the week that was...

It’s been a busy week this week, so I haven’t had a lot of time to think about what to say. I’ve been helping a client with interiorCAD for the last two weeks. I’ve been on site with the staff for about 1 ½ hrs every day and now we are at the part where we connect to the CNC machine. I made a small change to set up in interiorCAD and the parts for the unit came into WoodWOP perfectly, not only that but they can be used directly in WoodNEST as well to optimise the parts on the boards. After a couple of weeks of training it’s all working out well.

A couple of issues have come up:

• memory - some people are trying to run VectorWorks and interiorCAD with a small amount of memory, you should have at least 1GB of memory to run VectorWorks or interiorCAD. Yes, you can manage on less but you are running a business. Surely it’s not about just managing, I thought the issue was about giving you and your staff the right tools for the job. I added 512MB of ram to my PC yesterday, it cost me $115NZ. That’s not a lot of money to keep VectorWorks running happily.

• screen size - I have been teaching VectorWorks to people that have a 15” monitor (1024x768 resolution). This is OK for my laptop, I only use it on the road, but my main machine has much more screen area than that. I use 2 monitors on my main machine, each one set to 1280x1024 resolution. This allows me to see a lot more of the drawing in VectorWorks and I can keep the Navigation Palette, Resource Browser and the Object Info Palette all open on the screen. I think that 1280x1024 (17” LCD) is the minimum for running VectorWorks. Get the tools that you need to do the job. The job will be a lot more fun that way...