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Mail Bag:

• Ellen, LEED AP – CSE Study Groups
  • Check out http://areforum.org/ to organize study groups and get questions answered
  • Visit the California Aarchitects Board website for info on the California Suplimental Exam http://www.cab.ca.gov/candidates/index.shtml
• Steve – Keynoting in Revit
  • http://www.sloarch.com/2009/07/emc2-architects-releases-keynote-manager-7-1/
  • Let us know how you structure your key reference notes! Do you use the master format? Do you have a custom format?

News:

• Senator Calls on Cal Poly to Stop Allowing Donor Influence of Curriculum
  • http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/137701
  • What is the appropriate influence of doners in acedemia??
• Another interesting Haiti article
  • http://www.architectmagazine.com/blogs/postdetails.aspx?BlogId=beyondbuildingsblog&PostId=91771
  • the author is a prof at Cal Poly Pamona
  • Architecture is a team endeavor Architects need to be team players.
• Architect or whatever:
  • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/garden/21architects.html
  • Tim read about John last year.  He’s been doing this for almost a year!! Things have been bad for some time. In Mar. of 09 Architectual Record did an entire issue on the recession.
    • http://archrecord.construction.com/news/newsmakers/0903johnmorefield.asp
  • Many of those who have been laid off are discovering new talents often unrelated to architecture…
  • “He was seated at a homemade wooden stand under a sign reading ‘Architecture 5¢,’ with a tin can nearby awaiting spare change. For a nickel, he would answer any architectural question.”
  • “According to the latest data available from the Department of Labor, employment at American architecture firms, which peaked last July at 224,500, had dropped to 184,600 by November.”
• Tim’s BIG news! Whoo hooo!
  • send job opportunities to theStudio at sloarch.com

Interview:

• Alex is still at the first job that he got straight out of Cal Poly
• He has started the IDP program but isn’t sure if he wants to start the ARE’s. We try to convince him to start.
  • It’s hard to get all the IDP hours when your firm doesn’t do all services.
  • Emerging Professionals Companion offers IDP units, http://www.epcompanion.org/
  • Have consultants do a learning luncheon and give a homework assignment to those working on IDP
• Started doing freelance residential drawings when he started college
  • First client was his uncle
  • At the peak in 2007 he was doing 40-50 projects a year
  • Friends called him a work-a-holic. For two years almost every weekend he drove to the central valley for work.
• Alex talks about the legalities of a non-architect doing residential construction drawings and how he learned how to do the drawings.
• We are left speachless
• Doing real world work made it difficult to think really out of the box in design studio because he instinctively thought about constructability of the design.
• Cal Poly’s motto of learn by doing is great but teachers controlling what technologies to use is something to possibly change.
• Find a job related to Architecture while you are still in school to see if it’s really what you want to do.
• Jake Feldman talked Alex into not changing majors to Architectural Engineering. Studing vs having fun with models.
• Alex came to the United States from Mexico at 14 not knowing any English. He worked really hard to learn the language in less than two years. He couldn’t go directly to Cal Poly because he didn’t have 4 years of required English.
  • During his senior year of high school and the summer after graduation he completed most of his freshman college courses at the local junior college.
  • He transfered to Cuesta and then to Cal Poly. Still completed the entire program in the 5 year period because of transfer credits.
• How does Alex feel about all the layoffs at his firm?
• Hasn’t had any outside architecture work for 3 months, has started a side business with another person in the firm to create an alternate revenue stream
• Even if he’s vacationing in Cabo San Lucas he will still be designing Architecture

Emc2 Architects released Version 7.1 of their Keynote Manager software last Wednesday.  Keynotes in Revit are painful to manage, and the latest version of this Revit companion added automatic text casing and a direct link to the Windows’ Character Map from within the keynote editor dialog, as well as some nice interface modifications.  These minor additions and fixes feel like polish on what is already a powerful tool.

In my opinion, this keynote manager, developed by Steven Faust at Emc2 Architects, is how keynoting should have been in Revit from the start.  By making the program “save as you go”, Steve has been able to allow multiple users to work on the same keynote file simultaneously.  Also, features like keyboard shortcuts, spell check, and a built in text search make managing keynotes easier than ever.  This program takes the mystery out of keynotes so that the end user doesn’t need to worry about the syntax of the text file.  The program makes it much easier for project managers, who aren’t familiar with the .txt file syntax, to make corrections to keynotes, and for BIM managers to create keynote templates that are readily available through the interface.

The one problem the program doesn’t solve is the need to reload the keynote file in the Revit project for the changes to take effect.

You can download the Keynote Manager from Emc2.  For the latest on the Emc2 Keynote Manager, see this thread on the AUGI forums.

Screen shot of the main window

The edit dialog, accessed with the keyboard shortcut “e”, allows you to automatically change the text case to upper case, lower case, title case, or sentance case!

Keynote Editor

The keynotes menu allows you to add, copy, edit and insert keynotes. The ability to automatically add the next sequential keynote simply by hitting “s” on the keyboard is a great feature.

Keynotes Menu

Right clicking on a keynote allows full access to case changes as well as being able to print just one keynote branch.

Context Menu

The settings dialog allows cad managers to set the location of master keynote files that can be used as seeds for new projects. You are also able to set other program defaults.

Settings Dialog

Steve has done an excellent job creating this help dialog. By reading these few pages you are able to get started using the full capabilities of this program very quickly.

Help Menu Dialog

The current list of features includes:

• Allows viewing of keynote files in a stacked tree view rather than a very long list.
  • Display font and color can be changed to match custom standards.
• Allows you to easily add, edit, copy or delete individual keynotes and their descriptions.
  • Supports automatic sequencing of new keynotes.
  • Keynotes can be added in bulk from an existing file.
• Allows printing of all keynotes, visible keynotes only, or a single branch of keynotes.
• Includes a “find” function that allows you to search for keynotes by any text contained in the description.
• Supports automatic casing of keynotes (or the option to turn off automatic casing).
  • Includes settings for automatically changing keynotes to upper case, lower case, or title case.
  • Includes tools to change individual keynotes, or all keynotes to upper, lower, or title case.
• Master keynote files can be defined (as many as desired).
  • New keynote files can be created using any defined master as a template.
  • A warning will be issued if a master keynote file is selected for editing.
• Allows multiple users to work on the same keynote file.
• Contains a spell check function
  • Will search for Revit dictionaries as well as a user dictionary. Optional user dictionary is included in the zip file download.
• Automatically creates up to 10 backups on each user’s computer of each text file edited.
• Most commands are available via top menu, right click, or keyboard shortcut.
• Keynote Manager remembers its size and position from session to session.
• Includes optional system for reporting bugs or improvement ideas to Emc2.