Pro/ENGINEER FAQ 2008

I can never get enough screen real estate, so here’s my latest:

This isn’t as extravagant as it looks. If you upgrade your 20″ with a 30″, just hang onto the old 20″ and rotate it. Set it to the left and dump all your icons and the menu bar on it. Dual DVI cards like most of the Quadros will support both monitors in separate rotations. Remember, graphics card bandwidth just keeps going up while monitor prices keep going down.

Making the big monitor primary helps with the Pro/E window management. It also puts your other applications / workspaces / popups (E-mail, Pro/INTRALINK, Pro/E FAQ) in front of you temporarily. Close / move them off to the secondary monitor when you return to Pro/E.

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I have a soft spot for PKZIP, so I’m going to give this a try.

A full individual, non-commercial use, perpetual license for PC Magazine Editor’s Choice Award winning software - what have you got to lose?

Free SecureZip Licens for non-commercial use

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Suggested Technique for Using Parameters in Formats

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Everyone but me must know this, but here’s a pointer to a PTC/USER post explaining the process. Fairly simple:

ldbconvert <current.proilocation> 1 <dataserverport>@<dataserver> <imported.proilocation>

Thanks, Peter Nurkse. Olaf has it covered at his proesite.com, as well.

I’ll have to test it out.

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Did you know that “hidden” parts will not be exported during IGES exports?

It’s a quick and dirty way to protect your intellectual property or simplify models. There are other ways to remove components during export, but this is definitely “KISS”.

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FAILSAFE
-adjective: guaranteed to work; totally reliable.

How many servers does it take to enable workers to use your Pro/E network? 0,1,2,3,4?

Do you have one server for licenses, another for Intralink databases, and another for workspaces? How about printing?

??? Do you really need (want?) so many failure points in your network?

Pro/E is a simple TCP/IP protocol. It doesn’t need a Windows domain server (you can login without it). Workspaces on network shares (you can still work in your workspace without logging into Intralink) are not supported by PTC. Dedicated license servers for multiple products may seem like a good idea, but they’re not really. Do you really need a Windows server just to plot? Use LPR printing - let your workstation serve itself.

Simplify your network, let your people do their job.

Consider a no server scenario: how about license checkout? or locked (way old school) licenses for full-time users?

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OK, you’ve got yourself a hot new 30″ monitor to go with your screamin’ Quadro card, but you’re only getting 1280 x 800 graphics?

Problem: ONLY ONE of the DVI connectors on the back actually supplies Dual Link DVI. They may look the same, but they’re not! I normally put my cables into the connector at the top of the card, but the #1 connector on my two cards, (a 560 and 3450) is actually the bottom, and seems to be the Dual Link DVI connector.

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I’m going to attempt to summarize the “Best Practice” information I’ve collected over the years in a couple of pages over the next few months. If you have something to contribute, please post - but don’t expect to see your individual post; it will be combined with others in the summary pages.

Let the fun begin.

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Over the years I’ve had several Contour Design mice. The last one was kinda disappointing, but I was desperate for a new mouse and I went back to Contour. They still offer an “ergonomic” 3-button mouse in several sizes, as well as left and right hands. The neat thing about their latest mouse is the scroll wheel above the thumb. Now you can keep the soft action of the middle button and have the scrolling at your thumb tip. Contour has updated the optical tracking, so this mouse is ready to go.

It’s kind of pricey, but I’m back in “like” with Contour’s Perfit Mouse. If you get tired of “clicking” a scroll wheel, give this a try.

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