Use Floating License Servers

I used to just set LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to all floating license servers for all EDA tools that I use. It had become unacceptably slow to start and run Matlab with LM_LICENSE_FILE (see this Matlab solution for more information), so I switched to use individual environment variable that each EDA vendor checks for licenses. Things have been working a lot better since I made the change. Below is a list of environment variables that tools I run on a regular basis check for a license. This is mainly for my own reference. Hopefully somebody else may also find it useful.

Mentor Graphics: MGLS_LICENSE_FILE
Matlab: MLM_LICENSE_FILE
Synposys: SNPSLMD_LICENSE_FILE
Xilinx: XILINXD_LICENSE_FILE

P.S.: Check AR11630 (http://www.xilinx.com/support/answers/11630.htm) for instructions on how to set up environment variables. My personal favorite tool for setting/editing environment variables is Rapid Environment Editor
P.P.S: Check other Cool Programs in My Toolbox

Cool Programs in My Toolbox

Over years I have installed many cool little programs on my machine. They become handy for so many different things. I had to rebuild my computer recently and took me a while to google the Internet to find all the goodies. It occurred to me that it would be handy if I build a list for all these programs and put it somewhere I can easily access. And here the list goes (I will add things as I go, so it will always be work-in-progress):

Agent Ransack: search for files based on file names and/or particular string pattern in file contents CutePDF: print anything to a PDF file CCleaner:cleaning registry, temporary files, etc on Windows Free Launch Bar: A much better replacement of Windows Quick Launch Bar that allows you to group programs (not applicable for Win7) PDF Split&Merge (pdfsam) : Merge and Split PDFs Rapid Environment Editor : Very nice GUI for setting and editing environment variables ScreenHunter Free: Screen capture tool WireShark : Network sniffer for debugging Ethernet designs

Really impressed with 7-Zip

Update Aug 20, 2011:  Just found out that 7-Zip can also extract CD/DVD image files (.iso). Nice! Below are all the file formats it supports:

• Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
• Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z.

I have been using Winzip to compress files for as long as I can remember. One of my colleagues mentioned another compression tool called 7-Zip to me a couple of weeks ago and I am really impressed with the high compression ratio achieved by 7-Zip. Besides it's free and supports all compression file formats (.zip, .rar, .gz, .7z) that I know of. Below is a chart that compares the compressed file sizes between Winzip 10 and 7-Zip 4.65 on several files that I use for my daily work:

File	Uncompressed	.zip	.7z	%smaller
Virtex-6 UG365	15.8MB	5.4MB	4MB	26%
ADEPT 0.38.6	12.6MB	5.3MB	4.4MB	17%
SP601 Base Reference Design rdf0003	56.3MB	17.5MB	10MB	43%