Evening classes
Had a look through the courses my local HE college offers to see if there were any courses to become a locksmith. Unfortunately there aren't but I did find all these that look interesting.

Balloon Artistry
AutoCAD
Advanced ECDL modules (ECDL - European computer driving licence)
Networking - Cisco CCNA course
Web design
A cooking course (There are loads of different ones)
Face painting
Photoshop
First Aid
First aid babies and children
Foreign language courses
Sign Language

Still, they're not locksmithing ='[
( Captain V, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:19, 18 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

Define 'interesting'

( Malaka omdz, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:26, Reply)

The soon to be ex hubby
is a locksmith. He's Ablaham Rincoln on here, gaz him.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:30, Reply)

facepainting!
do it do it do it!
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:46, Reply)

If you wanna do photoshop
I can hook you up with a...
Er... Spare version...

*coughs*

That I've got.
( Cawl, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:47, Reply)

I wouldn't do AutoCAD
That program just frustrates me every single time I have to use it.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:52, Reply)

AutoCAD...
It makes me want to punch holes in children.
Sometimes I have to print of plans at work from AutoCAD.
*shakes head*
( Cawl, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:53, Reply)

Printing stuff from it is awful
From experience, most of these programmes are rubbish to print from.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:57, Reply)

Yeah...
Yet people insist on sending us plans as ".dwg"'s...

A PDF would make my life easier.
( Cawl, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 18:58, Reply)

Especially
Since most of these programmes can print to pdf as I helpfully found out at the end of last year, when all the department printers stopped working the night before a big hand in.

That was a fun 3am leaving uni.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 19:10, Reply)

Define interesting
By interesting I mean courses that I expect I'd enjoy completing.

As far as autocad being shit goes - It'd make my life a lot easier if I could sort out the mistakes in drawings myself rather than having to get other people to do it.

Can't hurt to be able to do some 2D CAD even if it's not the best software in the world.
( Captain V, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 19:21, Reply)

*shaking head*
Maybe it's because I've used it for so long, but AutoCAD seems pretty intuitive to me. What's so hard about plotting from it?



"

You pick your printer, you tell it the window to plot, you tell it paper size. If it's at a particular scale, you specify that. If you want everything, you plot Extents instead of Window. Click Center the plot. Click OK and you're done.

AutoCAD is easy, folks...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 19:38, Reply)

No, it sounds easy
I've done that many a time before 'Loon, and yet it still manages to throw up surprises.

I can generally deal with it fine, but other folk in my classes always seem to end up asking me to help them.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 19:42, Reply)

I can print from autocad.
And I'm a numpty!
( girlinthehole, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 20:06, Reply)

It's simple.
See where it says "scale"? Put in your scale- if it won't fit on the sheet that little cartoon of the sheet will show you red. If you're not sure what scale to use, click the fit to page option and take note of what scale it gives you, then round up a little to the next standard scale.

If you keep "Center the plot" checked, it will stay in the middle of the sheet.

Hell, I can teach an AutoCAD class in here! Anyone got any more questions about it?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 20:42, Reply)

No problem there!
Chances are pretty good that I can answer it- there are few enough things that you're likely to encounter than I can't answer, unless you do some of the really advanced 3D stuff.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 20:58, Reply)

I tend to have trouble plotting from Autocad too
my main issue is getting the bastard to print in black and white using the colours as lineweights rather than just as colours.

it's set up right to do it in the drawing before you ask!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Sat 4 Oct 2008, 12:15, Reply)

I can answer that.
Look at the graphic above. See the drop down at the top right that says "acad.ctb"? That's where you assign all pens color 7 and varying lineweights. You need to save your newly created .ctb file, then make sure that it's selected when you go to plot.

If you're not seeing that in your plot dialogue box, if the box looks smaller than the one pictured, click the little round arrow button at the bottom right and it will expand to look like the pic.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sat 4 Oct 2008, 14:16, Reply)

You people
talk too much.
( thealternativefact, Sat 4 Oct 2008, 19:09, Reply)