"We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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Joe Jones
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"We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by Joe Jones »

So I got tired of searching for .pcm and .dxf files among the 10 PCs that have my DesignEdge seats installed onto them. It seems that no matter which PC I use, the file I seek is always on another PC, but there is no index, and it gets $^%&* frustrating! Some of them do not get booted up for MONTHS, but they are all here, and all ready to BE booted should I need to get into them.

So I bought a 4TB portable drive the other day. I moved ALL of my files to the one single drive. The photos and images, the .pcm and .dxf and .stl files, etc. Of course it didn't even make a dent in the capacity of the drive, but at least I know that whatever I need is now in one central place. Now I just have to sort the 129,644 files into logical folders! :Wow
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by robertspark »

not very clever putting all eggs in 1 basket imo, YMMV.... cloud backup too.
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by Joe Jones »

robertspark wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 1:03 pm not very clever putting all eggs in 1 basket imo, YMMV.... cloud backup too.
you are right. I will buy another drive now, and "GHOST" the files to a backup. I am also considering cloud storage, but I don't really trust it for security. The "cloud" has been successfully hacked MANY TIMES.

Joe
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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Joe Jones wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 1:06 pm
robertspark wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 1:03 pm not very clever putting all eggs in 1 basket imo, YMMV.... cloud backup too.
you are right. I will buy another drive now, and "GHOST" the files to a backup. I am also considering cloud storage, but I don't really trust it for security. The "cloud" has been successfully hacked MANY TIMES.

Joe
I agree, in the past I always burnt 2 CDs or DVDs now I have a stack of older hard drives (non ssd) that I use as just in case mirrored backups, all laptop drives in usb caddy cases
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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Joe Jones wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 12:20 pm So I got tired of searching for .pcm and .dxf files among the 10 PCs that have my DesignEdge seats installed onto them. It seems that no matter which PC I use, the file I seek is always on another PC, but there is no index, and it gets $^%&* frustrating! Some of them do not get booted up for MONTHS, but they are all here, and all ready to BE booted should I need to get into them.

So I bought a 4TB portable drive the other day. I moved ALL of my files to the one single drive. The photos and images, the .pcm and .dxf and .stl files, etc. Of course it didn't even make a dent in the capacity of the drive, but at least I know that whatever I need is now in one central place. Now I just have to sort the 129,644 files into logical folders! :Wow
I store all of files in a cloud service and not on a hard drive. No matter where I am at I can open them and even see them on a smartphone and tablet away from my shop. Google drive, dropbox, Icloud should all do the trick.. Maybe spend some time putting them in a single cloud service and have them wherever and whenever you want. I pay $0 and have about 3k CNC files with plenty of room to expand as needed.. Just a thought
Doug,
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by Joe Jones »

3K? I have a lot more than that. I guess I will look at cloud storage. I just don't like signing up for things that have a monthly fee. I always forget to end them, and then discover years alter that I had been paying for the service for nothing. I am not a fan of Google at all. What else is out there? I do have a dropbox account. I haven't used it in years, but I suppose it is still there ... somewhere!

Joe
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by rdj357 »

I use Microsoft OneDrive. If you use Microsoft 365 for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc then you may find you already have some storage in your plan. I pay annually.
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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I have heard of that Robert. I am not fond of annual payments of anything unless it is necessary. Also, there is NO "cloud base" storage that cannot be hacked. I have already gone through the drama of replacing many credit cards for that exact reason.

On a different topic, I would like to talk to you about a project. Give me a call. Do you have my number?

Joe
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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Joe Jones wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 2:07 am 3K? I have a lot more than that. I guess I will look at cloud storage. I just don't like signing up for things that have a monthly fee. I always forget to end them, and then discover years alter that I had been paying for the service for nothing. I am not a fan of Google at all. What else is out there? I do have a dropbox account. I haven't used it in years, but I suppose it is still there ... somewhere!

Joe
DXF and PCM files are very small considering.... As long as you do not load a bunch of pictures and videos, a free cloud service might work. i keep most large files off of the cloud, or at least as much as possible. I am currently using Dropbox free version and still have plenty of room.

I have all of mine in categories and placed into folders and subfolders. ie. I have one folder that is titled "animals" I open that folder, which takes me to a bunch of sub-folders. ie. "cows" , Cats, Dogs, Birds, "assorted animals" (in case there are many animals in one dxf or PCM) etc.. This makes it relatively fast to find files . It was a bunch of work up front, but worth it IMO. And usually when I am looking for a file, I am under the gun to find something. Organizing files can be done on down time.

Also, I have "religiously" gotten into the habit of putting a new file that I either drew or downloaded immediately into the correct folder and keep things tidy. And seem to be adding new main folders names with sub categories all of the time.
It pays for me to do it this way. Even with a measly 3k files. It was daunting to go through, since keywords and searching doesn't always work.
10's of thousands of random files would be a nightmare to search through!

It may be worth to spend some down time to organize them all together in one place.
Random files basically become wasted time and abstract data, and are almost useless files if they cannot be found efficiently..
IMHO...
Also, I still have not touched my free Google Drive, Icloud, or OneDrive cloud services. so if I find a need to grow my library I can store tens of thousands of files free and have them at my fingertips wherever in the world I may find myself..
Doug,
4x4 GoTorch- expanded
Height Control/Advanced DesignEdge
Hypertherm 45XP-
Logan Lathe + myriads of other shop toys
**CAUTION**- "Does Not Play Well With Others" :)
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by Joe Jones »

Sorting is a habit one should get into with the vert first file. After you have thousands upon thousands of files, the mere task of sorting them becomes monumental. The thing is, there are files that have 20 or 30 different designs in the single file. So saving them properly means ... highlight the tree and delete everything else, then save as "tree-1.pcm" Next, PAGE UP to return to the group. Now highlight the park bench and delete everything else. Save as "park bench.pcm". Then the squirrel. Then the monkey bars. Rinse and repeat. A FOLDER named "park designs" is okay, but and it helps a bit.

Honestly, I would REALLY like to see a file system to allow the appendage of keywords. When I name a file to save, it would them prompt me for keywords to append to the file. When I save a file of a pirate ship, I could add, "wooden ship, pirate, schooner, skull, crossbones, parrot, spooky" etc. Any keyword search would bring up all of the files that contain those keywords.

Honestly, I wish I could hire someone to sit here at the PC and sift and sort things, but I pluck away at it as time and energy (more energy than time :Sad ) allows. I have saved files on several PCs, so there is also the task of deleting duplicates, and triplicates, etc.

Many of the files are in collections I have purchased, like the RedPup Productions Iron Shadows Art Collection, and the PANEL SLAPPER collection of isometric patterns. I also bought the fence and gate design software (totally bitching!) Many, many hundreds of images. Yes, they are sorted ... somewhat ... in Iron Shadows' own folders, but even then, I have to dig and search for something I want, because a folder named PEOPLE is not sufficient to narrow down the choices.

The struggle is real.

Joe
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

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Joe Jones wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 9:20 am I have heard of that Robert. I am not fond of annual payments of anything unless it is necessary. Also, there is NO "cloud base" storage that cannot be hacked. I have already gone through the drama of replacing many credit cards for that exact reason.

On a different topic, I would like to talk to you about a project. Give me a call. Do you have my number?

Joe
True on the hacking part - however I have been pleased with OneDrive and haven't had any issues to date. (knock on wood)

I looked back and I can't find your number. I'll send you a PM with my cell. I turn it off in the evenings but am usually around 8-5 Central time - never hurts to text first as I often have my hands full or am with customers. Talk soon!
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by Joe Jones »

Everything is on one hard drive now. It was a bit of work, as I had files on all ten PCs with DE seats. Some of them have not been booted up for YEARS. Lots of duplicates, and folders containing duplicates, and folders of duplicates, and six different versions of the same file, with minor changes, etc. I guess I have been sloppy with my SAVE function.

Also, in the situations where one file had 20 or 30 different designs in it, I split them up into single files, and named each one. That took time. Group one, double click on it to select everything BUT that design, delete the rest, name and SAVE AS the filename for THAT design, then PAGE UP to bring everything back and move to another design in the group. UGH!

Of course DesignEdge seems unwilling to lift a finger to add any features that have been suggested by owners. :Sad

For example, I sent message to them asking them to create a COLOR BLIND version of DE, wherein the various paths would be displayed as different patterns, rather than different colors, for table owners who see ALL the lines as the same color.

Example:

..... OPEN Path
______ CLOSED path
._._._._ SELECTED Path
_ _ _ _ _ CUT Path

DE would "see" then entire line, even though some of the pixels would be turned ON while others were turned OFF. PlasmaCam responded by saying, How would people know where to click to find a NODE or an INTERSECTION, for example? My answer was, the computer would "see" them, even though they are not visible on the screen, just like the grid snap points that exist BETWEEN the visible grid points. Maybe intersections could "break" the line pattern where they cross to make intersections obvious, and NODE POINTS cold also be visible by breaking the pattern for a brief distance in any direction from the NODE point. It COULD be done. I don't see it as a major programming challenge.

I really wish DesignEdge had the ability to SAVE SELECTED which means I could group one design, and save ONLY THAT as a separate file named (filename.pcm) Say I have a file with a dozen different "Tree of Life" designs. I would select one and SAVE SELECTED "TOL-1.pcm". Then select another one and SAVE SELECTED "TOL-2.pcm" and so forth. That would be a GREAT enhancement to DesignEdge. It would be even better if the filenames were automatically numbered .. tol.pcm, tol(1).pcm, tol(2).pcm etc.

Maybe that is more fastidious than I needed to be, but it became difficult to open files named "05-10-2014" and search the designs only to find that the one I was looking for is NOT in there.

The struggle is real :HaHa

Joe
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by DXF »

Hey Joe.....take your elevator to the 7th floor.....you are bored! :lol:

Dave
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by robertspark »

any help?

https://dxfviewer.us/

doesn't work with pcm files though
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Re: "We shall gather at the hard drive ..."

Post by adbuch »

That is a great find! I seem to remember seeing this viewer advertised on this forum a while back in some sort of free give-away. It looks like a great tool for viewing stored files.
David
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