Blog is moving

I have officially moved my blog to a new location. Please change your blog readers and bookmarks to point to: http://paulaubin.com/blog/

Thank you very much.

Christmas Wreath Sale - Support Boy Scout Troop 1615 - Till Nov 8th

Please pardon this interuption, but my son is selling Christmas Wreaths for his boy scout troop. If you would like to consider supporting his efforts, please visit this page: http://paulaubin.com/blog/wreaths/

Thank you.

Off Topic - Celestia

When I am not writing about Revit or AutoCAD, doing training or consulting, shuttling kids to ball games and activities, I have an interest in astronomy which I try to feed whenever I can. I try to drag the telescope out a couple times a year, I have a subscription to Sky and Telescope and I have a wonderful open source program called Celestia! This little wonder is an accurate 3D representation of the solar system (or really the galaxy). There are thousands of stars and other celestial objects in this program accurately scaled. You can jump in your virtual rocket ship and fly to the moon, the sun, the stars or beyond. best of all, since all distances are accurate, you really get a sense of just how long it would take to travel to these places. It is mind-blowing really!

Well, Celestia also let's us do the impossible. We can turn on our warp drive and just like the movies fly instantly to distant stars and planets. I have spent hours marveling at the wonders of the universe in this spectacular program.  Best of all it is FREE!

I also give presentation son this program every year to the children at my kid's school. They love it. To help me with the presentation, I have turned to a wonderful set of education resources for Celestia created by Frank Gregorio. Frank is a teacher in Manassas VA. Frank's education version of Celestia is NOT free, but it is priced VERY reasonably and I think worth every penny. He provides a customized version of the program complete with many exciting add-ons and over 40 hours of education activities and tutorials that you can follow alone or in a group to learn all sorts of fascinating facts about our solar system and universe. Since I have ordered Frank's education version, I am on his email list and recently he sent along the following offer for the holidays. If you are looking for something truly unique for the astronomy buff in your life, then Celestia Education Activities is worth a serious look:

-----

I hope you have been enjoying Celestia Educational Activities and the wonders of the cosmos it has taken you to.  If so, perhaps you know of someone else who would love to take these exciting educational journeys through the Celestia Universe.

Celestia Educational Activities would make an ideal Xmas or Hanukkah gift, or birthday or appreciation gift for a family member, friend or work associate who is captivated by Astronomy and the stars, and would love to also travel deep into space in the Celestia 1.   At only $29 (plus shipping) for a personal use license, its 40+ hours of space journeys can provide many thrilling hours of enjoyment for your family and friends.

To order a gift DVD or CD set today in plenty of time for the holidays, just visit http://gregs-educational.info.  We will ship it to your home or business address, or to any shipping address you wish.

Warmest Regards,

Frank Gregorio  


-----
In the interest of full disclosure, I do not receive any of the proceeds for sales of Celestia Education Activities. I was not asked to promote them. I simply love the program and want to share it with as many folks as I can. 


I hope you will give it a try. And remember, the program is also available for free if you are not interested in the customized education version or the activities, you can learn more here. I hope you like it. Thanks. 

Launch!

The new Paulaubin.com is here. Over the next few days, we'll be tweaking it and making minor updates and corrections, but we are live (and thankfully my email is working again). Please pay us a visit at:

www.paulaubin.com

Thanks very much. Books are actually starting to publish now, so stay tuned for more announcements.

PaulAubin dot Com Overhaul

My website is currently undergoing a major upgrade. As such, if you are trying to visit today or in the next 48 hours it might appear to be down. We are moving to a new server and rebuilding all the backend. It is a very exciting time for us and I hope that this little hiccup in service is not an inconvenience to anyone. I may also experience some hiccups in email during the transition, so if you need to reach me, please use my gmail: paulfaubin and/or give me a call.

Thank you very much and stay tuned for an announcement when the new site is up and running!

The Book is here!

After a VERY long wait this cycle, I am happy to announce that today I received my copy of The Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2011.

This is the 2011 edition of my Revit Architecture book: Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture 2010. This year we have re-branded this and other books under the new banner of "The Aubin Academy Master Series."  This was done for a few reasons. First, there was already (and has been for some time) another title called "Mastering Revit Architecture." It is by another publisher and by different authors. So part of the re-branding is an attempt to eliminate some of the confusion caused by having two different books with essentially the same title. The other reason for the switch is to help group all of my books (4 titles this year) under a single banner.

Here is a photo of the actual book! Now I really do believe that it has published because I am holding it in my hands!

To give you a sneak peak at some of what you can expect to find in its pages please visit some of the previous posts like these which include excerpts from the topics in the book on making custom elevation tags:
Elevation Tags Part 1
Elevation Tags Part 2

And this excerpt that details the process of setting up shared coordinates in a Revit project.
Excerpt for Chapter 6.

Book Dataset
The book no longer includes a CD/DVD. You download the dataset online.
You can find the complete dataset for the book here.
This is on a page hosted by the publisher. To see the complete book page on CengageBrain (the publisher's site), click here.

The other three books in the Aubin Academy Master Series are:

The Aubin Academy Master Series: AutoCAD Architecture 2011 - Due October 27

The Aubin Academy Master Series: AutoCAD MEP 2011 (co-authored with Darryl McClellan, Martin Schmid and Gregg Stanley) - Due October 27

The Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit MEP 2011 (co-authored with Darryl McClellan, Martin Schmid and Gregg Stanley) - Due in December

And don't forget my Revit Architecture Essentials Training at lynda.com.

VICO Software is hiring

VICO Software is fast growing company offering 4D and 5D solutions to the AECO industry. And, they are hiring! VICO is actively recruiting Project Engineers in both northern and southern California. Please read through the job description.

Autodesk University Schedules

Hello:

I hope that you will all make the trip to Las Vegas this year for Autodesk University 2010. I am speaking at 6 classes total this year! Three where I am the primary speaker and three where I am co-speaking with others. I will be teaching two sessions with my MEP co-authors - Gregg, Martin and Darryl. and another with my longtime friend and collaborator Matt Dillon. Each of these guys is a top notch AU speaker as well and they have been speaking for years both individually and separately. I have included all of our schedules here in a handy chart in case you are looking for good classes to attend. Thanks and again, hope to see you there!

Aubin Academy Master Series: AutoCAD MEP 2011

It has been an interesting summer. The exciting news is that all of my books are rebranded this year as the "Aubin Academy Master Series" - Exciting! This includes AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD MEP, Revit Architecture and new this year: Revit MEP! (need to get that one finished, but more on that later).

The disappointing news is that we have experienced delays at the publisher and all the rebranded books are LATE. Arrgggg. Well, to try to soften the blow a little, I am going to post some sample chapters. Let's start with a sample from the new edition of the AutoCAD MEP book. You can find the complete text of Chapter 6 here.

Please enjoy!

Custom Revit Elevation Tags - Part 2

Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this post. In a post a couple weeks ago, I shared the steps to create a custom elevation tag with a PDF excerpt from the soon to be published Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2011. (Sorry the book is slow to store shelves. I am assured by the publisher that it will be here soon...)

Meanwhile, here is the second part of the tutorial on creating and adding custom elevation tags in Revit Architecture 2011. This part of the tutorial is from Chapter 4 in the new book. The previously posted excerpt was from Chapter 10. (In the book, I show you first how to load a pre-built tag that I provide in Chapter 4, and then how to build it yourself later in Chapter 10).

You can find a PDF with the steps here.

If you did not build the tag, the previous post explaining how to do so, or you can simply download the completed Revit file here.

I hope you find this post helpful. Have fun creating your new elevation tags!

Teaching Revit at Moraine Valley this Fall

I'll be teaching MDT-292 at Moraine Valley Community College again this Fall. The course is Tuesday and Thursday evenings 6:00 to 8:15 PM. The college description for the course is found toward the bottom of this page: http://www.morainevalley.edu/schedule/bin/descriptions.asp?prefix=MDT.

Moraine Valley Community College is located in Palos Hills, IL. If you are in the Chicago area, you might want to check it out.

Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2011

The 2011 edition of Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture is almost here. The book is being re-branded this year as part of the Aubin Academy Master Series. As we do every year, the entire book has been revised, new material added for 2011, existing content enhanced to reflect current best-practices and techniques and where found, errors and omissions fixed. This year's edition will be a little larger than last years reflecting new features for 2011.

To give you an example, I would like to share an extract of the text with you here. An exciting new feature in 2011 is the long requested ability to customize elevation tags. The 2011 edition of the book includes two tutorials, one detailing how to load and apply a custom elevation tag (in Chapter 4) and another detailing how to build the custom tag from scratch in the Family Editor (this is in Chapter 10). I have extracted the text of the tutorial from Chapter 10 and posted it here. Enjoy! I will post the steps from Chapter 4 in a future post, so stay tuned.

Excerpt from Chapter 10 of Aubin Academy Master Series: Revit Architecture 2011:

Creating Custom Elevation Tags (download PDF).

More free Revit videos on lynda.com

Several samples of the Revit Architecture 2011 Essentials training that I authored on lynda.com are available for viewing on YouTube.

Here they are:

Revit Architecture 2011 Essential Training now on lynda.com

I am pleased to announce the availability of my first course for lynda.com. lynda.com has been providing high quality video training for creative software for many years. There are thousands of courses to choose from including Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dream Weaver, Flash), Microsoft projects (Office 2007, Office 2010), portable devices (iPhone) and much more.

The list of Autodesk product training offerings has been increasing each year as well with courses currently available for AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Maya, Sketchbook Pro and now, just released, Revit Architecture 2011 by yours truly! I am thrilled to join such an expert team of authors as those assembled by lynda.com.

In this 8 1/2 hour course, I cover all the basics of Revit from modeling, adding annotation, creating basic Families, linking files, plotting and more. You can read the complete description of the course and view free sample movies here.

Autodesk University

I'll be speaking again at Autodesk University this year. I have quite a mix. I have a very exciting class on Revit Architecture planned called "Make a Strong Finish! - Revit, Interiors and Finishes". I'll be joining Matt Dillon and Matt Stachoni in a class called "Real Life Stories of the BIM Patrol". Should be fun and exciting.

 

I'll be teaching two classes on AutoCAD Architecture: One on creating the ultimate Door Schedule, and a reprise of my popular "Breaking free of the plan" class. Finally, I will be joined by my co-authors Martin Schmid, Darryl McClelland and Gregg Stanley for two panel discussion: one on AutoCAD MEP and the other on Revit MEP, both titled: "Ask the Experts."

I'll post more details when I have them, but if you haven't attended AU before, this is the premiere training and networking event of the year. If you have attended, then you know what I mean. Hope to see you all there!

Book Updates

So its summertime again and that means trying to get book updates finished! We have four books slated for release this year and some re-branding as well. The four books are:


















The Aubin Academy Mastering Series: Revit Architecture 2011 (formally Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture).

The Aubin Academy Mastering Series: AutoCAD MEP 2011 (formally Mastering AutoCAD MEP)

These two are slated to hit stores late August. 

The Aubin Academy Mastering Series: AutoCAD Architecture 2011 (formally Mastering AutoCAD Architecture). This one should hit the streets by mid-September.  

Finally, we have a new title this year: 

The Aubin Academy Mastering Series: Revit MEP 2011. I am co-authoring this my three existing co-authors Gregg Stanley, Darryl McClelland and Martin Schmid. We don't have a pub date for this one yet, but hope to have it out late Fall.  

Workset Crash Solved

Thanks to some folks who left comments here on my previous post, I have figured out the reason for my Revit Workset Crash! Thanks very much.

Here is a cross-post of the solution. This is my response to the AUGI thread that ultimately led to the solution.
If you want to read the entire AUGI thread, you can find it here.

--

I was having a similar issue. I placed a post about it on my blog and got some comments back, one of which directed me to this thread. Steve's reply about the factory post (and disabling addons) did the trick! (Isn't the Internet great? Blog post > Comment > Link to AUGI > Post > Link to Factory > Success! )

Anyhow, here is the summary: In Revit Arch and MEP 2011, I could create a Workshared project, but the next time I tried to open the Worksets dialog, I would crash Revit. STC worked, Save worked, just if you click Worksets, poof.

So, I dragged all Addins to my desktop, tried it, it worked fine. SOOO, I began adding them back to the folder one at a time.

Worksharing monitor - check
Batch Plot - check
MEP Space Naming - check
Revit DB Link - check
Model Review - check
Google Link - check
Avatech Utilities - check (so glad this wasn't it. I use these tools all the time - great stuff).
Revit Extensions - POOF - This is the one!

When I launch, I get the following error:

Revit cannot run the external application "ARECRevitStart" contact the provide of this external tool with the information below

System.IO.FileLoadException
System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'AREXManager,
Version=2011.0.0.1408, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The
parameter is incorrect. ﴾Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070057 ﴾E_INVALIDARG﴿﴿
File name: 'AREXManager, Version=2011.0.0.1408, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' ‐‐‐>
System.ArgumentException: The path is not of a legal form.
   at System.IO.Path.NormalizePathFast﴾String path, Boolean fullCheck﴿
   at System.IO.Path.GetFullPathInternal﴾String path﴿
   at System.IO.Directory.InternalGetFileDirectoryNames﴾String path, String userPathOriginal,
String searchPattern, Boolean includeFiles, Boolean includeDirs, SearchOption searchOption﴿
   at System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories﴾String path, String searchPattern, SearchOption
searchOption﴿
   at System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories﴾String path﴿
   at 16X1KUK4svrrlwHMOP.vhGAR3PPbtEL1aD7bU.7KsIl5cW4﴾Object , ResolveEventArgs , String ,
Assembly ﴿
   at System.AppDomain.OnAssemblyResolveEvent﴾String assemblyFullName﴿
   at REX.Common.Start.REXStartProxy.OnStartup﴾﴿
   at REX.AREXRevitStart.AREXRevitStart.OnStartup﴾UIControlledApplication application﴿
   at revitManagedAppStartup﴾MFCApp* pMFCApp, AString* assemblyName, AString* className,
AString* exceptionName, AString* exceptionMessage﴿


You can click CLose and continue. Now admitedly, this is not the first time I have seen this error. I just figured, well, until I need that addon, I won't worry about it. :-) Silly me. Well, I have uninstalled it, submitted the report to Autodesk and all systems seem to be a go now.

Thanks to the folks who posted on my blog and helped out here.

Workset Crash

Anyone else having this issue? In Revit 2011, anytime I try to access the Workset dialog, Revit crashes. Happens both when I click the Worksets button and when I try to use the Specify option during open.

What is most annoying is that I get this message about four times before it finishes crashing. Even worse than that, it happens in both Revit Architecture and Revit MEP 2011. I don't have Revit Structure installed, but i suspect it would happen there too.

Anyone have a potential solution? I have tried the repair and reinstall options. I have not tried to uninstall and reinstall yet, because I am not looking forward to having to do that and wait an hour or so for the process to complete, but that is coming next...

I made the list!

You know in grade school, having a name that started with "A" meant always sitting in first seat, first row... ICK. But as a professional, and when appearing on lists "not in any particular order" it is quite nice to have the "A".

David Baldacchino just published a list of names he recommends for speaking this year at Autodesk University. I am not sure how much weight the public voting has on the classes selected to AU, but it can be fun to participate. If you are planning to go to AU or attend AU Virtual this year, visit the voting site and cast your lot. (of course if a class you like now doesn't get picked, that could be a bummer)

I would also like to add a few names to David's list:

Matt Dillon

Robert Mencarini

Darryl McClelland
Martin Schmid
Matt Stachoni
Gregg Stanley

And I was surprised that David didn't mention our good friend Steve Stafford, but I don't see his name on the voting list, so maybe Steve is taking this year off... Bummer.

Anyhow, Thanks David for the shout out. Happy voting everyone.

Back when I was in school....

I received my Bachelor of Architecture degree 20 years ago from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. The year before that, 1989 I received my Bachelor of Science in Architecture as CUA had a five-year (4 + 1) architectural program (not too many of those left today).

One of the highlights CUA's architectural program was the foreign studies program. Each year a small group of students would compete for the limited slots available for a Summer abroad in the great architectural centers of Europe. If you were in the five-year program, you were eligible to go in your fourth year (final undergrad year). A jury was held in Architectural studio to determine who would get to go. I believe that my graduating class had about 60 students, but only 15 slots were available. CUA also had a graduate program for folks with a prior degree in a field other than architecture. Five of the slots available were reserved for the graduate program. I was fortunate enough to secure one of the ten spots for undergrads.

The year that we went on foreign studies, our dean came along for the trip as one of the instructors. He introduced  a new destination that year: Tunisia. We started the summer in Rome and traveled all over Italy for about 6 weeks. We then journeyed to Tunisia where we spent 2 weeks, before finishing the summer with 3 weeks in Paris.

This was not just a fun trip. We were graded, had projects and received credit for the semester. The project in Tunisia was somewhat unique. We were tasked with measuring and documenting several indigenous mosques on the isle of Djerba. This work was done with the simplest of tools: tape measure, pencil and paper. There was not AutoCAD or Revit on this trip. I was recently reminded of this experience and given to opportunity to revisit all the wonderful memories as compiled in a beautifully crafted memoir prepared by our instructor (the aforementioned dean) Professor Stanley Hallet. Stanley began hunting down the emails and contact information of the students who participated and with our help, compiled a wonderful collection of photographs and stories. All of this has been compiled in a beautiful book commemorating the experience.

If you have any interest in indigenous architecture, Tunisia, hand drawing or the like, you might want to check it out. Stanley has done a marvelous job compiling our experiences in both words and pictures and you can find a copy of his book here. I am not sure what I enjoy most: the breathtaking images of stark white mosques against the deep blue sky, or seeing myself 20 years younger, thin and with hair...

45 Degree Earth Pattern for Revit

A client recently asked me about rotating patterns in Revit. The reason for the question was that they wanted to rotate a pattern that was imported from a PAT file-namely the Earth hatch pattern. They like the Earth pattern to be at a 45 degree angle. Alas, it is not possible to rotate an imported pattern in Revit. Patterns created directly in Revit (which limits you to just lines in one or both directions) can be rotated, but imported patterns must be at the correct rotation to begin with. This is kind of a silly limitation its true, but this gave me an excuse to dust off my old copy of Sham Tickoo's Customizing AutoCAD.

I have provided a link here to the current edition on Amazon; I have a somewhat older version. But fortunately hatch patterns in AutoCAD have not changed very much in nearly 20 years. So the instructions in my old copy enabled me to create a modified version of the Earth hatch pattern, import it into Revit and then use it as the cut pattern for the material applied to topography in a Revit project.

I have provided the PAT file here. If you wish to create it yourself, simply open NotePad and type the following:

*EARTH45, Earth or ground at 45 degrees(subterranean)
45, 0,0, .25,.25, .25,-.25
45, -.06629, .06629, .25,.25, .25,-.25
45, -.13258, .13258, .25,.25, .25,-.25
135, -.13258,.17678, .25,.25, .25,-.25
135, -.06629,.24307, .25,.25, .25,-.25
135, 0,.30936, .25,.25, .25,-.25

Save the file as: EARTH45.pat

1. In Revit, open Materials (Manage tab), select the Site - Earth Material. 
2. For the Cut Pattern, browse for a new pattern. 
3. In the Fill Patterns dialog, click New. 
4. Click the Custom radio button. 
5. Name the new pattern something like Earth45 and then click Import. 
6. Browse to the PAT file from above. 

Update to Course|Notes for Revit

Who would have thought there would be so much to do updating Course|Notes reference cards for Revit 2011. I had to create 20 new images. There are only 37 images on the whole card, so that is over 50%!

Course|Notes Reference cards are six page fold out cards (8 1/2" x 11"). They cover many of the basic commands and techniques and serve as an ongoing reference to the most frequently used commands of the software. They are full color and packed with images. I have just sent the new version of Revit Architecture card into production. AutoCAD Arch, AutoCAD MEP will follow shortly. We will also be doing one for Revit MEP later this year. 

KnowledgeSmart

I often joke with my editors that I could pepper the final chapters of my books with profanity and we would never hear anything about it. This because the evidence points to their being high readership of the early chapters and a precipitous drop off from there. Of course whenever I make the above suggestion, the editor usually has a minor panic attack hoping that I am just kidding. (By now I think they know that I am... or am I... Have you read what's on page 716? hmmm? Well there is nothing terribly provocative on page 716 (but it made you look didn't it?).

Now, high-numbered pages may suffer from low readership, but they are not the lowest. No that honor would have to go to the pages of the preface. I think most of us are guilty of this one. You get a new book and after a quick leafing through (and after catching a whiff of that "new book smell") you just want to dive right in. So I am sure that most of would have to admit that Prefaces, Tables of Contents, and Introductions usually command a skim at best. Well, that brings me to the point of today's post. I got an email today indicating that evaluation results were available for one of my readers. Did you know that if you own a copy of Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture 2010 that you were entitled to not one, but TWO free KnowledgeSmart evaluations? Hmmm? Well, you might want to just flip to page xiii to learn more. (Yup, those are Roman numerals, I am pretty sure next to NO ONE reads those...)

Well, for those that have, you got yourself a little freebie. Enjoy.

A little about KnowledgeSmart
KnowledgeSmart (formally CADSmart) provides online knowledge assessment exams. From their home page: "Our web based testing tools help AEC businesses to capture and share knowledge. It is important for firms to know if skills gaps exist and where to focus learning to show significant productivity and efficiency improvements." Their latest assessment exam uses a combination of "knowledge based" and "skill based" questions to test your knowledge of the topic. You download a ZIP package and when instructed, open one of the included files, perform some task in the software and then answer the accompanying question(s). Other questions simply query your existing knowledge. The exam is scored automatically by the software and instant results are displayed and emailed to you. Some exams even include "coaching content" which will give you guidance on how to improve your skills. I have been working with the folks at KnowledgeSmart for a few years now. They are a very professional outfit and their tools are well designed and high quality. (Full disclosure: I was paid a consulting fee to create exam questions for the Revit Assessment).

They offer plans for firms wanting to test their employees or assess new hires. Exams can be used "off the shelf" or customized to include questions on office standards or procedures. If you are in need of such a tool, give them a try. I can guarantee that they will work hard to earn your business and continue to work with you over the long term to ensure that your needs are continually met.

Once again, if you have a copy of Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture 2010, you get two Revit Assessments for free! What better way to try their service out? 

Update to the Update

As an author, you never want to have to submit an update. This is like admitting you goofed the first time. But having to update the update... That's a little more than a goof... Well, looks like that is exactly what I have to do. Seems the update I posted a while back for Chapter 10 metric (in Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture) contained the wrong file. (Not a very useful update then was it?) I have corrected that and posted the correct file now. In fact, I added ALL the metric files to the ZIP file for Chapter 10. Enjoy.

Revit Curtain Walls and Demolition

I received an email from a client this week asking about how to demolish part of a Curtain Wall in Revit. They included the following image:

While the phasing tools in Revit are pretty useful, it is unfortunately not possible to demo part of a Curtain Wall. The phasing parameters can only apply to the overall Wall object, not the Mullions, or Panels or Grids.

So what to do? Well cheat of course!

What you need to do is create the Curtain Wall in pieces. Since you cannot add phasing to a portion of the overall Curtain Wall, make several smaller Curtain Walls based on what phase they need to be. It is more work admittedly, but it does do the trick.

The basic process is as follows. Look for where you can break up the Curtain Wall. Don't simply use the split tool in plan, because this will split the Curtain Wall along its full height. Rather, use the Add/Remove Grid segments command and the Empty System Panel to remove just the portions you need to remove. Then go back and draw new small Curtain Walls in the locations that you removed from the main ones. These smaller Curtain Walls can then be assigned any phase as needed.

It is very important to use the System Panel: Empty panel type where you want to "delete" panels. Do not simply try to delete them. This does not work. Revit will keep adding a default panel back again after you delete. Use the Empty panel and it will appear like it has been removed.

I have prepared a short video of the steps. You can watch it here. Enjoy!

Echo - Off topic Hotel Rooms

Just reading Steve Stafford's blog and his off topic musing about a recent hotel stay.

Ah yes. I can relate! I thought I would continue his train of thought here with few observations of my own. I tend to stay in Marriott properties, nothing too fancy. I like Residence Inn the best. It is a good blend of comfortable space, free Internet and Breakfast (and sometimes dinner) included at a reasonable price.

My comments here are not about a specific hotel as Steve's were as I am home right now, but I have seen plenty of trends myself. For example, I totally agree with you Steve about the poorly placed outlets. Why can't they just have a few well placed UNUSED outlets right near the night table? Steve mentioned the lights in the bathroom, I always seem to find the light in the main room too dim. If you get back to your room early enough, you can open the shades and let some real light in, but if it is later and getting dark outside, my experience is that the small lamps scattered about the room never seem to be bright enough.

But here's the one that always gets me: Almost every hotel these days has a little sign saying something like "Go Green" or "Help us Protect the Environment" or something like that. You go on to read that if you want to save water and waste less detergent and such, that you can reuse your towels. If you want to reuse your towels, hang them on the hook. If you want them washed, leave them on the floor. OK, seems reasonable. Most of the time I travel alone. there are three towels in the room to begin with. If I use each one twice, that is 6 days, and I usually only travel 3 - 5 days at a time. So I ALWAYS hang my towel. I figure, no need to wash these, its just me. I do not think I have EVER come back to my room to find the towel I left hanging still there. They always replace them anyway. So why have the sign? I remain baffled by this.

Anyhow, thanks Steve for the amusing post and the opportunity to commiserate.

Looking for feedback on Mastering AutoCAD MEP 2010 Book

We are fast at work on the 2011 version of Mastering AutoCAD MEP and I figured this would be a great time to solicit some constructive feedback about the book.
First, I do want to thank all of you who have sent in emails with the typos and corrections needed, it is a great help.
So, back to the reason of the post, since we are in the middle of writing the update, are there any suggestions or comments that would help us make the update more useful?

One idea we have been tossing around is creating a set of questions to answer either for each chapter or discipline or functional area to help users gauge what they have learned. So, the question for you is does this sound like a good idea? What format would you like? or any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Gregg

Mars in 3D

My buddy Jim Smell tipped me off on this awesome video. WOW is all I can say:



The complete article is here.

Update to Mastering Revit Architecture Metric Dataset

A reader pointed out to me that the metric files for Chapter 10 in Mastering Revit Architecture 2010 were incorrect. Many apologies for the confusion. I have posted a new version of the 10 Commercial-Metric.rvt file online. If you are using metric units in Mastering Revit Architecture, please download and unzip it to your Chapter10 folder. Thank you very much.

Also, related to Chapter 10 and the Family Editor, be sure to check out the Mastering the Family Editor series on DVD. You can find more about them at www.paulaubin.com/lrt (Enter coupon code: EYFEBJ7Q at checkout for 10% off of all DVDs).

Off Topic - Minor Pet Peeve

On the subject of social media.

I am formulating a more complete post on social media, but in the meantime, a quick pet peeve of mine. I have been a member of Plaxo and Linked In for several years. (I only just got on to FaceBook and Twitter). In general, my policy with respect to requests on Linked In is to accept them. (You never know when new business will come your way...) However, please, if I have never met you, or we just shook hands at AU, do not request to join my network as a "friend." Despite what FaceBook says, in my mind to be a friend, you must be someone who I have spent time with socially (real time, not virtual time), or someone I would choose to spend time with even if there was no business incentive to do so, and/or someone I have known longer than the existence of the the aforementioned social media sites.

So, by my way of thinking, if I have never met you face to face, or only met you in passing, I cannot define that as: "Friend." Please use one of the other options when reaching out. "We've done business together" or "We belong to the same group" are both excellent choices. If you use those, and promise not to spam, I will gladly accept the connection.

OK, rant over. Thanks for reading and humoring me.

Addenda to Chapter 6 in Mastering AutoCAD MEP

Thanks to the readers that email us with questions, we are able to keep you all up to date on the latest corrections we find in the text of my/our books. So thank you in advance to everyone who contacts us.

In this update, some of our readers are experiencing issues with the MAMEP piping catalog(s) that is used in Chapter 6 of Mastering AutoCAD MEP. The issue is that the Catalog and Part ID's may be the same as the default Catalogs from AutoCAD MEP 2010. If you are experiencing a problem selecting the fittings indicated in the Create a Routing Preference exercise, please download the MAMEP Pipes.zip file and replace the MAMEP Pipes.apc and the MAMEP Steel Pipes.apc file in C:\MasterMEP 2010\MAMEP Pipe with the ones provided in the zip file.

Thank you.

Minor Corrections for Mastering Revit Architecture

One of my readers emailed me with a few minor errors in the metric dimensions in Chapter 3 or Paul F. Aubin's Mastering Revit Architecture. David Philips writes:

"on page 147, step 38.  2'4" wide door would be 710mm not 762mm page 158, step 11.  9'-0" would be 2740mm not 1800mm."


I have verified both of these errors. If you are following the tutorials in Mastering Revit, please use the value of 710mm for step 38 on page 147. And also on page 158, please use the value of 2700mm for step 11, second bullet item. 


Thanks David for pointing these out to me. 

More ACA Roofs

Here is another post on AutoCAD Architecture Roofs.

Enjoy

MEP Book Discussion at Autodesk Discussion Forums

Good discussion going on in the Autodesk Discussion Groups regarding Mastering AutoCAD MEP. Check it out here.

Why not join in on the conversation?

Mastering MEP Dataset omission

Hello all. A reader recently sent me this in an email:

"Page 239 Step 13 refers to a folder and file that is not included on the CD included with the book."


Upon inspection, the reader is correct, the file is indeed missing, as is the folder that it should be in. We consolidated the dataset late in the process and looks like we missed a few references in the text. I believe that the file is now located at:

C:\MasterMEP 2010\MAMEP Commercial\constructs\Mechanical

However, to be certain, we are uploading it here as well. The file should be placed in MasterMEP 2010 directory under the Chapter04 sub-directory if that does not already exist. 

Betcha didn't know you could do that with Roofs in ADT (ACA)

I have always been a fan of the Roof (not Roof Slab, the original Roof) object. I like to call it the One-piece Roof. Now, don't get me wrong, this object has been left to wither on the vine over the years and certainly can use several improvements. However, that being said, it does have some interesting possibilities that are not always easy to do with slabs. Check out this post.