Change Delfault playback device in Windows 10

type mmsys.cpl to change default playback device

To remove excel data links from my Reference Manager. Autocad rel 2013 onwards

 Type in DATALINK.  Right-click on the datalinks and select Delete.

Autocad: changing Layout tab color

If you're like me an you often work in files with lots of layout tabs, it can often be a bit of a nightmare deciphering which layout tab is active. 

The 'active' layout tab changes to a very slightly different colour to the rest of the layout tabs when selected. However the contrast between the colour of the 'active' and 'non active' layout tabs is minimal making it very hard to know which tab you are on. 

This is not the end of the world because you can usually tell by looking at the drawing which tab is active. But if like me you like things 'just so' we discovered this simple tip for making it clearer which layout tab you have selected. 

We have found that by changing the colour of the cross hair (in options dialog / display tab) that the text of the active paperspace tab also changes colour. In the above image we have changed the cross hair colour to red and as you can see the text of the layout tab has also changed colour. 

Autocad drawing won't open

Do you ever find a drawing wont open for no apparent reason! ? You would assume that a colleague may have it open on his / her machine. So you ask them to close this file and you still cant access the drawing! There is a solution! AutoCAD produces a DWL file which stands for Drawing lock. This prevents multiple user making changes to a particular file. Anyway back to sorting this annoying problem out. you need to locate the DWL file which will reside in the same folder as the drawing file then delete it

AutoCAD Tip

If you are a user of annotation scaling then this could relieve you of the annoying ghost annotation appearing when you have several scales in a drawing. To turn this off just type: SELECTIONANNODISPLAY  = 0

AutoCAD 2013 tips - Ellipse

 Simply draw a rectangle of any size, enter PEDIT, Select the rectangle and select spline. Hit return and you will notice you now have an ellipse. You will notice the push and pull handles are at the corners. 

Quick Shutdown for Windows 8

Quick Shutdown for Windows 8

My variation is to create a Metro tile which shuts down the machine, the benefit is you can tab to your tile, then press enter.

Start on the Windows 8 desktop, or in a new folder - anywhere except in the Start Menu folder!

Right-click, New, Shortcut.  Paste the instruction:

C:\windows\system32\shutdown /s /t 20 (remember the space between t and 20)

Name the shortcut after yourself, e.g. Guy's Shutdown, that way you will recognise it easily!

Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the crucial folder:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Paste your shortcut.  (In passing you can see it's not possible to create a new shortcut here)

It's reassuring to see your shortcut amongst the other Apps.

Return to the Metro UI start screen - Windows Key is the quickest way.

Tab to your shutdown tile, press enter.