Right before the Super Bowl, we released another update to the basic Jump 4 Release products. Many of you have already visited us and pulled it. Thank you. 
We trust you'll employ it right away and...

Get to Work

In this latest update, we included a new set of "Light" Layer State files to address what I call the Light Meat Dark Meat quandary. How do you like your turkey?

People whine. We whine about perceived bad referee calls, poor or blown singing performances, and tasteless ads. This is a good thing. Nothing gets better if you don't complain about what you think is wrong with it.
Please whine to Autodesk about AutoCAD Civil 3D. It's Beta Time!
Whine to us about the Jump via comments on this blog or emails to support@cadpilot.com. 
We need the feedback. 

New Light Layer States

People whine - we respond. Anyway, with a couple of clicks you can now easily convert the Jump to work better with black screen backgrounds. Open the Layer State Manager and Import the new Layer State files from the 00_Resources\Layer Standards folder and have at it. From our perspective your preference of working screen background color should be no big deal.
However, it is still best to remember that...

My Preference is Often Only Habit

Many old school CAD people much prefer black backgrounds. I used them myself for many years mostly because back in the Dark Ages we didn't have any real choice in the matter. I remember loud company meetings where the big bitch was too much background light in "the Pit". The "Pit" being a vast cubie space full of CAD pilots pounding out the plan sets hours and hours a day. Glare and daylight were the enemy. Anyone interested in a 37" "high resolution" bowling ball monitor?

Times change, the video technology gets better, and I moved on to consciously mostly employ light screen backgrounds. Frankly these days, I switch around between the two ways of working without thinking about very much about it.
Whatever works for who I am helping and where and how I am helping them. 

Just So You Know

The Jump has historically employed, "by default", a color palette tuned for light screen backgrounds. Besides the fact that AutoCAD paperspace "by default" works that way for a pretty good real-world reason, there are actually good ergonomic and "hard" science reasons for our particular color palette choice.

We made our initial color palette decisions based on a bunch of good scientific studies that some big time companies had spent millions of dollars on. Silly me. I got interested in human vision system neuroscience for a couple of years. I bothered to read and somehow mostly understand these mind-numbing things.

In summary - Slightly off-white screen backgrounds work better for most people. Technically, light cyan backgrounds work better than any other else for long-term "ware and tear" reading "printed" material, but that background also causes color differentiation problems for some people's vision systems. The practical neuroscience says off-white is better for both graphics and print for most of the human race most of the time.

Some other study will say otherwise. More on that another time.

Yes. There is now an Update to the recently released Update 3.0. It fixes installation and Vault integration issues.

On Friday August 13 2010, Autodesk released Update 3.1 for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010.

Here's the link

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15407692&linkID=9240698

Read the install instructions CAREFULLY.

As always the order that you do things will either save you work or make your More work.

Hopefully, you also used a Deployment to install your Civil 3D 2010, Advantage Packs, Updates, etc. It's time like this when it pays off. :)

I've been a Comcast Cable customer for about 20 years at the same address. In my area that's longer than the cable company has been in business. I am presently a "Triple Play" customer (Internet, Phone, and Cable TV). Comcast renamed Triple Play to Xfinty very recently. What it used to be called I can't remember.
I pay my bill via automatic ETF. Paying my bill online would be impossible for me as would purchasing anything from Comcast online either.

I AM a Customer But I AM NOT

Lucky for me, I only use the snot out of the Internet connection and TIVO some stuff off the cable. You see, I have "bad signal" to my house. Some days when the phone rings I lose signal to my TV or Internet connection. Please, don't call me at home in the evening. I'm trying to get some work done.

This "fact" has been established by service calls at the rate of about once a year for the entire time I have been a cable Internet customer. Every call for any service to the Cable Guy always requires a second follow up "Network" (special) service call. Maybe these special calls happen (I've never seen one occur), but the problem with the signal remains the same year after year. I obviously have a problem that's too expensive for the cable company to fix. I know an inexpensive signal amplifier solves the problem and that's part of the point. No one else on my street uses cable anymore because the service sucks. That's been good for my bandwidth so I alone remain a cable customer.

Maybe one day someone at Comcast will figure out that fixing the root of the problem is worth avoiding more service calls. But I doubt it. On Saturday, I was told once again a follow up fix it service call will be required if I don't want to still use my amplifier (which is "unapproved" for use on thier network). At that time The Cable Guy hooked up a new digital HD box that I have been paying for months without any service while they worked on fixing "my signal problem".

As a person who works on the Internet and in the Cloud for a living, Comcast's online systems look somewhat attractive, but I am forced go elsewhere to even look up the Sunday football games. Accessing Comcast online systems and email has been another recurring NIGHTMARE for me.

Each year I spend a day or so of time hassling with Customer Service Reps regarding a single issue that's been going on for over 10 years. The other day, I spent half an hour in a chat room with one CSR - just for fun. The rep's bandwidth was so bad they couldn't get more than a couple of words out without dropping off - So much for "high-speed" broadband service.

All my CSR requests are because of account lockouts. Somehow I manage to keep straight numerous login accounts and passwords that I use as a daily part of my work, but Comcast CSR staff thinks I'm an Internet forms idiot. I suppose I am. They have undoubtedly flagged my account.

I choose to NOT use any online Comcast services. You see...

They LISTEN and FAIL TO ACT

It's true that I do I have an OLD account "inherited" from a previous cable company. Internet access at home has been a long-term job requirement for me. It is the reason I have a cable connection. Never mind I trained the cable designers in CAD would did the local cable network back in the day. I helped them built their GIS too. Never mind I've personally helped the local cable company and the police track down some illegal cable raiders a couple of times over the years. (Nothing noble there from me - the jerks were wrecking my bandwidth.) 

I still can't login

This simple and ancient database account record is probably the root of the problem, but my requests to build me a completely NEW ACCOUNT always get put aside. That requires dealing with ACCOUNTING.

"We'll reset it and you'll be just fine....sir"

"But that NEVER works!"

I have complained numerous times that for reasons unknown their online systems routinely lock me out. Hey, my account name doesn't even conform to your standards! "That doesn't matter sir..." A password reset that is done usually works only once for about 24 hours. Restoring access always requires another call to customer service. You see their online system pages DO check for email name "conformity to their standards".

These days I even have to talk to a state-of-the-art computer FIRST to explain my problem. Oh. Did I mention I now have to have a super SECRET pin code that was mailed to me by snail mail months ago to do ANYTHING online or on the phone. The new number now validates that I AM who I AM. 

What happens if I lose that?

Without the NUMBER I AM no one

Each year the number of "security protections" done "on my behalf" increases and the results remain the same - no regular access to a system that I cannot use. Four years ago my Comcast account worked once maybe for an entire week after a raft of calls and hours on the phone - Quite a service record.

At that point I simply moved on and I gave up trying to get either of these issues fixed. Like most of the human race, I have more important things to do than deal with systems that fail endlessly. I chosen to name this ever growing cultural phenomenon

Denial of Service by Pleasantry

As we all find out More and More every day...Companies and government have discovered all they have to do is send you to a well-trained call center where people are ever so polite and ever so helpful, but aren't authorized or able to do anything of substance for you. This is much less expensive than having an office where you call talk to people and wait in line to do the same thing. That costs too much because of the stress it causes the poor people who have to deal with the public face to face. It's More effective too since they can record you "for traning purposes".

Today, I only deal with The Cable Guy when necessary. But at $120 a month maybe someone will have to read this post at least once. I flamed the Comcast VP of Customer Service with this post. That of course got me a call the very next day from another very nice customer service lady.

We can't have unhappy customers. Can we?

Maybe I should call her back once More...