software for you

anti malware

2009-04-24T09:53:00.001-07:00

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is a high performance anti-malware application that thoroughly removes even the most advanced malware and spyware. With one of the fastest, most effective quick scans and malware removal capabilities on the market, this program is the perfect addition to your PC's defenses. The full version of the product includes a number of key features, including the ability to schedule updates and scans and most importantly, a real-time malware protection module that blocks malicious processes before they even start.

Version 1.36 adds new heuristics for Vundo infections.

Free Download Manager

2008-08-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

What is Free Download Manager?
Free Download Manager is a light-weight, powerful and easy-to-use application. It is designed for downloading files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. Free Download Manager makes it possible to avoid many problems related to downloading:
Connection instability. When the downloading process is interrupted you needn't start from the beginning again. Free Download Manager can resume broken download from where it was interrupted saving your time, nerves and money. Some servers do not support download resuming, but Free Download Manager will warn you about it allowing you to decide on downloading.
Connection speed. Free Download Manager splits files into several sections and downloads them simultaneously, allowing you to use any type of connection at the maximum available speed.
In addition, Free Download Manager allows you: to organize downloaded files by their type, placing them in predefined folders; to schedule a list of downloads, allowing you to start and pause downloading files at the set time; to start several downloads at once and set the priority of each one; to adjust traffic usage for browsing the Internet and downloading files at the same time; to download whole web pages or even whole web sites with HTML Spider. You can adjust HTML Spider to download the files with specified extensions only.

New FDM version also lets you download files using BitTorrent protocol; download video from video sites; upload your files easily to share them with other people and operate the program remotely, via the internet.

System requirements:
In order to use FDM, you must have one of the following systems and one of the following browsers installed on your computer: Microsoft Windows 9x / ME / 2000 / XP / Vista 32 bit; Internet Explorer 5.0 and above.
download

LAN chat softwareLeadMind

2008-08-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

LAN chat and instant messaging software suite

LAN chat softwareLeadMind Development announced version 1.62 of its feature-packed instant messaging and chat software for Local Area Network (LAN). Pop Messenger is an easy-to-use chat and message sending over SO/HO or enterprise local network software solution capable of sending chat, private and broadcast messages to online and offline users. Besides the simplicity of use provided by means of straightforward user interface, PopMessenger features customizable text font and color as well as user-defined sound alerts. The application combines extended functionality with surprising speed of operation.
What is the importance of LAN instant messaging today?

As the world starts moving faster, we all want to catch up with the latest technologies. Indeed, investing in faster, more reliable and less human-dependent technologies, is a great opportunity to win the race and beat the competition.

One of the key factors of successful business operation is well-thought staff communication system. Good managers know that each minute of work time spent in vain means profit loss. That is why building fast and convenient personnel communication environment is so important, these days.

Common means of communication, such as verbal instructions, phone conversations and e-mail messaging, are far from perfection when it comes to delivering short messages to multiple individuals. Internet-based instant messaging solutions are good but they rely on third-party services which makes the entire system unreliable in question. The best solution shall be an instant messaging (IM) software working in local network. IM already is in many companies. So, what are you waiting for?
Chat and send text messages and files to anyone on your LAN easily and securely!
LAN chat

Introducing PopMessenger by LeadMind Software, the complete small to large enterprise level instant communication solution that offers full range of instant communication tools that do not require a dedicated server or usage of third party services.

download

LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e

2008-08-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

The program LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e is designed to support exchanging messages in the regime of real time in a small office, in an educational institution, in general in any office with local networks. This unique software affords an opportunity for users of the local networks to communicate easily. The program works on the conference principle. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e requires neither connecting to Internet nor a specialized (a selected) server. The program needs only a simple one-range network. The user can take complete control over the program and there’s an opportunity to make all kinds of settings to his own liking. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e gives each client of the network the opportunity to connect with any of the rest clients of the network to exchange messages on about their projects. Administrators and chiefs can send messages to either individual users or to groups of users, to departments or even to the whole office. You can send private messages to some user and to create private channels for several users.

No Network Management Needed

As a rule, offices with a small (local) network do not have a special person to act as a net administrator, besides, they cannot afford time and money to train the stuff. This distinction (peculiarity) was taken into account in the process of designing the program LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e, and that is why the program is ready for work as soon as it is installed. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e saves your time and money, since in a few minutes your net can start a new life, it will be really alive and capable of not only copying files, though copying files within LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e also goes without saying.

seagate Crystal Reports

2008-08-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

seagate Crystal Reports groups several commonly used commands on the Standard Toolbar, which remains on screen at all times (unless you decide to toggle it off with the Toolbars command).
The Standard toolbar eliminates some of the steps needed to activate the commands and can thus greatly speed your work in creating reports. Each command available via the Standard toolbar is discussed in online Help (search for each command by name).

In the 32-bit version of Seagate Crystal Reports, you can move the Standard Toolbar to another fixed location within the window or set it up as a floating palette. See How to move and resize toolbars and Formatting Toolbar.
If you are not sure about the function of a button on the Standard Toolbar, place the pointer over the button and hold it there. A Tool Tip appears, providing a description of the button.
The buttons on the Standard toolbar perform the following functions:

Creates a new report.
Opens an existing report.
Saves the report.
Sends the report to a printer.
Previews the report in the Preview Tab.
Exports the report to a file or e-mail.
Refreshes report data.
Cuts selected object/data to the Clipboard.
Copies the selected object/data to the Clipboard.
Pastes object/data from Clipboard to the report.
Undoes an action.
Redoes an action.
Inserts database, formula, parameter, and group name fields.
Insert a text object.
Inserts a summary.
Activates the Report Expert.
Formats any section of the report.
Sets record/group selection criteria.
Sets record sort order.
Inserts a chart.
Inserts a Map.
Searches for a specific record.
Sets the magnification factor for viewing your report.
Context-sensitive Help.

How to Monitoring with SQL Profiler

2008-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

SQL Profiler is a graphical tool that allows system administrators to monitor events in an instance of Microsoft® SQL Server™. You can capture and save data about each event to a file or SQL Server table to analyze later. For example, you can monitor a production environment to see which stored procedures are hampering performance by executing too slowly.
Use SQL Profiler to monitor only the events in which you are interested. If traces are becoming too large, you can filter them based on the information you want, so that only a subset of the event data is collected. Monitoring too many events adds overhead to the server and the monitoring process and can cause the trace file or trace table to grow very large, especially when the monitoring process takes place over a long period of time.
After you have traced events, SQL Profiler allows captured event data to be replayed against an instance of SQL Server, thereby effectively reexecuting the saved events as they occurred originally.

Use SQL Profiler to:
Monitor the performance of an instance of SQL Server.
Debug Transact-SQL statements and stored procedures.
Identify slow-executing queries.
Test SQL statements and stored procedures in the development phase of a project by single-stepping through statements to confirm that the code works as expected.
Troubleshoot problems in SQL Server by capturing events on a production system and replaying them on a test system. This is useful for testing or debugging purposes and allows users to continue using the production system without interference.
Audit and review activity that occurred on an instance of SQL Server. This allows a security administrator to review any of the auditing events, including the success and failure of a login attempt and the success and failure of permissions in accessing statements and objects.
SQL Profiler provides a graphical user interface to a set of stored procedures that can be used to monitor an instance of SQL Server. For example, it is possible to create your own application that uses SQL Profiler stored procedures to monitor SQL Server.
You must have at least 10 megabytes (MB) of free space to run SQL Profiler. If free space drops below 10 MB while you are using SQL Profiler, all SQL Profiler functions will stop

Adobe Image Ready | To customize or create a web photo gallery style

2008-05-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

Adobe Image Ready | To customize or create a web photo gallery style
To customize or create a web photo gallery style
Locate the folder that stores the existing web photo gallery styles.
Do one of the following:
To customize a style, create a copy of the style folder, and store it in the same location as the existing style folders.
To create a new style, create a new folder for the new style, and store it in the same location as the existing style folders.
The new or customized style (named for its folder) appears in the Styles menu in the Web Photo Gallery dialog box.
Using an HTML editor, do one of the following:
Customize the HTML template file.
Create the necessary HTML template files and store them inside the style folder.
When creating the template files, make sure that you follow the guidelines for customization outlined in Customizing web photo gallery styles.

Adobe Image Ready | Customizing web photo gallery styles

2008-05-24T00:52:00.000-07:00

Customizing web photo gallery styles
You can customize an existing web photo gallery style by editing one or more of its HTML template files. When customizing a style, you need to follow these guidelines so that Photoshop can generate the gallery correctly:
The style folder must contain these files: Caption.htm, IndexPage.htm, SubPage.htm, Thumbnail.htm, and FrameSet.htm.
You can rename the style folder but not the HTML template files in the folder.
You can have an empty Caption.htm file, and place the HTML code and tokens determining the layout of the caption in the Thumbnail.htm file.
You can replace a token in a template file with the appropriate text or HTML code, so that an option is set through the template file rather than through the Web Photo Gallery dialog box. For example, a template file may contain a BODY element with the following bgcolor attribute that uses a token as its value:
bgcolor=%BGCOLOR%
To set the background color of the page to red, you can replace the token %BGCOLOR% with “FF0000.”
You can add HTML code and tokens to the template files. All tokens must be in uppercase characters, and begin and end with the percent (%) symbol. For information on the tokens that you can use in the template files, see Web photo gallery style tokens.

Adobe Image Ready | Web photo gallery styles

2008-05-24T00:50:00.000-07:00

Adobe Image Ready | Web photo gallery styles
Photoshop provides a variety of styles for your web photo gallery. If you are an advanced user who knows HTML, you can create a new style or customize a style by editing a set of HTML template files.
The web photo gallery styles provided by Photoshop are stored in individual folders in the following locations:
Windows Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop CS/Presets/Web Photo Gallery.
Mac OS Adobe Photoshop CS/Presets/Web Photo Gallery.
The name of each folder in this location appears as an option in the Styles menu in the Web Photo Gallery dialog box. Each folder contains the following HTML template files, which Photoshop uses to generate the gallery:
Caption.htm Determines the layout of the caption that appears below each thumbnail on the home page.
FrameSet.htm Determines the layout of the frame set for displaying pages.
IndexPage.htm Determines the layout of the home page.
SubPage.htm Determines the layout of the gallery pages with full-size images.
Thumbnail.htm Determines the layout of the thumbnails that appear on the home page.
Each template file contains HTML code and tokens. A token is a text string that is replaced by Photoshop when you set its corresponding option in the Web Photo Gallery dialog box. For example, a template file may contain the following TITLE element that uses a token as its enclosed text:
%TITLE%
When Photoshop generates the gallery using this template file, it replaces the token %TITLE% with the text that you entered for Site Name in the Web Photo Gallery dialog box.
To better understand an existing style, you can open and study its HTML template files using an HTML editor. Because only standard ASCII characters are required to create HTML documents, you can open, edit, and create these documents using a plain-text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac OS)

Adobe Image Ready | Web photo gallery options

2008-05-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

Web photo gallery options
General Options for file extensions, encoding, and metadata.
Extension Uses either .htm or .html as the file name extension.
Use UTF 8 Encoding For URL Uses UTF-8 encoding.
Add Width And Height Attributes For Images Specifies dimensions, shortening download time.
Preserve All Metadata Maintains metadata info.
Banner Text options for the banner that appears on each page in the gallery. Enter text for each of these:
Site Name The name of the gallery.
Photographer The name of the person or organization receiving credit for the photos in the gallery.
Contact Info The contact information for the gallery, such as a telephone number or a business address.
Date The date appearing on each page of the gallery. By default, Photoshop uses the current date.
Font and Font Size (Not always available) Options for the banner text.
Large Images Options for the main images that appear on each gallery page.
Resize Images Resizes the source images for placement on the gallery pages. Choose a size from the pop‑up menu or enter a size in pixels. For Constrain, choose which dimensions of the image you want to constrain during resizing. For JPEG Quality, choose an option from the pop‑up menu, enter a value between 0 and 12, or drag the slider. The higher the value, the better the image quality and the larger the file.
Note: Photoshop uses the default image interpolation method set in preferences. Choose Bicubic Sharper as the default for best results when reducing image size. See To specify the default interpolation method.
Border Size Specifies the width, in pixels, of the border around the image.
Titles Use Specifies options for displaying captions under each image. Select Filename to display the file name, or select Description, Credits, Title, and Copyright to display description text drawn from the File Info dialog box.
Font and Font Size Specify the font and size of the caption.
Thumbnails Options for the gallery home page, including the size of the thumbnail images.
Size Specifies the thumbnail size. Choose from the pop‑up menu or enter a value in pixels for the width of each thumbnail.
Columns and Rows Specify the number of columns and rows in which to display thumbnails on the home page. This option doesn’t apply to galleries that use the Horizontal Frame Style or Vertical Frame Style.
Border Size Specifies the width, in pixels, of the border around each thumbnail.
Titles Specifies options for displaying captions under each thumbnail. Select Filename to display the file name, or select Description, Credits, Title, and Copyright to display description text drawn from the File Info dialog box.
Font and Font Size Specify the font and size of the caption.
Custom Colors Options for colors of elements in the gallery. To change the color of an element, click its color swatch and then select a new color from the Adobe Color Picker. You can change the background color of each page (Background option) and of the banner (Banner option).
Security Displays text over each image as a theft deterrent.
Content Specifies the text to be displayed. Select Custom Text to enter customized text. Select Filename, Description, Credits, Title, or Copyright to display text drawn from the File Info dialog box.
Font, Color, and Position Specify the font, color, and alignment of the caption.
Rotation options Place the text on the image at an angle.

adobe Image Ready Web photo galleries

2008-05-24T00:48:00.001-07:00

adobe image ready Web photo gallery
Each page contains links that allow visitors to navigate the site. For example, when a visitor clicks a thumbnail image on the home page, the associated full-size image is loaded into a gallery page. You use the Web Photo Gallery command to automatically generate a web photo gallery from a set of images.

Web photo gallery home page
Photoshop provides a variety of styles for your gallery, which you can select using the Web Photo Gallery command. If you are an advanced user who knows HTML, you can create a new style or customize a style by editing a set of HTML template files.
Each template for gallery styles comes with different options. If you’re using a preset style, some options may be dimmed, or unavailable in that particular style.

Adobe Image Ready | create a web photo gallery

2008-05-24T00:44:00.000-07:00

Adobe Image Ready | create a web photo gallery

(Optional) Select the files or folder you want to use in Adobe Bridge.
Your images will be presented in the order in which they’re displayed in Bridge. If you’d rather use a different order, change the order in Bridge.
Do one of the following:
In Adobe Bridge, choose Tools > Photoshop > Web Photo Gallery.
In Photoshop, choose File > Automate > Web Photo Gallery.
Choose a style for the gallery from the Styles pop‑up menu. A preview of the home page for the chosen style appears in the dialog box.
(Optional) Enter an e-mail address as the contact information for the gallery.
Choose the source files for your gallery from the Use menu.
Selected Images From Adobe Bridge Uses images you selected before opening the Web Photo Gallery dialog box.
Folder Uses images from folders you select using the Browse (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS) buttons. Select Include All Subfolders to include images inside any subfolders of the selected folder.
Click Destination, and then select a folder in which to store the images and HTML pages for the gallery. Then click OK (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS).
Select formatting options for the web gallery. Choose from the Options menu to display each set of options. See Web photo gallery options.
Click OK. Photoshop places the following HTML and JPEG files in your destination folder:
A home page for your gallery named index.htm or index.html, depending on the Extension options. Open this file in any web browser to preview your gallery.
JPEG images inside an images subfolder.
HTML pages inside a pages subfolder.
JPEG thumbnail images inside a thumbnails subfolder.

Begin a New Model

2008-05-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

The basic grid that will serve as a template for developing the model will be defined. Then a material will be defined and a list of dou-ble angle sections will be selected for the truss Auto Select Section list.
A. Click the File menu > New Model command or the New Model but-ton . The form shown in Figure 3 will display. Verify that the de-fault units are set to Kip-in.
B. The New Model form allows for the quick generation of numerous model types using parametric generation techniques. However, in this tutorial the model will be started using only the grid generation. When laying out the grid, it is important that the geometry defined accurately represents the major geometrical aspects of the model, so it is advisable to spend time carefully planning the number and spacing of the grid lines

C. The Quick Grid Lines form is used to specify the grids and spacing in the X, Y and Z directions. Set the number of grid lines to 11 for the X direction, and to 2 for the Y and Z directions. Type 6 ft (in-cluding the ft) into the X direction spacing edit box and press the En-ter key on your keyboard. Note that the program automatically con-verts the 6 ft to 72 to be consistent with the default units of inches. Enter 12 ft or 144 for both the Y and Z direction spacing. The val-ues specified in the First Grid Line Location area locate the origin of the grid lines – make sure that these values are all set to zero for this tutorial.

D. Click the OK button to accept the changes, and the program will ap-pear . Note that the grids appear in two view windows tiled vertically, an X-Y “Plan” View on the left and a 3-D View on the right. The number of view windows may be changed using the Options menu > Windows command.
The “Plan” view is active in . When the window is active, the display title bar is highlighted. Set a view active by clicking anywhere in the view window.
Directly under the display title bar is an indicator showing the model status. This indicator will display either “Object Model” or “Analysis Model” – objects represent physical members and are typically what.

the user draws in SAP2000, while the analysis model shows the elements that are generated by meshing those objects.
Note that the Global Axes are displayed as well, and that the Z pos-tive is in the “up” direction. When SAP2000 refers to the direction of gravity, this is in the negative Z direction, or “down.”

E. To make viewing our model easier, we will reduce the size of the grid bubbles. Click the Define menu > Coordinate Systems/Grids command. The Coordinate/Grid Systems form will display.
1. Make sure that the Systems item on the Coordinate/Grid Systems form has Global highlighted and click the Modify/Show System button. The Define Grid Data form will appear.
2. Type 36 into the Bubble Size edit box.
3. Click the OK buttons to close the Define Grid Data and Coordi-nate/Grid Systems forms.

Play DVD With Power DVD 5.0

2008-05-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

Main Controls
Button/Icon Hot Key Description
A Volume controls +, Q, - Increase, mute or decrease volume
B Volume -- Displays volume level
C Current media type -- Displays the current media type
D Display area -- Displays DVD title/chapter number and elapsed time
E About Ctrl-A Displays information about PowerDVD
F Control wheel -- Refer to Control Wheel
G Help F1 Accesses online help
H Eject Ctrl-E Ejects discs from CD/DVD-ROM drive
I Minimize Ctrl-N Minimizes user interface to taskbar
J Power off Ctrl-X Exits PowerDVD
K Navigational slider -- Visually displays elapsed time. Click along slider to jump to other locations
L Snapshot C Captures video content as bitmap image files
M Go up/AB repeat R Goes up to previous section when navigating DVD title menu selections. Sets points for AB repeat function during playback
N Next audio stream H Switches among available audio streams
O Next subtitle U Switches among available subtitles during playback
P Full screen Z Switches to full screen and back to windows mode
Q Configuration Ctrl-C Configuration settings are all located here
R i-Power! F3 i-Power takes you to the Internet directly
S Skin toggle Ctrl-T Toggles between maximized and minimized skin
T Menu L Accesses all available DVD menus
U Select source Ctrl-O Selects media source for playback
V Menu/number pad / Activates/inactivates menu/number pad

Playing VCD/SVCD
PowerDVD allows you to play practically anything with digital content, and this includes VCD formats (Video CD and Super Video CD) or Audio CD. Of course, because of VCD/SVCD's inherent limitations, it will not be able to fully utilize all DVD functions.

For a quicker understanding of the differences between VCD and SVCD, below is a simple table.

Specifications SVCD VCD 2.0
Video MPEG-2 MPEG-1
Video Bitrate (Mbps) 2.6 variable 1.15
Resolution NTSC (PAL) 480x480 (480x576) 352x240 (352x288)
Audio MPEG-1 Layer 2 or MPEG-2 MPEG-1 Layer 2
Audio Bitrate (kbps) 32-384 224
Audio Channels 2 stereo or 4 mono 1 stereo or 2 mono
Surround Sound MPEG-2 (5.1) extension Stereo with Dolby Pro Logic

Insert the VCD/SVCD and start PowerDVD. Click Play . Be sure that the source is correct. If not, click Select Source and choose the right drive.
The VCD/SVCD will begin playing. Depending on the VCD/SVCD title, some may offer a title menu. Depending on your title, the on screen menu selection can be clicked on directly or use the Number Pad to select.
All VCD/SVCDs will have the capability of navigating, so put the navigational slider to full use and navigate as you like.
You may also Shuttle Forward or Shuttle Reverse.
Click Next or Previous to skip or return to chapters depending if your title supports it.

SQL Profiler Terminology

2008-05-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

SQL Profiler Terminology
To use SQL Profiler, you need to understand the terminology that describes the way the tool functions. For example, you create a template that defines the data you want to collect. You collect this data by running a trace on the events defined in the template. While the trace is running, the event classes and data columns that describe the event data are displayed in SQL Profiler.

Template
A template defines the criteria for each event you want to monitor with SQL Profiler. For example, you can create a template, specifying which events, data columns, and filters to use. Then you can save the template and launch a trace with the current template settings. The trace data captured is based upon the options specified in the template. A template is not executed, and must be saved to a file with the .tdf extension.

Trace
A trace captures data based upon the selected events, data columns, and filters. For example, you can create a template to monitor exception errors. To do this, you would select to trace the Exception event class, and the Error, State, and Severity data columns, which need to be collected for the trace results to provide meaningful data. After you save the template, you can then run it as a trace, and collect data on any Exception events that occur in the server. This trace data can be saved and then replayed at a later date, or used immediately for analysis.
Filter
When you create a trace or template, you can define criteria to filter the data collected by the event. If traces are becoming too large, you can filter them based on the information you want, so that only a subset of the event data is collected. If a filter is not set, all events of the selected event classes are returned in the trace output. For example, you can limit the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 user names in the trace to specific users, reducing the output data to only those users in which you are interested.
Event Category
An event category defines the way events are grouped. For example, all lock events classes are grouped within the Locks event category. However, event categories only exist within SQL Profiler. This term does not reflect the way engine events are grouped.

Event
An event is an action generated within the Microsoft SQL Server™ engine. For example:

The login connections, failures, and disconnections.
The Transact-SQL SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.
The remote procedure call (RPC) batch status.
The start or end of a stored procedure.
The start or end of statements within stored procedures.
The start or end of an SQL batch.
An error written to the SQL Server error log.
A lock acquired or released on a database object.
An opened cursor.
Security permissions checks.
All of the data that is generated as a result of an event is displayed in the trace in a single row. This row contains columns of data called event classes that describe the event in detail.
Event Class
An event class is the column that describes the event that was produced by the server. The event class determines the type of data collected, and not all data columns are applicable to all event classes. Examples of event classes include:
SQL:BatchCompleted, which indicates the completion of an SQL batch.
The name of the computer on which the client is running.
The ID of the object affected by the event, such as a table name.
The SQL Server name of the user issuing the statement.
The text of the Transact-SQL statement or stored procedure being executed.
The time the event started and ended.
Data Column
The data columns describe the data collected for each of the event classes captured in the trace. Because the event class determines the type of data collected, not all data columns are applicable to all event classes. For example, the Binary Data data column, when captured for the Lock:Acquired event class, contains the value of the locked page ID or row but has no value for the Integer Data event class. Default data columns are populated automatically for all event classes.

Monitoring with SQL Profiler

2008-05-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

Administering SQL Server
Monitoring with SQL Profiler
SQL Profiler is a graphical tool that allows system administrators to monitor events in an instance of Microsoft® SQL Server™. You can capture and save data about each event to a file or SQL Server table to analyze later. For example, you can monitor a production environment to see which stored procedures are hampering performance by executing too slowly.

Use SQL Profiler to monitor only the events in which you are interested. If traces are becoming too large, you can filter them based on the information you want, so that only a subset of the event data is collected. Monitoring too many events adds overhead to the server and the monitoring process and can cause the trace file or trace table to grow very large, especially when the monitoring process takes place over a long period of time.

After you have traced events, SQL Profiler allows captured event data to be replayed against an instance of SQL Server, thereby effectively reexecuting the saved events as they occurred originally.

Use SQL Profiler to:

Monitor the performance of an instance of SQL Server.

Debug Transact-SQL statements and stored procedures.

Identify slow-executing queries.

Test SQL statements and stored procedures in the development phase of a project by single-stepping through statements to confirm that the code works as expected.

Troubleshoot problems in SQL Server by capturing events on a production system and replaying them on a test system. This is useful for testing or debugging purposes and allows users to continue using the production system without interference.

Audit and review activity that occurred on an instance of SQL Server. This allows a security administrator to review any of the auditing events, including the success and failure of a login attempt and the success and failure of permissions in accessing statements and objects.
SQL Profiler provides a graphical user interface to a set of stored procedures that can be used to monitor an instance of SQL Server. For example, it is possible to create your own application that uses SQL Profiler stored procedures to monitor SQL Server.

You must have at least 10 megabytes (MB) of free space to run SQL Profiler. If free space drops below 10 MB while you are using SQL Profiler, all SQL Profiler functions will stop.

Starting SQL Profiler
SQL Profiler is started from the Microsoft® Windows NT® 4.0, Microsoft Windows® 2000 or Microsoft Windows 98 Start menu, or from SQL Server Enterprise Manager.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise

2008-05-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise is an innovative technology for PCs and servers. It proactively stops and removes malicious software, extends coverage against new security risks, and reduces the cost of responding to outbreaks. Enterprises cannot afford to wait for every threat to be identified and a signature file to be released. The time between attack and subsequent identification is critical, and the shorter, the better. It is better yet if your protection technology identifies new, unknown threats.

By blending advanced anti-virus, firewall, and intrusion prevention technologies, VirusScan Enterprise covers a broad range of threats. With advanced heuristics and generic detection it finds even new, unknown viruses, even hidden in compressed files. McAfee VirusScan Enterprise looks for exploits known to target Microsoft applications and services and will identify and block threats that take advantage of JavaScript and VisualBasic coding.

And, since virus protection is only as good as its latest update, the McAfee VirusScan Enterprise database is updated daily with information from McAfee Avert® Labs, the world's top threat research center.

you can have

Benefits:

* Get maximum protection
Gain maximum protection for your PCs and servers with combined anti-virus, firewall, and intrusion prevention technology
* Block multiple types of threats
Defend your systems against viruses, buffer overflows, and blended attacks
* Minimize damage
Limit the harm done to your PCs and servers with advanced outbreak functionality
* Stop threats that write to memory
Block threats that do not write to disk with in-memory scanning
* Prevent rootkit infestation
Stop rootkits and hidden files from installing
* Single console
Control and manage VirusScan from a single console with ePolicy Orchestrator and get detailed enterprise-level reporting
* Hacker-proof protection
Stop worrying about disruptions; malware or hackers cannot disable VirusScan Enterprise

Features:

* Cover all the bases
Block a broad range of viruses and malicious code—even those hidden in compressed files; find new, unknown viruses with advanced heuristics and generic detection
* Defend against threats that target Microsoft
Protect against exploits targeted at Microsoft applications and services—especially for Microsoft Windows OS services, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook and SQL server
* Curb outbreak damage
Limit outbreak damage, even before DAT files are issued; close ports, monitor applications and email engines, block files and directories, and trace and block infection sources
* Scans memory for malicious code
Detect threats that write to memory rather than disk, such as CodeRed and SQLSlammer
* Protect email programs
Detect and scour viruses in Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes—including HTML text and attachments
* Keep script-type threats at bay
Prevent threats that exploit JavaScript or Visual Basic from executing
* Optimize updating for remote systems
Tailor field updates to physical locations and connection speeds: resume updating after a broken connection is re-established
* Lock down files
Keep VirusScan Enterprise files from being altered with enhanced access protection rules
* Advanced rootkit detection
Scan system memory for installed rootkits, hidden processes, and other concealed malicious code

Archiving and Restoring Databases ms Sql Server 2000

2008-05-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

Archiving and Restoring Databases
An archive file for a Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services database contains the contents of the directory named the same as the database. For example, the archive file for the Yourdata sample database stores the contents of the Yourdata directory. The default path of this directory is:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Analysis Services\Data\yourdata
All Analysis Services databases can be found in the Data directory. The path leading to the Data directory can be changed. To determine the current path, in Analysis Manager, right-click the server that contains the database, click Properties, and then see the Data folder box.

Important The subdirectories of the Data directory store security files that control end users' access to objects on the Analysis server. These files are included in the archive files. For this reason, archive files must be secured against unauthorized access.
The archive file also stores meta data for the database and its objects. The appropriate records from the Analysis Services repository are included in the archive file. By default the Analysis Services repository is:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Analysis Services\Bin\msmdrep.mdb
However, the path of the repository can be changed at installation, and the repository can be migrated to a SQL Server database.

Caution When you restore a database, its file set (in the Data directory and its subdirectories) and its meta data are returned to their states at the time the archive file was created. Files that were created since then in these directories are deleted. Changes and additions since then to Analysis Services repository records for the database and its objects are removed.
When you restore a database:
• The files in the selected archive file are restored to the appropriate directories in the Data directory. If these directories already contain files with the same names as files in the archive file, the existing files are overwritten by the files in the archive file. If these directories contain files with different names, including new files that were created since the archive file was created, these files are deleted.
• The records in the Analysis Services repository that are associated with the database and its objects are replaced by the Analysis Services repository records in the selected archive file.
Sometimes restoration of a database containing relational OLAP (ROLAP) partitions copies rather than replaces the original, archived partitions. When this happens, the original ROLAP partitions and their copies will use the same aggregation tables. This situation may cause overwrite conflicts in the tables. For example, if you change and process an original partition, the aggregation tables may no longer be valid for the copy of that partition. To avoid this problem, specify a unique aggregation prefix for each ROLAP partition immediately after restoration, and then process the partitions whose aggregation prefixes you changed. This action creates different aggregation tables for each partition.

Network Chat Use LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e!

2008-05-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

Network Chat Use LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e!
The program LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e is designed to support exchanging messages in the regime of real time in a small office, in an educational institution, in general in any office with local networks. This unique software affords an opportunity for users of the local networks to communicate easily. The program works on the conference principle. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e requires neither connecting to Internet nor a specialized (a selected) server. The program needs only a simple one-range network. The user can take complete control over the program and there's an opportunity to make all kinds of settings to his own liking. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e gives each client of the network the opportunity to connect with any of the rest clients of the network to exchange messages on about their projects. Administrators and chiefs can send messages to either individual users or to groups of users, to departments or even to the whole office. You can send private messages to some user and to create private channels for several users.
No Network Management Needed
As a rule, offices with a small (local) network do not have a special person to act as a net administrator, besides, they cannot afford time and money to train the stuff. This distinction (peculiarity) was taken into account in the process of designing the program LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e, and that is why the program is ready for work as soon as it is installed. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e saves your time and money, since in a few minutes your net can start a new life, it will be really alive and capable of not only copying files, though copying files within LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e also goes without saying.
True protection of sent messages.
You can be sure that your messages sent within the local net are kept absolutely confident. In LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e a very strong cryptographic security system is built in. All the text messages are encoded with the usage of 128-bites key.
Support of electronic mail!
If in your net a mail server is installed, LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e will easily manage the task of sending and receiving e-mail. The program will inform you about new messages sent to your e-mail address.
A lot of other options.
LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e provides following options:
o Auto reply. If you are very busy and have no possibility to reply of it you are just temporarily away from your computer, you have the option of leaving messages for users. Anyone who will try to send you a message, will receive your auto reply;
o Alarm. If you have some important thing to do and you are afraid you can forget about it, you can use the built-in alarm function. At a defined moment of time the program will send you or any other user the previously prepared message. It can be a sound message, then it would be automatically reproduced by standard means.
o The regime of readdressing. If you are temporarily using somebody else's computer, all the incoming messages will be readdressed to the net address you will have defined.
o "Black list". The option is designed to filter out messages from unwanted net addresses.
o Monitoring the contents of a folder. Sometimes there is a necessity to monitor changes in computer folders. LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e will inform you about new files in the monitored folder, about changes in the files of the folder, etc.
o Sound message. There is a possibility to send not only a text message, but also a sound message or even a video message. The message will be automatically reproduced on your addressee's computer.
o Sending a file or a group of files. It is very simple. Choose the addresses, and with the mouse drag a file to the form of LAN Chat E n t e r p r i s e, and the file will be sent to the desktop of the addressee.
o Distant computer control system. If you want, the program provides operating certain commands on a distant computer. For example, you can switch on or reset a distant computer, search a required file and send it to your computer or you can even get a view of the desktop of a distant computer.

Download Lan chat

Easy FlashMaker

2008-05-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

"Easy FlashMaker" is a tool to create simple Macromedia Flash Movies (SWF files) quickly and easily. It is well known that Flash creation using professional software is very difficult process for beginners and even for more experienced users. We have tried to make this process as simple and convenient as possible.

Main steps to create an animation Flash
Each movie consists of frames. We can consider each frame as container that contains objects such as rectangles, circles, text strings etc. Therefore, to create a movie we should create a set of frames and edit each object (its position, color etc.) on each frame. This program makes this process as simple as possible. When starting this program, it automatically creates the simplest 20-frame movie without any objects on it. You can put an object(s) on a frame(s), edit it(s) property and your movie is ready! The simplest movie can be created and stored as *.SWF file within few seconds. Moreover, this program can automatically create an animation for the selected object using starting and finishing points. The way to create really impressive animated SWF movie using "Easy FlashMaker" is very simple:

1) Make sure that ANIMATION MODE is selected.

2) Add an object (rectangle, circle, text, picture etc.) to the movie.

3) Go to the first frame (or to any other starting frame) and set the starting properties for it (position, angle, colors etc.).

4) Go to the last frame (or to any other finishing frame) and define the finishing properties for this object (position, angle, colors etc.).

When edge frames editing, all of the intermediate frames will be automatically recalculated to get animation effect (including position, angle, colors etc.).

5) Test the movie.

You can add another object to the movie or edit each frame manually, if need it.

Download Easy FlashMaker

2008-05-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

avast! antivirus Home Edition, anti-spyware & anti-rootkit for Windows
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Correct color and tone Adobe Photoshop cs 2

2008-05-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Correct color and tone
You can fix photos that are dull, lack contrast, or have a color cast by adjusting the shadows, midtones, and highlights. In this tutorial, you’ll see how to adjust tonality and color.

Evaluate your image.
Evaluate the image brightness, contrast, and color. This image is dark, has little contrast, and its overall color is shifted toward blue. We can fix this image quickly using the Photoshop Levels dialog box.

Create a new Levels adjustment layer.
Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and click OK in the New Layer dialog box. Rather than working directly on the image, we are going to make the tonal correction in an adjustment layer. Working in an adjustment layer leaves the original image untouched so you can discard your changes and restore the original image at any time.
Evaluate the image histogram.
The histogram in the center of the Levels dialog box shows how pixels are distributed in an image by graphing the number of pixels at each intensity level. It displays the relative number of pixels in the shadows (left part of the histogram), midtones (middle), and highlights (right). You can see that this image is not using the entire tonal range. Pixels don’t extend across the entire length of the histogram.

Set the shadows and highlights.
Move the black point input slider and the white point input slider (the black triangle and white triangle located directly beneath the histogram) inward from the edges of the histogram. The black point input slider adjusts pixels to value zero. All pixels at the level you set and any pixels below become black in the image. The white point input slider maps values at its position or above to 255, or pure white. After you adjust the sliders, the image will have more contrast.

Adjust the midtones.
The middle input slider (the gray triangle below the histogram) adjusts the gamma, or contrast, of the midtone values. It moves the midtone (level 128) and changes the intensity values of the middle range of gray tones without significantly altering the highlights and shadows.
Move the middle input slider to the left to lighten the image or to the right to darken the image.

Remove the color cast.
Select the Set Gray Point Eyedropper tool in the Levels dialog box (the middle eyedropper). Click an area in the image that should be gray. That area becomes neutral gray, and the color cast is removed.
The Set Gray Point Eyedropper tool works best on images with easily identified neutral tones. Advanced users often use the Levels command to adjust individual channels and remove a color cast.

Finish up.
When you’ve made all your adjustments, click OK to close the dialog box and accept your changes. Because you’ve used an adjustment layer, you can reopen the dialog box and see the adjustments you made. You can readjust any of the settings.
To reopen the Levels dialog box, in the Layers palette double-click the left thumbnail in the adjustment layer.
You’ve seen one way to adjust the color and tonal values in your image. Photoshop has many more tools to make these adjustments. For more information see Correcting images in Photoshop and Color adjustment commands.

Download Using FlashGet

2008-04-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

FlashGet is specifically designed to address two of the biggest problems when downloading files: Speed and management of downloaded files.

If you've ever waited forever for your files to download from a slow connection, or been cut off midway through a download - or just can't keep track of your ever-growing downloads - FlashGet is for you. FlashGet can split downloaded files into sections, downloading each section simultaneously, for an increase in downloading speed from 100% to 500%. This, coupled with FlashGet's powerful and easy-to-use management features, helps you take control of your downloads like never before.
Speed
FlashGet can automatically split files into sections or splits, and download each split simultaneously. Multiple connections are opened to each file, and the result is the the most efficient exploitation of the bandwidth available. Whatever your connection, FlashGet makes sure all of the bandwidth is utilized. Difficult, slow downloads that normally take ages are handled with ease. Download times are drastically reduced.
Management
FlashGet is capable of creating unlimited numbers of categories for your files. Download jobs can be placed in specifically-named categories for quick and easy access. The powerful and easy-to-use management features in FlashGet help you take control of your downloads easily.
Highlights
Speed. The ability to split files into up to 10 parts, with each part downloading simultaneously. Up to 8 different simultaneous download jobs. FlashGet just might be the fastest download software around!
Organize. Categorize files with FlashGet's integrated & simple-yet-powerful file management features before your files engulf you!
Mirror search. Automatically search for the fastest server available for the fastest possible downloads.
Automatically have FlashGet dial up, hang up & shut down the computer when you're not around!
Schedule to download files whenever you feel! Whether it's while you snooze or during off-peak periods, certain times each weekday, weekend or whatever. The choice is yours!
Manage your copious downloaded files with FlashGet's simple yet powerful user interface.
Automate your FlashGet downloads with a browser click! Supports Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera* web browsers. *with freely downloadable plug-in.
Superior ease-of-use. FlashGet's interface is logical, integrated, informative and customizable.
Queue your downloads with FlashGet's logical queueing system.
Control the download speed limit so that downloading files doesn't interfere with your web browsing!
Easily see any aspect of your downloads at a glance. Whether it be server status messages, monitoring splits, amount downloaded, time left...whatever! No excessive clicking into multiple open windows to see what's going on!
Customize the the FlashGet toolbar and user interface, including the Graph and log window colors.
Support for proxy servers for maximum downloading flexibility.
Speak your language with FlashGet's auto-select language capabilities (20+ selectable languages available).
Check for FlashGet updates from within FlashGet.
Monitor your download progress, server status messages and download splits graphically with the easiest, most functional user interface around!

PDF To JPG Using Photoshop CS2

2008-04-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

Opening PDF files
Portable Document Format (PDF) is a versatile file format that can represent both vector and bitmap data. It has electronic document search and navigation features. PDF is the primary format for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Acrobat.
Some PDF files contain a single image, and others contain multiple pages and images. When you open a PDF file in Photoshop, you can choose which pages or images to open and specify rasterization options. The pages or images are imported as Smart Objects in new documents.
In Photoshop, you can also import PDF data using the Place command, the Paste command, and the drag-and-drop feature. The page or image is placed on a separate layer as a Smart Object.

Adobe® Photoshop® CS2

2008-04-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 To create a new image
Use the New command to create a new, blank image. If you’ve copied a selection to the clipboard, the image dimensions and resolution are automatically based on that image data.
Choose File > New.
If desired, type a name for the image, and set the width and height.
(Photoshop) To match the width and height of the new image to that of any open image, choose a file name from the bottom section of the Windows menu.
(Photoshop) Set the resolution and mode.
Select an option for the contents of the background layer (Photoshop) or first layer (ImageReady) of the image:
White Fills the background or first layer with white, the default background color.
Background Color Fills the background or first layer with the current background color.
Transparent Makes the first layer transparent, with no color values. The resulting document has a single, transparent layer as its contents.
Under Advanced, choose a color profile, or choose Don’t Color Manage This Document. For Pixel Aspect Ratio, choose Square unless you’re using the image for video. In that case, choose another option to use non-square pixels.
When you finish, you can save the settings as a preset by clicking Save Preset, or you can click OK to open the new file.

Maintaining OLAP Data

2008-04-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Maintaining OLAP Data
The purpose of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services is to provide rapid analytical access to data warehouse data. To accomplish this purpose, Analysis Services creates multidimensional cubes from data in the data warehouse fact and dimension tables. Numerical measures are also summarized into preaggregated values during cube construction. Cubes are stored in multidimensional structures that are designed for rapid query response, combining preaggregated information with raw fact data to respond to a wide variety of queries.

Cubes can contain data summarized, copied, or read directly from the data warehouse. Changes to the structure of the data warehouse or the data contained in it can affect the integrity and accuracy of cubes that have been created from the data warehouse. Because Analysis Services provides continuous online access to cubes, changes to the underlying data warehouse must be approached with a clear understanding of their effects on cubes and how to manage the synchronization of data in the data warehouse with data in cubes.

OLAP data must be updated after data warehouse data is changed. You process OLAP cubes, dimensions, and partitions to incorporate new or changed data from the data warehouse. The method of processing an OLAP object depends on the object and type of change made to the data warehouse, such as data addition, data change, or structural change.

Real-time OLAP is a feature that uses real-time cubes to automatically synchronize cube data with changes in the underlying relational database. Real-time cubes can be used for applications that need to monitor and analyze live data, and are intended to extend OLAP capabilities rather than replace traditional cube designs and applications.

Changes in the Data Warehouse
Data is usually added periodically to the data warehouse to include more recent information about the organization's business activities. Changes to data already in the data warehouse are less frequent and usually made only to incorporate corrections to errors discovered in the source from which the data was extracted, or to restructure data due to organizational changes. Structural changes to the data warehouse design typically are the least common.

Data Additions
It is common to add new data to the data warehouse. Cube information available online to client applications can be affected when data is added to the data warehouse due to interaction between the data and cube partitions. You can manage the effects of adding data to the data warehouse by carefully defining partition filters, and by designing a strategy to synchronize OLAP and data warehouse data.

Data Changes
Changes to correct errors in a data warehouse can be minimized by applying care during the data transformation, validation, and scrubbing operations. Other changes to existing data warehouse data can arise from changes in the structure of an organization or its products. For example, reorganizing products into different categories can require significant changes to data in the data warehouse, as well as to reports derived from the data warehouse. In some cases, such changes can require the complete redesign of cubes. In other cases, the redesign of dimensions and the processing of all cubes that use those dimensions may be all that is required.

Changes to correct errors in basic data should be incorporated in the source database, usually the OLTP business database, and then migrated to the data warehouse in a controlled manner. Many business OLTP database designs require changes to be made by a transaction that offsets the incorrect data and applies new correct data. It is often easier to manage the impact of such correction transactions on OLAP data. Cubes can incorporate new data transactions that correct value errors, such as an incorrect sale value. However, transactions that move a fact from one dimension member to another, such as a sale posted to the wrong customer, can affect the results of aggregate functions such as Avg. This is true for non-OLAP databases as well; if an original sale order is zeroed out but the record remains in the database, it will be included in the count of sales records and affect the calculation.

Depending on cube storage design, changes to data in the fact table can affect the accuracy of queries to a cube until the cube is processed. The Refresh data processing option can be used to reload the cube's data and recalculate the aggregations. Because aggregation design remains the same, the Refresh data processing option is faster than the complete Full process processing option.

Dimension hierarchies can be affected by changes to data in the data warehouse dimension tables even though the table schema remains the same. The dimension hierarchy is based on relationships between members in a dimension table. When these relationships are changed (for example, when cities are reorganized into different sales regions), the dimension structure must be rebuilt.

Referential integrity must be maintained when data warehouse data is added, changed, or deleted. Loss of referential integrity can result in errors during cube processing, fact table records being bypassed, or inaccurate OLAP information.

Structure Changes
The structure of OLAP cubes and dimensions can be affected by changes to the design of the data warehouse such as the addition, deletion, or alteration of tables, or relationships between tables. When the structure changes, you must modify the design of affected cubes and dimensions, redefine partitions and aggregations, and completely process the modified cubes and dimensions.

Synchronizing OLAP and Data Warehouse Data
Valid cubes are online and available to client applications at all times when the Analysis server is running. Because of the potential for interaction of OLAP cube partitions with data in the data warehouse, the design of the data warehouse should include a synchronization strategy to enable the addition of data without causing cubes to provide incorrect answers to queries in cubes available to online client applications.

One strategy for managing additions to data warehouse and OLAP data is to design a batch update system. In this strategy, all data in the data warehouse fact table includes a batch number in each record. When you design a cube, add an expression to the filter for each of the cube's partitions to specify the largest batch number applicable, for example, "... AND DWBatch <= 33 ..." When additions to the fact table need to be made, include a new, higher batch number in the new records. Cubes are unaffected by these added records because the cube partitions are restricted to reading data from previous batches only.

Data added to a dimension table does not affect existing cube private or shared dimensions until the dimensions are processed. A batch number in dimension table records is not necessary, but it can be useful in ensuring continued referential integrity.

Dimensions and cubes or partitions can be processed to incorporate new data after a batch of data has been added to the fact table and dimension tables. Shared dimensions should be processed before the cubes that use them. To add new members to a dimension that do not affect the dimension's structure, use the Incremental update option. To add new members and rebuild the dimension's structure, use the Rebuild the dimension structure option. Note that when a shared dimension is processed with the Rebuild the dimension structure option, all cubes that incorporate that dimension will immediately become unavailable to client applications and must be processed before they can be used again. However, when a shared dimension is processed using the Incremental update option, a cube that uses the shared dimension will display the new members, but the cells associated with those members will remain empty until the cube is updated with new data from the fact table that relates to the new members.

To incorporate a new data batch in a cube, update the filter expression in each of the cube's partitions to include the new batch number, and then process or incrementally update the cube. If a cube's data is divided among multiple partitions, you can use one of the partitions to accumulate new data batches and process that partition only. The cube's other partitions must have filters that exclude new data so that data will be added only to the accumulation partition.

Visibility to Client Applications
When a cube that is currently online is processed by any one of the three processing options (Full process, Incremental update, or Refresh data), the cube remains online until the processing has been completed, at which time the online cube is replaced by the new cube version. When a cube is processed using the Full process option, online client applications will be disconnected from the cube when the switch is made to the new version of the cube, and the client applications must individually reconnect to access the new version. When a cube is processed using either the Incremental update or the Refresh data option, online client applications will not be disconnected from the cube when the processing completes. The new version of the cube will be immediately visible with no break in service.

The processing of a shared dimension can affect cubes that incorporate the dimension in their design. If a shared dimension is processed using the Rebuild the dimension structure option, all cubes that use the dimension will immediately become unavailable to client applications and must be processed before they can be used again. If a shared dimension is processed using the Incremental update option, cubes that use the dimension remain available to client applications and any new members added to the dimension automatically become available to client applications when the dimension processing is complete. Any such new members will not have fact data associated with them until the cube is updated with new related facts.

Analysis Services Architecture

2008-04-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Analysis Services Architecture
Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services includes the Analysis server and PivotTable® Service. The Analysis server creates and manages multidimensional data cubes for online analytical processing (OLAP) and provides multidimensional data to PivotTable Service, which in turn provides this data to clients through Microsoft ActiveX® Data Objects (Multidimensional) (ADO MD) and OLE DB for OLAP provider services.

The server stores cube meta data (cube definition specifications) in a repository. Completed cubes can be stored in a variety of storage modes: as multidimensional database files (MOLAP), as tables in a relational database (ROLAP), or as a hybrid of multidimensional database files and relational tables (HOLAP).

Source data for multidimensional cubes resides in relational databases where the data has been transformed into a star or snowflake schema typically used in OLAP data warehouse systems. Analysis Services can work with many relational databases that support connections using ODBC or OLE DB. When used as part of SQL Server 2000, Analysis Services offers enhanced security and other capabilities. The Data Transformation Services (DTS) feature of SQL Server 2000 provides a means to manage the data warehouse from which Analysis Services creates cubes.

Control of the server is accomplished through the Analysis Manager user interface, or through custom applications developed using the Decision Support Objects (DSO) object model. DSO controls the creation and management of cubes by the server, and manages the cube meta data in the repository. The object model is used by the Analysis Manager program that provides the user interface through a snap-in to Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The DSO object model can be used by applications written in Microsoft Visual Basic® to provide custom programmatic control of the server. You can also develop custom applications to interact with the Analysis Manager user interface.

The following diagram illustrates the elements and functions of the Analysis server and its use of PivotTable Service to provide multidimensional data to client consumer applications. The Analysis Manager user interface uses PivotTable Service to obtain multidimensional data from the server for browsing by the server administrator. For more information about client applications.

sql server Programming Analysis Services Applications

2008-04-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

Programming Analysis Services Applications
Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services provides support for you to create and integrate custom applications that enhance your online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining installation.

Analysis Services includes the Analysis server and PivotTable® Service. The Analysis server manages and stores multidimensional information and serves client application requests for OLAP data. PivotTable Service is an OLE DB for OLAP provider that connects client applications to the Analysis server and manages offline cubes. A repository of meta data contains definitions of OLAP data objects such as cubes and their elements.

An object model, Decision Support Objects (DSO), provides support for the Analysis Manager user interface and for custom applications that manage OLAP meta data and control the server. An interface, IOlapAddIn, enables your applications to extend and interact with the user interface. PivotTable Service provides access to OLAP data from the server and the ability to create local cubes.

You can create applications that:

Manage the Analysis server and create and maintain OLAP and data mining objects such as cubes, dimensions, security roles, and data mining models.

Extend the user interface by adding new objects to the object tree pane and by adding and responding to new menu choices.

Connect to the Analysis server, query data in cubes, and create local cubes.

Combine any or all of these functions.
This section contains the following topics.

Topic Description
Analysis Services Architecture Information about the architecture of Analysis Services and its components
Analysis Services Component Tools Information about the tools in Analysis Services that you can use to create administrative support applications and client data access applications
SQL in Analysis Services Details of the implementation of SQL in Analysis Services
Decision Support Objects Information about the Analysis Services server object model, the component tool for managing OLAP, and data mining objects
Add-ins Information about the IOlapAddIn interface you can use in your applications to interact with the Analysis Manager user interface
PivotTable Service Information about the client application service you can use with applications that query OLAP and data mining data and create local cubes and mining models
Analysis Services Programming Samples Information about the samples that illustrate development of applications for Analysis Services

SQL SERVER OLAP and Data Warehouses

2008-04-25T09:43:00.001-07:00

OLAP and Data Warehouses
OLAP provides a multidimensional presentation of data warehouse data, creating cubes that organize and summarize data for efficient analytical querying. The design of the data warehouse structure can affect how easily these cubes can be designed and constructed.

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services relies on the data provided by the data warehouse to be accurate, stable, and to have referential integrity. When creating a data warehouse for use with Analysis Services, these design factors should be considered:

Use a star schema if possible.
If a snowflake schema is needed, minimize the number of dimension tables beyond the first level from the fact table.

Design dimension tables for the users.
Dimension tables should include meaningful information about the facts that users will want to explore, such as the color or size of a product.

Apply commonsense normalization to dimension table design.
Unrelated data should not be combined into a single dimension table, and data should not be repeated in multiple dimension tables. For example, create a separate customer dimension instead of repeating customer information in more than one dimension table.

Do not over-summarize in the fact table.
Retain the finest level of granularity users need to access, and keep all fact table records at the same level of detail. Analysis Services is designed to create and manage summary data from highly granular data warehouses without penalizing users in query response time.

Use a common fact table structure for similar data.
Data intended to be used in the same cube can be stored in multiple fact tables, but those tables must have the same structure.

Do not create auxiliary tables of summarized data.
Analysis Services precalculates summaries into structures that are designed for query efficiency. Other auxiliary summarization tables are not used.

Create indexes on key fields.
For each dimension table, create an index on its key column. For each fact table, create a single index on the combination of columns that contain the foreign keys of the dimension tables associated with the fact table. Analysis Services uses these indexes when it loads multidimensional data structures and calculates summary data. These indexes significantly improve cube processing performance.

Ensure referential integrity.
It is important that all facts be represented in all dimension tables. Facts in a fact table that do not have a corresponding key in a dimension table can cause errors or fact table rows to be ignored if the fact and dimension tables are used in the same cube.

Design a data update strategy.
When data is added to or changed in the data warehouse, cubes that have been built from previous data must be updated before the new data is available to users. Incorporating additional data into cubes requires less time than rebuilding cubes when existing data changes.

SQL SERVER ABOUT DATA WAREHOUSES

2008-04-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

About Data Warehouses
A data warehouse is often used as the basis for a decision support system. Data warehouses are designed to overcome problems encountered when an organization attempts to perform strategic analysis using the same database that is used for online transaction processing (OLTP).
OLTP systems typically:
Support large numbers of concurrent users who are actively adding and modifying data.
Represent the constantly changing state of an organization but don't save its history.
Contain large amounts of data, including extensive data used to verify transactions.
Have complex structures.
Are tuned to be responsive to transaction activity.
Provide the technology infrastructure to support the day-to-day operations of an organization.
Difficulties often encountered when OLTP databases are used for online analysis include the following:
Analysts do not have the technical expertise required to create ad hoc queries against the complex data structure.
Analytical queries that summarize large volumes of data adversely affect the ability of the system to respond to online transactions.
System performance when responding to complex analysis queries can be slow or unpredictable, providing inadequate support to online analytical users.
Constantly changing data interferes with the consistency of analytical information.
Security becomes more complicated when online analysis is combined with online transaction processing.
Data warehousing provides one of the keys to solving these problems, by organizing data for the purpose of analysis. Data warehouses:
Can combine data from heterogeneous data sources into a single homogenous structure.
Organize data in simplified structures for efficiency of analytical queries rather than for transaction processing.
Contain transformed data that is valid, consistent, consolidated, and formatted for analysis.
Provide stable data that represents business history.
Are updated periodically with additional data rather than frequent transactions.
Simplify security requirements.
Provide a database organized for OLAP rather than OLTP.
A data mart is a special form of data warehouse, typically containing a topic-oriented subset of enterprise data appropriate to a specific business function.

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 provides many essential tools for building data warehouses and data marts, including Data Transformation Services (DTS).

SQL SERVER Data Warehousing and OLAP

2008-04-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

Although sometimes used interchangeably, the terms data warehousing and online analytical processing (OLAP) apply to different components of systems often referred to as decision support systems or business intelligence systems. Components of these types of systems include databases and applications that provide the tools analysts need to support organizational decision-making.

A data warehouse is a database containing data that usually represents the business history of an organization. This historical data is used for analysis that supports business decisions at many levels, from strategic planning to performance evaluation of a discrete organizational unit. Data in a data warehouse is organized to support analysis rather than to process real-time transactions as in online transaction processing systems (OLTP).

OLAP technology enables data warehouses to be used effectively for online analysis, providing rapid responses to iterative complex analytical queries. OLAP's multidimensional data model and data aggregation techniques organize and summarize large amounts of data so it can be evaluated quickly using online analysis and graphical tools. The answer to a query into historical data often leads to subsequent queries as the analyst searches for answers or explores possibilities. OLAP systems provide the speed and flexibility to support the analyst in real time.

Play DVD Movie with WinDVD Player

2008-04-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Whether watching DVD movies on your laptop as you travel, using your computer as a second DVD player for your kids, or watching a movie on your desktop as you work, WinDVD lets you get the most out of any computer with a DVD drive.
In addition to all the features you find in your home entertainment DVD player, WinDVD gives you advanced functionality not possible on your living room DVD player, such as time-stretching, zooming and panning, and thumbnail bookmarks. Personalize WinDVD to get the most out of it; you can customize WinDVD to suit your preferences and hardware.
WinDVD automatically determines the type of disc in your DVD drive and uses the correct playback method for DVD titles, video CDs, or audio CDs.
Play at normal speed, or fit the movie into the time you have available to watch it! Time stretching lets you decide how long the movie takes to view.
You can also use keyboard shortcuts to navigate without a mouse.
Use autohide to hide the control panel until you need it, giving you an unobstructed view of your favorite movie.
If a DVD has it, WinDVD can handle it. WinDVD recognizes all of the author's DVD features and lets you access them through the WinDVD user interface.

Playing DVD Movies
Watching a DVD movie is simple. In most cases, you just insert the disc. WinDVD starts automatically and determines the type of disc in the drive. But sometimes there's more to viewing a DVD title than letting a movie start and play through to the end without stopping. WinDVD lets you control your DVD viewing.

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the WinDVD Control Panel. This control panel contains all the basic transport controls (Play, Pause, Stop, etc.), volume and mute, playback speed, chapter and menu navigation, and the repeat options. For more control, the adjustment subpanels put advanced settings and DVD options at your fingertips.
Just want to watch a movie now? Here's how to get started.
Starting a DVD
To view a DVD title, put the disc into the default DVD drive. WinDVD should automatically play the disk. To manually start a title, click the Play icon, or press the Return key on the keyboard. Note: some DVDs contain other player software, and will ask you if you want to install it when the disc is inserted. We recommend against doing this, since this software may take over DVD playback functions and eliminate the special capabilities of WinDVD.
Pausing a DVD
On the primary control panel, click Pause , or press the spacebar on the keyboard. To resume play, click Play or press the spacebar again.
Viewing the Movie in Full Screen
Click the Full Screen icon, double-click the viewing window, or press Z on the keyboard. If the current playback is in Window mode, it will switch to full screen mode. If it is in full screen mode, it will switch to window mode.
You can also take advantage of the Autohide feature, found on the Control tab of the Setup dialog. Autohide hides the control panel after a period of no mouse movement, clearing the screen for unobstructed viewing.
Increasing, Decreasing, and Muting Volume
To increase volume, move the volume slider upwards to the desired volume level, or press [Shift][Up Arrow] on the keyboard.
To decrease volume, move the volume slider downwards to the desired volume level, or press [Shift][Down Arrow] on the keyboard.
To mute the volume, click the Mute button , or press M on the keyboard.
Adjusting Color
Use the color controls in the Color subpanel to fine-tune the display. These work like the controls found on a standard television set. Use the sliders to set the brightness, contrast, color saturation, hue, and gamma correction. Gamma correction is only available with WinDVD. See the InterVideo web site for details.
Changing Chapters
To jump to a different chapter, click the Next or Previous Chapter button or use the chapter menu that drops down from the menu button between the chapter buttons. You can also press C on the keyboard to open the Chapter menu directly.
Changing Your Settings
Additional settings that determine how the movie us played are organized into several subpanels, including Navigation, Language, Display, Color and Audio Effect.
To change your system settings, including speaker configuration and default settings for new discs, use the Setup dialog.
Ejecting a Disk
To eject a disk from the player, click the Eject button , or press E on the keyboard.
Zooming In
Click the Zoom button on the control panel. When you click Zoom (changing to Zoom mode), the zoom button changes to display "1:1", indicating that you are in zoom/pan mode.
Click the viewing area to zoom in. Continue clicking to zoom in further, or right-click and select Switch to Pan Mode to change to the Pan mode.
Once you have reached the maximum zoom level, the viewing are returns to normal view if the screen is clicked again.
To restore the full view, click the Zoom icon again, or press U on the keyboard.
Closing WinDVD
To close WinDVD, click the Close icon .
Launching Other InterVideo Products
If you have other InterVideo products installed on your computer, such as WinRip, WinProducer, WinDVR, or WinCoder, you can launch them using the WinCinema Manager. Right-click the WinCinema Manager icon, located in the system tray, and select the program to launch.
WinCinema Manager is not available with some versions of WinDVD.

look Lan Network Monitoring and Management Solutions

2008-04-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

Networks are present and future of Information Technologies' World. Our goal is to help people in installing, configuring, monitoring and managing them. Our target is as huge as the networks' design and size are: our solutions fit every need, from the Internet Provider WANs (Wide Area Network) to the small home LAN (Local Area Network). Anyone which has to deal with network related problems should try our integrated solutions and enjoy their proof of concept, their concerned point of view, their speed and easyness of use: they come directly from the analysis of the feedback collected from expert network/system administrators, network engineers and network designers.

Our flagship product is Look@LAN Network Monitor, a free solution for both personal and commercial use, is an advanced network monitor, which allows you to monitor your network in few clicks. Extremely easy to use and very fast in discovering your network's active nodes. Full of relevant features such as auto-detect of network configuration, monitoring, reporting, trapping, statistics and graphs, network tree view, network log, proof single node scan, os detection and so on. This solution is perfect for any kind of network size and design, as its network core has been developed to be able to work in any scenario.

While Look@LAN lets you be able to entirely monitor a complex and wide network, with Medas VNS (Visual Network Statistics) you can keep under control your network primary nodes, such as routers, firewalls, NATs, switches, HUBs. Medas VNS gives you detailed statistics about any node that supports SNMP: network interface stastics and correlated analysis, protocol statistics about any TCP/IP layer, active TCP and UDP connections and services, TCP/IP networks list, routes list. This is a perfect software solution for anyone who wants to carefully monitor and manage a network by keeping under strict control its primary nodes.

AVG FREE ANTIVIRUS

2008-04-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

AVG 7.5 Free Edition
The AVG Free Edition is provided free-of-charge, and its functionality is limited. All functions provided within the AVG Free Edition respond to the AVG Professional Basic Interface level.

AVG Free Edition working environment

When you first open AVG, you will see the AVG Test Center allowing you to run tests, update your AVG and edit some basic configurations.

The main AVG console, however, is the AVG Control Center. The AVG Control Center launches automatically upon Windows startup, and you can see its icon in the system tray - double-click the icon to open the interface (otherwise, you can access it from either the Testing Interface, or via the Start menu -> Programs -> AVG Free Edition -> AVG Control Center). The AVG Control Center lists all installed components, gives information on their status, and allows you to fully configure them.

This is all you need to know to begin using AVG Free Edition.
AVG Test Center
The AVG Test Center is designed to be easy to use, for people without an in-depth knowledge of antivirus protection issues.
The right part of the Test Center displays the Security Status - an overview of all installed components. (Double click it to open the AVG Control Center with an overview of the components.) It informs you (by graphical icon) about the security status of all components:
Green tick mark - everything is OK
Yellow tick mark - you have chosen to ignore an error state of an component
Red exclamation mark - one or more components are in an error state (are not installed, configured incorrectly, or out-of-date)
The left section of the Test Center has function buttons for use as shortcuts. In AVG Free Edition, you cannot customize these buttons. Right-click a button to obtain context help on its functionality.
The right section provides the following buttons:
· Scan Computer - starts the Complete Test,
· Scan Selected Areas - starts the Selected Areas Test,
· Check for Updates - opens the AVG Free Edition Update dialog
When you select the Test Results shortcut button (on the left side) or the Scan Selected Areas button (in the right section), a dialog related to the selected feature (Test Results or Selected Areas Test) appears in the right section.
The system menu allows you to activate all features available in the Test Center. It provides the following submenus:
· Program
· Tests
· Results
· Service
· Information

AVG Control Center - Main screen

AVG Control Center is the main interface of the AVG system. It acts as a console from which you can modify all components and is crucial for proper AVG network communication. AVG Control Center is launched automatically at Windows startup and its icon is visible in the system tray.

The AVG Control Center main screen contains:
System menu
Shortcut panel
Just like in the Test Center, the left section has buttons to access the most frequently used features of AVG. In this Free version, you cannot customize these buttons.
Security Status
In the right part of the AVG Control Center (above the list of components), there is a section providing an overview of all installed components. It informs you about the security status of all components using a graphical icon:
Green tick mark - everything is OK
Yellow tick mark - you have chosen to ignore an error state of one or more components
Red exclamation mark - one or more components are in an error state (are not installed, configured properly, or out-of-date)
Question mark - the status of one or more components cannot be found
List of components
This section shows AVG System Components, either in the extended or reduced mode. To select the desired mode, use the View menu: the Extended Mode shows each component as a box, while the Reduced Mode (default) shows the components in a list. A red icon indicates that the component is not fully functional - for example, it may not be installed, have some features disabled, or is outdated. A green icon indicates it is correctly set.
You can select (left-click) components to view additional information about the selected component on the component control panel (see below).
Component control panel
The section underneath the components list shows additional information on the currently selected component, and control buttons related to the component.
AVG Control Center - Menu
The menu has the following items:
Program
This submenu enables you to:
· Launch AVG Test Center
· Launch AVG Virus Vault
· Export List to File - this option is available only when a list is displayed (such as a Test Result or the index of Test Results)
· Print - this option is available only when a list is displayed
· Minimize the application to system tray
· Exit - shut down the AVG Control Center application

View

This menu allows you to switch between the Extended Mode (each component and its status are shown in a separate box) and the Reduced Mode (default mode: components and their status are listed on lines).
The Components submenu allows you to select components to be displayed in the Control Center main screen (the checked components are currently shown in the component section).
Use the Refresh item to reload the status of each component and to update the contents of the AVG Control Center main screen
Service
Here you can amend the AVG Control Center's Program Settings, create a Rescue Disk, Check for Updates, and display Event History Log.
The Language Selection option is not valid in AVG Free Edition; only English is available

Download

SAP 2000

2008-04-11T02:05:00.000-07:00

Computers and Structures, Inc.
SAP2000 Getting Started
Combinations 3-10 Design Settings 3-11 Output and Display Definitions 3-12 Learning More 3-12 Chapter 4 The Graphical User Interface 4-1 The SAP2000 Screen 4-1 Main Window 4-2 Menu Bar 4-2 Toolbars 4-3 Display Windows 4-4 Status Bar 4-4 Using the Mouse 4-5 Viewing Options 4-6 2-D and 3-D Views 4-6 Perspective 4-6 Pan, Zoom, and 3-D Rotate 4-7 Limits 4-7 Element View Options 4-7 Other Options 4-8 Refreshing the Display Window 4-8 Basic Operations 4-8 File Operations 4-9 Defining Named Entities 4-10 Drawing 4-11 Drawing Objects 4-12 Snap Tools 4-13 Drawing Controls 4-14 Selecting 4-14 Selecting Graphically 4-16 Selecting by Feature 4-17 Selecting by Coordinates 4-17
ii
Contents
iii
Selecting using Tables 4-18 Editing 4-18 Assigning 4-19 Undo and Redo 4-20 Analyzing 4-20 Displaying 4-22 Graphical Displays 4-22 Model Definition 4-22 Analysis Results 4-22 Function Plots 4-23 Tabular Displays 4-24 Designing 4-24 Locking and Unlocking 4-25 Entering Numerical Data 4-26 Setting Options 4-26 Getting Help 4-27 Chapter 5 Working with Data Tables 5-1 Classification of Tabular Data 5-1 Model Definition 5-1 Analysis Results 5-2 Design Results 5-2 Tables and Fields 5-2 Uses for Tabular Data 5-3 Selecting using Tables 5-4 Formatted Tables for Presentation 5-4 Structured Database Tables 5-5 Displaying Tabular Data 5-5 Printing Tabular Data 5-7 Custom Report Writer 5-8 Format Control for Display and Printing 5-8 Interactive Table Editing 5-9
SAP2000 Getting Started
Exporting Tabular Data 5-10 Importing Tabular Data 5-11 Automatic Export During Save 5-12 Export During Analysis 5-13 Tabular Database File Formats 5-13 Microsoft Access Database 5-13 Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet 5-13 Plain Text File 5-14 More Information 5-15 iv
1 - 1
Chapter 1 Welcome to SAP2000 SAP2000 represents the most sophisticated and user-friendly release of the SAP series of computer programs. When initially released in 1996, SAP2000 was the first version of SAP to be completely integrated within Microsoft Windows. It features a powerful graphical user interface that is unmatched in terms of ease-of-use and productivity. Creation and modification of the model, execution of the analysis, and checking and optimization of the design, and production of the output are all accomplished using this single interface. A single structural model can be used for a wide variety of different types of analysis and design. Program Levels and Features The latest release of SAP2000 is available in three different analytical levels that all share the same graphical user interface: SAP2000 Basic, SAP2000 PLUS and SAP2000 Advanced. All of these programs feature sophisticated capabilities, such as fast equation solvers, force and displacement loading, non-prismatic frame elements, tension-only braces, line and area springs, post-tensioning tendons, highly accurate layered shell elements, Eigen and Ritz modal analysis, multiple coordinate systems for skewed geometry, many different constraint options, the
SAP2000 Getting Started
1 - 2 Program Levels and Features ability to merge independently defined meshes, a fully-coupled 6-by-6 spring stiffness, and the option to combine or envelope multiple dynamic analyses in the same run. The SAP2000 PLUS program adds unlimited capacity, bridge live-load analysis capabilities, a complete range of finite elements, frequency-domain analysis (both steady-state and power-spectral-density types), and time-history analysis options. Ground motion effects with multiple base excitations can be included. The SAP2000 Advanced level extends the PLUS capabilities by adding a 64-bit based analysis engine (requires a 64-bit processor), a nonlinear link element (gaps, hooks, isolators, dampers, and multi-linear plasticity), a multi-linear plastic hinge for use in frame elements, a fiber hinge, a catenary cable element, a nonlinear shell element, and geometric nonlinearity. Analysis capabilities include static nonlinear analysis for material and geometric effects, including pushover analysis; nonlinear time-history analysis by modal superposition or direct integration; and buckling analysis. In general, the Advanced program is required to perform nonlinear analyses, with the exception being that a nonlinear analysis may be run in any of the three program levels when using tension/compression only frame members. All of the above programs feature powerful and completely integrated design for steel, concrete, aluminum, and cold-formed steel, all available from within the same interface used to create and analyze the model. The design of steel and aluminum frame members features initial member sizing and iterative optimization. The design of concrete frame members includes the calculation of the amount of reinforcing steel required. Design stresses and tension reinforcing for concrete shells may also be displayed, calculated from the resolved tension-compression couple. Members can be grouped for design purposes, and a single mouse click on an element accesses the detailed design calculations. A wide variety of the latest national and international design codes are supported, and more are being added all the time. Additional add-on modules, which integrate completely within the SAP2000 interface, are available for the following: 􀂃 Object-based bridge design
Chapter 1 - Welcome to SAP2000 Program Levels and Features 1 - 3 􀂃 Staged construction, with time-dependent effects 􀂃 Offshore/wave loading 􀂃 SASSI 2000 (soil-structure interaction) interface All SAP2000 data, including model information, analysis results, and design results, can be accessed using a tabular data structure. Tabular data can be edited and displayed in the interface, or exported to a Microsoft Access database file, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file, or a simple text file. Data can be exported to create reports or to perform specialized calculations. This same tabular data can be imported into SAP2000, enabling models to be generated or modified outside SAP2000. Import and export capabilities also exist for other popular drafting and design programs. The SAP name has been synonymous with state-of-the-art analytical solutions since the introduction of SAP, SOLIDSAP, and SAP IV more than thirty years ago, followed by its implementation on the PC with SAP80 and SAP90. To those sophisticated numerical techniques, SAP2000 adds a tremendously easy and complete graphical user interface linked with powerful design capabilities. The result is an analysis and design program unequaled in efficiency and productivity that is used by thousands of engineering firms in more than one hundred countries.
SAP2000 Getting Started
2 - 1
Chapter 2 Getting Started SAP2000 is a full-featured program that can be used for the simplest problems or the most complex projects. This chapter describes program installation and support options. Installing SAP2000 Please follow the installation instructions provided in the separate installation document included in your SAP2000 Package, or ask your system administrator to install the program and give you access to it. If You are Upgrading... If you are upgrading from version 6 or 7 of SAP2000, you should be aware of the following significant changes in the program, particularly: 􀂃 The model is defined in terms of objects, which are automatically and internally meshed into elements during analysis 􀂃 Load cases and analysis cases are now separate and distinct concepts
SAP2000 Getting Started
2 - 2 About the Manuals 􀂃 Text-based input has changed to be consistent with the new database capabilities If you are upgrading from version 8, 9 or 10 of SAP2000, you should be aware of the following enhancements to the program: 􀂃 Improved material definition forms, including a “quick” option using material types 􀂃 Material properties can be modified or added from within section definition forms 􀂃 Area object can be a general polygon 􀂃 Numerous new select options, including a poly select and a multisegment intersecting line select 􀂃 Object assignments may be edited in the right-button click object information forms 􀂃 Default design combinations may be added to user-defined combinations 􀂃 The analysis model may be displayed at any time, and the user may switch between analysis and object models These changes significantly improve the capabilities of the program in a consistent and forward-looking way. We recommend that you read the rest of this manual to familiarize yourself with the new concepts. Please also see the topic “Newer Features” in the Welcome topic of the Help facility within the program to learn more about the new and improved features in SAP2000. About the Manuals This manual and the other manuals in this volume are designed to help you quickly become productive with SAP2000. The next chapter gives an introduction to the basic concepts of the graphical user interface and overall use of the program.
Chapter 2- Getting Started
“Watch & Learn™ Movies” 2 - 3 The second part of this volume, the SAP2000 Basic Analysis Reference manual, gives an introduction to the fundamental concepts underlying the structural model and the analysis techniques used by SAP2000. It is recommended reading. The third part of this volume, the SAP2000 Introductory Tutorial manual, is intended to provide first-time users with hands-on experience using the modeling, analysis and design features of SAP2000. It is strongly recommended that you read this manual and work the tutorial before attempting a real project using SAP2000. Additional information can be found in the on-line Help facility available within the SAP2000 graphical user interface, and in the other manuals supplied with the program. The manuals are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format on the SAP2000 CD, and can also be accessed from within the program using the Help menu. They include the following: 􀂃 SAP2000, ETABS, and SAFE Analysis Reference, containing information about the advanced modeling and analysis features of the program 􀂃 Various SAP2000 design manuals, containing detailed design features specific to supported design codes 􀂃 SAP2000 Verification Manual, containing examples showing the capabilities and verifying the accuracy of the analytical features of the program “Watch & Learn™ Movies” One of the best resources available for learning about the SAP2000 program is the “Watch & Learn™ Movies” series, which may be accessed on the SAP2000 CD or through the CSI web site at http//:www.csiberkeley.com. Those movies contain a wealth of information for both the first time user and the experienced expert, covering a wide range of topics from basic operation to complex modeling.
SAP2000 Getting Started
2 - 4 Technical Support Technical Support Free technical support is available from Computers and Structures, Inc. (CSI) or your dealer via phone and e-mail for 90 days after the software has been purchased. After 90 days, priority technical support is available only to those with a yearly Support, Upgrade and Maintenance plan (SUM). Customers who do not have a current SUM subscription can obtain technical support, but via e-mail only and at the non-priority level. Please contact CSI or your dealer to inquire about purchasing a yearly SUM subscription. If you have questions regarding use of the software, please: 􀂃 Consult the documentation and other printed information included with your product. 􀂃 Check the on-line Help facility in the program. If you cannot find a solution, then contact us as described in the following sections. Help Us to Help You Whenever you contact us with a technical-support question, please provide us with the following information to help us help you: 􀂃 The program level (Basic, PLUS, or Advanced) and version number that you are using. This can be obtained from inside the program using the Help menu > About SAP2000 command. 􀂃 A description of your model, including a picture, if possible. 􀂃 A description of what happened and what you were doing when the problem occurred. 􀂃 The exact wording of any error messages that appeared on your screen. 􀂃 A description of how you tried to solve the problem.
Chapter 2- Getting Started
Technical Support 2 - 5 􀂃 The computer configuration (make and model, processor, operating system, hard disk size, and RAM size). 􀂃 Your name, your company’s name, and how we may contact you. Phone Support Priority phone support is available to those with a current SUM subscription from CSI or your dealer. For users in North America, you may contact CSI via a toll call between 8:30 A.M. and 5:00 P.M., Pacific time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, at (510) 845-2177. When you call, please be at your computer and have the program manuals at hand. Online Support Online support is available as follows: 􀂃 Send an e-mail and your model file to support@csiberkeley.com. 􀂃 Visit CSI’s web site at http://www.csiberkeley.com and use the Support link to submit a request for technical support. If you send us e-mail, be sure to include all of the information requested in the previous “Help Us to Help You” section.
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 1
Chapter 3 The Structural Model SAP2000 analyzes and designs your structure using a model that you define in the graphical user interface. The model consists primarily of the following types of components: 􀂃 Units 􀂃 Objects 􀂃 Groups 􀂃 Coordinate systems and grids 􀂃 Properties 􀂃 Load cases 􀂃 Functions 􀂃 Analysis cases 􀂃 Combinations 􀂃 Design settings
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 2 Units 􀂃 Output and display definitions The graphical user interface provides many powerful features to create a model. Start with a preliminary model, and then use the SAP2000 design-optimization feature to refine the model with little effort. The topics in this chapter describe these components in a little more detail. Units SAP2000 works with four basics units: force, length, temperature, and time. The program offers many different compatible sets of force, length and temperature units to choose from, such as “Kip, in, F” or “N, mm, C.” Time is always measured in seconds (except for creep, shrinkage, and aging effects, which are measured in days.) An important distinction is made between mass and weight. Mass is used only for calculating dynamic inertia and for loads resulting from ground acceleration. Weight is a force that can be applied like any other force load. Be sure to use force units when specifying weight values, and mass units (force-sec2/length) when specifying mass values. When a new model is started, SAP2000 will ask the user to specify a set of units. Those units become the “base units” for the model. Although input data may be provided and output data can be viewed in any set of units, those values are always converted to and from the base units of the model. Angular measure always uses the following units: 􀂃 Geometry, such as axis orientation, is always measured in degrees 􀂃 Rotational displacements are always measured in radians 􀂃 Frequency is always measured in cycles/second (Hz)
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Objects and Elements 3 - 3 Objects and Elements The physical structural members in the model are represented by objects. Use the interface to “draw” the geometry of an object, and then “assign” properties and loads to the object to completely define a model of the physical member. The following object types are available, listed in order of geometrical dimension: 􀂃 Point objects, of two types: o Joint objects: Are automatically created at the corners or ends of all other types of objects, and they can be explicitly added to model supports or other localized behavior. o Grounded (one-joint) link objects: Are used to model special support behavior such as isolators, dampers, gaps, multi-linear springs, and more. 􀂃 Line objects, of two types: o Frame/cable/tendon objects: Are used to model beams, columns, braces, trusses, cable, and tendon members. o Connecting (two-joint) link objects: Are used to model special member behavior such as isolators, dampers, gaps, multi-linear springs, and more. Unlike frame/cable/tendon objects, connecting link objects can have zero length. 􀂃 Area objects: Are used to model walls, floors, and other thin-walled members, as well as two-dimensional solids (plane stress, plane strain, and axisymmetric solids). 􀂃 Solid objects: Are used to model three-dimensional solids. As a general rule, the geometry of the object should correspond to that of the physical member. This simplifies the visualization of the model and helps with the design process.
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 4 Groups If you have experience using traditional finite element programs, including earlier versions of SAP2000, you are probably familiar with meshing physical models into smaller finite elements for analysis purposes. Object-based modeling largely eliminates the need for that meshing. For users who are new to finite-element modeling, the object-based concept should seem perfectly natural. When an analysis is run, SAP2000 automatically converts the object-based model into an element-based model that is used for analysis. This element-based model is called the analysis model, and it consists of traditional finite elements and joints (nodes). Results of the analysis are displayed on the analysis model. SAP2000 provides options to control how the meshing is performed, such as the degree of refinement, and how to handle the connections between intersecting objects. An option also is available to manually subdivide the model, resulting in a one-to-one correspondence between objects and elements. Groups A group is a named collection of objects. It may contain any number of objects of any number of types. Groups have many uses, including: 􀂃 Quick selection of objects for editing and assigning. 􀂃 Incremental construction stages. 􀂃 Defining section cuts across the model. 􀂃 Grouping objects that are to share the same design. 􀂃 Selective output. As many groups as needed can be defined. Using groups is a powerful way to manage larger models.
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Coordinate Systems and Grids 3 - 5 Coordinate Systems and Grids All locations in the model are ultimately defined with respect to a single global coordinate system. This is a three-dimensional, right-handed, Cartesian (rectangular) coordinate system. The three axes, denoted X, Y, and Z, are mutually perpendicular, and satisfy the right-hand rule. SAP2000 always considers the global +Z direction as upward. By default, gravity acts in the –Z direction. Additional coordinate systems can be defined to aid in developing and viewing the model. The systems are defined with an origin and orientation measured with respect to the global system. For each coordinate system (the global and all additional systems), you can define a three-dimensional grid system consisting of intersecting “construction” lines used for locating objects in the model. Each grid may be of Cartesian (rectangular), cylindrical, or general type. Drawing operations tend to “snap” to gridline intersections unless this feature is turned off. The snap feature facilitates accurate construction of the model. When a grid line is moved, an option can be used to specify that the points in the model move with it. Each object in the model (point, line, area, and so forth) has its own local coordinate system used to define properties, loads, and response for that object. The axes of each local coordinate system are denoted 1, 2, and 3. Local coordinate systems do not have an associated grid. Properties Properties are “assigned” to each object to determine the structural behavior of that object in the model. Some properties, such as material and section properties, are named entities that must be defined before assigning them to objects. For example, a model may have the following properties:
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 6 Properties 􀂃 A concrete material property called 4000Psi. 􀂃 A rectangular frame section property called RECT, and a circular section called CIRC, both using material 4000Psi. 􀂃 An area section property called SLAB that also uses material 4000Psi. If you assign frame section property RECT to a frame object, any changes to the definition of section RECT or material 4000Psi will automatically apply to that object. A named property has no effect on the model unless it is assigned to an object. Other properties, such as frame end releases or joint support conditions, are assigned directly to objects. These properties can only be changed by making another assignment of that same property to the object; they are not named entities and they do not exist independently of the objects. Load Cases Loads represent actions upon the structure, such as force, pressure, support displacement, thermal effects, ground acceleration, and others. A spatial distribution of loads upon the structure is called a load case. As many named load cases as needed can be defined. Typically separate load cases would be defined for dead load, live load, wind load, snow load, thermal load, and so on. Loads that need to vary independently, either for design purposes or because of how they are applied to the structure, should be defined as separate load cases. After defining a load case name, assign specific load values to the objects as part of that load case. The load values assigned to an object specify the type of load (e.g., force, displacement, temperature), its magnitude, and direction (if applicable). Different loads can be assigned to different objects as part of a single load case. Each object can be subjected to multiple load cases. For example, assume load cases named WIND, SNOW, and SUN15 have been defined. For load case WIND, different windward and leeward
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Functions 3 - 7 pressure loads could be assigned to vertical objects on opposite sides of the structure. For load case SNOW, downward forces might be assigned to roof objects only. For load case SUN15, different temperature values might be assigned to various objects in the structure to account for the effects of sun on the structure at 3:00 P.M. in the afternoon. To calculate any response of the structure caused by the load cases, analysis cases must be defined and run (described in subsequent text) to specify how the load cases are to be applied (e.g., statically, dynamically, and so on) and how the structure is to be analyzed (e.g., linearly, nonlinearly, and so on). The same load case can be applied differently in separate analysis cases. In addition to the user defined load cases discussed previously, SAP2000 also has three built-in acceleration loads that represent unit ground translational acceleration in each of the global directions. Acceleration loads are assigned automatically to all objects in the structure that have mass. Functions Options are available to define functions to describe how load varies as a function of period or time. The functions are needed for certain types of analysis only; they are not used for static analysis. A function is a series of digitized abscissa-ordinate data pairs. Four types of functions are available: 􀂃 Response-spectrum functions: Pseudo-spectral acceleration vs. period for use in response-spectrum analysis. 􀂃 Time-history functions: Loading magnitude vs. time for use in time-history analysis. 􀂃 Steady-state functions: Loading magnitude vs. frequency for use in steady-state analysis.
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 8 Analysis Cases 􀂃 Power-spectral-density functions: Loading magnitude squared per frequency vs. frequency for use in power-spectral-density analysis. As many named functions as needed can be defined. Functions are not assigned to objects, but are used in the definition of analysis cases. Analysis Cases An analysis case defines how loads are to be applied to the structure, and how the structural response is to be calculated. Many types of analysis cases are available. Most broadly, analyses are classified as linear or nonlinear, depending on how the structure responds to the loading. The results of linear analyses may be superposed, i.e., added together, after analysis. The following types of linear analysis are available: 􀂃 Static: The most common type of analysis. Loads are applied without dynamical effects. 􀂃 Modal Analysis: Calculation of dynamic modes of the structure using eigenvector or Ritz-vector method. Loads are not actually applied, although they can be used to generate Ritz vectors. 􀂃 Response-Spectrum Analysis: Statistical calculation of the response caused by acceleration loads. Requires response-spectrum functions. 􀂃 Time-History Analysis: Time-varying loads are applied. Requires time-history functions. The solution may be by modal superposition or direct integration methods. 􀂃 Buckling Analysis: Calculation of buckling modes under the application of loads. 􀂃 Moving Load Analysis: Calculation of the most severe response caused by vehicle loads moving along lanes on the structure.
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Analysis Cases 3 - 9 Uses defined vehicle loads and defined lanes rather than the load cases used by other analysis types. 􀂃 Steady State Analysis: Harmonically varying loads are applied at one or more frequencies. Requires steady-state functions. 􀂃 Power Spectral Density Analysis: Harmonically varying loads are applied according to a probabilistic specification of loading over a range of frequencies, and the expected value of the response is determined. Requires power-spectral-density functions. The results of nonlinear analyses normally should not be superposed. Instead, all loads acting together on the structure should be combined directly within the analysis cases. Nonlinear analysis cases may be chained together to represent complex loading sequences. The following types of nonlinear analyses are available: 􀂃 Nonlinear Static: Loads are applied without dynamical effects. May be used for pushover analysis. 􀂃 Nonlinear Staged Construction: Loads are applied without dynamical effects, with portions of the structure being added or removed. Time-dependent effects can be included, such as creep, shrinkage, and aging. 􀂃 Nonlinear Time-History Analysis: Time-varying loads are applied. Requires time-history functions. The solution may be by modal superposition or direct integration methods. Any number of named analysis cases of any type may be defined. When the model is analyzed, the cases to be run must be selected. Results for any analysis case may be selectively deleted. Analysis results, when available, can be considered to be part of the model. They are needed to perform design.
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 10 Combinations Combinations A SAP2000 combination, also called a “combo,” is a named combination of the results from one or more analysis cases or other combinations. When a combination is defined, it applies to the results for every object in the model. Five types of combinations are available: 􀂃 Linear type: Results from the included analysis cases and combos are added linearly. 􀂃 Absolute type: The absolute values of the results from the included analysis cases and combos are added. 􀂃 SRSS type: The square root of the sum of the squares of the results from the included analysis cases and combos is computed. 􀂃 Envelope type: Results from the included analysis cases and combos are enveloped to find the maximum and minimum values. 􀂃 Range Add type: Positive values are added to the maximum and negative values are added to the minimum for the included analysis cases and combos, efficiently generating maximum and minimum responses for pattern loading. Except for the envelope type, combinations should usually be applied only to linear analysis cases, since nonlinear results are not generally superposable. Design is always based on combinations, not directly on analysis cases. A combination that contains only a single analysis case can be created. Each design algorithm creates it own default combinations. Additional user-defined combinations can be created for design or other purposes. Design may be performed for any arrangement of user-defined and program generated combinations.
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Design Settings 3 - 11 Design Settings The design features of the program can be used on frame objects whose section properties use materials of concrete, steel, cold-formed steel, or aluminum. Several settings can be made that affect the design of a particular model: 􀂃 The specific design code to be used for each type of material, e.g., AISC-LRFD99 for steel, EUROCODE 2-1992 for concrete, AISI-ASD96 for cold-formed steel, and AA-ASD 2000 for aluminum. 􀂃 Preference settings of how those codes should be applied to a model. 􀂃 Combinations for which the design should be checked. 􀂃 Groups of objects that should share the same design. 􀂃 Optional “overwrite” values for each object that specify coefficients and parameters to change the default values in the design-code formulas. For steel, cold-formed steel, and aluminum design, the program can automatically select an optimum section from a user-defined list. The section also can be changed manually during the design process. As a result, each frame object can have two different section properties associated with it: 􀂃 An “analysis section” used in the previous analysis, and 􀂃 A “design section” resulting from the current design. The design section becomes the analysis section for the next analysis, and the iterative analysis and design cycle should be continued until the two sections become the same. Although there are no explicit design settings for concrete shells, the program will display design stresses and the reinforcing necessary to
SAP2000 Getting Started
3 - 12 Output and Display Definitions carry the tensile force component of the resolved tension-compression couple. This information is accessed under the Display menu for shells. The required reinforcing area is calculated using the rebar material type specified by the user under the Define menu. Design results for the design section, when available, as well as all of the settings described herein, can be considered to be part of the model. Output and Display Definitions The definition of the SAP2000 model and the results of analysis and design can be viewed and saved in many different ways, including: 􀂃 Two- and three-dimensional views of the model. 􀂃 Tables of values in plain text, spreadsheet, or database format. 􀂃 Formatted documents containing tables of values in rich text and HTML format. 􀂃 Function plots of analysis results. 􀂃 Design reports. 􀂃 Export to other drafting and design programs. Options are available to save named definitions of display views, sets of output tables, document formats, and function plots as part of a model. Combined with the use of groups, this can significantly speed up the process of getting results while developing the model. Learning More Each SAP2000 model is like a living thing that grows and changes as you develop it, run analyses, perform design, and review results. This chapter presented some of the basic features that make up a structural model, but to really understand the model you must also learn how to work with it.
Chapter 3 - The Structural Model
Learning More 3 - 13 The next chapter describes how to use the SAP2000 interface to do just that. Basic concepts and techniques will be presented. To put all this information together, we recommend that you read and perform the tutorial example given in the SAP2000 Introductory Tutorial manual, included in this volume. You can learn more about the details of using the graphical user interface by using the Help facility within the interface itself. Information about the SAP2000 model is also available in the Help facility.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 1
Chapter 4 The Graphical User Interface The SAP2000 graphical user interface is used to model, analyze, design, and display the results for your structure. This chapter introduces some of the basic concepts of the graphical user interface and sets the stage for the tutorial described later in this volume. More advanced concepts and features are described in the on-line Help facility of the graphical user interface itself. Please first read the previous chapter, “The Structural Model,” because all operations described in this chapter are used in working with a SAP2000 model. The SAP2000 Screen After starting the program, the SAP2000 graphical user interface appears on your screen and looks similar to the figure on the next page. The various parts of the interface are labeled in the figure and are described as follows.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 2 The SAP2000 Screen Main Window Figure 4-1 shows the main window for the graphical user interface. This window may be moved, resized, maximized, minimized, or closed using standard Windows operations. The main title bar, at the top of the main window, gives the program name and the name of the model file. Display WindowActive Display WindowToolbarsDisplay Title BarMain Title BarMenu BarStatus BarDisplay Title BarCursor CoordinatesCurrent Coordinate SystemCurrent UnitsDisplay Units Figure 4-1 The Graphical User Interface Main Window Menu Bar The menus on the Menu Bar contain almost all of the operations that can be performed using SAP2000. Those operations are called menu commands, or simply commands. Each menu corresponds to a basic type of operation. The operations are described later in this chapter. Throughout this manual, and in the SAP200 help facility, menu commands are indicated as Menu > Command, where “Menu” is the menu name, and “Command” is an item you can select from the menu. In
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
The SAP2000 Screen 4 - 3 some cases, commands are on sub-menus of the main menu, in which case they are indicated as Menu > Sub-menu > Command. Toolbars The buttons on the toolbars provide quick access to many commonly used operations. Hold the mouse cursor over one of these buttons and a “tool tip” will pop up showing the function of the button, as shown in Figure 4-2. Figure 4-2 The New Model Pop Up “Tool Tip“ Most buttons correspond to menu commands. If a menu command has a corresponding button, it will be displayed next to the command on the menu, as shown in Figure 4-3. The association of the button with the menu command is intended to help you recognize and remember which buttons can be used to perform the same actions as the commands. Figure 4-3 Menu Commands with Corresponding Buttons Move the toolbars around to any of the four sides of the main window, or have them float over the display windows by dragging them to the desired location. Also control which toolbars are present by right clicking on the menu bar and selecting the toolbars to display. Choose the buttons on the toolbars by clicking the down arrow and selecting the
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 4 The SAP2000 Screen buttons. Use these methods to create custom toolbars of frequently used operations. Display Windows Display windows show the geometry of the model, and may also include properties, loading, analysis or design results. From one to four display windows may be displayed at any time. Each window may have its own view orientation, type of display, and display options. For example, an undeformed shape could be displayed in one window, applied loads in another, an animated deformed shape in a third, and design stress ratios in the fourth window. Alternatively, four different views of an undeformed shape or other type of display can be shown: a plan view, two elevations, and a perspective view. Only one display window is “active” at a time. Viewing and display operations only affect the currently active window. Make any display window active by clicking on its title bar or within the window. Status Bar The status bar contains the following items: 􀂃 Status information about what the program is currently doing, or the number of objects currently selected. 􀂃 The coordinates of the mouse cursor. 􀂃 A drop-down list to show or change the current units. 􀂃 A drop-down list to show or change the current coordinate system. 􀂃 Scrolling controls when displaying analysis results for multi-step cases. 􀂃 Animation controls when displaying deformed shapes.
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Using the Mouse 4 - 5 Using the Mouse The left and right mouse buttons have different functions depending on the location of the mouse in the graphical user interface. In the menu and toolbar areas, the mouse buttons have the following functions: 􀂃 Left button o Select commands from the menus or toolbar buttons. o Move the toolbars around. 􀂃 Right button: Customize the toolbars. Clicking either mouse button in a display window makes that window active. Within a display window, the mouse buttons have the following functions: 􀂃 Left mouse button, depending on the program mode (i.e., Draw or Select node): o Draw new objects. o Select existing objects. o Perform graphical operations such as pan, zoom, and rotate. 􀂃 Right mouse button: o When clicked on an object, this button accesses information about the object. Objects may be edited by double clicking (left mouse button) on items in the object information form. o When clicked on the background, this button accesses a menu of operations.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 6 Viewing Options Elsewhere in the interface, the mouse buttons have standard Windows functions. This includes when on the title bar, the status bar, and in all forms. Viewing Options Various view options for the active Display Window can be set to control how the structure appears in that window. Those options are available on the View menu. View options are set independently for each Display Window. 2-D and 3-D Views A 2-D view consists of a single plane or surface. Only objects in that plane or surface are visible. The out-of-plane coordinate of the view can be changed at any time. Default 2-D views are available at grid points in the current coordinate system. Other 2-D views, such as developed elevations, can be user created. A 3-D view shows the entire model from a user selected vantage point. Visible objects are not restricted to a single plane. The view direction is defined by an angle in the horizontal plane and an angle above the horizontal plane. Perspective A 3-D view may be toggled between a perspective view and an orthographic projection. The perspective view is usually better for visualizing the third, out-of-plane, dimension. If perspective is turned on for a 2-D view, the view becomes 3-D until perspective is turned off again. Set the perspective aperture angle to specify the distance of the view from the structure. The larger the angle, the closer the view to the structure, and the more distorted the view of the structure may appear.
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Viewing Options 4 - 7 Pan, Zoom, and 3-D Rotate Zoom-in to a view to see more detail, or zoom-out to see more of the structure. Zooming in and out may be performed in predefined increments. Also, zoom in on a part of the structure using the mouse by dragging a window around the area of interest while holding down the left mouse button. Panning allows the structure to be moved dynamically around the Display Window by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the mouse in the window. Use the 3-D Rotate command to dynamically rotate the structure by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the mouse in the window. Limits Upper and lower X, Y, and Z coordinate limits can be set to restrict the portion of the structure that is visible in a Display Window. Zooming and panning apply only to the part of the structure within these limits. Element View Options The types of objects present in a Display Window can be controlled. Also various options can be set to affect how the objects appear and what features are displayed, such as object labels, property labels, and local axes. These options primarily affect views of the undeformed shape. Only objects that are present in a Display Window can be selected graphically. See the selection operations described later in this chapter. Objects may be shown by edges, area fill, or as 3-D shaded images. They can be colored according to their type, section properties, material properties, or groups. The shrunken-object view is an important option. It shrinks the objects away from the joints, allowing better viewing of the connectivity of the model.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 8 Basic Operations In addition to the object model, the analysis model, which shows the model at the element level, may be viewed at any time. The analysis model shows how the program has automatically meshed the structure. Results are always shown on the analysis model, rather than on the object model. Other Options Other options can be used to turn gridlines and the global axes on and off. The view parameters can be saved under a user-specified name and recalled later to apply to any Display Window. Refreshing the Display Window After performing certain operations, the Display Window may need to be re-drawn. Normally this occurs automatically, although a command on the Options menu can be used to turn this feature off to save time when working with large models. When the feature is turned off, use the View menu > Refresh Window command to update and redraw the active display window. Basic Operations It will be helpful to understand the basic types of operations that can be performed using SAP2000. The program responds differently to mouse actions in the Display Windows depending on the type of operation being performed. The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of SAP2000 operations. Details on how to actually perform these operations are given in the quick tutorial in the next manual, and in the on-line Help facility of the graphical user interface itself.
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
File Operations 4 - 9 File Operations File operations are used to start a new model, to bring in an existing model for display or modification, to save the current model, and to produce output. File operations are selected from the File menu. New models can be started from scratch or from pre-defined templates supplied with the program. A model and its results can be saved as a standard SAP2000 binary file (.SDB extension), and opened again later to review results or make further changes. Alternatively, a model and its results can also be exported, in whole or in part, to a text file, a spreadsheet file, or a database file using SAP2000 tabular data format. Models can be imported using SAP2000 tabular data format, whether the data file (text, spreadsheet, or database) was previously exported from the graphical user interface, or created externally in some other way. Model geometry can be exported to and imported from AutoCAD and other programs that use .DXF, IFC, or .IGES file formats. Similar import/export capabilities are available for the ProSteel and FrameWorks Plus packages. SAP2000 can also share information with steel detailing programs using CIS/2 Step or Steel Detailing Neutral File formats. The model description and the results of analysis and design can be printed in simple tables or produced in custom reports that include graphics, text, and formatting features. The active display window can be printed as graphics or saved in bitmap and enhanced Windows metafile formats. Video files can be created showing animated mode shapes or time-history deflected shapes. Other file operations include defining project information for the particular model; maintaining a detailed log of the project; and a facility for running the analyses of multiple models in batch mode.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 10 Defining Named Entities Defining Named Entities Defining is used to create named entities that are not part of the geometry of the model. These entities include: 􀂃 Object properties, such as o Material properties o Frame, Tendon, Cable, Area, Solid, and Link properties o Hinge properties 􀂃 Coordinate/grid systems 􀂃 Joint constraints 􀂃 Object groups 􀂃 Load-related items, such as o Joint patterns, for temperature and pressure loading o Load cases o Mass source o Bridge loads (vehicles and lanes) o Response-spectrum and time-history functions 􀂃 Analysis and response items, such as o Analysis cases o Combinations o Generalized displacements o Section cuts o Pushover Parameters 􀂃 Output and display items, such as
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Drawing 4 - 11 o Named views, for display window settings o Named sets, for output and export definition Defining these entities is performed using the Define menu and does not require a prior selection of objects. Object properties, groups, and some of the loading can be assigned to selected objects. Many of these entities can also be defined during the assignment operation from the Assign menu. The remaining entities apply to the model as a whole and are not assigned to objects. Drawing Drawing is used primarily to add new objects to the model or to modify objects one at a time. Objects that can be drawn include points (joints and grounded links), lines (frames, cables, tendons, and connecting links), and areas (shells, planes, asolids). Solid objects are not drawn, but are created by extrusion; see the subsequent “Editing” section for more information about extrusion. Joints are created automatically at the ends of line and link objects and at the corners of area and solid objects. Additional joints may be added explicitly. Duplicate joints and objects at the same location are eliminated automatically by the program, except that duplicate link objects are permitted as an option. To draw, enable the Draw Mode by selecting one of the object drawing commands from the Draw menu. While drawing, a form will float over the display windows. The form has drawing controls and property options that can be assigned while drawing. The form can be moved or closed if it is in the way while drawing. Draw Mode and Select Mode are mutually exclusive. To return to Select Mode, use the Draw menu > Set Select Mode command, or perform any selection operation. While drawing, the left mouse button can be used to zoom, pan, or rotate, after which the program will return to draw mode.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 12 Drawing Drawing Objects Use the left mouse button to perform drawing operations. Depending on the drawing operation, click, double-click, or click-and-drag the left mouse button (hold down the left button while moving the mouse): 􀂃 Draw Special Joint – Click once to draw a joint, or drag a window to draw joints at all enclosed grid intersections 􀂃 Draw Frame/Cable/Tendon – Click once to draw each end point in a series of objects connected end-to-end, then double click to end the series 􀂃 Quick Frame/Cable/Tendon – Click once on a grid segment to draw an object, or drag a window to draw objects on all enclosed grid segments 􀂃 Quick Draw Braces – In a 2-D view, click in a grid space (bay) to draw diagonal braces 􀂃 Quick Draw Secondary Beams – In a 2-D plan view, click in a grid space (bay) to draw a set of secondary beams (frame objects) 􀂃 Draw Poly Area – Click once at each corner location to draw a polygon – hit the enter key to end the drawing 􀂃 Draw Rectangular Area – In a 2-D view, click once at two opposite corners to draw the object 􀂃 Quick Draw Area – Click in a grid space (bay) to draw an area object, or drag a window to draw objects on all enclosed grid spaces 􀂃 Draw 1 Joint (Grounded) Link – Click once to draw a grounded link, or drag a window to draw grounded links at all enclosed grid intersections 􀂃 Draw 2 Joint (Connecting) Link – Click once to draw each end point in a series of objects connected end-to-end, then double click to end the series
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Drawing 4 - 13 􀂃 Quick Draw 2 Joint (Connecting) Link – Click once on a grid segment to draw an object, or drag a window to draw objects on all enclosed grid segments 􀂃 Reshape objects – Click once on an object to be reshaped, then click and drag the part of an object to be moved to achieve the new shape In 3-D views, cursor placement is limited to known locations, such as on gridlines and at existing point objects. In 2-D views, cursor placement can be anywhere, since the third (out-of-plane) dimension is known. Cursor movements can be controlled using “snap” and “drawing control” tools during drawing and reshaping of objects. Snap Tools Snap tools find the closest snap location to the pointer as the pointer is moved over the model. The snap tools are a fast and accurate way to draw and edit objects. The snap tools can be turned on and off as objects are drawn. More than one snap tool can be turned on at the same time. Options include snapping to the following: 􀂃 Point objects and grid intersections 􀂃 Object ends (corners) and midpoints (mid-edges) 􀂃 Object intersections 􀂃 Perpendicular projection to a line object or the edge of an area or solid object 􀂃 Line objects and the edges of area and solid objects 􀂃 Fine grid, an invisible, three-dimensional grid of user-defined uniformly spaced points
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 14 Selecting Drawing Controls In 2-D views, the drawing control tools provide the capability to enforce the placement of a point along specified lines that pass through the last drawn point. Drawing controls include: 􀂃 Horizontal H – The line is drawn parallel to the axis that appears horizontal in the 2-D view 􀂃 Vertical V – The line is drawn parallel to the axis that appears vertical in the 2-D view 􀂃 Parallel to Angle A – The line is drawn at a constant angle to the axis that appears horizontal in the 2-D view 􀂃 Fixed Length L – The line is drawn at a constant length, measured in the 2-D view 􀂃 Fixed Length and Angle S – The line is drawn at a constant angle and a constant length, measured in the 2-D view 􀂃 Fixed dh and dy D – The line is drawn at constant lengths along the axes that appear horizontal and vertical in the 2-D view Select drawing controls from the floating properties of object form that appears while drawing, or press the corresponding letter key (“H”, “V”, “A”, etc.) on the keyboard. Pressing the space bar on the keyboard cancels the drawing control. The snaps options can be used in conjunction with drawing controls. Only the unconstrained component of the selected snap point is used when a control has been selected. Selecting Selecting is used to identify existing objects to which the next operation will apply. SAP2000 uses a “noun-verb” concept where first a selection of objects is made, and then an operation is performed upon them. Operations that
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Selecting 4 - 15 require prior selection include certain Editing, Assignment, Design, Display, and Output operations. To select, enable the Select Mode using the Draw menu > Set Select Mode command, or by choosing any command from the Select menu. Draw Mode and Select Mode are mutually exclusive. Any operation except drawing can be performed when the program is in Select Mode. Select objects graphically or by various features of the objects. Selection operations are cumulative, i.e., each selection operation adds objects to the current set of selected objects, and each deselection operation removes objects from the set. Selected objects are shown graphically in the display windows with dashed lines. The number of selected objects of each type is shown in the status bar. It is always a good idea to check the status bar when performing selection operations. After the selection set has been created (the “noun”), an operation is performed (the “verb”) upon it. This then clears the selection, and the program is ready to start a new selection for the next operation. Four important selection commands are available from the menu or the toolbar: 􀂃 Select menu > Select > All command selects every object in the model, regardless of what objects are shown in the display windows 􀂃 Select menu > Get Previous Selection command selects the same objects as in the last completed selection operation 􀂃 Select menu > Invert Selection command selects all objects not currently selected 􀂃 Select menu > Clear Selection command deselects all objects Other selection (and deselection) operations are described in the following sections.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 16 Selecting Selecting Graphically Objects can be selected (or deselected) graphically using the left mouse button in a display window. Several types of graphical selection are available: 􀂃 Select by pointer – Click on an unselected object to select it, or click on a selected object to deselect it 􀂃 Select by enclosing window – Drag a window from left to right to select all objects that are fully enclosed in the window 􀂃 Select by intersecting window – Drag a window from right to left to select all objects that are fully or partially enclosed in the window 􀂃 Select by polygon – Draw a polygon with any number of sides to select all objects that are fully enclosed in the polygon 􀂃 Select by intersecting polygon – Draw a polygon with any number of sides to select all objects that are fully or partially enclosed in the polygon 􀂃 Select by intersecting line – Draw a line with any number of segments to select all objects that are intersected by the line segments 􀂃 Select by 3-D box – Click on two points in a 3-D view to select all objects enclosed within a box whose diagonal is defined by the two points and whose sides are parallel to the X, Y, and Z axes The first three options are available by default and are indicated by the usual pointer cursor. The last four options require that the type of selection be set using the Select menu or the toolbar. After a single selection, the cursor returns to the default pointer/window selection mode. Only objects displayed in a given window can be selected graphically. For example, assume a model includes point, line and area objects, but only area objects are displaying in a particular window. If a selection is
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Selecting 4 - 17 made by dragging a window around the entire structure, only area objects will be selected, even if hidden point and line objects actually exist inside the selection window. While selecting by pointer, use the left mouse button to zoom, pan, or rotate, after which the program will return to select mode. Selecting by Feature From the Select menu, select or deselect objects by their various features, such as: 􀂃 All objects on a particular plane 􀂃 All objects that have a given section or property type 􀂃 All line objects parallel to a particular line 􀂃 All line objects parallel to a particular axis or plane 􀂃 All objects that belong to the same group 􀂃 All point objects that have a specified support or constraint 􀂃 All objects that have specified labels These selection methods, except for selecting line objects parallel to another line, operate independently of the display windows, and affect all objects having a given feature even if those objects are not being displayed. The use of groups is particularly helpful when making complicated selections. If the same set of objects is likely to be selected more than once, build the selection set and then assign a group name to the selected objects. After a Group Name has been assigned, the selection set can be reselected using the Group Name. Selecting by Coordinates From the Select menu, select or deselect objects by specifying the coordinate range of a volume. The coordinate range is identified using
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 18 Editing one of the following four methods for each of the three coordinate system directions (X, Y and Z): 􀂃 Not limited 􀂃 Between two values 􀂃 Outside of two values 􀂃 At a single value An option exists to signify whether the entire object must lie within the volume in order to be selected, or only partially inside. Selecting using Tables From the Select menu, select or deselect objects using connectivity and object assignment database tables. Tables may be filtered and sorted by field, and individual records or the entire table can be selected. Editing Editing is used to make changes to the model. Most editing operations work on a prior selection of objects. The following editing operations, all selected from the Edit menu, can be used: 􀂃 Cut or Copy the geometry of selected objects to the Windows clipboard. Geometry information put on the clipboard can be accessed by other programs, such as spreadsheets. 􀂃 Paste object geometry from the Windows clipboard into the model. This could have been edited in a spreadsheet program from a previous Cut or Copy. 􀂃 Delete selected objects. 􀂃 Replicate selected objects in a linear or radial array. 􀂃 Move selected objects to a new location. 􀂃 Extrude selected objects to create higher dimensional objects:
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Assigning 4 - 19 o Extrude points to lines o Extrude lines to areas o Extrude areas to solids. This is the only way to graphically create solid objects. 􀂃 Divide selected objects into smaller objects of the same type. 􀂃 Connect or disconnect selected objects at a common joint. 􀂃 Add to the model from a template. 􀂃 Interactively edit the model in tabular data format. 􀂃 Change labels of objects and other named entities. Pasting and adding to the model from a template do not operate on a selection of objects. Interactive table editing and changing labels can work on a selection or the entire model. All other operations require a prior selection to be made. Assigning Properties and loads are assigned to one or more selected objects. Assignment operations are selected from the Assign menu, including: 􀂃 Assigning properties to joint objects, including restraints, constraints, springs, masses, and local coordinate systems 􀂃 Assigning properties to frame/cable/tendon objects, including section properties, end releases, local coordinate systems, end offsets, insertion points, output locations, nonlinear properties, line springs and masses, automated meshing parameters, and more 􀂃 Assigning properties to area objects, including section properties, local coordinate systems, area springs and masses, automated meshing parameters, and more
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 20 Undo and Redo 􀂃 Assigning properties to solid objects, including section properties, local coordinate systems, surface springs, automated meshing parameters, and more 􀂃 Assigning properties and local coordinate systems to link objects 􀂃 Assigning loads of many different types to each type of object 􀂃 Assigning pattern values to joints for use in defining temperature and pressure loads 􀂃 Assigning group names to objects, making the objects part of that group 􀂃 Copying assignments from one selected object, and in a separate operation, pasting these assignments onto one or more selected objects of the same type Undo and Redo SAP2000 remembers all drawing, editing, and assignment operations performed. It is possible to Undo a series of actions previously performed. If the Undo process is overused, actions may begin to Redo. Undo and Redo are accessed from the Edit menu. Important notes: 􀂃 Undo does not apply to define operations 􀂃 Undo does not apply to interactive table editing 􀂃 After a model has been saved, an analysis has been run, or interactive table editing has been performed, prior operations can not be undone Analyzing After a complete structural model has been created, analyze the model to determine the resulting displacements, stresses, and reactions due to the loads applied in the analysis cases.
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Analyzing 4 - 21 Before analyzing, set analysis options from the Analyze menu. Those options are as follows: 􀂃 Set available degrees of freedom for the analysis, which are primarily used to restrict a model to planar behavior 􀂃 Set whether the model definition and analysis results should be automatically saved in SAP2000 tabular format to an Access or Excel file Before running the analysis, an analysis model may be created. After the analysis model has been created, it may be shown in a Display Window to review how the model has been meshed from the object model drawn by the user. To run the analysis, use the Analyze menu > Run Analysis command and select which cases are to be run. Any cases that have been run already do not need to be run again. Any cases that are not run can be run later. If an analysis case that requires results from another case is chosen, the prerequisite case will be run first if it has not been already. For example, if a response-spectrum case is run, the case that defines the modes will also be run if needed. Before running the analysis, SAP2000 saves the model. During the analysis, messages from the analysis engine appear in a monitor window. When the analysis is complete, review the analysis messages using the scroll bar on the monitor window. Click on the OK button to close the monitor window after reviewing those messages. The messages are also saved in a file with extension .LOG, which can be viewed later using the File menu > Show Input/Output Text Files command. No other SAP2000 operations may be performed while the analysis is proceeding and the monitor window is present on the screen. However, other Windows programs can be run during this time.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 22 Displaying Displaying Displaying is used to view the model definition and analysis results. Graphical displays, tabular displays, and function plots are all available. All display types may be chosen from the Display menu, except that displaying of design results is performed using the Design menu. Graphical Displays A different type of graphical display may be selected for each Display Window. Each window may also have its own view orientation and display options. Model Definition View the model geometry using the Display menu > Show Undeformed Shape command. This displays only the objects and assignments that are chosen using the View menu > Set Display Options command. All other assignments to the objects may be viewed using the Display menu > Show Load Assigns and Display menu > Show Misc Assigns commands. When viewing the undeformed shape, with or without assignments, a right click with the mouse on any object accesses an information form showing all the details of geometry, connectivity, assignments, and loads for that object. An object may be edited from within an information form by double-clicking in an edit box. Analysis Results Analysis results can be graphically displayed for any case that has been run. Those displays include the following: 􀂃 Deformed shapes 􀂃 Reactions and spring forces for joints 􀂃 Force and moment diagrams for frames, cables, and links
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Displaying 4 - 23 􀂃 Force and moment stress-resultant contour plots for shells 􀂃 Stress contour plots for planes, asolids, and solids 􀂃 Design stresses for concrete shells 􀂃 Influence-lines for displacements, reactions, spring forces, and forces and moments in all object types 􀂃 Virtual work plots for all object types Deformed shapes can be animated using the controls on the status bar. Animating the deformed shape sometimes helps to clarify the behavior of the structure. For analysis cases with multiple results (multiple modes or multiple steps), use the scrolling controls on the status bar to step through the individual results. An option is available to plot the maximum or minimum over multiple steps. Details of the displayed results can be obtained by clicking on an object with the right mouse button. Function Plots Function plots are graphs of one variable against another. These include the following: 􀂃 Response-spectrum curves – These curves can be generated at any joint in the structure based on the results of a time-history analysis case. 􀂃 Plot-function traces – These are general plots of any number of response quantities (displacements, stresses, etc.) against time or against another response quantity. These are available for any time-history or multi-stepped nonlinear static case. 􀂃 Static pushover curve – This is a plot of a single displacement measure against the base reaction for multi-stepped, displacement-controlled nonlinear static analysis cases.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 24 Designing Function plots are displayed in a special plot window and may be printed. Tables of plotted values may also be printed or saved in a file. Tabular Displays Use the commands on the Display menu to show the model definition, analysis results, and design results as tabular data on screen. Choose the tables to be viewed. If objects are selected before tables are chosen, only data for the selected objects are displayed. Otherwise results are produced for the entire model. Advanced options exist to control the format of the tables, to order and sort the data, and to create filters that will display only data that satisfy specified criteria. An example of this would be to display only frame design stress ratios that are above 0.9. Objects in the model may be selected from within a table form by using the Select menu. Tabular data also can be exported and printed from the on-screen displays using commands available on the File menu on the table forms. Designing Designing is used to check concrete, steel, cold-formed steel, and aluminum frame objects with respect to different design-code requirements. Design may be performed after the structure has been analyzed. Most design operations, including display, are available from the Design menu. Steel, cold-formed steel, and aluminum frame objects can have a minimum weight section automatically picked from a set of user-specified sections. Concrete frame objects can have the area of longitudinal and shear reinforcing steel chosen automatically according to the selected design code. Individual members can be designed interactively, trying different sections and checking the results. If a section is changed manually, or if optimum sections were chosen automatically by the program, rerun the
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Locking and Unlocking 4 - 25 analysis and repeat the design process until the analysis and design sections are the same. Graphical displays of stress ratios and design parameters are available. Detailed design information can be obtained for single frame objects by clicking on them with the right mouse button. Alternatively, tabular design information can be displayed using commands on the Display menu and printed or exported using commands on the File menu. If objects are selected before display, printing, or export, only selected objects are displayed, printed, or exported. Otherwise results are produced for the entire model. In addition to the code-based design offered for frame objects, non-code specific design stresses and tensile reinforcing may also be displayed for concrete shells. Unlike the frame objects, there are no explicit design settings under the Design menu for concrete shells. Instead, these design values are available from the Display menu, and are calculated based on a resolved tension-compression couple in the shell and the yield strength of the user specified reinforcing. Locking and Unlocking After an analysis has been performed, the model is automatically locked to prevent any changes that would invalidate the analysis results and subsequent design results that may be obtained. The model also can be locked at any time to prevent further changes, or unlocked to permit changes. Lock and Unlock are accessed from the Options menu. If the model is unlocked after an analysis, SAP2000 will display a warning that all analysis results will be deleted. To save the analysis results, save the model under a different name before unlocking it. Any subsequent changes will then be made to the new model. Analysis cases can be defined without unlocking the model. New cases can be added, and cases that have not been run can be modified or deleted with no effect. If a case that has already been run is modified or deleted, analysis results for that case and all cases that depend on it will be deleted.
SAP2000 Getting Started
4 - 26 Entering Numerical Data Entering Numerical Data When entering data in a form, all numerical values by default use the units shown on the status bar. Some forms provide a units option directly on the form, which supersedes the setting on the status bar. Different units can be specified directly when the numerical value is entered. For example, assume meter units were in effect, either from the status bar or the form itself. If “3500 mm” is entered, the value would be converted to 3.5. When force, length, or temperature units are mixed, list all units used, separated by commas or spaces, in the following order: force, length, temperature. For example, a modulus of elasticity (force/length2) could be specified as “30000 kip in,” and a moment (force-length) could also be specified as “30000 kip in.” Note that only the names of the units are needed, without indicating if they are multiplied, divided, squared, etc. As a special case, length values can be entered in U.S. architectural units as feet and inches, as in the following example format: 9’-3”. The (’) for feet is required, but the dash (-) and the (”) for inches are optional. Formulas also can be used when entering data. For example, a data value can be specified as “1000+40” or as “100*sin(30).” If units are specified with a formula, be sure to leave a space after the formula before the units, e.g., “1000+40 m.” The formula is evaluated first before the units are applied, thus different units cannot be used in different parts of the formula. A complete calculator is available for more complicated entries. Double-click on the numerical field while holding down the Shift key to access the calculator. Use the View menu > Show All command on the calculator form itself to review its full capabilities. Setting Options Many options can be set to control how the program behaves. These options are accessed using the Options menu, and include the following:
Chapter 4 - The Graphical User Interface
Getting Help 4 - 27 􀂃 Dimensions and tolerances – merge, selection, and snap tolerances; font sizes; zoom increment; and others 􀂃 Design codes and their parameters 􀂃 Colors of objects and results for display and printing 􀂃 Formatting for tabular data 􀂃 How many display windows to show 􀂃 Other display options that affect all display windows 􀂃 Locking and unlocking of the model 􀂃 Aerial view window, which allows for quick pan and zoom 􀂃 Activating licenses for add-on modules Getting Help To access the SAP2000 Help facility, use the Help menu > Contents and Index command, or press the F1 key at any time. If a form is open, clicking the F1 key will display information about how to use that form. Otherwise the F1 key simply opens the Help facility, which allows the following: 􀂃 Browse through the many topics using the Contents 􀂃 Use the Index to display related Help topics 􀂃 Use the Search feature to find topics that contain specific words From the Help menu, also access all SAP2000 documentation in Adobe Acrobat .PDF file format, or go to the CSI web site. The Help menu > About SAP2000 command will display the version of the program, as well as information about the computer’s operating system. This information is very useful when contacting CSI for technical support.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 1
Chapter 5 Working with Data Tables All SAP2000 data that can be accessed using the graphical user interface can also be accessed as tabular data, i.e., as data organized in a set of tables with specified table names and column headings. These data include the definition of the model and the results of analysis and design. Tabular data can be used for editing or display in the graphical user interface, for export to and import from other programs, and for generating printed output in a variety of formats. Classification of Tabular Data SAP2000 tabular data is divided into three distinct classes: model definition, analysis results and design results. Model Definition Model definition data include all components of the structural model (properties, objects, assignments, loads, analysis cases, design settings, and so forth), as well as any user-specified options and named result definitions.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 2 Tables and Fields Model definition data are always available, even if analyses have not been run or design has not been performed. These tables can be edited, displayed, exported, imported, and printed. Analysis Results Analysis results data include the deflections, forces, stresses, energies, and other response quantities that can be produced in the graphical user interface. These data are only available for analysis cases that have actually been run. Analysis results tables can be displayed, exported, and printed, but not edited or imported. Design Results Design results data include the design stresses, stress ratios, effective lengths, optimal sections, area of reinforcing steel, and all other calculated quantities resulting from the design process. These data are only available for objects that have actually been designed. Design results tables can be displayed, exported, and printed, but not edited or imported. Tables and Fields SAP2000 tabular data is organized into a set of prescribed (pre-defined) tables. Different tables exist for each of the three data classes. Each table has a prescribed name. Examples of model-definition tables are “Joint Coordinates” and “Connectivity - Frame.” Examples of analysis-results tables are “Joint Displacements” and “Element Forces – Frames.” Examples of design-results tables are “Concrete Design 1 - Column Summary Data - ACI 318-02” and “Steel Design 3 - Shear Details - AISC-LRFD99.” A prescribed set of field names is permitted for each table; the field names become the column headings in the tables. The columns may be arranged in any order, and not all fields are always required. Examples of field names for the “Joint Coordinates” table are “Joint,” “CoordSys,”
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Uses for Tabular Data 5 - 3 and “Z.” Associated with the column headings may be the units used for all data in that column. Data is entered into the table in one or more rows. Each row contains data in the same order as the field names (column headings). Figure 5-1 shows an example of the “Connectivity - Frame” table, with its nine fields “Frame,” “JointI,” “JointJ,” “IsCurved,” “Length,” “CentroidX,” “CentroidY,” “CentroidZ,” and “GUID.” The units used are shown with the column headings. Eleven rows of data are entered in the table, listing frame objects and the two joints to which they connect, as well as if the objects are curved. The calculated length and centroids of each object are also given. Figure 5-1 Example of a Database Table Uses for Tabular Data SAP2000 produces tabular data for three distinct purposes:
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 4 Uses for Tabular Data 􀂃 Object selection, i.e., selecting using records in a table 􀂃 Formatted for presentation, i.e., for display and printing 􀂃 Structured as a database for use and modification by computer programs Selecting using Tables Objects may be selected using SAP2000 data tables, allowing records to be sorted and filtered, and then selected. This is a powerful alternative to graphical selection, and can be accessed through the Select menu or the Display menu. Formatted Tables for Presentation SAP2000 data tables can be displayed on-screen in the graphical user interface, or printable files of data tables can be generated in one of the following formats: 􀂃 Rich text format for Microsoft Word 􀂃 HTML format for Microsoft Internet Explorer 􀂃 Plain (ASCII) text 􀂃 Microsoft Excel (during on-screen display only) 􀂃 Microsoft Access (during on-screen display only) The program provides complete control over how the tables are to be formatted, as described in the “Format Control for Display and Printing” section later in this chapter. For more information on generating formatted tables, see the “Displaying Tabular Data,” “Printing Tabular Data” and “Custom Report Writer” sections later in this chapter.
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Displaying Tabular Data 5 - 5 Structured Database Tables SAP2000 data tables can be displayed on-screen in the graphical user interface, or the structured tabular database files can be exported and imported in one of the following formats: 􀂃 Microsoft Access database 􀂃 Microsoft Excel spreadsheet 􀂃 Plain (ASCII) text Unlike printable output, the format of these tabular database files is strictly controlled to allow SAP2000 and other programs to read the data. See the “Interactive Table Editing,” “Exporting Tabular Data” and “Importing Tabular Data” sections later in this chapter for more information on working with database tables. Displaying Tabular Data Available data can be displayed in tabular format at any time while working in the SAP2000 graphical user interface. Use the Display menu > Show Tables command to access model definition, analysis results, design results, or a mixture of all three classes of data. Figure 5-1 shows an example of a displayed table. For each class of data, choose specific types of data to determine which tables are displayed. Figure 5-2 shows the form used to select the type of data to be displayed, printed or exported. Each check box corresponds to one or more tables that will be used to display the chosen data. To choose the same set of tables repeatedly, save the settings as a named set that can be used later for displaying, printing, and other tabular data operations. If objects are selected before display, only the selected objects will be shown in those tables that contain object-specific data. Otherwise the entire model will be used.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 6 Displaying Tabular Data While tabular data is being displayed, it can be printed directly to the default printer in plain text format. Also any of the following programs available on your computer can be used to open and view the tables: 􀂃 Microsoft Word as rich text format 􀂃 Microsoft Internet Explorer as HTML format 􀂃 The default text editor as plain text 􀂃 Microsoft Excel 􀂃 Microsoft Access Figure 5-2 The Form Used to Select the Type of Data to Display, Print, or Export
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Printing Tabular Data 5 - 7 The tables can be printed from these programs. However, any changes made to the tables using these programs cannot be brought back into the SAP2000 model while displaying data. See the “Interactive Table Editing” section later in this chapter for an explanation of how to edit tabular data. Options provide complete control over how the tables are to be formatted, as described in the “Format Control for Display and Printing” section later in this chapter. Note that, during display, Excel spreadsheet and Access database files can be created. However, it is not recommended that those files be imported back into the model because the formatting applied during display likely would result in errors when the file is imported. Thus, use the appropriate File menu > Export commands to create Excel spreadsheet and Access database files that will ultimately be imported back into the model. The Export commands include controls that reduce the likelihood of errors when files are imported back into the model. Printing Tabular Data Use the File menu > Print Tables command to print data tables directly. As described in the previous “Displaying Tabular Data” section, choose the type of data tables to be printed, and optionally select a portion of the model to which object-specific tables should apply. Tables can be printed directly to the default printer in plain text format, or electronic files can be generated that can be opened and printed using any of the following programs: 􀂃 Microsoft Word as rich text format 􀂃 Microsoft Internet Explorer as HTML format 􀂃 The default text editor as plain text The program provides options for complete control over how the tables are formatted, as described in the “Format Control for Display and Printing” section later in this report.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 8 Custom Report Writer Custom Report Writer Custom Report Writer is an advanced feature in SAP2000 that enables formatted reports to be created using tabular data from SAP2000, along with figures and text. Reports can be created in the following formats: 􀂃 Rich text format for Microsoft Word 􀂃 HTML format for Microsoft Internet Explorer 􀂃 Plain (ASCII) text Use Custom Report Writer to pull together tables from one or more database files, which can be from the same or different models. To prepare the report, enter section headings, arbitrary text between the tables, and pictures using many different file formats. The program also provides options to control the formatting of the tables, page setup, and fonts. Format Control for Display and Printing SAP2000 has options for controlling the format of tables used for display and printing. Use the Options menu > Database > Set Program Default DB Formatting command to specify the units and accuracy desired for each type of numerical item in the program (e.g., forces, moments, lengths, and so forth). For example, use this command to specify that dimensions of the structure be displayed in feet (or meter) units with three decimal digits, and that section dimensions be displayed in inch (or millimeter) units with one decimal digit. By default, the program will use the current units for all items, with built-in settings for numerical accuracy. In addition, control the detailed formatting of each column in each table, such as: 􀂃 Which fields are present and in what order 􀂃 Column widths and justification
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Interactive Table Editing 5 - 9 􀂃 Units and numerical accuracy 􀂃 Sorting of data, i.e., how the rows are ordered 􀂃 Filtering of data, i.e., which records are included 􀂃 Other advance features An option can be used to save the format settings in a table formats file for later use. Note that database tables exported under the File menu do not use any of this formatting information, except that database tables in Excel format use the units specified using the Options menu > Database > Set Program Default DB Formatting command. Interactive Table Editing Sometimes it is more convenient to create and edit model definition data in tabular format rather than in graphical mode or using standard forms. Edit model definition data in tabular format using the Edit menu > Interactive Database Editing command. Only model definition data can be edited this way, and the model must be unlocked to use this feature. Choosing the types of data to edit determines the tables that are available. If objects are selected before using the Edit menu > Interactive Database Editing command, only data for the selected objects will be available in tables that contain object-specific data. Additions, deletions, or modifications can be made to the data in the selected tables. Those changes then can be applied to the model, or the table editing process can be ended without saving the changes. Numerical formulas (e.g., 2+3/4) can be typed directly into any cell. Also right-clicking within any field (column) will cause a useful pop-up menu to appear. That menu can be used to display a description of the field. If the field expects text-type input then, in most cases, the menu also provides access to a drop-down list with all acceptable values for the selected cell. If the field expects numeric-type input, the menu provides access to the SAP2000 Calculator.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 10 Exporting Tabular Data While working on a table, change the units used for a given field by clicking on the cell just below the column heading. Changing the units for one field will change the units for other related fields. The units chosen while editing tables interactively are temporary. All values will be converted back to the current model units after the edited data has been applied to the model. Use the Excel > Send Database Table to Excel command on the SAP2000 Interactive Database Editing form to send the current table to Microsoft Excel, where full spreadsheet functionality is available to edit the table. After editing the data in Excel, do not close Excel. Instead, return to SAP2000 and select the Excel > Retrieve Database Table from Excel command to save the changes or the Cancel Database Table in Excel command to discard them; Excel will automatically be closed. Exporting Tabular Data Normally, using the File menu > Save command will save a SAP2000 model in a binary file with an .SDB extension. Analysis results, if any, are saved in a set of binary files in the same folder. Those binary files form a database that is used when the File menu > Open command is used to open an existing model. They are in a format that is internal to SAP2000; the contents of those files can only be accessed using the graphical user interface. To provide external access to SAP2000 data, export the model definition, analysis results, and design results as a SAP2000 tabular database in any of the following file formats: 􀂃 Microsoft Access database 􀂃 Microsoft Excel spreadsheet 􀂃 Plain (ASCII) text To export tabular data, use the appropriate File menu > Export command. Specific details of the different file formats are described in the “Tabular Database File Formats” section. However, they all use the
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Importing Tabular Data 5 - 11 same table names and field (column) names, and they all provide the same description of the SAP2000 data. When exporting, choose the classes of data to export and the types of data within each class; this, in turn, determines the tables that are exported. If objects are selected before exporting, only the data for the selected objects will be exported in those tables that contain object-specific data. Any number of different files can be exported from a given SAP2000 model. Each file may contain different tables and may apply to different parts of the model. Those files may be used for processing by other programs, for modification before re-importing to SAP2000, or for other purposes. However, to ensure that the exported file contains a complete description of the model, be sure to export all importable model-definition data for the entire structure. Importing Tabular Data Use the File menu > Import commands to import model definition data as a SAP2000 tabular database from any of the following file formats: 􀂃 Microsoft Access database 􀂃 Microsoft Excel spreadsheet 􀂃 Plain (ASCII) text The data could have been exported from the SAP2000 graphical user interface, or created in some other way. Exporting a model, modifying it, and then re-importing the data is useful for parameter studies and for iterative shape-finding problems. Certain features can be exported from one model and imported into another model. Note that the format of an imported file must be consistent with the format used for exporting. To apply the appropriate format to files created outside SAP2000, first create a model in the graphical user interface, and then use the appropriate export command to generate the format that can be used as a template. See the “Tabular Database File Formats” section later in this chapter for more information.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 12 Automatic Export During Save Data can be imported into a new model or added to an existing model. If the file is being imported into a new model, the file should include all importable information for a complete model. If a file is being added to an existing model, the file can consist of one or more tables. The “Program Control” table must always be present for the database to be imported (otherwise an error will occur). Thus, to import some new joints into an existing model, the file being imported could consist of only two tables, the “Program Control” table and the “Joint Coordinates” table. When adding to an existing model, choose how to handle conflicts between imported data and data that is already present in the model: 􀂃 Keep the existing item and ignore the imported item. 􀂃 Delete the existing item and use the imported item. 􀂃 Keep the existing item and add the imported item with a new name. Some model definition data is importable, and some is not. For example, the coordinates of the joints are importable, as is the connectivity of the frame objects to the joints. The lengths of the frame objects are included for informational purposes with the model definition data, but lengths are not importable since they can be calculated from the coordinates of the joints to which each object is connected. Automatic Export During Save Every time a SAP2000 model is saved, all model definition data is automatically exported as a tabular database in plain text format to a file with the a .$2K extension. This file is also created when an analysis is run, because the program always saves the model before running the analysis. The .$2K file serves as a text-file backup for the SAP2000 binary .SDB file. This file can be imported as an alternative to opening the .SDB file. Importing the .$2K file will not recover analysis or design results, only the complete model definition.
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
Export During Analysis 5 - 13 Export During Analysis An option is available to request that model definition and analysis results tables be exported in Access database format every time an analysis is run. This can be particularly useful if a series of analyses is being run for different models using the SAP2000 batch-file option. To use this option, specify a previously defined named set of model definition tables and a named set of analysis results tables to be exported. Named sets are defined using the Define menu > Named Set command, or they can be defined while displaying or printing tabular data. Tabular Database File Formats Database tables can be formatted for Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, or a text editor. A tabular database in any of these formats will contain equivalent data. The database table and field names in SAP2000 can be customized using the Options menu > Database > Table and Field Names command. See the on-line Help facility in SAP2000 for more information. Microsoft Access Database Each SAP2000 table is written as a separate Access database table, with the SAP2000 field names as the column headings. All tables and fields use one consistent set of units, namely the current units in effect when the file is created. These units are stored in the “Program Control” table, not with the individual fields. Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Each SAP2000 table is written as a separate worksheet in an Excel tabular database file. The SAP2000 field names are the column headings. The units associated with each field are displayed beneath the field names.
SAP2000 Getting Started
5 - 14 Tabular Database File Formats
For export to Excel, the units are the current units in effect when the file was created, unless different units have been specified using the Options menu > Database > Set Program Default DB Formatting command. For import from Excel, each field (column) may have a unique set of units. For example, in the “Joint Coordinates” table, the X Coordinate could be imported in inches, the Y Coordinate in feet and the Z Coordinate in meters. Note that this does not apply for import from Access or plain text tabular databases, which use a consistent set of units. In Excel, the headers are color-coded. Fields that can be imported have yellow headers. Fields that are ignored upon import have cyan (light blue) headers. Plain Text File The Text File Database is always in one consistent set of units. These units are specified in the Program Control table. The Text File Database consists of a series of tables. Each table has a series of one or more records (rows). Each record in the table must be on a single data line. A continuation character (a blank space followed by an underscore, i.e., _ ) can be used to indicate that a data line continues on to the next line of text in the file. Table names are specified by the keyword “TABLE:” followed by a space and the name of the table. The record data lines for a table follow the table-name data line. A record data line consists of pairs of data; each data pair is made up of a field name followed by the field data. One data pair is required for each field in the table. All data pairs for a given record must be on the same data line. The $ character is used as a comment character. Any data on a given data line that occurs after a $ is ignored by the program on import. Blank lines may occur anywhere and are completely ignored on import. Also, any data occurring before the first table-name data line is ignored. The program will stop reading the file when it encounters the “End” keyword.
Chapter 5 - Working with Data Tables
More Information 5 - 15 When SAP2000 creates a Text File Database, the field data is always enclosed in quotation marks, whereas the field names are not in quotation marks. The quotation marks have no significance; they are provided to make the text file easier to read. Text files can be created with or without quotation marks. By watching the status bar in the bottom left of the SAP2000 window while importing a text file, you may notice that the text file is first transferred to a Microsoft Access file and then the Microsoft Access file is imported into SAP2000. More Information Detailed information on using the various menu commands and forms is available using the online Help facility in the SAP2000 graphical user interface. Complete documentation for any or all tables and fields can be produced using the Options menu > Database > Documentation to Word command, which creates a Microsoft Word document that can be opened and printed.

Absolute FTP

2008-04-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

Connecting to a Remote FTP Server
There are two methods for connecting to an FTP server:
Method 1: set up a temporary connection using Quick Connect.
Choose the 'Quick Connect...' item from the File menu.
Enter the server address (e.g. ftp.microsoft.com or 198.105.232.1) in the 'Hostname' field.
If the 'Anonymous login' checkbox is checked, you will need to enter your e-mail address as the password in the 'Password' field. This gives you permissions on some servers to download public domain files, but you will probably not be able to upload files to the FTP server.
Another option here is to uncheck the 'Anonymous login' checkbox, and enter a valid account name (or login ID) for the server to which you are connecting in the 'User name' field. You will need to enter the password for the account in the 'Password' field.
Click the 'OK' button.
Method 2: set up a permanent, reusable entry in the session database.
Choose 'Connect' from the File menu to bring up the "Connect" window.
Click the 'New Session' toolbar button.
Enter the FTP server's address (e.g. ftp.microsoft.com or 198.105.232.1).
Click the 'Next' button.
If the 'Anonymous login' checkbox is checked, you will need to enter your e-mail address as the password in the 'Password' field. This gives you permissions on some servers to download public domain files, but you will probably not be able to upload files to the FTP server.
Another option here is to uncheck the 'Anonymous login' checkbox, and enter a valid account name (or login ID) for the server to which you are connecting in the 'User name' field. You will need to enter the password for the account in the 'Password' field.
Click the 'Next' button.
Click the 'Next' button to bypass the initial directory page.
Click the 'Finish' button to accept the default session name.
Select the new entry just created. Note that this entry is saved in the AbsoluteFTP database and can be reused by bringing up the "Connect" window (see step 1). Click the 'Connect' button.
After you initiate a connection using one of the above methods, a session window should open and list the files for the account used.
Transferring files to or from FTP sites is easily accomplished by any of the following operations:
4. Transferring Files
Open a remote file - Opening a file (either by double-clicking on it or by using the Open menu command) in a remote session window will initiate a download of the file. By default, you will be prompted whether you want to open the file in its associated application or save it to disk. You can configure AbsoluteFTP to automatically save the file to disk or open it by specifying the open action when editing or registering the file type.
You may also choose the menu Download command to initiate a transfer of the selected files and folders from a remote session window to a local download directory specified in the Session or Global Configuration.
You may also initiate a transfer using the Copy and Paste or Drag and Drop methods (described below)
The steps to upload a local file to a remote FTP server are as follows:
Connect to a remote FTP server.
Optionally, choose the 'Tile Horizontally' item from the 'Window' menu to size the local and remote windows and place them side-by-side.
In the local window, browse to and open the folder/directory that contains the files you want to upload.
In the remote/session window, browse to and open the folder/directory to which you want to upload the local files.
At this point, you can initiate the file transfer using either the "drag and drop" or "cut and paste" method.
a) Drag and drop: using the left mouse button, click on the icon for file you want to transfer and continue to hold down the left mouse button. While still holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse cursor so that it is positioned over the right-hand pane (where the folder contents are shown) of the remote window. Release the left mouse button to "drop" the file on the remote window.
Or
b) Cut and paste: select/highlight the files that you want to transfer. Choose the 'Copy' item from the 'Edit' menu. Then, select the folder/directory in the remote window to which you want to upload the files. Then, choose the 'Paste' item from the 'Edit' menu.
A separate window should appear that shows the progress of the transfer.
When the transfer completes, the target window will automatically refresh and the transferred files should be visible in the right-hand pane of that window.
The copy/paste or drag and drop methods may also be used to initiate file and folder transfers directly between remote FTP servers.

5. Navigating a Session
Each FTP session is represented by its own session window
The left pane of the session window shows the hierarchy of the folders on the remote host.
Click a folder in the left pane to display its sub folders and files in the right pane (If the folder contains any sub folders then a (+) will also appear to the left of the folder icon).
A folder-open icon indicates which folder is currently selected in the left pane. The complete contents of the currently selected folder are shown in the right pane.
Double-click a folder icon in the left pane (or click the +/-) to expand and collapse the tree of sub folders in the left pane.
A log window of FTP commands for a session can be viewed by dragging the lower border of the session window upward.

6. Session Configuration, Site

The following options control attributes of an FTP session and the FTP connection.
Session
Name - Enter the name of the session. This is the name that will be displayed in the Connect Dialog
Protocol - Select the FTP connection protocol to be used with this session. The available protocols are:
FTP - cause the connection to be made using the normal FTP protocol.
Hostname or IP - Enter the hostname or IP address of the FTP server to which you want to connect
Port - Enter the port number for the FTP server. The default FTP port is 21.
FTP login
Anonymous login - When the Anonymous login option is selected , AbsoluteFTP automatically selects anonymous as the username and fills in the password field using the password you supplied in your Global Configuration. Un-selecting this option makes the username and password fields available.

Username - Enter your username on the remote host.

Password - Enter your password.

Account - Enter an account name. This parameter is usually not needed (optional).

Tutorial Freehand

2008-04-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

Resources for learning FreeHand

The FreeHand package contains a variety of media to help you learn the program quickly and become proficient in creating your own FreeHand illustrations. The package includes a printed book, online help that appears in your Web browser, interactive lessons, and a tutorial. In addition, Macromedia provides a regularly updated Web site (www.macromedia.com/support/freehand).

FreeHand lessons and tutorial

If you are new to FreeHand, or if you have used only a limited set of its features, start with the lessons. The lessons introduce you to the main features of FreeHand, letting you practice on isolated examples.

To view the lessons, choose Help > Lessons > Introduction.

The tutorial, in both the Help menu and chapter 1 of the printed manual, introduces the FreeHand workflow by showing you how to create a basic illustration. The tutorial assumes an understanding of the topics covered in the lessons.

Using FreeHand

The Using FreeHand manual contains instructions and information for using all FreeHand tools and commands. It is provided in both online help and book forms.

FreeHand Help

FreeHand Help contains all the information in Using FreeHand, but is optimized for online viewing. FreeHand Help is available any time the FreeHand application is active. For the best experience when using FreeHand Help, Macromedia strongly recommends that you use Netscape Navigator 4.0 or later or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later (Windows). For the Macintosh, Macromedia recommends that you use Netscape Navigator 4.0 or later or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 or later. For either platform your browser must contain Flash plug-ins. If you use the 3.0 version of either browser, all the content of the movies and FreeHand Help is still accessible, but some features (such as Search) will not work. Running FreeHand and FreeHand Help simultaneously on a Macintosh may require more than 64 MB of memory, depending on your browser's memory needs.

FreeHand Support Center

The FreeHand Support Center Web site contains the latest information on FreeHand, plus tutorials, advice from expert users, examples, tips, updates, and information on advanced topics. For the latest news on FreeHand and how to get the most out of the program, check the Web site often at http://www.macromedia.com/support/freehand.

GIF Construction for your create Gif File

2007-10-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

GIF Construction Set Professional is a GIF animator. At its simplest level, it can assemble the source images of an animation sequence into an animated GIF file, suitable for use on a World Wide Web page. This is a bit like the observation that at its simplest level, an XJS Jaguar can be useful for picking up a few groceries. GIF Construction Set Professional represents the state of the art of GIF animation software. Among its many features are:
• Animation Wizard, a function to assemble animations from your source cells wherein the software does pretty much all the work.
• Supercompressor, which analyses your animations and looks for ways to store them in smaller files.
• Block Management, to resize, crop, color-adjust and otherwise manipulate multiple blocks in an animation at once.
• Banners, to make sophisticated graphic text banners, with animation.
• Transitions, to create animated transitions between still graphics.
• Block Editors, to let you create and fine-tune your animations one image at a time.
There is, of course, a lot more to GIF Construction Set Professional. However, the software has been structured to let you use as much or as little of it as you need, without having the rest of it get in your way. GIF Construction Set Professional has a very short learning curve.
It’s worth noting that GIF animation as it appears on the web is something of a compromise. The GIF format was not really designed for this function, and it has been pressed into service for use on the web more through expediency than because of a perfect fit to the requirements of the Internet. While GIF Construction Set Professional will usually manage to shield you from the vicissitudes of the GIF format, you will need to know a few things about the nature of GIF files to make your animations behave themselves.
In reading this document, keep in mind that it’s a tutorial, rather than an exhaustive reference. It’s intended to help you get up to speed with GIF Construction Set Professional as quickly as possible. To this end, it deliberately omits a fair bit about the software’s more esoteric features.
You can find an encyclopedic discussion of absolutely everything there is to know about GIF Construction Set Professional in the Reference document installed with this software.
Secondly, if you’re in breathless hurry to start generating animations, you might want to check out the Quick Start document installed with GIF Construction Set Professional. It’s a still more abbreviated tutorial, ideal for people who regard reading extensive documentation as a character flaw. You know who you are.
If you're really new to graphics, be sure to read the Introduction to Graphics document installed with GIF Construction Set Professional. It will familiarize you with the concepts upon which this software is based, and save your walls from considerable potential damage caused by you banging your head against them.
This document will make a few references to configuring GIF Construction Set Professional. While it’s worth keeping in mind the software characteristics which can be configured, you needn’t actually change anything to use this tutorial. There’s a complete discussion of the configuration options for GIF Construction Set Professional in the Reference document.

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Something Really Important

Here’s the single most important thing you need to know about GIF files. If you read nothing else in the documentation for GIF Construction Set Professional, read this.
An image as it’s seen by your eye, and by things like digital cameras, scanners and most decent imaging software, is represented as "true color." True-color images have a virtually unlimited number of available colors from which to draw. In a computer’s sense, a virtually unlimited number is 16,777,216 colors, which is close enough to infinity for the purpose of this discussion.
These "true-color" images are also referred to as "24-bit" images, because two raised to the power of 24 is 16,777,216. Somewhere in the heady days of your youth there no doubt lurks a prematurely-bald highschool mathematics teacher who would find this highly significant.
Because the GIF format harkens back to the adolescence of personal computers, wherein only rich people could afford systems with four megabytes of memory, GIF files can support a maximum of 256 colors, down somewhat from 16,777,216. In order to represent a true-color image in a GIF file, some way must be found to do so using no more than 256 colors.
This is from whence almost all the problems with GIF files on the web arise.
There is a way to squeeze a true-color image into a GIF file. It involves several steps. It’s worth noting that you won’t have to do any of this yourself - GIF Construction Set Professional will handle it for you - but you might be called upon to decide which of a variety of options to tell it to select.
1. First off, we’ll need to know which 256 colors to use in the GIF image being created. While a GIF file can only support 256 colors, each of the 256 colors can be drawn from the original 16,777,216 colors of a true-color image. The 256-color "palette" of a GIF file can be created by figuring out which 256 colors best reflect the colors in the original image, a process called "quantization."
Alternately, we might decide to use a canned palette which contains an even dispersal of colors between pure black and pure white. This is called an "orthogonal" palette. There are good reasons for both choices, which we’ll deal with later.
2. Once we have a palette for the new GIF file, we’ll need to squeeze the true-color source file down to use no colors save for those in the new palette. This can be done in one of two ways:
o Each of the original colors can be replaced with the nearest color in the new palette, a process called "remapping." Remapping is suitable for line art, but if you apply it to a photorealistic image, the result will look like an Andy Warhol poster.
o A complex pattern of alternating dots can be used to simulate the original colors. This is referred to as "dithering." Dithering is capable of creating remarkably effective simulations of true color, but with two notable drawbacks. The first is that having alternating dot patterns in your pictures lowers their apparent resolution and makes transparency effects a bit tricky. We’ll get into the latter in greater detail a bit later. The second problem is that dithered images compress badly, often resulting in unworkably large files.

The left image is a true-color graphic. The right image is the source true-color graphic dithered to 256 colors. Note the visible graininess in the dithered image. This example has been dithered to an orthogonal palette to make its dithering artifacts more apparent. Dithering to a quantized palette typically results in fewer noticeable dots.

In creating an animation, it’s often the case that multiple true-color images, each having its own range of colors, need be squeezed into the claustrophobic back seat of the GIF format. GIF files for use on the web must apply the same 256-color palette to all the images in an animation. GIF Construction Set Professional deals with this issue by deriving the best possible palette for all the images in an animation, what is called a "superpalette." Once again, you need not know how all this works, as long as you know what it means.
GIF Construction Set Professional will import images to create your animations with from most of the popular image file formats. These include GIF, PNG, PCX, BMP and JPG. The GIF format, as has been discussed, can support images having no more than 256 colors. As such, using GIF source images to build your animations is likely to confront you with the least dire color problems of the sort discussed here. By comparison, all images stored in JPG files have 16,777,216 possible colors. Using JPG files as source images can require that you be somewhat more aware of how GIF Construction Set Professional will deal with too many colors. A great deal more will be said of this later.
PNG, BMP and PCX files can contain images having anywhere from two to 16,777,216 colors. If you plan to work with source images in a variety of file formats, we strongly recommend that you check out Alchemy Mindworks’ Graphic Workshop Professional software.

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About Image Dimensions

Bitmap or "raster" images - the type of graphics which are stored in GIF files - have dimensions which can only be expressed in pixels. A pixel is one of the colored dots that comprise a graphic.
A pixel is as big as the device which displays it wants it to be. A pixel displayed on your monitor will be ablut 1/75th of an inch across. A pixel printed on a laser printer might be 1/300th of an inch across. The same graphic displayed on your monitor and printed on a laser printer will be a lot smaller in the printed output for this reason.
Because it’s impossible to say how big a pixel is in an absolute sense, it’s also impossible to assign specific dimensions in inches to a graphic. You might note that a graphic occupies a two inch by three inch area of your monitor, but this is largely meaningless unless the party to whom you communicate this observation has the same brand of monitor, configured identically to yours.
Some applications allow you to work with bitmapped graphics like GIF files in inches or millimeters, but this is an illusion perpetrated for the convenience of people who don’t much like the idea of objects with no fixed size. Software like this typically assumes that your graphics will be displayed at a specific resolution - that of your monitor or printer - and it calculates their image dimensions accordingly.
GIF Construction Set Professional always displays image dimensions in pixels.

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Inside a GIF File

The most constructive analogy for a GIF file is a strip of movie film. Just as a movie is really a sequence of still images, so too is a GIF file a sequence of still computer graphics. There are several important distinctions, however:
• GIF files have far fewer frames than even really short, subliminal movies. At least, they do if you expect people to see them at your web page. Even relatively short animations can create uncomfortably large GIF files, which take a long time to download.
• GIF files can be made to loop, such that their contents play indefinitely. You can do this with a bit of movie film and a splicing block too, of course. Oddly, people will watch a looping GIF file for much longer than they’ll typically sit around and watch the same twenty seconds of movie film played over and over.
• GIF files allow you to make portions of an image transparent, such that what is behind the GIF file will appear in the transparent areas. What’s behind a GIF file will usually be the background of your web page.
The individual bits that make up a GIF file are called its "blocks." Each GIF file consists of several of the following blocks:
• Header Block: There’s only one of these, every file has one, and it’s always the first block in the file. It defines the dimensions of the area the pictures in the file will occupy, measured in pixels. It also stores the palette all the images in the file will use.
• Loop Block: If it's present, this tells your web browser than the animation in your GIF file should loop. A Loop block can specify indefinite looping or a specific number of iterations. There can only be one Loop block in a GIF file, and it must appear immediately after the Header block if it’s present.
• Image Block: This is what actually stores an image. It also specifies where the image is to be placed relative to the upper left corner of the area in which your animation will appear.
• Control Block: Control blocks precede Image blocks to tell your browser how to display the images they pertain to. A Control block includes information such as which areas to make transparent, how long the image should be displayed until the next image in your animation replaces it and what to do with an image once it’s time for it to be replaced. This latter point is something of a refinement of GIF animation, and one which will be dealt with in greater detail presently.
• Comment Block: Comment blocks store hidden text. The text in a Comment block will not appear in your animation, but it can be viewed with GIF Construction Set Professional and many other applications. Comment blocks are useful for storing image information and copyright statements, among other things.
There are actually several additional types of blocks defined for the GIF format, but they’re not relevant to GIF files as they appear on the web, and they can be safely ignored for the moment.

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GIF Construction Set Professional's Blocks

GIF Construction Set Professional manages GIF blocks in a way which will keep you from having to deal with some of the really grotty aspects of GIF files. Specifically:
• Because there’s only one Header block and one Loop block in a GIF file, GIF Construction Set Professional treats these as one block.
• Similarly, as Control blocks only appear in conjunction with Image blocks, GIF Construction Set Professional regards a combination of a Control and Image block as one block.
While GIF Construction Set Professional will open conventional GIF files, and it creates conventional GIF files when you save an animation, it hides any Loop and Control blocks while you’re working on an animation. This will present you with fewer blocks to keep track of - a worthy consideration if you’re juggling the elements of a complex animation - and it will obviate the possibility of getting the Loop and Control blocks of your animations in the wrong place.
Users of earlier versions of GIF Construction Set should note that this differs from the way the software used to work.
As will be discussed later in this document, each block in a GIF file can be edited - you can change block parameters such as the number of times a Loop block goes around or the number of pixels an Image block is offset from the upper left corner of the image area of an animation. Because an Image block includes its attendant Control block as far as GIF Construction Set Professional is concerned, editing an Image block also gives you access to all its Control block parameters. This, too, will be dealt with in greater detail shortly.

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Open and View an Existing Animation

The simplest thing GIF Construction Set Professional is likely to be called upon to do is to open an existing GIF animation and allow you to watch it do its stuff. There are several GIF animations included with the GIF Construction Set Professional software. The simplest of these is BALL.GIF.
To open BALL.GIF:
1. Select Open from the File menu of GIF Construction Set Professional.
2. When the Open dialog appears, select BALL.GIF.

NOTE: GIF Construction Set Professional’s file dialogs remember the last directory in which you open or save a file. When GIF Construction set Professional is first installed, they’ll all be looking at the directory you installed it in, by default \GIFConstructionSetProfessional on your C drive. If you have experimented with GIF Construction Set Professional prior to reading this tutorial, you’ll probably have to navigate back to the directory where you installed GIF Construction Set Professional to find the files to be discussed in this document.

The BALL.GIF file will open in a document window. You’ll see its Header block followed by a sequence of Image blocks, each displaying the graphic it contains. You might have to scroll the document window to see all the cells.
To view the BALL.GIF animation, click on the View button in the tool bar. A window will appear with the animated ball in it. When you get tired of the animated ball - something that should occur fairly quickly unless you’re having a remarkably dull day - click in the animation window with your right mouse button to close it.
The EXAMPLE2.GIF file included with GIF Construction Set Professional is another animation. You can open and view it the same way as you did BALL.GIF. Note that when you open EXAMPLE2.GIF, the document window for BALL.GIF remains where you initially opened it. GIF Construction Set Professional allows you to have as many open animation documents as you like.
EXAMPLE2.GIF is arguably larger than would be practical for a web-page animation. It’s derived from the images in the Click Me advertisement installed with GIF Construction Set Professional. You might want to compare the graphics in the Click Me advertisement with the ones in EXAMPLE2.GIF. Notice the banding in the cover for the book Eye of the Dawn in EXAMPLE2.GIF. This is a result of having to squeeze all the colors in all the graphics in Click Me into the 256-color palette of EXAMPLE2.GIF.
You can find an unlimited selection of animations on the world wide web. If you encounter an animation you’d like to keep as you’re surfing the web, click on it with your right mouse button. A menu will appear - select Save Image As to save it to your hard drive as a GIF file. You can then open the GIF file you’ve saved in GIF Construction Set Professional, as discussed above. This works for both Netscape and Explorer.

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Let's Build an Animation

In creating an animation "from scratch," it’s best to think of yourself as the animation artist, and of GIF Construction Set Professional as the animation camera. It’s your responsibility to create the source images which will form the action in your animation. GIF Construction Set Professional will put them together for you. In fact, GIF Construction Set Professional will do a lot of animating too, but we’ll deal with this later.
For the purpose of this exercise, we’re going to create an animation from a sequence of cells provided with GIF Construction Set Professional. The source cells are stored in the files CELL0.GIF through CELL7.GIF. Note that while this exercise will use source images stored in the GIF format, you can build animations from JPG, BMP, PCX, PNG and TGA files as well.
The easiest way to build an animation is to use GIF Construction Set Professional’s "Animation Wizard." Animation Wizard will ask you a few things about how you want your animation to work and where the source images are, and it will then assemble your frames into a GIF file.
To activate Animation Wizard, click on the magic wand button in the tool bar. You can also activate Animation Wizard by selecting Animation Wizard from the File menu of GIF Construction Set Professional.
As an aside, it's probably worth noting that GIF Construction Set Professional actually includes two distinct animation wizards – the one you're about to use, and the "classic" Animation Wizard, which behaves like a conventional multiple-panel Windows wizard. You might want to use the latter if you're following a tutorial in an older web page design book which discusses the original wizard. See the discussion of the GIF Construction Set Professional Setup dialog if you need to use the classic Animation Wizard.
The Animation Wizard dialog behaves a bit like Windows Explorer. It includes three panels. The leftmost panel is a navigation tree to select the folder on your hard drive where your source images reside. The center panel will display a list of all the available image files in the folder you select with the left panel. The right panel will display the list of images you've selected to build your animation with – it will be empty when the wizard first appears.
Here's another aside – you can return all the configurable items of the Animation Wizard to their default state by holding down the Shift key when you click on the magic wand button in the GIF Construction Set Professional tool bar. If you experimented with the wizard before you got to this tutorial, you might want to do this now to make sure it's set up properly.
The Animation Wizard includes a fair number of configurable settings, but they default to values which will create attractive animations without any immediate need to adjust them. The discussion of the Animation Wizard in the Reference document accompanying this application will describe all its features in detail, once you've mastered its basic operation.
The first time you open the Animation Wizard, it will point itself at the parent directory into which you installed GIF Construction Set Professional. Notice that the GIF Construction Set Professional folder in the left navigation tree panel is open. You should see five files listed in the center panel, the first of which will be BALL.GIF.
The source images for this example reside in the html folder below the GIF Construction Set Professional parent directory. Locate the html entry immediately below the GIF Construction Set Professional item in the left panel and click on it. The contents of the center panel will change, showing you the BALL.GIF graphic at various degrees of rotation.

CELL0.GIF CELL1.GIF CELL2.GIF CELL3.GIF CELL4.GIF CELL5.GIF CELL6.GIF CELL7.GIF

You need to select the files CELL0.GIF through CELL7.GIF in the center panel. To do this:
1. Click once on CELL0.GIF.
2. Scroll the center panel down if needs be to reveal CELL7.GIF.
3. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click on CELL7.GIF. All the files between CELL0.GIF and CELL7.GIF will be selected as well.
If you make a mistake in selecting your source files, right-click in the middle panel and select Select None from the menu that appears to unselect all the files and try again.
Once you've successfully selected all eight source files in the center panel, click on the Add button in the Animation Wizard tool bar. Your selected graphics will be copied to the right panel.
You're now ready to build your animation. Click on Build. You'll see the status bar move at the bottom of the GIF Construction Set Professional application window – fairly quickly, as this is not a particularly involved animation – and the Animation Wizard window will close after a moment or two. Your completed animation will appear in a new GIF Construction Set Professional document window. Click on the View button – the sunglasses button – to see it animate.
Note that each animation created by Animation Wizard will be assigned a unique file name. The Save As function will let you change this to a name of your choice. It's a really good idea to name your animation files with descriptive names.
It's likely that the animations you create with Animation Wizard will require some post-production fine tuning. You might want to add transparent elements, move some images around, make some images display for different amounts of time and so on. Once an animation has been opened in a GIF Construction Set Professional document window – whether it got there through the Open item of the File menu, the Animation Wizard or any of the other ways to create animations yet to be discussed – it's ready for you to work on using the many tools available in GIF Construction Set Professional.

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How Transparency Works

One of the reasons GIF files are used on web pages is their ability to manage image transparency. A transparent image is one in which some areas of the picture to be displayed are transparent and will allow the background color or background texture of your web page to appear. Using transparency, for example, you can create an irregularly-shaped image and have it appear as such on your web page without a rectangular frame around it.
Transparency can be a bit frustrating if you don’t understand what it’s really up to.
GIF files manage color through "palettes," as has been touched on earlier. This means that in a 256-color GIF file, each pixel represents a number from zero through 255, rather than a specific color. Each number is an index into the palette for the image. This means that if a pixel holds the number 10, and color number ten in the palette is white, the pixel will be white. If color number ten in the palette is bright purple, the pixel will be ugly.
While funky and not a little confusing, this arrangement allows GIF files to store pictures using less file space than would otherwise be the case.
A transparent GIF file is one in which one of the available palette colors has been defined as being transparent. For example, if color number ten were to be defined as transparent, any pixels which were painted in color ten would not appear when the image was displayed.
This is where transparency can get a bit peculiar. If color number ten is white and you define color number ten as being the transparent color, all the white areas will become transparent. At least, this will be true if all the white areas in your graphic are actually painted in color number ten. If color number eleven happens to be white as well, and some of the white areas are painted in color number eleven, only some of the white areas in your picture will ultimately display as transparent.
Pictures which have been dithered to get them into the available color depth of a GIF file often include areas of alternating pixels of very similar colors. Attempting to apply transparency to such an image may leave you with a pattern of dots overlaying your transparent areas.
The GIF format allows only a single transparent color per image.
This is the sort of stuff to make grown men weep, heroes quaver and little old ladies pull Uzis out of their oversize tote-bags to kill their poodles with. As a rule, transparency isn’t usually workable in photorealistic GIF images unless you edit the images with a paint package to tidy up any stray colors that might be lurking about in your otherwise transparent areas. If you create a transparent GIF file with GIF Construction Set Professional and view it only to find that not everything you don’t want to see is in fact transparent, some retouching is in order.
GIF Construction Set Professional has a built-in paint function which is exceedingly handy for this, as we’ll get to presently.
Here’s the second most important thing to keep in mind about transparency. When you build an animated GIF file through Animation Wizard, your source images will be imported, as has been discussed. Any transparency information which they might have contained will not be imported. As such, even if you start with transparent source images, your animation will lack even the mere whisper of transparency when it finally opens in GIF Construction Set Professional. You must add transparency to your animations after they are created.
This, too, will be discussed in detail later in this document.
Finally, you should keep in mind that when a non-transparent animation is displayed by a web browser, each frame overwrites the previous one. In displaying a transparent GIF file, some areas of the image being painted will not overwrite the previous images, as they’ll be transparent. This can result in animations which seem to leave bits of themselves behind.
To avoid this, each image of an animated GIF file must be overwritten by the background color or texture of your web page before it is replaced by the next image. This is called "removing by background." We’ll see how this is enabled shortly.
It’s worth keeping in mind that not all applications which display GIF files handle transparency. If you want to view a transparent animated GIF file correctly, use GIF Construction Set Professional, Graphic Workshop Professional or your web browser.
Finally, when GIF Construction Set Professional displays a transparent GIF file, it does so against a background of the background color for the GIF file in question. The background color is defined in the Header block for each GIF file - we’ll look at editing the Header block parameters in a moment.
This differs from the way transparency is handled by a web browser, which will ignore the background color of a GIF file and display it against the background of your web page.
In working with transparent GIF files in GIF Construction Set Professional, it’s a really good idea to set the background color to something really ugly that you’d never use in your images. At the very least, it should contrast markedly from the color of the areas you wish to make transparent. Having done so, it will be easy to spot which areas are really transparent, and which are just painted in a color similar to the color you’ve defined as transparent.
We’ll look at how to add transparency to existing GIF files later in this document.

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Editing the Header Block

You can edit the parameters of most of the blocks in a GIF file using GIF Construction Set Professional. The exception is a type of block called an Application block, something which has not been touched on thus far. Application blocks are what GIF files use to hold mysterious contents which only certain applications know how to work with. GIF Construction Set Professional will refuse edit these blocks.
To edit a block, double-click on it in the document window for its animation. The appropriate editor window will appear.

NOTE: If you edit a block and decide not to keep the changes you have made, you can abandon them by clicking on Cancel in the editor window. If you click on OK in an editor window and then realize you’ve changed something you shouldn’t have, you can undo the most recent change made to your GIF file by selecting Undo from the Edit menu of GIF Construction Set Professional.

If you double-click on the Header block for the BALL.GIF animation, you’ll see the Header block editor. There’s not all that much you’ll want to do to the Header blocks of animations as a rule. Here’s a quick overview of the controls and what they do.
• Screen Width and Screen Depth: Every animated GIF file knows how big an area in pixels it should occupy. These values are automatically calculated by GIF Construction Set Professional as you construct a GIF file, and never need to be entered manually.
• Background: This is the background color used to display GIF files in GIF Construction Set Professional. It’s ignored by web browsers, but it’s handy to make sure your transparency is working properly, as discussed earlier. Click on this button to select the background color for the file in question.
Because the background color is selected from the palette of your GIF file, this button also provides a convenient way to see what the whole palette looks like.
The number displayed by the Background button is the color number of the background color.
• Palette: For the most part, you’ll want to leave the palette functions of the Header block editor alone for a while. One possible exception to this is the Edit button, which will allow you to change specific colors in the palettes of your GIF files. It’s very important to keep in mind what editing colors actually means to a GIF file. If you change a color in the palette of a GIF file, all the images in the file which use the color in question will be affected.
• Loop: If you enable the Loop switch in the Header block, your GIF animation will be created with a Loop block. The Iterations value defines the number of times your animation will loop. If you set this value to zero, it will loop indefinitely.

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Editing Image Blocks

Each frame of your GIF file is represented as an Image block. If you double click on an Image block in the document window for an animation, an Image block editor will appear. Seasoned users of GIF Construction Set will note that the Image block editor also includes a Control block editor bolted onto the side.
• Image Width and Image Depth: This is the dimensions of the image in question in pixels. You can’t change these values per se, but if you resize the image, they’ll be adjusted by GIF Construction Set.
• Image Left and Image Top: These are the number of pixels to move the image right and down from the upper left corner of the area the animation will occupy, as defined in the Header block. You can set these manually - they can also be adjusted interactively through the Preview function, to be discussed in a moment.
• Interlaced: By default, GIF images appear in your web page as you might expect - as each image is downloaded, it will be painted from the top down. If you enable the Interlaced option, they’ll appear in interlaced order, in a non-linear sequence of lines. This makes it easier to see what a picture looks like before it has fully downloaded. It’s important to note that the Interlaced switch is ignored by most web browsers for GIF files having more than one Image block.
• Paint: The Paint button is unspeakably handy. Click on it, and the image associated with the Image block in question will open in Windows Paint. You can edit it in Paint. When you exit Paint, the modified image will be replaced in your GIF file. If you change the dimensions of the image you’re working on in Paint, the Image Width and Image Depth values will change in the Image editor.
• Palette: The Palette functions of the Image block editor are even more arcane and potentially troublesome than those of the Header block. Ignore them.
• Control: If you enable the Control Block option, the Image block in question will be preceded by a GIF Control block, and you’ll be able to apply transparency, delay and removal characteristics to it. Animations must have Control blocks for each image, or dire things may happen when they hit the web.
• Transparent Color: If you want to have an area of your image transparent, enable the Transparent Color switch.
You can select the color to be transparent either by clicking on the color button below the Transparent Color switch - typically pretty tricky - or by using the eyedropped tool to the right of the color button, the preferred method. Click on the eyedropper tool and the image associated with the Image block being edited will appear. Click somewhere in the area to be made transparent. Keep in mind the way transparency in GIF files works, as discussed earlier in this document.
If you create an animation with transparency, make sure you set the Remove By value correctly, as discussed below.
• Delay: You can specify the time for which your image will be visible, as specified in 1/100ths of a second. While a delay value of zero is legal, it’s a really bad idea, as some web browsers behave erratically when they encounter it.
• Remove By: The Remove By combo box will allow you to specify how your image should be dealt with once its delay time has expired and it’s time to move on to the next image in your GIF file. There are four Remove By options, but only two of them are supported by all web browsers. If you select Nothing, your existing image will be painted over by the next image in your animation. If you select Background, your existing image will be painted over with the background color or texture for your web page, and then the next image in your GIF file will be displayed. The latter is the correct choice for animations with transparency.
• Do not select Leave As Is or Previous Image for GIF files to be used on the web.
• Wait for User Input: This function is not supported by all web browsers. Do not select it for GIF files to be used on the web.
• Preview: If you click on the Preview button, you’ll see your image displayed against the background color defined in the Header block for your GIF file. You can click and drag in the image area to reposition it interactively. Click with your right mouse button somewhere in the Preview window to close it. Note that the Image Left and Image Top values in the Image editor window will be changed if you move the image in the Preview window.

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Editing Comment Blocks

Comment blocks are the only other block type you’re likely to encounter in working with GIF files for the web. You’ll find a Comment block at the end of the list of blocks for BALL.GIF. If you double click on a Comment block, a Comment block editor will appear. You can modify the text in a Comment block by editing the contents of this dialog.
The Format button changes the font used to display the text in GIF Construction Set Professional’s Comment editors. It does not affect how it will appear in other applications which might display your comment blocks.
GIF Construction Set Professional may append one or more comment blocks to the GIF files it writes. While these are discussed in greater detail elsewhere in the documentation for the software, there are two specific Comment blocks you might want to keep in mind:
• Unregistered Shareware: If you use an unregistered shareware copy of GIF Construction Set Professional to create a GIF file, a comment block to this effect will be added to the file. You can delete these within GIF Construction Set Professional’s document windows, but they’ll be replaced as soon as you save the file.
At such time as you register GIF Construction Set Professional, you can nuke the Unregistered Shareware comment blocks in GIF files you created by opening each one with your registered software, deleting the Unregistered Shareware Comment blocks and saving the files. Only a registered copy of GIF Construction Set Professional can successfully delete an Unregistered Shareware Comment block.
• Identify Files: By default, every file created by GIF Construction Set Professional will include a Comment block which identifies who created it. You can disable this feature entirely by switching off Identify Files in the GIF Construction Set Professional Setup dialog, or configure the software to use text of your own choosing. See the Reference document for more about the latter.

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Adding Blocks to a GIF File

If you create animations through Animation Wizard, chances are all the blocks that you’ll need in your GIF files will be in place as soon as Animation Wizard stops waving its wand and casting its spells. There are instances in which you might want to add blocks to a GIF file by hand, however. Specifically, you can use GIF Construction Set Professional’s block insertion functions to add still more images to an animation, and to add Comment blocks to a GIF file.
In fact, the block insertion function also supports a third type of blocks, called "Plain Text" blocks. Plain Text blocks are not supported by all web browsers, and should not be used if you’re creating GIF files for use on the web. When you see text in a GIF file, you’re really looking at a graphic which looks like characters.
Let’s insert a Comment block into BALL.GIF.
If you click on the Header block of BALL.GIF, you’ll find that a blue or red line will appear along the bottom of the block. This is the "insertion caret." Think of it as having the same function as the flashing text cursor in a word processor. Whenever you insert a new block into a GIF file with GIF Construction Set Professional, the new block will appear after the block which currently has the insertion caret. The insertion caret will appear on the block you’ve most recently clicked on.
With the insertion caret visible in the Header block, you can insert a block after the Header block either by:
• Clicking on the green plus button in the tool bar
or
• Selecting Insert Block from the Edit menu
In either case, a menu will appear. Select Comment as the type of the new block to be inserted. A Comment block will appear after the Header block in BALL.GIF.
You can edit the text in your new Comment block by double clicking on it, as discussed earlier.
The other common use of the Insert Block function is inserting Image blocks into an existing GIF file. This behaves the same way as Comment block insertion, save that you will be prompted for a file name to read your new image from, and most likely with a Palette dialog once your new image has been read. This latter dialog will allow you to tell GIF Construction Set Professional how to deal with an image having a color palette which differs from that of the GIF file you’re trying to insert it into. Palettes will be discussed in greater detail later in this document. Consult the Reference document for more about the options in the Palette dialog.

NOTE: If you copy a bitmap to the Windows clipboard, either from within GIF Construction Set Professional or from another application, such as Graphic Workshop or Windows Paint, you can insert it into a GIF file as an Image block in much the same way as you would insert an image from a graphic file. Select Paste from the Edit menu.

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Deleting Blocks from a GIF File

You can delete any block except the Header from a GIF file. Click on the block in question to select it and click on the minus button in the tool bar, or hit the Del key on your keyboard.
Note that all the selected blocks in the GIF file in the uppermost document window will be deleted by the Delete function. The number of currently selected blocks is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the GIF Construction Set Professional application window.
If you delete a block and then change your mind, you can bring it back to life through the Undo function of the Edit menu. Undo only undoes the most recent change to a GIF file.
By default, GIF Construction Set Professional will warn you if you’re about to delete more than one block.

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Adding Transparency to a Still GIF File

GIF files converted from other formats or saved from paint applications typically do not include transparency information. If you need a transparent still GIF file, you can enable transparency for an existing graphic with GIF Construction Set Professional. Here’s how to do it:
1. Open the GIF file in question into a GIF Construction Set Professional document window through the Open item of the File menu. You should see a Header block followed by an Image block. You might see one or more Comment blocks or other secondary blocks elsewhere in the file. You can ignore these.
2. Double click on the Image block. An Image block editor will appear.
3. Enable the Control Block item in the Image block editor if it’s not currently enabled.
4. Enable the Transparent Color switch in the Image Block editor.
5. Use the eyedropper tool to select a transparent area for your GIF file.
6. Make sure the Remove By item is set to Nothing.
7. You can use the Preview function to preview your graphic and make sure the transparent areas are as you expected them to be. Keep in mind, however, that if the transparent color and the background color as defined in the Header block of your GIF file happen to be the same color number - for example, if they’re both zero, a common occurrence - it may be less than apparent whether you’ve successfully applied transparency to the Image block you’re editing. See the discussion of transparency elsewhere in this document for more about this.
8. Click on OK in the Image block editor.
You can save your transparent GIF file through the Save or Save As items of the File menu.

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Supercompressing a GIF File

In creating GIF animations for the web, it’s important to make the final GIF files that are referenced by your HTML documents as small as possible. The unspeakable, breathtaking excellence of your animations won’t impress anyone if they lapse into comas while waiting for your GIF files to download.
In some cases, it’s possible for sufficiently sneaky software to squeeze some unnecessary pixels out of your animations and in so doing create smaller GIF files. The sufficiently sneaky software is the Supercompressor function in GIF Construction Set Professional.
It’s important to keep in mind what Supercompressor is really up to. All GIF files are compressed. Supercompressor attempts to meddle with the blocks in your GIF files to make them more compressible. In some cases it can do quite a bit in this respect, and in others it’s wholly ineffective. If there’s nothing to squeeze out of your GIF file, Supercompressor will not make it any smaller.
Supercompressor makes GIF files smaller by doing one or more of the following to them:
• Palette Compression: Just because your GIF file has a 256-color palette doesn’t mean that all the colors in its palette actually appear in its images. The Supercompressor surveys all the images in a GIF file and deletes those colors from the file’s palette which aren’t actually referenced by any of them. If it finds enough unused colors, it will often be able to make the palette smaller, and hence recompress the file with a lower color depth.
• Prune Overlapping Frames: If an animation consists of multiple frames in which only the area in the middle of each frame actually contains action that changes, the Supercompressor will prune away the edges of the frames and move what’s left down and to the right so it appears in the correct location.
• Redundancy Compression: If an animation consists of multiple frames with a lot of identical areas, the Supercompressor will replace the identical pixels with a transparent color. Since all the replaced pixels will be one color - the transparent color - and areas of pixels that are all the same color typically compress better than areas of pixels that are a variety of colors, the resulting GIF file will get smaller.
• Block Stripping: GIF files don’t need Comment, Plain Text or Application blocks to display themselves on your web page. The Supercompressor can remove them for you.
• Color crushing: GIF files with small palettes typically compress better than GIF files with large palettes, all other things being equal. The down side to this observation is that GIF files with small palettes – and hence fewer colors to work with – usually don't look as good as they would with a full palette of 256 colors. Palette size is a tradeoff between file size and visual quality.
Color crushing allows you to force your animations to get by with smaller palettes than they started with. The color crushing function will devise a small palette based on the distribution of colors in the images of your animation. The number of colors in your final palette will be no larger than the value in the Palette Size field of the Supercompression dialog.
Note that unlike the other options in Supercompression, color crushing will degrade your animations, and cannot be undone with the Reconstruct function of GIF Construction Set Professional. In some cases, it's worth the hit to arrive at smaller files. None the less, use it carefully.
Plan to experiment with this option to get a sense of the Palette Size settings that result in an acceptable level of image degradation and the sorts of file sizes you're after.
The Supercompressor will not change the way your animation appears, but it might well change what the individual frames look like. It’s a profoundly good idea to save your original source images under a different file name when you use the Supercompressor. Once an animation has been Supercompressed, it’s will often be very, very difficult to edit.
The Supercompressor will not perform pruning or redundancy compression on GIF files which have one or more Image blocks with transparency enabled.
To use the Supercompressor, open a GIF file in GIF Construction Set Professional and select Supercompressor from the File menu. Note that you can disable any compression types you don’t want to use, and Supercompressor will disable any compression types it decides are inappropriate for your GIF file. Click on Start to begin compressing. The OK button will be enabled when the Supercompressor is done. When you click on OK, your supercompressed graphic will open in a new document window.
If the Supercompressor can’t find anything to squeeze out of your GIF file, it will tell you so and the OK button will not be enabled.

NOTE: The Supercompressor is good, but it’s not God. It can’t take a half-megabyte bloated pig of a GIF file and Jenny Craig it down to ten kilobytes just ‘coz you really need a small file. Really huge complex animations typically require a rethink to get them down to manageable dimensions.

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Investigating Banners

There are a number of enormously fun toys in the Edit menu of GIF Construction Set Professional, including Banners, Transitions, Wide-Palette GIF, LED Signs and Spin. To a large extent, these are beyond the scope of this tutorial. However, you might want to have a quick look at the simplest of them, Banners, to get a feel for what you can do with them.
The Banners function creates sophisticated text banners, which can be either still or animated. If you’re interested in creating complex banner advertisements, have at look at the Build Banner Ads that Rock article at our web page.
To create a banner, select the Banner item from the Edit menu of GIF Construction Set Professional. The Banner dialog will appear.
The tabs at the top of the Banner dialog select the type of special effects to be added to your text. These are:
•
Simple: Your text will be drawn in a solid color, with or without a drop shadow.
•
Embossed: Your text will be drawn with highlight and shadow lines to make it appear to rise from the surface of your monitor.
•
Teletype: Your text will be drawn one character at a time, in a solid color, with or without a drop shadow.
•
Glow: Your text will be drawn against a black background with a simulated glow and optional neon tubes.
•
Soft shadow: Your text will be drawn in a solid color with a soft shadow behind it.
•
Texture: Your text will be cut from a tiled texture and drawn with an optional drop shadow.
•
Scanners: Your text will be drawn in a solid color, with or without a drop shadow, with a bright scan line animated over it.
•
Waves: Your text will be drawn a moving wave between the Crest and Trough colors.
With the exception of Teletype and Scanners, all the Banner effects can be used either to create single lines of still text or to create text that rolls in from the right. The Teletype and Scanners effects are always animated.
There are a number of parameters to adjust for each of the banner effects. Here’s what they do. Note that not all these parameters are applicable to all the effects - they won’t appear on the tabs where they’re not needed.
• Text color: The color your text will be drawn in.
• Shadow color: The color the drop shadow behind your text will be drawn in.
• Background color: The color of the area behind your text and its shadow.
• Glow color: The backlight color for the Glow effect.
• Tube color: The color for the neon tubes in the Glow effect, if they’re enabled.
• Scan color: The color of the scan line in the Scanners effect.
• Backscatter color: The color of the glow to the right and left of the scan line in the Scanners effect.
• Outline color: The color used to outline the text in Textures effect.
Note that as with all the color buttons in GIF Construction Set Professional, you can change any of the foregoing by clicking on the button in question and selecting a new color.
• Font: Click on this button to select the typeface, size and effect for the text you’d like to create. GIF Construction Set Professional will create text banners using any alphabetic font in your system. Note that it will not work with symbol fonts or with most two-byte fonts, such as Kanji, Arabic or Hebrew.
• Drop shadow: Enable this item to show a drop shadow behind your text.
• Rolling: Enable this item to create an animated text banner, and disable it to create a single image of the text you’re entered.
• Transparent: Enable this item to make the background color of your text banner transparent. Note that this can be changed after your banner is created by editing the Image blocks for its individual frames.
• Compress Palette: If this item is enabled, GIF Construction Set Professional will Supercompress the palette for your text banner once it has been created, possibly creating a smaller final GIF file. This will increase the time it takes to complete a banner - you might want to leave it disabled if you’re just experimenting.
• Anti-alias: If this item is enabled, your text banners will be created with anti-aliased text, which will help reduce the jagged appearance of diagonal edges of characters. See the Reference document for a more detailed discussion of this feature.
• Cells: This is the number of individual images that will be created for your animated text banner. More cells will result in smoother animation, but also in larger files. In some cases, this value is more of a suggestion than an absolute number, and GIF Construction Set Professional might decide to create an animation with one or two more or fewer images.
• Delay: This is the number of 1/100ths of a second that each image in your animation will appear for. Increase this number to slow your animation down.
• Offset: This is the offset in pixels between your text and its drop shadow.
• Pause: This is the delay for the last frame in your animation, right before it loops. It can be used to build in a pause before the banner begins to appear again.
• Palette: This is the palette to be used to create your banner. Palettes are discussed in greater detail in the Reference document installed with GIF Construction Set Professional.
• Banner Text: This is the text to be used to create your banner. Banner text can occupy up to 260 characters.
• Neon and Glow: These items select which of the Glow effects GIF Construction Set Professional will create.
• Radiance: This tells the Glow effect how bright to make the blow behind the text it draws. Very high radiance values can produce really strange banners.
• Extra Soft: Enable this item to increase the softness of the soft shadows in the Banner function.
• Outline: Enable this item to have your texture banners drawn with an outline.
• Dither: Enable this item to have the colors in the textures used by the Texture effect dithered to the palette of the banner being created. Disable it to have them remapped.
• Texture: Click on this button to select the texture to be used by the Texture effect. You can add your own textures to the Texture effect. The Reference document includes a more compete discussion of textures.
• Wide Bar: Enable this item to increase the width of the scan line created by the Scanners effect.
You’ll probably want to experiment with the Banner function at length to really get a feel for what it’s capable of. When you’ve entered some text, chosen a banner type and set up its parameters, click on Test to see how your banner will look as an animated GIF file.
Click on OK when you’re happy with the banner you’ve created. Your banner will open in a GIF Construction Set Professional document window. You can save it to disk by selecting Save As from the File menu.

NOTE: The Banner dialog will remember all the parameters you set in it. If you create a banner and then decide to change something in it later, you’ll be able to recreate it if you haven’t changed any of the parameters since you initially set it up. Once they’ve been created, banners are just graphics – you can’t open them and edit them as you would a text document.

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Palettes and Why You Should Fear Them

The palettes in GIF files are one of the most troublesome aspects of using GIF animation. As was touched on earlier in this document, you really need to get them by the throat if you’re to successfully use GIF Construction Set Professional.
Here’s a quick overview of how palettes behave in web browsers and in Windows in general, such that you’ll be able to get ‘em by the throat without one of their many tentacles creeping up from behind you and tearing your head off like a prop in a low-budget horror flick.
This sort of thing happens in cyberspace almost daily. No foolin’...
A GIF file can have 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 colors. For the purpose of this discussion, we’ll allow that GIF files have 256 colors. Keep in mind, however, that this really means that GIF files have 256 colors drawn from a possible 16,777,216 colors. As such, it’s a fairly safe bet that two distinct GIF files having 256 colors each will probably not have the same 256 colors.
A computer running Windows has a maximum number of colors it can display at once, as defined by the screen driver installed in it. There’s an exhaustive and oftentimes traumatic discussion of Windows screen drivers in the Drivers document installed with GIF Construction Set Professional.
A few years ago, many Windows systems were shipped with screen drivers capable of displaying no more than sixteen colors. In our current more enlightened times, pretty well anything capable of running Windows 95, 98 or NT can display at least 256 colors, with 32,768 colors or more becoming increasingly common.
A system which can only display 256 colors can confront web browsers with a problem. If two GIF files appear on a web page, each with its own unique 256-color palette, the computer displaying the web page will have too few colors to handle both pictures. This is the sort of thing that makes Windows sulk.
It’s important to prevent Windows from sulking, so a web browser which finds itself running on a machine with a 256-color screen driver will make sure that all the graphics it displays use the same color palette. It can do this by remapping or dithering all its graphics to a common, or "safe," palette. The safe palette actually has 216 colors - evenly dispersed between pure black and pure white - rather than 256, leaving room for Windows to add some colors that it reserves for drawing its menus, window borders and other on-screen regalia.
A web browser which finds itself running on a computer that can support 32,768 or more colors can ignore the whole palette issue and display all the graphics it encounters using the palettes they were born with.
The processes of dithering or remapping graphics to a common palette often results in pronounced color shifts or loss of image quality. You can make sure this doesn’t happen to your graphics by always building them with the standard safe palette - GIF Construction Set Professional offers it as one of its default palette options. The catch in doing so, however, is that this palette very often lacks all the colors you’ll need to create the animations you have in mind.
Choosing the color palettes and the color strategy for your graphics involves something of a compromise. You can have really attractive graphics - within the limits of what can actually be accomplished with a 256-color palette - which will look superb on higher-end computers and a bit uglier than they have to on 256-color machines, or you can have less impressive graphics which will look the same on all machines.
Our sense of this issue is that people with 256-color systems are used to looking at ugly graphics, and a few more ugly graphics won’t mean much to them. Unless your web page is actually titled "Funky Old Computer Users’ Group," you should probably build your GIF files with the most advantageous use of color possible - well-chosen, unique palettes for each one - and let the pixels fall where they may.

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2007-10-22T02:06:00.000-07:00

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9: One click for searching Image files, Music files and Video files.
10: One Click for searching user specified file mask.
11: Search files in nomal way like Window File Searcher but more powerfully.
12: Save/Open search result.
13: Save/Open search option.
14: Specify your own programs to open the founded files.
15: Open the parent folder for founded files.
16: Search result statistics.
17: Copy file name, file path and files.
18: Rename files.
19: Delete files to Window Recycle Bin or completely.
20: Only search files or folders.
21: Window Explorer-like popup menu.
22: Window Shell enable, you can start Turbo Searcher in Window Explorer directly.
23: File drag-drop support.
24: Searching duplicate files.
25: Select files by file folders, own file masks.
26: Supports unlimited AND,OR,XOR for relative operations.
27: Supports Print and Print Preview for search results.
28: Supports searching within compressed archives, supports ZIP, JAR, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM, 7Z and DEB formats.
29: Allows user save their search options as macros.
30: Full hot key supports, fast every commond.
31: Shows the folder size in search result list.
32: Allows specifying sort method after the searching finished.
33: Has a smart search feature, it supports search in path name but also in file name.
34: Boolean search feature in file name.

Introductory Texts:
When search within files, Turbo Searcher will show an introductory texts for that key strings which user search for, so you don't need open the searched files to check where is the key string and what the file looks like, see following diagrams:

System Required:
Window98/ME/NT4.0/2000/XP/2003 and above.

Please visit our website http://www.knownsoft.com for more details.

software beginner .... ACDSee

2007-10-10T01:55:00.000-07:00

Starting software ACDSee
After you install software ACDSee on your computer, an application icon is placed on the desktop and in the Start menu.

To start ACDSee, do one of the following:

Double-click the ACDSee icon on the desktop.

Click Start | ACD Systems, and select ACDSee.

Associating a file format with ACDSee
You can associate supported file formats with ACDSee. When you open a file that is associated with ACDSee from Windows® Explorer™, ACDSee is opened and automatically displays the file in the Viewer.

To associate supported file formats with software ACDSee:

Click Tools | File Associations.

Do each of the following:

Click the Image Files tab and select the check boxes beside the image file formats that you want ACDSee to support.

Click the Archives tab and select the check boxes beside the archive file formats that you want ACDSee to support.

Click OK.

Browser keyboard shortcuts

You can use keyboard shortcuts for many of the tasks that you perform in the Browser to help increase your efficiency.

Keyboard shortcut
Action

F1
Help

F2
Rename

F3
Search

F4
Open the most recently used folders list

F5
Refresh

Shift + F5
Quick refresh

F6
Access the drop-down list of favorites

F7 - F12
Change view to Thumbs+ Details,Thumbnails, Large Icon, Small Icon, List or Details

Need to have File list in focus (i.e., select an image)

Accent
Play and stop an audio for image audio file

Backspace
Move up one folder

Calendar tabbed page - switches from the Month/Day to the Year/Month view mode

Delete
Remove

Shift + Delete
Delete and bypass the Recycle Bin

Ctrl + Delete
Delete and bypass confirmation

Enter
File list - View the selected files

Path box - Browse the specified folder

Favorites list - Open the selected shortcut

Shift + Enter
Open a new view window when a single image is selected

Esc
Stop generating thumbnails and reading image header information

In the path box, return the focus to List view

Shift + Esc
Minimize window

Insert
Adds a category when in the Category tabbed page

Pause
Continue generating thumbnails and reading image header information

Alt + Left Arrow
Return to previous folder

Alt + Right Arrow
Advance to next folder

Tab
Change the currently active pane

Numpad 0 - 7
Sort by Extension, Name, Size, Type, Date, Image Properties, Description, Custom Order

Numpad + plus
Sort in ascending order

Numpad + minus
Sort in descending order

Ctrl + Numpad 2 - 6
Toggle columns in Details and "Thumbs+ Details" view

Ctrl + Left click
Select multiple files

Ctrl + Spacebar
Select a file or clear the selection

Ctrl + A
Select all files

Ctrl + Shift + A
Select all files and folders

Ctrl + Shift + I
Invert selection

Ctrl + Shift + S
Select by filter

Ctrl + Shift + T, B, M, N, P
Toggle the display of the toolbar, status bar, menu bar, Navigation pane, Preview pane

Alt + A
Acquire images from a TWAIN source

Alt + Enter
Open the properties for an item

Alt + Shift + A
Select a TWAIN source and customize the acquire settings

Ctrl + C
Copy

Ctrl + Shift + C
Copy image data to clipboard

Alt + C
Copy files to another folder

Ctrl + D
Describe

Ctrl + E
Open default image editor

Ctrl + F
Convert an image to another format

Ctrl + G
Generate an ASCII file listing

Ctrl + H
Toggle the display of hidden files

Ctrl + I
Toggle the display of image files only

Ctrl + J
Rotate image

Ctrl + K
Open Select Camera dialog box

Ctrl + L
Image Exposure dialog box

Ctrl + Shift + K
Open Download All Pictures dialog box (for digital cameras)

Ctrl + Shift + S
Select by filter

Ctrl + V
Paste

Ctrl + X
Cut

Ctrl + Y
Redo

Ctrl + Z
Undo

Alt + K
Take pictures with a digital camera

Alt + Shift + K
Configure a digital camera

Shift + L
Shell open

Shift +Alt + L
Specify an application to open with

Shift + E
Shell edit

Shift + Alt + E
Specify an application to edit with

Alt + M
Move files to another folder

Alt + O
Options

Ctrl + O
Open the "Open" dialog box

Ctrl + P
Print the selected images

Alt + R
Batch rename

Alt + X
Exit

Page Up
On the Calendar tabbed page, scrolls back the number of years/months in the Year/Month view mode. In the Day view mode, moves back one day

Page Down
On the Calendar tabbed page, scrolls up the number of years/months in the Year/Month view mode. In the Day view mode, moves up one day

Up Arrow
Calendar tabbed page - navigates to the previous year/day/hour that contains files

Down Arrow
Calendar tabbed page - navigates to the next year/day/hour that contains files

Left Arrow
Calendar tabbed page - navigates to the previous year/day/hour

Right Arrow
Calendar tabbed page - navigates to the next year/day/hour

Spacebar
Calendar tabbed page - switches from the Year/Month to the Month/Day view mode

A
Calendar tabbed page - changes to the ACD Database date type

E
Calendar tabbed page - changes to the Metadata (Exif) date type

F
Calendar tabbed page - changes to the File modified date type

Y
Calendar tabbed page - switches to the Year view mode

M
Calendar tabbed page - switches to the Month view mode

D
Calendar tabbed page - switches to the Day view mode

Home
Calendar tabbed page - navigates to the current year, month, and day, and then selects the year, day in the month, or hour in the day

Alt + X
Exit

Viewing the properties of a file
You can view the properties of a file. The Properties dialog box displays database properties, file properties such as date and time, and categories that the file has been added to.

To view the properties of a file, do one of the following:

In the Browser, select a file or folder, and click File | Properties.

While viewing an image, click File | Properties

Viewing the properties of a file
You can view the properties of a file. The Properties dialog box displays database properties, file properties such as date and time, and categories that the file has been added to.

To view the properties of a file, do one of the following:

In the Browser, select a file or folder, and click File | Properties.

While viewing an image, click File | Properties

Viewing the properties of a file
You can view the properties of a file. The Properties dialog box displays database properties, file properties such as date and time, and categories that the file has been added to.

To view the properties of a file, do one of the following:

In the Browser, select a file or folder, and click File | Properties.

While viewing an image, click File | Properties

Viewing the properties of a file
You can view the properties of a file. The Properties dialog box displays database properties, file properties such as date and time, and categories that the file has been added to.

To view the properties of a file, do one of the following:

In the Browser, select a file or folder, and click File | Properties.

While viewing an image, click File | Properties

Resizing an image by percentage
You can reduce and enlarge the size of one or more images from the Browser using a percentage value. Also, you can resize an image from the Viewer.

To resize an image using a percentage value:

Do one of the following:

In the Browser, select one or more images, and click Tools | Resize.

In the Viewer, click Tools | Resize.

In the Image Resize dialog box, select the Percentage of original radio button.

Type a value in the spin box or click the arrows to select a percentage. Enter a percentage less than 100 to reduce the image and greater than 100 to enlarge it.

Click the Apply to drop-down arrow and select an option to specify whether the resize is applied to the width, height, or both.

Click the Options button, and select or change the Image Resize options.

Click OK.

Image Resize options
File options
Select one of the following three options to specify where to place the resized image:

Remove/replace original files: This option replaces the original file with the resized file.

Rename modified images and place in source folder: This option renames the resized image and places it in the same folder as the original image.

Place modified images in the following folder: This option places the resized image in a folder that you can specify. Click the Browse button and select a folder.

Overwrite existing files
Click the Overwrite existing files drop-down arrow and select one of the following four options to determine how ACDSee should handle overwriting files:

Ask: This option prompts you when overwriting a file.

Skip: This options cancels the operation if there is a file with the same file name and extension.

Replace: This option overwrites the file.

Rename: This option prompts you to rename the file.

Preserve last-modified dates
Select the Preserve last-modified dates check box if you want ACDSee to retain the date and time properties of the file.

support Acdsee

software Remote Administrator

2007-10-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

software for remote to another computer
REMOTE ADMINISTRATOR
this software more simple to connect and remote desktop user
for setting this software

Setting Up the Connection

Run Radmin server software on the remote computer. If Radmin server is working, the tray icon should appear on the Windows toolbar. When the cursor is over this tray icon you can see the list of computer IP addresses. Double-clicking opens the connection list. The icon can be disabled in Radmin server settings using 'Hide Tray Icon' option.

On the local computer run Radmin viewer software. Select 'Conection/Connect to...' from the menu. In the 'IP address or DNS name' entry specify the IP address (example: 10.0.0.1
) or DNS name (example: comp1.company.com) of the remote computer.

Modem-to-Modem Connection

Radmin doesn't work with a modem directly. To use a modem-to-modem connection you need to configure Dial-Up networking on both the server and client computers.

Radmin uses a TCP/IP connection between computers. So, you need to set up this service on both computers.

On the server side, install the Dial-Up networking server. This is a standard component of Win98 and a component of MS Plus! in Win95. Use RAS if you have WinNT. Then configure the server to use TCP/IP. Start Radmin server.

On the client side, install Dial-Up networking, then configure it to use only the TCP/IP protocol.
Then make a call using Dial-Up networking. After connecting you can find the IP address of the remote server in the properties of the Dial-Up connection (the usual tray icon should appear). Alternatively, you can find this address in the Dial-Up monitor from the control panel.

Use this IP address as the host address to connect to the server using the Radmin viewer. As a rule in a modem to modem connection 192.168.55.1 IP address is used.

support
radmin V 3.0

Software Symantec pc anywhere

2007-09-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

software beginner for remote to server or to another computer
Software Symantec pcAnywhere
provides secure, remote access to computers and servers. Symantec pcAnywhere supports network connections over a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet, modem-to-modem connections, and direct cable connections using a serial or parallel port.

Common uses for pcAnywhere include:

Managing computers remotely
Help desk operators, administrators, and other IT professionals use pcAnywhere to troubleshoot and quickly resolve computer problems. Symantec pcAnywhere lets you remotely perform diagnostics, check and modify settings, and deploy and install software.

Supporting and maintaining servers
Administrators use pcAnywhere to connect to servers across their organizations to perform routine maintenance, deploy and install software patches and upgrades, assess performance, and troubleshoot network problems.

Transferring files between computers
Symantec pcAnywhere lets you connect to your home or office computer to quickly get the files that you need. You can perform automatic end-of-day file transfers from one computer to another or exchange multimedia and other files that are too large to send by email.

Working from a remote location
Symantec pcAnywhere lets you remotely connect to another computer and perform your work as though you were sitting in front of that computer. You can view and edit files, run software, give presentations or demos, print files to a printer at your location, or access network resources that you have permission to access.

Symantec pcAnywhere uses remote control technology to let you connect to another computer or server and work as though you are sitting in front of it. If you connect to a host computer that is on a network, you can access any file or resource that the user who is logged on has permission to access.

Symantec pcAnywhere supports network connections over a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet, modem-to-modem connections, and direct cable connections using a serial or parallel port.

You must specify the information needed to make and support the connection. The computer that initiates the connection must be configured as a remote, and the computer to which the connection is made must be configured as a host.

service and support information
support

PDF995 create pdf quickly

2007-08-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

software beginner for create pdf
Now you can create PDF document quickly and more faster

follow this step

To create a PDF file:

Print a document from any application choosing the PDF995 printer from the printer dialog. Do NOT select "print to file." You will be prompted to enter the name of the PDF file you wish to create. The PDF will be automatically launched in Acrobat (pdfEdit995 may be used to configure this option).
save your data in your directory and finish . your pdf file is ceated

The free version of PDF995 will display a sponsor page in your web browser each time you create a PDF file. If you would prefer not to see sponsor pages, you may download

WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

2007-08-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

easy for creating your own video

You can use Windows Movie Maker to capture audio and video to your computer from a video camera, Web camera, or other video source, and then use the captured content in your movies. You can also import existing audio, video, or still pictures into Windows Movie Maker to use in the movies you create. After editing the audio and video content in Windows Movie Maker, which can include adding titles, video transitions, or effects, you can then save your final movie and share it with friends and family.

Creating and improving video
This topic provides information about how you can improve the quality of your video by using the right background, lighting, and clothing for your subject.

Background. If possible, use a still background when recording video. If you need to record against a moving background, try reducing the depth of field to help reduce the amount of detail in the background. Reducing the depth of field or shortening the area in focus softens the background and helps reduce the amount of data that changes from frame to frame. To reduce the depth of field and make the background go out of focus, use a lower level of light and move the subject closer to the lens, or move the subject farther away from the lens and use a telephoto lens to zoom in.
Lighting. Provide adequate lighting; use soft light, diffuse light, and consistent light levels. A certain amount of contrast is necessary for lighting a subject, but avoid direct high-contrast lighting. For example, when recording a face lit by strong sunlight from the side, the facial features in the shadow can be lost on video.
Clothing. Have your subjects wear clothing colors that complement their skin tone and are sufficiently different from the background and other overlapping objects. Avoid bright colors, which tend to bleed or spread outside an object, and stripes, which may create moiré patterns, especially when the subject is moving slowly.
Tripod. When possible, use a tripod when recording video. A tripod will help to keep the video camera still and improve the overall quality of the recorded video. This prevents your recorded video from being jittery and improves the source material that you plan to use in your movies.

2007-08-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

This section contains any late changes to MYOB Accounting Plus Version 11 that have not been documented in the printed or other online documents. Please take the time to browse the late-breaking changes.

www.myob.ca : Visit the main MYOB site to find out more about MYOB products and services.

MYOB Technical Support : For the latest support information on all MYOB products, visit the technical support pages.

Feedback : We are committed to continually improving the MYOB Learning Centre and we are open to suggestion! If you have any ideas or opinions, we will be glad to hear from you!

The MYOB Learning Centre is designed to answer your questions about MYOB Accounting Plus Version 11 and to help you make the most of your software.

Visit the site help page to become acquainted with the Learning Centre and use it more effectively.

messenger detect

2007-08-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

Messenger Detect can detect and record all MSN chats, AOL (AIM) chat, Yahoo chat, and ICQ chat from your local network automatically. It can work secretly without need to install any client software on the target computers. It is safe-use because accessing and setting are all password protected. Log is saved as the same format as you see in IM messengers and classified by date. You can search and edit log directly in the Messenger Detect, and export log to a RTF file easily.

Version 2.5 supports recording AOL (AIM) chat, Yahoo chat, and ICQ chat.

try this software
download

hello

2007-08-20T00:48:00.000-07:00

hello this is my first writing about software for beginner .
in this blog i wan share of you about review software and how to learn together.
how to setup and how to use it every software in this blog .

thanks

Budi Santoso