Programming, CAD, and other technical stuff.
OpenDCL 4.1 adds support for the AutoCAD 2008 64-bit platform, includes many improvements in the OpenDCL Studio editor, and has a completely rewritten grid control.
Next on the agenda is adding support for localization so that local language translations can be easily created.
Security and encryption legend Bruce Schneier posted this essay:
The War on the Unexpected
I think we should all be reminded that representative governments are always at risk of death by democracy: suicide under the watchful eyes of a body politic beholden only to the next election.
[Update: See Disable AutoCAD InfoCenter]
I’ve noticed more frequent posts in the Autodesk discussion groups about slow startup problems since AutoCAD 2008 was released, and I have the same problem on my development system. Part of the problem is .NET loading, due to the new .NET gadgets like the dashboard palette. Another long running startup hassle is the communication center (WSCommCntr1.exe if you check running processes in task manager) that Autodesk products use to call home.
In addition to the time the communication center process takes to start up, it can also get “stuck” (either due to network or connection problems, or because of AutoCAD crashing) and cause interminable startup delays. If AutoCAD is trying to start while the communication center is “stuck”, it will wait in a completely frozen state for about 2 minutes before it times out and loading continues.
In addition, AutoCAD 2008 service pack 1 introduced a new “pure virtual function call” C runtime error that shows up when the communication center closes after an AutoCAD crash.
All these problems can be easily fixed by disabling the AutoCAD InfoCenter, which is the culprit that loads the communication center background process. I disabled it by changing the demand load registry key for the InfoCenter. That key can be found in the registry at:
HKLMSoftwareAutodeskAutoCADR17.1[ACAD-XXXX:XXX]ApplicationsInfoCenterAcConn
Change the LOADCTRLS value to 0 (zero) to disable it from demand loading.
If you disable your InfoCenter from demand loading, you can still load it manually by using the NETLOAD command to load AcInfoCenterConn.dll from the AutoCAD 2008 folder.
OpenDCL 4.0 has finally been released. If you’re not familiar with OpenDCL, check it out at www.opendcl.com, or on SourceForge at sourceforge.net/projects/opendcl.
OpenDCL, based on the original commercial ObjectDCL software by Chad Wanless, is a modern replacement for the old DCL dialog control language in AutoCAD. The current OpenDCL Runtime supports AutoCAD 2002 through 2008 (except AutoCAD 2008 x64). It is designed to give AutoCAD end users and AutoLISP application developers a simple yet powerful way to design and use rich user interfaces in their applications.
The goal for version 4.0 was to get it stable and fix all the bugs, with minimal new feature development. OpenDCL 4.1 will add support for AutoCAD 2008 x64. After that we will start working on localized language versions, and adding new features.
OpenDCL is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) open source license, completely free to use, and source code is available on SourceForge.
AutoCAD 2004 introduced the ability to digitally sign drawing files when they are saved, but very few people use this feature. Even fewer use the time stamp feature that goes along with it. Time stamping a digital signature is important when it’s not only important to know *who* signed it, but also *when* they signed it.
For time stamping to be reliable and trustworthy, you need an independent (and trustworthy) third party to provide the time stamp, along with a verifiable receipt so that anyone can verify the authenticity of a claimed time stamp in the event of a future dispute.
Since the inception of the digital signature feature, AutoCAD has included three default time servers for this purpose. Unfortunately, none of the three are accessible any more. If you need to digitally sign drawing files with a time stamp, you’ll have to modify this list of time servers.
The list of time servers is maintained in a file named timesrvr.txt in the AutoCAD installation folder. You can edit the file with notepad, and the format is obvious and straightforward when you view the file.
If you just want to play around with time stamps, try adding the following to the end of the file (you do not need to restart AutoCAD to see the new servers):
NIST A [Maryland] (time-a.nist.gov)
NIST B [Maryland] (time-b.nist.gov)
As of this writing, both of these NIST servers are available and working, but you get what you pay for. For officially incorporating time stamped digital signatures into your workflow, I recommend subscribing to a commercial time service with guaranteed uptime and a web based time stamp verification console. I can’t recommend one, because I have never used a commercial time service myself, but a good place to start is the list of public time servers maintained by NTP.org at http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/.