[Chris Whitted]

To offer a counter point, many of the firms (LA/Planning/Engineering) around here had a very high percentage of private clients. The ‘crash’ happened, and of course places started closing left and right. As things began to recover, I spoke with several different firms and noticed a common trend. Those that were still in business either had one or two very dedicated clients who fed them just enough work to stay alive (after slimming down of course), or they’d been ‘fortunate’ enough to get a reasonably steady stream of public work from colleges, municipalities, states, and some federal. Public sector was the only thing paying their bills.

For the record I started out at a firm that was very much equally balanced between commercial and public work. I then moved to a firm that was more than half residential (developer, not owner) and some commercial – almost zero public (we went after it sometimes but didn’t usually get it – there were some exceptions). Leading up to the recession, commercial seemed to dry up first and we were left with residential, which just collapsed.

I guess my point is that it’s all boom and bust to a degree. The best/safest client portfolio is a mix between the three so that they can balance each other out during cycles.

[Chris Whitted]

Your example is obviously at least five lanes, but I can easily see it hitting half to three-quarters of a million for a three lane version. The biggest wildcard I think would be the amount of custom metalwork.

Back in 2007 or so I worked on what was essentially a higher-end ranch gate – masonry (stone) column bases with wing walls, and timbers for the posts and span, which covered one lane plus a full shoulder. The researched estimate put it at just under $200k. I couldn’t tell you what the final constructed cost was.

[Chris Whitted]

When I first graduated and was looking for writing samples, I pulled from a couple of sources depending on whether they gave any kind of example as to what they were looking for. I wrote a tech column for the campus paper one semester, had the pro-practice proposal Wyatt mentions, some narrative/description documentation from various projects (including ‘thesis’ which was really more a design capstone project than an actual research paper), and some tutorials I had written (with illustrations!) on how to do certain things in software. I think I pulled a couple things from my internship as well.

After that, once a ‘professional’, I’ve used more software tutorials, municipal review comment response letters, project summary documents (things used in municipal submitals to show how you meet or exceed their codes, plans, and policies), an experience/review/summary I wrote once after being the only person in the office to attend the ASLA annual meeting, and CAD standards I’ve developed, and some planning/landscape guidelines and documents we’d put together for cities as a contract project.

“Technical writing” can have some interpretation to it. One thing I never tried to use was specificiations, because so often they’re sort of just cut/paste/fill-in-the-blank. But something more hand-crafted and fully written would be pretty high on the list. The CAD standards and software tutorials are also good examples of true technical writing, as are submital documents, grant or project proposals, and other types of documents that have a common/set type of format that must be followed. A landscape review article, such as you might see in Landscape Architecture Magazine, is one that could go either way – it’s not technical writing in one sense, but at the same time if you’re focused on principles and jargon-type words and concepts (how it works as opposed to just descriptions/narratives of views and plant material) it could work. Heck, even a forum response like this one could be polished into a writing example.

In general what they’re looking for is that you can check your spelling and grammar; know how to form and explain an idea in a clear, understandable, and concise manner; have some concept of a ‘professional voice’ on paper; and perhaps are familiar with different styles of writing (communication, documentation, proposal, publication, etc.).

[Chris Whitted]

I’ve seen it hold more weight/advantage outside the LA profession than in, unless you’re talking some of the much larger and multidisciplinary firms.  Since it’s a generalist sort of thing (ie, applies to any industry) it can also help transitioning to another job or career.  That said, if you’re interested, have the time and opporunity, and especially if you can have the training/test paid for, I would say do it.  If you want to look into it a bit more, track down a copy of the PMBOK Guide (project management body of knowledge book) – there are a few copies of the older versions floating around on the web, though the newest update from PMI isn’t terribly expensive either ($50-65).  Getting the PMP basically requires having thorough knowledge of that document, similar to LEED certification.  I worked with two people that basically took a couple of training series and the test and got their certifications in less than six months.

[Chris Whitted]

What you’re going to find (and sounds like you already have) is that there is no one right way to do construction docs.  There are no standards.  Or rather there are, but they’re not a one size fits all solution and nobody follows all of them.  Every office is going to do things a little bit different; some of them will have very detailed and rigorous standards, and some will draw everything on one layer in model space (and I mean everything) and have never heard of snapping.  Some will use a different symbol for every plant species, some just genus, and some a palette of no more than a dozen or so symbols.

Standards also take a lot of time and experience to create.  Until you’ve done something a few times, you don’t really understand what all the options are and what they affect as far as the tools you have to work with, what you’re trying to do, and how much time/effort it takes.  A lot of effort goes into designing styles (plot styles, dim styles, text styles, etc.) that the rest of the office just has to pick and use as appropriate.

This is typically something you learn in an internship or your first couple of years working somewhere.  You might try introducing yourself at a couple of local firms and seeing if they can tell you a bit about or give you a copy of their standards.  Or maybe even a couple of example files that you can look at to see how they were put together.  Local municipalities will have plan sets you can get copies of, but unlikely digital CAD versions.  Beyond that, if there are specific questions you have, you might get some help here.  But I bet you’ll find even more cooks here than at your school; if nothing else you’ll probably create some lively discussions. 🙂

As for the things you mentioned above, my take:  All plans, details, dimensions, and labels should be done in model space.  The only thing that belongs in paper space are the titleblock/associated info, ‘window’/detail labels (as in what the detail IS, not all the dimensioning and labels), and note text.  Sheet set manager is great in concept, but we never got it to work right – do it all manually (they may have improved it since I last messed with it several versions ago, but I don’t know).  With the proper set-up, the manager doesn’t save any time unless you’re constantly moving details around, which you shouldn’t be.  LT scale should be whatever the plan is, ie 20 scale plan, ltscale is 20.  Keep things/linework logically grouped on layers.  Make logical layer names that group related items together.  Make use of xrefs.  Don’t put your entire plan set in one file (break it up by sheet purpose or scale, if not one file per sheet).  Above all else, be consistent.

[Chris Whitted]

Your options are pretty much limitless, depending on how YOU can make them relevant to the field, and what it is you want to do.  I had minors in computer science and Native American studies; I’ve used both in LA, though not necessarily on a regular basis.

That said, I agree with Toby that business would be a really good one.  Horticulture, fine arts, anthropology, construction management, environmental science, geography, forestry… it’s a long list.  Kind of depends on what is offered by your school though.

[Chris Whitted]

You are correct, I defaulted to expectations of a typical US firm when it comes to computer security.  There are a lot of smaller firms that operate in sort of the same way you describe (ie, no computer security with access levels and permissions and such).  With administrator rights on a machine, you would have the ability to install whatever programs you want and use them for your own security.  And from the sounds of it you definitely should be – if they aren’t even running antivirus as a standard on their machines, I shudder to think how rife with malware and key loggers they could become from outside, let alone someone on the INSIDE who wants your material.

However I will still caution you that unless whatever you’re using involves some sort of encryption, anyone with minimal knowledge can access those files if they have physical access to the drive.  I did not download and test it, but the tool you linked to did not mention encryption, and in fact specifically said they didn’t “scramble” any data.  I also note they have another product which DOES do encryption.  If you’re leaving your information at the office when you’re not there, be it on their machine’s drive or your external drive, it must be encrypted if you want to protect it.

Another option you might consider rather than portable apps/devices is cloud-based.  If you keep everything online somewhere you can access it from anywhere and it will theoretically have the required security.  And a number of the programs we use may not have portable versions, but many are starting to provide cloud/web based versions.  The big downside and risk of course is that if you don’t have internet access for whatever reason, you can’t work.

[Chris Whitted]

You can’t lock the workstation, but they’ll let you install programs to it?

The first problem I see with your current tool, in the minute I spent looking at the link, is that I don’t see any real security there.  My system is set to show hidden folders, so flagging one as hidden will do nothing for you.  Also, it does not appear to provide any encryption.  All I have to do is take the drive and on another system where I have administrative access I should be able to get into the folders.  It also looks like you have to install something on whatever computer you want to use it on, but even if it’s just a portable app, you should theoretically need administrative rights to use something like that.  Which you would not have if anywhere you were working was actually concerned about security.  Two things you might want to look at are TrueCrypt, which will encrypt your data so it cannot be accessed without a password, by anyone, anywhere.  Also Syncback, which might make your backups a little easier.

To answer your questions, there shouldn’t be any performance issue with portable apps, except maybe load/startup times.  Only with large data transfers would be affected, and limited by the external drive interface speed.  However, many apps used by LAs don’t have portable versions, as they require significant system integration (writing keys to registry, access to user profiles, etc.). For this same reason you can’t really install them to a portable drive and just carry them around to use on any machine.

For the second question, again, without administrative rights on a given machine or encryption, there is no way to secure an external drive or have it ‘lock’ automatically.

As for the third, the main issue you would run into with a portable boot drive is that whatever OS you use wouldn’t know what hardware it was being installed on, so it wouldn’t have appropriate drivers for things like the video card.  It could use generic drivers, but there would be a performance hit there.  And some OSes handle that better than others (ie, Linux does, Windows does not).  Even assuming you could get one to work, once again a security concscious firm would not allow their machines to be booted from external devices.

Obviously you haven’t run in to any of these issues yet.  I’m curious about your data protection approach though.  If you’re using these blocks and such in the work you’re doing, aren’t they getting a copy of them anyway?  If you’re concerned about them getting the entire library, do you not trust the employers enough to not do such a thing?  Do you have a clause somewhere in your contract/work agreement that governs use of your materials (such as they can only use the blocks for that project, and only the ones you use, all others require licensing from you… assuming you actually own them to begin with)?

Bottom line, it sounds to me like you need a laptop if you want to fully address all your security concerns.

[Chris Whitted]

Bottom line, there is no ‘correct’ set of initials.  The two most common are R(egistered)LA and P(racticing)LA.  The only way there would be a correct set is if your state’s title/practice act spells it out, and most don’t.  I started a thread on this a while back and one of the responses is very in depth:

https://land8.com/forum/topics/licensure-vs-registration

[Chris Whitted]

I don’t have a lisp routine, but I do have a couple of ideas.

Are the plant blocks the only ones in the file (ie, are you getting a false positive from a non-plant block)?  Does the total number bcount result equal the data extraction result?  Are all of the blocks on one layer, or do they contain multiple layers themselves (thinking of ways to isolate groups to check at once instead of individually)?  You say you normally set them up so they can’t be scaled – does this mean that you have a different block for every size plant?  If so, even if you select a group of different blocks/sizes, their scale property should still be 1.  If you select a bunch of symbols on screen and look at the generic properties box (not the block editor), under the block reference section there is a scale property for x, y, and z.  If all the symbols you have selected are correct and set to 1, these fields should be the same.  If you have selected one of your problem blocks, one of the fields should say ‘varies’.  That would give you a reduced selection set to search through – along the lines of a number between 1 and 100, is it more or less than 50, then 25/75, etc.

[Chris Whitted]

Since you haven’t gotten any other responses yet, maybe Adobe Lightroom?  Or Bridge if you’re already using the Creative Suite.  Are these images you’re shooting yourself or coming from outside sources?

[Chris Whitted]

Your current employer sounds sketchy to me.  My response to why it’s important would be that as a professional in this field it’s important to maintain a record of my work, period.  It doesn’t matter if I’m looking right now or not, maintaining a portfolio simply comes with the territory.  A lot/most people tend to do it only in job search mode, but there are quite a few who make it part of regular routine.  And if he can’t get you an answer to flipping through a sample portfolio at some point over the course of a year…  Yeah, sketchy.

For your current situation, is any of your work a matter of public record?  If it’s on file with a municipality, either as record drawings or public presentation material, it’s fair game with or without his permission.  Has any of it been used for marketing purposes, either for your employer or a client?  Also fair game since it’s publically available, though perhaps in a more commercialized format than just your original you’d probably like to show (arguments could be made for using the original however).

You said you’ve already included stuff from outside the company in the past year, so you won’t be showing up with nothing.  I would make it a point to mention in the interview that there were some recent things you would have liked to include but you were denied permission to do so.  And don’t use the passive ‘not given permission’, be sure to use the active ‘denied permission’.

[Chris Whitted]

I’ve never heard it as reference to LAs, just types of engineers.  It first came to me as:

“An electrical, a mechanical and a civil engineer all sat down one day to try and decide what kind of an engineer God must be.

The Electrical Engineer said: “God must be an electrical engineer. You only have to look at the complex nervous system powered by minute electrical impulses to see that.”

The Mechanical Engineer said: “I’m sure God must be a mechanical engineer, how else could he have designed such advanced mechanical systems: the heart a pump, the veins pipes and the tendons and muscles an advanced pulley system.”

The Civil Engineer replied: “You are both wrong. God is a civil engineer. Who else would run a sewer system through a recreational area?””

[Chris Whitted]

I’ve always used relative.  It’s more for my (our) benefit than anyone else’s, as it allows relocating/renaming a file/project without breaking xref links so long as you preserve the folder/path structure. It really depends on your file management practices.  Bottom line, it doesn’t really matter unless you’re running into a problem on a regular basis.

So far as I can tell, there are absolutely no benefits to using full path – unless some script or program requires it (for example Python scripts can’t use relative paths, but that comes from the GIS world and I’m not sure about LISP or anything else specific to CAD).  Beyond that, full paths are disadvantageous in that if you move or change the name of anything, even the root project file or going from your f: project drive to your z: archive drive, you break all xref links.  This also becomes an issue if you don’t have standard drive mappings – ie Bob down the hall as the project drive as D: because he doesn’t have an optical drive, but you have it as F: because you have two hard drives and an optical drive.

Relative paths allow you to move things around, and provided you get a folder structure from other consultants would also come in handy for sharing files.  Most of the time when I get files from other consultants, they’re single files so I have to repath everything anyway because they don’t use the same drive letters, let alone folder structure we do for projects.

Other related issues are overlay vs attach, nesting, and binding, and those are as if not more important than pathing when it comes to sharing files.  Note that e-transmitting has an option to convert to relative paths, so even if the consultants you’re getting files from appear to be using relative, internally they may be using full/absolute.

[Chris Whitted]

You might also take a look at this thread if you haven’t already:

https://land8.com/forum/topics/portfolio-for-entry-to-mla-programme

[Author]

Posts