Oh, and daca You've tried macs and dont like them. V wants to try one and a positive to take from that is: Buy the Mac.. If you dont like it, sell it and you'll get enough for it to buy the 1/2price 2X better system you're talking about. So you spend a couple hundred bucks to know that you don't like osx and can quit being curious about it. Not such a bad deal. Or, you'll like it and keep it. Works out good either way

I use one with sketchup, and as box said its pretty much the same as a mouse. With mine i've set one of the buttons on the pen as the middle mouse button, so you can still orbit/pan without having to switch tools in SU. You still need to switch to the zoom tool, though.

I personally use Firefox - and FF4 will have sync feature. But I used Xmarks for my parents who use Internet Explorer. And since I'm no IE user I was hoping for some tips.

Ken, QCad is far, far faster, but the only problem is that it only works (at present) with R12 dxf files.

This software is only really useful to me, if its units can be defined as centimetres or metres. It's my main complaint about many of these 3D modellers, like for eg, the otherwise excellent Cheetah3D, units come in one package only- completely useless for architecture or engineering purposes. A far better bargain in my honest opinion, would be ViaCAD 2D/3D, because units can be easily defined as standard units of measurement (VC also uses ACIS, the same 3D kernel as AutoCAD). Fortunately, SketchUp allows for this standard setup of units too.

Ah yes, that may be different (but at least preferences are there...)

@khai said: @dave r said: If I was going to have another input device, I would like to have a box with a bunch of custom labelled buttons I could program for the shortcuts. take a look at the N52te i have one of the older ones and used to use it all the time. programmed macros for ACAD and SkethUp on it. Set the 'throttle' for zoom, and the directional keys for often used query functions. Had copy, paste, rotate, move, etc. all set up too. Sort of forgot about it when I got a new machine. Should dig it up... The only problem I found with it is that when I would teach I wouldn't be able to slow down enough and remember the keyboard shortcuts...

It wouldn't work though. It runs on blackberry or android but not on iPhone... Too bad... I could use such a thing. Although it seems like an endless spiral for the forgetful among us: if you forget your phone, use a device the size of an eraser to find it. But what if you forget that object? And what if you lose it? Maybe attach something to it to find it...

Im almost certain you want your RAM in multiples of 3 if you've got an i7 processor, so in short the bloke in the shop was wrong. Something to do with it having a triple channel memory controller, or so my brief reading tells me. http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_i7_-_choosing_the_best_memory_kit/ http://www.tomshardware.com/news/corsair-triple-channel-ddr3,6614.html http://www.palicomp.co.uk/pc-components/motherboard-cpu-ram-bundles/intel-core-i7-bundles/prod_188.html

Actually about a week after you wrote that I left IMSI (because of an offer I couldn't refuse) and have moved to Palo Alto after 4 years in Sonoma! But I'll keep coming back up... it's such a great place. I'm sure the guys working on DoubleCAD would love hear what you're doing and any feedback on construction drawings from SketchUp. -- William

If I am carrying it without my usual briefcase or car. Back jeans pocket.

Guys, Seeing the iPhone 4 has been out a few months now what are your thoughts on that verses the HTC Desire? From what I've read the Desire is the closest smart phone to knocking off apple... [image: ZWhH_iphonevdesire_1.jpg] A few reviews: http://www.cnet.com.au/iphone-4-vs-htc-desire-339303804.htm http://www.t3.com/feature/iphone-4-vs-htc-desire-which-smartphone-is-best I'd be interested to hear anyone who has used either or both. Particularly the difference between OS 4 and Android 2.1.

Archos has one but I have not seen it yet in the "flesh". http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=us&lang=en Too bad it runs Win7 starter but it is cool looking.

I think the Civil 3D version just has something like the lisp loading automatically. You'll need to appload it in other AutoCADs or add it to the lisp of lisps to auto-load... The lisp seems to do what you want ?

I've had very good luck with Seagates - in fact I have a 500gb, a 1tb and a 1.5tb, all of them external. Two are for backups and one is for everyday use.

Yep, here was the explanation in the email I got from a friend. @unknownuser said: It's a hard disk drive back in 1956... with 5 MB of storage. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first 'SUPER' computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored a 'whopping' 5 MB of data. Do you appreciate your 8 GB memory stick a little more now? And if you could not read TIG's post... @tig said: it's an IBM 305 RAMAC. That central cylinder is a hard drive. IBM introduced the hard drive (RAMAC) in 1956; it stored 5Mb [that's Mb NOT Gb !!!] in an enclosure the size of a big refrigerator, and cost ~$150,000. 1Tb now costs ~£300 !!! So we now have ~10,485,760 more space per dollar after 50+ years of development: it also fits in a much smaller volume...

Here is a Graphics card test from cgarchitect: http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review076_1.asp

cool! where can I buy them? hmm... maybe I could just make them... [grabs DIY kit]

With a Lounge-Book we could all work from bed. It would save a fortune on heatings bills

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778%28VS.85%29.aspx There are one extra factor in play here: some applications has a flag set that they can address a little extra memory, most doesn't 32bit Application on: Windows 32bit 2GB by default 3GB is the application is Large Address Aware Windows 64bit 2GB by default (Sketchup is one of these) 4GB is the application is Large Address Aware (Vectorworks 2010 is one of these)