29 June 2011

How to enable DWG import in SketchUp 8 Free

As an architect living in Indonesia I (and many others) faced one same dreaded problem in my workflow: DWG dependency.
I've post list of applications that I use before, though I must share this info too (a bit too late actually).

So how to enable DWG Import in your Free SketchUp 8?

We all know Google stop supporting DWG Import feature starting from SketchUp 8 (free). The last one (7.1) have additional add-on http://dl.google.com/sketchup/gsu7/AllowDWGImportInSketchUp7.msi to enable it.

Then another way is: You can install SketchUp 8 Pro trial for 8 hours of usage if you want a temporary solution.

Or.. you can just stick with SketchUp 7.1 and ask your partners to downgrade save as sketchup 7 format for file exchange. Which is what I choose, after all there are not much important features in version 8.

Now.. do you know that actually there is no difference between both version?

28 June 2011

How to make IBM Symphony 3 portable

OK not that portable actually... Let's do it quick

Download it first http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ls/symphony/index.html
Don't forget the fixpack
Install...

- get yourself to %USERPROFILE% a.k.a C:\Documents and Settings\[username] or C:\Users\[username]
- copy folder "IBM" to your Symphony 3's installation directory (where symphony.exe reside)
- navigate to framework\rcp there you'll find rcplauncher.properties
- open it with notepad (your should be an admin)
- replace rcp.data's value with IBM/Lotus/Symphony/ -> rcp.data=IBM/Lotus/Symphony/
- save it
- now copy the whole Symphony folder to your removable drive and use symphony.exe to run it. Your settings and preferences should stored in IBM\Lotus\Symphony\

caveat: soffice.bin process will stay at background when you quit Symphony's tray icon so you can't eject your drive unless kill the process first
note: Lotus Symphony 3 is an intuitive but a bit slower version of OpenOffice 3

22 June 2011

Offline M$ Security Essential Installer

With my 128Kbps connection it seems I would never ever able to complete initial update after installation of MSSE. Why? Well looks like the virus definition update took place faster than the time I need to complete the download so the file keep changed before I even finished one. That just plain sucks! that's why I hate git so much too!

Here is the link of relatively up-to-date definition installer that *do not* frequently changed.
http://mirror.ufs.ac.za/ms_Sec/mpam-fe.exe

20 June 2011

2D CAD and Open Source, will it ever works?

ITC's intelliCAD or ODA's Teigha? They are open but to their alliance/members not to common public which left only OpenCASCADE. However OpenCASCADE is more suitable for 3D parametric modeling not general 2D drafting, in fact it looks like an attempt by "the big player" to promote their base foundation (against the mighty Autodesk of course). Why I said that? cause their development in recent version is really lacking of interest and motivation!

AutoCAD LT's clone invasion

To the blatant monopolistic attitude of Autodesk (almost as worst as old-day M$) competitors still not give up to give users "freeware" of 2D drafting package in a hope that they might ditch DWG or -more recently- AutoCAD LT. The release of DoubleCAD XT and DraftSight certainly an appealing offer to me who have separate 2D and 3D package for the workflow. DraftSight from Dassault Systemes, the less nagging (but has annoying yearly online activation) of the two is using QT as their GUI and both use ODA's Teigha for DWG compatibility. I see these kind of lure won't recede anytime soon even after Autodesk lawsuit to ODA in 2006 for DWG infringement. All I can say there is no real interest in open source community whatever the big player do.