calsan

I've got the current model mac mini server - the one with the built in power supply that looks like the Apple TV unit. We bought it because it was much better value than the sever software alone. We only needed the server software because apple cripple the standard OS to prevent more than 10 users being able to connect to the one computer. We would have just got a NAS box, but my previous experience with the READYNAS was that it was too slow for users with large files. If you have less than 10 connections to the computer, then plain vanilla OSX is just as good. It's an unfortunate problem with the mac line up that the macs without built in monitors are pretty expensive for what you get and the other hardware isn't designed for any disk redundancy or ability to be upgraded. I also found that most of the services offered on OSX server can actually be achieved better just by getting a decent Router with VPN. However, it's all we need at the moment, looks very nice and is totally quiet.

We have one running in an office of 10 users. It's a pretty basic setup: It runs retrospect to backup files (over the network) to an external USB disk. It shares a folder containing our admin files and archived projects. My observation is this: OSX Server is not as easy to setup as a regular copy of OSX. The mac mini itself is very limited in hard disk space, which wouldn't be a problem if it had e-sata, but it doesn't, so it is. Basically, I tried sharing a firewire connected disk - but it was geologically slow: 5GB transfer to the server would take over an hour. I switched to USB, but same problem. Now I only use the internal disks. If you can get by with less than 1TB total disk space - split over two disks, then it's fine. Turning on services other than file sharing slows things down quite noticeably.

I can see the benefit of a separate application. It could be a free download, the same as DWG true view from autocad. Unlike that application, it would be good if it can batch an entire directory including subfolders containing more than one file type... We vectorworks users spend far too much time converting to and from DWG for everyone else, that it seems like the last straw to not be able to open our own files either! The article by Jerome P. McDonough raises issues I've been worried about with macintosh - I think there's far too much integration between your files and applications. Look at how iphoto takes over your photo folders. Try to drag and drop your photos to an external disk or DVD and you will see the problem with integrating files into an application.

Resource fork problem really sucks. I think its happening because the operating system OSX is really UNIX with a pretty mac interface. Mac OS died with system 9, as did the apple file system. The way OSX lets you have files without extensions is a kludge that works sometimes and sometimes doesn't. The old files appear in the finder as 'Unix Executable File" with a little icon that looks like a black screen with a command line. If you know what the file is, then you can add the file extension manually, and the file will magically turn into the correct file type complete with icon.

Finished converting files. "Only" took 3 weeks! :sleep: I installed system 9, minicad 5, vectorworks 8, vectorworks 12.5 on an old machine. My tips from this experience: vectorworks 2008 is unstable. In order to batch convert vectorworks 8 files to current version, you need to batch convert them using vectorworks 12 first. Then batch convert in vectorworks 2008 will run smoothly. Make sure your files all have the relevant .mcd or .vwx file extension, or you will never be able to find them all. Mac operating system has the habit of losing the resource fork of files so without the file extension, you will be left guessing whether you are looking at a cad file or not.

300,000 because 20 years work. Quickly adds up because with enough staff and everyone saving a copy of each revision of each drawing. Not to mention claris cad files we can't open anymore but could in minicad 4.

Select old minicad / OS9 vectorworks file in finder. Double click to open in Vectorworks. End of process. (Why no backwards compatibility? We are loyal minicad users with 300,000+ old minicad and vectorworks files and we can't open them in vectorworks 2008. If we'd used autocad [shock!] all that time, we wouldn't be having this problem now...)

I have VW 11 - this does not batch export files to dwgs. Does anyone know of a script / method / application for selecting multiple files to export to dwg or dxf? Thank you!

to Bewdley have you tried the osx system preference pane 'keyboard and mouse' and tried fiddling around with the keyboard shortcuts? I clicked the restore defaults button, this seemed to fix things... also try switching between workspaces in vectorworks, to see if it is just your workspace gone wrong...

No worries Was all just guess work. Anyway, from what you say, I'm sure that confirms that it is your canon printer driver that is at fault. There is a zero margins printer driver for your epson on the epson web site: http://tech.epson.com.au/downloads/product.asp?id=stylusPhoto1290&platform=mac&FileType=1&FileType=6&FileType=2&submit=Search+%3E%3E Cal

Hi If you check the support page for the design jet printers at hp you will see that there is big fat Zero support for the older HP plotters. We have a 488ca and have the same problem. Gimp print under os x at least allows us to keep using the printer, but it is worth noting that it was developed by unpaid enthusiasts and not HP or apple. So we have to put up with it in the mean time, as apple considers things like desktop widgets a higher priority than making stuff work for their professional users. Which is a bit rude considering that we were the ones who stuck with them through the beige computer years. RANT RANT RANT.

Oh yeah - forgot to mention - when I print to pdf i'm using the ADOBE pdf printer, not the built in mac osx pdf printer - if you have adobe acrobat professional, you will have this printer driver, which works because it creates a ps file which is then processed by a distiller application. Otherwise no such luck. Something else I just thought of: try doing page setup and changing the 'format for' setting to your canon printer. often if it is on 'any printer' it won't work when printing to laser printers for some reason. On our printer if you have 'any printer' selected you get lines only but no text. It is interesting that you can print to the epson: With this set up as your printer, can you create pdfs? if you can print to it, you should be able to make a pdf. Another way to make pdfs: export as epsf from the export menu, then open the epsf file with the preview application. This takes a while and you will probably loose things like shading, but if your drawing is only linework, then it should be ok.

ignore that "javascript:void(0)" comment. it just appeared when i posted my reply... I was trying to use those smiley faces in the reply form and it all went wrong. I have been having similar problems with my kyocera printer - see my post: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=000475 I eventually worked out that the ppd files stored in the Library>Printers folder were to blame and that an earlier version of the ppd files from Kyocera worked. ie: the new printer drivers on the Kyocera web site weren't working anymore. If you use the printer utility and click the get printer info button on each of your macs, it will tell you which version of the ppd driver is installed. Then have a look on the internet on canon's web site and see if a newer version is available. In my case, it was the new one that was the problem, so I was lucky to have a copy of the old printer drivers around. If you have a disk that came with your printer and that had osx printer drivers, you could always try reinstalling them.

Hi Here's something that can be done when all else fails: Print to pdf! javascript:void(0) Then open this file and then print that to the canon printer. Hopefully, this will work and give you time to do your assignment, rather than trying to fix the computer, which is best left for a time when you have nothing better to do... Cheerio!

Hah! Fixed it! Only took a day. Mind you the date is Friday 13th! I discovered that one of our older Macs could still print. I then went to the folder: HD>Library>Printers on the working computer and copied the folder PPD from the working computer to all the other macs in the office. This fixed it! The newer kyocera ppd files were version 7.8 while the old computer hadn't been updated for a while and had still had a version 7.2 ppd file for the kyocera. Seems that kyocera had stuffed up their new ppd files somewhere along the way. I will give them an email. Anyway - this was triggered by installing tiger - so NEXT time I won't install until AFTER apple releases a 'point one' update!

Hi Have upgraded our office from panther to tiger and we are now unable to print to our Kyocera KM2030 printer from vectorworks! We can still print to our HP designjet plotter. Also, just to add to the mystery, we are able to print to the kyocera from every other application - just vectorworks printing to the Kyocera is broken. Have reset the printing, reinstalled the drivers, reinstalled the system, reinstalled vectorworks... Has anyone got any ideas??? This is a bit of a drama for us!

Hi I previously posted saying that OSX 10.3 broke the printing on VW 9.5.3. I can now say that the OSX 10.3.2 upgrade fixes the printing issue. Have it running on 7 macs in our office with no problems. However, it is a good idea to save the files you are working on before changing workspaces...this can be a bit dicey.

Dear BaRa unlike you, I won't be dropping mac just because of this v. minor problem. Don't forget that windoze has viruses!

making the assumption that you are using mac OS X - try using the disk utility to repair permissions. Have to admit that I have no idea about why this works, but it does make a noticable difference to VW.

Hi I've installed panther on one of our spare computers to check for bugs before doing a mass install. Quite glad I did, if I may say so. So yes, I can confirm that Vectorworks 9.5.3 cannot print once panther is installed. The crash is after you press the print button - VW9 quits without warning! We will probably delay installation of panther until we can justify upgrading all our VW licences. Having said that, panther is better in every other respect and has made the iBook 366 I did our test on seem like a new computer - everything appears to happen twice as fast as under jaguar - which is quite a shock, I'm used to upgrades making things go sloooooowerrrrr. :-(