hurt if you’re South Korean. Want to hear more about that lifestyle? There’s a great Tech Stuff podcast about it. What does this have to do with ArchiCAD? Keyboard short cuts. I’ve talked about them before and I’ll talk about their importance again. Watch the following video. The entire thing is pretty mesmerizing, but all
In the ArchiCAD LinkedIn group, Michael Scarmack, AIA, recently started gauging interest in a global experiment using the ArchiCAD BIMserver that he’d like to conduct. There’s a lot of excitement about this grassroots project and I think it will lead to some big things. What things? I don’t know. But it is entrepreneurial experimentation and group collaboration like this that will bring our industry into the future and prevent our
How often do you back up your files? Daily? You better. Anything longer is a wrong answer. Here’s Part One of why: My brother is in IT; when I was younger he excitedly told me about a new server he’d installed. It had 7 drives in parallel. You could rip one out of the server while it was on and no data was lost. It needed to be set up
I went to the September AIA BIM Breakfast. As anyone who’s talked to me about BIM knows, I’m a big fan of this group. We were all supposed to bring examples of BIM requirements so we could discuss how they impact the project delivery process. Twenty people attended. One person brought in an example for a new prison facility. The BIM requirements for this project (when various levels of modeled
The track list from Pantera‘s last studio album, Reinventing the Steel, has great advice for any ArchiCAD user. You don’t need to love their music like I do to see what accidental BIM geniuses these guys were. Let’s look: Hellbound – This is how we all feel when we start ArchiCAD. The first two weeks can be just awful. You’ll curse your new employers or think your reseller has swindled
We all have bad habits in ArchiCAD. Some of this is from how we were taught and some from the version we learned on. As the program evolves, we need to reevaluate how we work. Do we still need to hold down shift? Is it time to get used to the tracker? Are we still hanging on to old key commands from v8.1? Some are worth keeping. I want to
Whether you’re using the the coordinate box or the tracker, there are a lot of ways to write a number. Some are easier than others. A quick rule of thumb is that ArchiCAD recognizes fractions as inches, whole numbers and decimals as feet. So… a couple of ways to input three and a half inches: .2916667′ .2916667 0-3.5″ 0-3.5 3.5″ 3 1/2″ 3 1/2 3.5/1 3.5/ 7/2″ 7/2
(or how to humble yourself every 90 seconds) In preparation for my next post on strategies for learning ArchiCAD, take a look at the ArchiCAD Competency Challenge. Try a few questions and if you have time take the whole test. It’s tough. It’s humbling. And I learned a lot from taking it over the weekend. More on that later. Also, there are two of us MNAUGers in the Hall of Fame. As
