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Editorials/Papers/Research/Documentation/Books/Stories/etc.
Anyone who knows me knows I have a lot of stories to tell and I have a lot of opinions.
Here are some of those opinions and stories and papers (hint: I may be writing a
book, so all material is copyrighted by me). There may also appear some samples of
my ECAD and Design Documentation.
Some brief comments from me...
- Have you ever used a hammer. Use one at home or
work? Ever buy a hammer? Have you noticed they are the same
price whether you want one for occasional home use or if you want one for 8
hour-a-day contractor use? Seems the companies that make hammers make
money at it. Then why does some software come with "licenses" that
specify it for only non-commercial use, while the same software (yes,
exactly the same), at a much higher price, is for commercial use? - DBD
7/23/08.
- Do you create web pages? Do you ever back up your data? Do you use CD-R to
back up data? Do you use cmd files through a command prompt to backup, copy, move
data? Then why do you insist on using ampersands (&), apostrophes ('),
exclamation points (!), and other symbols in your page name. How about making your
page name too long for standard CD writing to accept without wanting to shorten? Why
do so many programmers (I haven't got to stupid software yet) and web page authors not use
any common sense or at least check their work?
- For years I have used HP printers both at home and at work. I had a 660 and 882
inkjet at home. Both worked great. Good quality, long ink cartridge life,
everything. About a year and a half ago I decided to consolidate my printer and
scanner into a fancy all-in-one, the HP Officejet 7110. Fax works good, scanner
works good, printer is so-so. The earlier printer draft modes were about as dark and
of a quality equal to the 7110's "Normal" mode. Draft mode now produces
very light blacks. Well that is minor compared to the monitoring of ink
life/levels/whatever. I know no matter what HP may say that the monitoring of ink
life and then REFUSING TO PRINT because the printer thinks an ink cartridge is empty (when
it really only may be past a certain date) is really a way to get me to buy more and
genuine HP ink. Well, that really stinks. I could make the older printers
print black if color was out, but no more. I know that the real money is made in
supplies, but this whole thing where I can't even print black text because the printer
thinks the color is out (or not good enough) is enough to prompt me not to not just spend
much money on HP supplies but to BUY SOMEONE ELSE'S PRINTER. HP are you listening?
- I am curious. Are there people out there who are that stupid as to actually buy
any of the stuff pushed by spammers (illegal software, various questionable medications,
re-financing your house, etc.)? After all, if there was no money in it they would
not be doing what they are doing. And what is this Christian home loan spam. I
guess religion does not equal morals. I just read that in a 4 week period over 6000
people ordered a genitalia enhancement herb from one of the more famous spam houses.
6000 morons? Hey since you people have plenty of money to throw away how
about throwing some of it my way.
- Do you work for an employment agency? Do you send out emails or make phone calls
and then not return the message or call when the person tries to make contact with
you? Did you sell used cars in a past professional life? Do you own a plaid
sport coat and white shoes and belt? I need to write some scathing comments about
your less than honorable (as many have made it) profession. Here's an example.
I received a call from a "recruiter" asking if I was interested in a job in the
New England area (I'm in Wisconsin). I said he would have to find something for my
wife if I was to go. He said sure he would look into that and he will send me an
email with his contact info as soon as he got off the phone. He even stated my email
address. It has been a few
weeks months and I haven't heard a word
from him. Was he full of it or what? Or maybe just no personal ethics and
morals. Either way, he does not earn my respect. How about the slime who took
my resume and changed it adding experience I did not have in order to try to earn some
commission. Luckily the prospective employer did not call me so I did not have to
turn this guy in but you know who you are. OR how about the guy who said he needed
some people with medical electronics experience for a big project he was contracting.
Besides my resume I gave him the name of a friend of mine with high level design
experience and even more years in medical electronics than me. After neither of us
hearing from this guy for a couple of weeks my friend finally did make contact with him
(I'm still waiting for him to return my call from November 05) where the fool told my
friend he didn't call us because we DID NOT have any medical electronics experience.
Did this moron actually read our resumes. Actually he actually told my friend
he remembered him from past contacts AT A MEDICAL ELECTRONICS COMPANY. How stupid
can one person be? And companies pay these people for their service? Should I
list more examples of the industry stupidity and un-professionalism? How about
someone from the industry showing me they are NOT like these people?
Additional (6/15/13) - I am very impressed when I get a call from a supposed
recruiter who says they are looking at my resume and think I would be a good
fit for a job opening they have. Remember they said they are looking
at my resume right now...Then why do they ask where I live? Why do
they ask if I have ever done some job which is not listed on my resume?
Why do they call me for a mechanical design job when I am a printed circuit
board designer? Where can I get one of those recruiter jobs???
- Someone finally put it in print that most new jobs created are in low wage positions
like retail, restaurant, the low end of the health care spectrum. Is this the
"service economy" we heard about for years? How about city government
pushing a development project touting all the construction jobs it will create. Why
don't they mention that those construction jobs are there for as long as the project is
actually under construction. Maybe a year or two (at most). Then what? I guess
that doesn't matter, as those politicians will be out of office by then
(hopefully).
-
PCB Design With Current ECAD Software (and the
quality of the software).
Just a short opinion on the state of ECAD software quality and features.
State of PCB Design.
This piece was written in 1998 for possible submission to a trade magazine. It was
never submitted as I wasn't sure if it was too negative. While it is now
15 years
old, I still have the same feelings I expressed then. Check it out.
Dave's Editorials as President of the Milwaukee Radio Amateurs'
Club 1998-2002
During
the years 1998-2002 I was President of the
Milwaukee
Radio Amateurs' Club (one of the oldest continuously operating radio clubs in the
world), I wrote an editorial column for the club newsletter.
A number of people told me they looked forward to reading my rants on various
aspects of Amateur Radio. If you would like to
see all those editorials in one place, I have collected them into a
Comments? Or any interested Publishers?
Computer stuff:
none right now
Technology: For
some comments on the declining state of US technology (this is tech w/politics).
Read this - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050217-4623.html.
I couldn't have said it better myself. And thanks to everyone who shops at
Wally World.
Politics:
"Job Shifts Abroad Might Be Overstated" was the headline in a recent newspaper
story. It spoke of a study that said "about 2.5% of the major layoffs in the
first three months of the year stemmed from companies moving jobs offshore either on their
own or through hiring another firm to do the work, the department found" (the
department is the Labor department). WELL, few companies are going to say they laid
people off to send work offshore. I was laid off 7-1/2 years ago as the company was
"refocusing" their resources. That same company has an internal rule that
says if you can not do a job internally, especially software IT WILL GO TO (a country
other than the US - I am not trying to be nasty here). Would I be part of the Labor
Dept statistic if my lay off happened this year? NO. Am I part of the
unemployed statistics, since my benefits ran out almost 7 years ago? NO, since
unemployment statistics count only people who applied for benefits for the first time last
week, not someone who is near pr past the end of their benefits. Maybe business,
economics and political studies should be done offshore. Then we would hear the
screaming. In fact, if all IT, engineering, production, of course shipping (since
production is there), research (as a recent consultant's report states), takes place
"offshore", then why do we need management here? Let's get some of those
high paying management jobs over to more economically viable countries. Then we'll
see some real competition for fast food jobs over here. Got to go now, got to
practice my retail store greeting (with hamburger flipping as a backup/second job to help
pay the bills).
On another political note, it seems to me that a lot of stories regarding business and
real estate development in my area (Southeastern Wisconsin, especially the Milwaukee and
surrounding area) concerns residential and retail development. Where is the
business. I mean real business, not restaurants, bars, discount stores. I am
not knocking those businesses, I worked at a restaurant to help pay my way through
college. Of course that was to study Electrical Engineering, which is heading toward
an obsolete, useless profession for life in the US. While the restaurant work helped
me pay for college while I was living with my parents, I don't think it could pay for a
house and family for all employees (unless you happened to own the restaurant). Yet
governments constantly speak of the numbers of jobs created. Maybe those jobs should
be broken down into salary ranges. If the "1000 new jobs" really means 10
good paying jobs with health insurance and 990 part time jobs for just above minimum wage
with no benefits maybe the general population would start to ask questions about
priorities and our future. We once spoke of being the mightiest industrialized
nation. I don't think being the nation with the greasiest hamburgers and most dollar
stores will get us quite as far.
The Days of R&D At Marquette Electronics:
(Exactly what is it you guys do and why?)
A couple of months back marked the day in 1993 when I left Marquette Electronics after
almost 12-1/2 years there as a troublemaker. I was prompted to write this after
reading about some other folks who were displaced from their jobs that they thought they
made a difference at. It got me to thinking, few of the people outside the immediate
group knew the real story of the demise of R&D at MEI (Marquette Electronics) and
since all the parties involved are gone from there I figured, what the he#@$#.
Actually this is not to dish dirt about some of the people who assumed everyone has their
personal warped sense of office politics and the need to advance their cause no matter
what the cost (in the words of the late, great, George Carlin, "Do what you want to the girl but leave
me alone!")
Anyway, it will take me a few days (months) to get the story completed, but I needed to
start typing now so let me just say, most of the 12+ years at Marquette were great, but
the last 6 years where I was at the R&D center were some of the best times I have ever
had professionally and personally too. I am often reminded by a former co-worker and
boss that what we had in those last years was something most people will never experience
in their entire lifetimes. That we had it for 6 (for me) or more years is
incredible. Even if we never again reach those same levels of personal and
professional satisfaction, we have been there and done that and have the memories and
knowledge that can never be taken away from us.
Stay tuned for more on this story...
Stuff:
Have you ever made a mistake? On The job? Do you own up to it? Do you
bury it and hope nobody notices? Do you stand behind your work? Do you take
risks? I know a lot of people who never make mistakes. I know some people who
don't really do anything (at least nothing they would take credit for/admit to). I
made a mistake on the job once. It was around 1984. I picked up a project that
someone else started (actually completed through one prototype pass). That person
left the company and there were changes to be made to their project so I was the guy who
was assigned to do it. I took the list of things which needed to be done and did
them. Guess what? There were other things which needed to be done which were
not on the list. I didn't dig deep enough and did not know about those things,
therefore, the second pass of the design was still not 100% correct. I felt like
crap. I actually felt like I would be fired for being stupid. I felt like I
did some of the worst work of my then short career. After some discussion with my
boss I continued on with my work, made the missing corrections and continued on to do some
of the best work of my then still short career.
Fast forward to 2004. Almost exactly 20 years later and I have made another on the
job mistake. A big difference this time is I do not have a captive job but a
consulting one. I am paid higher than an internal employee to do things correctly.
I was given a printed circuit board design project which had completed one
prototype pass and needed some changes made. See a pattern here?
All correspondence was handled via email. I was given a list of the changes to be
made (I had not worked on the original design). I reiterated the changes in my
written quotation. I even asked a second time about some of the details. I
proceeded to make the necessary design changes (which were substantial enough that it was
really a re-design using the customer supplied original PCB layout as a start). One
of the things I specifically asked was that there was no library work to be done (CAD
system library stuff). I was told there was not, all necessary CAD library files
were being provided. I asked that everything that needed to be changed was addressed
on their list (and in my quote). They said yes. I did the re-design
incorporating all the specified changes. I supplied files for checking and were told
everything was OK. About a week after I turned over the files I received a call
about how the 60 prototype pieces (not 1 or 5 or 10 but 60) were screwed up. I asked
how. I was told that I did not move the 4 board mounted switches. I said I
didn't know the switches were to be moved (that was not on the list). They said I
should have checked the mechanical drawing they provided. They also said that one
connector didn't fit. The pin spacing was not changed. I said that I used the
supplied library files and everyone agreed there was no library work to be done (changing
pin locations in a CAD system IS library work). Again they said I should have
checked the supplied mechanical drawing. I said fine. Conducting myself in a
professional manner (unlike many companies and managers) I would make good on the problems
by doing the next job (if there was to be one) for FREE. Yes, FREE. Well sure
enough, about a couple of weeks later there came a request to quote a new design. I
wrote up a quote and said the job would be free (otherwise it was somewhere around $2500,
I don't recall exactly). Guess what, I got the job. I did the design.
Very early on a Friday morning I emailed the design files (but not the necessary
manufacturing files, in case something needed to be changed) in for checking. By the
afternoon I didn't hear anything and made a phone call. My contact was gone for the
day and I left a message. I then gave another look over of the design saw a couple
of things I wanted to adjust and did that and created the manufacturing files and emailed
them in over the weekend. That was around October 2004. To this day I have not
heard another word from the customer. I wish them well in their business. As a
result of my dealings with them all work since generates even more questions than I
normally asked and many more written approvals. I don't have a problem correcting
flaws in design methodology, but companies should realize that does not come cheap, or
quick, and that I take the blame if it really is my fault, but try to get me to take the
fall for your design and managerial inadequacies and I'll make sure everyone knows.
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