ADaMac

AutoCad 09 Won’t Use CTB Files

Andrew — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:00:37 +0000

This was a strange issue that came up in the Interior Design program. The instructors had created the Color dependent plot styles or CTB files and they weren’t appearing as available when plotting. I’m not expert in AutoCad so it took a while for me to solve this. The strange thing was that some plot styles were appearing. They were STB files. Also, when the instructor would open an older drawing, the CTB styles were available.

Turns out that AutoCad opens by default using a Named plot style drawing template and those happen to use STB files. The way to allow these drawings to use the CTB styles was to run the following command in the AutoCad command terminal.

convertpstyles

That’s it, all should be well now. Perhaps the instructor should have known this but it never hurts to look extra smart at times.

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Copy Office 08 Preferences to All Users

Andrew — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:55:36 +0000

Microsoft Office 08 has this nasty problem of bugging every user for registration and update details. In an education environment, this is not good. Every new login who opens Word or any other Office app, gets annoyed to register and participate in their feedback program. The way to solve this is not too hard but still, MS should not be doing this.

Login as a new user on the machine.
Launch Word and go through the Registration wizard. Close and reopen to make sure no other prompts annoy you.
Navigate inside your
/Library/Preferences
folder and move all the Microsoft files to a new folder.
There should be a handful of com.microsoft files and a Microsoft folder.
These files need to be placed in
/System/Library/User Template/Enlish.lproj/Preferences
I use Apple Remote Desktop to do this.

Now when a new user logs in to that machine, they will get the Microsoft preferences from this folder and Office won’t bother them anymore.

Dreamweaver CS4 Runtime Error

Andrew — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:36:46 +0000

I was receiving this Visual C++ Runtime Error in Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 and after hours of work, I finally solved it. At first I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the whole Master Suite. This didn’t solve the problem and I was growing tired. After realizing the error didn’t occur when I logged in as a different user I looked at the registry. I exported then deleted the following Registry folder:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Adobe

All the CS4 apps went back to their default state and Dreamweaver opened correctly. If you encounter this error, before you reinstall the whole suite, give this a try. Just make sure you export a copy of the Adobe folder before you delete it.

Add Network Printers to all Users in XP

Andrew — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:35:57 +0000

In Windows XP, local printers can be setup for one user and from that point on they are available to anyone else that logs in. Network printers don’t behave in this way. XP wants networked printers to be added to each individual account. This is normally handled by policies in Exchange but what if you just want to add a network printer to all users and don’t use Exchange? Running this command in XP will do just that.

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\targetcomputername /n\\printer-server\printer-name

Replace with your details and that network printer should be available to anyone who logs in. You need to restart the computer for this to take affect.

InDesign Hangs

Andrew — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:50:08 +0000

InDesign was displaying a strange problem where after it was launched and a new document was created, it would freeze and hang. After an hour of messing around, I found the problem was a Japanese Typography plugin called SING in the plugins/text folder. I had completely uninstalled prior to this so I’m not sure if that plugin is an Adobe plugin or not.

27″ iMac Firmware Fix Available

Andrew — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:44:36 +0000

Apple made a new update available today for the 27″ iMacs. Hopefully this will solve the whole screen flickering issue. It’s a firmware update to the ATI HD graphic cards.

Updates the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or display flickering.

I have already returned my flickering iMac so I can’t test out this fix.

27″ iMac Screen Problems Are Hardware Related

Andrew — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:24:36 +0000

UPDATE 2:

Apple came out and replaced the LCD screen and the vertical sync cable. After two hours, the problem re-appeared. Apple is now going to replace the whole iMac.

UPDATE:

On the fifth day now and the iMac running XP is starting to flicker. I was wrong in believing this was a software issue. I’ll get Apple out here to fix it and report back what components were faulty.

We received six new 27″ Core 2 Duo iMacs and I was giddy. After setting up four of them, mine started to flicker and black out. I was sad but I thought I would just image it to another and call Apple at my convenience. All went well and a few days later I called Apple. After a lot of details they wanted me to wipe and load the machine fresh from the Snow Leopard disk. Then I was to call back if that didn’t solve the problem.

I did as they instructed and for 24 hours I thought it was solved. Then I came in Friday morning and the machine was flickering again. This got me to thinking, what would happen if I loaded XP in Bootcamp? Is this a hardware problem that would migrate to another OS or is this a driver issue? Off I went loading XP and I was surprised by the results.

After loading XP, I could not get the machine to flicker. Even after four days of abuse. This was an XP SP3 load using the Bootcamp drivers off the Snow Leopard disk. This leads me to believe that it is a driver or software problem in OSX. That’s good news in my opinion. I’m sure consumers would rather download an update that fixed the issue instead of having to return the whole unit and start over. It seems Apple is shorting retailers these models until they can figure it out.

Change Password Using ARD

Andrew — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:48:19 +0000

Recently we had an issue with a student discovering the local admin password on the Macs. Now we have to change this globally. This may not be the easiest way but this is how I do it. Turn on all the machines you want to change and send out this unix command in Apple Remote Desktop as root.

passwd username newpassword newpassword

There you go, the local password has been changed. If there’s an easier way to do this with Workgroup Manager or similar, let me know.

Sassafras K2 Custom Package

27″ iMac Screen Flashing

Andrew — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:35:33 +0000

I am starting to get weird video issues on my new 27″ iMac. It’s the Core2Duo model, not the i5 so I don’t believe it’s a processor issue. Mine has the ATI Radeon 4670 in it. Currently, the only was to fix it when the screen goes bonkers is to reboot or wait long enough and it will fix itself. I’ll report back with what Apple does to fix this problem.

27″ iMac has no audio in XP

Andrew — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:56:21 +0000

I found a strange issue with the 27″ iMac, XP and Bootcamp 3.0. There is no sound coming out of the iMac’s internal speakers while in XP. The solution is to open Sounds and Audio Devices in the control panel. Goto the Audio tab and select Cirrus Logic HD Audio, from the pulldown for Sound Playback.