|
|
Cannon News Archives
Excerpts from the Cannon Newsletter
Following are excerpts from The Cannon News, a newsletter published quarterly.
Cannon in the Community - March 2000
MS Office Tips - March 2000
Auto Cad Tip - March 2000 - Plotting Several Drawings at One Time
Olde Towne Nipomo Project Wins 1st Place
The Central Coast American Planning Association Chapter has awarded 1st Place to the Olde Towne Nipomo Design and Circulation Plan for excellence in plan implementation for a small jurisdiction.
This Plan, prepared by the Cannon Associates Planning Department, is the result of two years of work with the Nipomo business community and the County of San Luis Obispo. The plan, which is now adopted by the County, will provide the framework for public improvements such as streets and parks. It also provides architectural and landscape guidelines for new businesses, and existing businesses wanting a face lift.
Cannon in the Community - March 2000
Did you know that in addition to the hours he puts in at Cannon, Dick Heffner also spends approximately 20 hours every month volunteering for the Habitat for Humanity? Habitat for Humanity is a worldwide Community Services Organization that facilitates the construction of new residential housing for low-income families. He started working with them 10 years ago and has recently been involved with the grading and permitting for three houses that are currently undergoing construction in Paso Robles. He finds donating his time and services, and the camaraderie and association with the other volunteers to be extremely gratifying. (What? You mean Thursday nights at Spike's with the Cannon crew isn't enough?)
Fun fact about Habitat: The average cost of a new home in California in 1998 was $180,000. The average cost of a new home built by Habitat for Humanity is $40,000. Hmmm, now I'm wondering how I can get them to build a house for me……Dick tells me that applicants are first screened to see if they meet the income qualifications and demonstrate a need, hardship, or disability. The chosen family must also spend anywhere from 200 to 500 hours assisting in the construction of their home. That counts me out, I hate splinters.
Most all of the materials for these homes are donated as well as the land. Locally, there are nearly 5,000 pounds of used and usable building materials stored at a new warehouse facility at Cuesta College. The biggest challenge the organization faces is acquiring property. Letters are sent out to vacant lot owners throughout the county, requesting donation of the property, sale at a reduced price, or cash donations to build future Habitat houses.
Locally, as many as 20 volunteers can be seen on any given weekend at a construction site but there are hundreds on the volunteer list. Dick recounted how recently a group of Cal Poly Architecture students wanted to assist with some design work, (yikes - have you seen those experimental structures in Poly Canyon?) Needless to say they were encouraged to stick to more conventional designs. Phew!
Lastly, Dick informed me that our own George Marchenko, Lance Rosenfield, Joshua Moody, and Laurie Lucas and the firm itself have also volunteered and/or provided financial donations to the local Habitat efforts. Way to go! The Habitat for Humanity is always looking for more volunteers to do everything from construction implementation to family selection. Contact the Habitat office at 782-0687 to find out how you can help.
MS Office Tips - March 2000
Speed Up Your Spell Checker
Word's spell checker will run faster if you don't ask it for suggestions. If you're willing to bet that you can correct typos once they're flagged, choose Tools, Options and click the Spelling tab when the Options dialog box opens. Deselect the Always Suggest check box, then click OK. Now when you run the spell checker, Word will flag misspellings, but won't make any suggestions.
Speedy Text Selection
Want to select an entire paragraph? Click any part of the paragraph three times. Or move your pointer to the left edge of the paragraph, and click twice when it changes shape to a right-angle outline. To select a single sentence, hold down your "Ctrl" button and click anywhere in the sentence.
Quick Trick for Common Phrases
If you tend to type the same phrases over and over, you can use the AutoCorrect function to save yourself some work and hair pulling. Select Tools, then AutoCorrect. In the Replace box, type in something easy to remember, and in the With box type the phrase you often use. For instance, to save typing "To whom it may concern:" replace it with the keystrokes TW#.
Formatting With AutoCorrect
AutoCorrect is not only for replacing text, but also for applying formatting changes. For example, suppose that you often need to type a line of bold, italic boilerplate text followed by a line of text that's always in the Heading 1 style, but the wording changes. Type your first line of text, formatted in bold italics, and press Enter. Now select the Heading 1 style (from the Style box on your Word toolbar) and then select both lines. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect and select the Formatted radio button. Specify the characters you want AutoCorrect to respond to and click OK. Now, when you type in the keystroke sequence, AutoCorrect will add the formatted boilerplate text, the carriage return, and the style change for you.
Auto Cad Tip - March 2000
Plotting Several Drawings at One Time
ACAD 14 includes a utility entitled, "Extended Batch Plot Utility" (ebatch.exe) that will enable you to plot several drawings at once - unattended. This can be a very useful tool when printing several sets of drawings throughout the life of a project.
To set up the utility, please follow these steps:
1. In paper space within the drawing, set up a view called "plot" and exit the drawing.
2. Create a shortcut on your desktop by browsing your c:\program files\ autodesk\ acadmap2\ support\ EBATCHP\ebatch.exe
3. Right click on ebatch.exe and drag to your desktop and select create shortcut
4. Once the icon has been created on your desktop, double click the icon to launch the utility.
5. At this point, you can add as many drawings to the List of Drawing to Plot Area.
6. Highlight the drawing(s) and select "associate pcp/pc2" button and browse to N:\Cannon Standards\pc2 and select the printer of your choice.
7. Next, click on the Plot Area tab - select the view you named "plot" in the pull down menu. Plot scale should already be set based on the pc2 file you've selected.
8. After all the drawings have been setup, be sure to save the list under the File Tab.
9. To plot your selection, click on the Plot button and away they go.
Grab a coffee refill and when you return, the plots will be finished. Although this may take a few extra minutes to set up this process, over the life of a large project, it will save a lot of time by manually opening, plotting, and closing each file. Remember, if the computer is working, you are working….
|
|
