- 2024
- Apr
- 29
If you’re planning on going to the Dayton Hamvention…
You still have time to mail order tickets if you’re in the USA, Canada, or Mexico. All other tickets can be ordered online, but are being held will-call.
Because of the non-promptness of the mail, I’d suggest sooner rather than later!
- 2024
- Apr
- 7
Tip Plugs for older test equipment are still purchasable.
They seem to be available from just about any one of the major electronics dealers, and run between $1.50 and $2.00 or so, depending on color and type. These are what you’d find on old test equipment like signal tracers and other devices where you’re inputting audio or other low frequency signals.
A current data sheet usually available from the vendors if you need one.
I usually get parts from Mouser.com, just because I’ve had good experiences purchasing parts from them over the years, and you can get small quantities with no minimum order penalties.
Solderless
105-0301-001 White
105-0302-001 Red
105-0303-001 Black
105-0304-001 Green
105-0310-001 Blue
Solder
105-0771-001 White
105-0772-001 Red
105-0773-001 Black
105-0774-001 Green <— This one is hard to get.
105-0780-001 Blue
- 2024
- Mar
- 29
No amount of whining will get you that information.
I may be alone here, but I’ve always found being asked for my “last three manager’s names, phone numbers, and email addresses” to be kind of odd. They don’t have time to be pestered by your questions, and what are you going to ask them? I can show you a W-2 to prove I worked there.
Beyond that, I don’t have contact with any of those people. It’s been too long for most of them, some of us parted ways long before places like LinkedIn were even a thing. That answer would usually satisfy most callers, especially when I pointed out they were asking for information from 1995. Do you remember your manager from 1995? Sure, I remember the guy’s name, but where is he - I have no idea.
One caller decided to be a little b**** and snippily asked me “Why don’t you want to give me these names?” Well, I just told you that I don’t have contact with them. “Well, I still need their contact information to proceed.”
Ok, sure. If you want to go nuclear, I have some nukes as well.
“You recently moved to a new job…”
“Yes, company was bought out. Technically, I still work there.”
“Uhhhhhhh, ok…how about the job before that?”
“My last manager was Bobby Blankspace.”
“Ok, well how do I get hold of him?”
“He’s dead. Heart attack after his wife left him.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkward.
“Well…how about at this job?”
“That was 20 years ago. That company doesn’t exist now. It was old and tired when I was there and most of the people were retirement age. If they’re still alive, I doubt they would do more than tell you where to go and quit bothering them because if I were retired and 85 that’s what I’d tell you. I used to have contact with one of my former supervisors, but he was fired for cocaine use and I lost track of him.”
Double Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkward.
“And before you go on to the next one, that was even farther back. I lost track of that person in 1995 when I left. The division closed and he followed what was left to Tennessee. He’s probably long since retired by now, and would be in his 80s if he’s still alive.”
…
“In fact, the only job I can reliably give you a contact for is the one where I was a freelancer, and my boss was me.”
…
…
…
The person was still snippy but shuffled me off the phone as quick as they could when it became apparent I couldn’t play their game.
I don’t want to be impolite, but when I tell you I don’t have any contact information for these people, and they probably won’t talk to you anyway - I’m not being nasty. It’s just the way it is when you’ve been doing this for 30 years.
The age of some of the callers made me think that, as they had grown up in a world where social media always existed, it’s completely alien to them that you wouldn’t have all of these people in various contact circles - not quite realizing that some of us were working before your parents graduated high school.
More likely?
Contacts of potential hiring managers mean more people you can market to.
That’s all. You’ll get names when we’re moving forward, not on a cold call where you just want to chat.
- 2024
- Feb
- 11
I guess making a complaint does work.
I recently wrote about my experience with a large enterprise that still had an email system that didn’t meet changes made in 2014. I wrote an email to their DMARC reporting addresses explaining the situation - those bounced with full mailboxes. I wrote an email to Contact Us and got boilerplate back. I didn’t expect anything else.
I poked at their system one last time with mxtoolbox, and it looks like they actually did fix it. I’m not sure when they did so, as of Friday they were still being sent to quarantine by my provider, so it must have been after hours or something - perhaps my email system was still prejudiced because records hadn’t propagated yet.
Who knows. But I guess that goes to show, sometimes making a complaint does work. It just amazes me it took 10 years and someone not getting a single email to fix it.
- 2024
- Feb
- 4
Multiple email SPF records? Yeah, go away kid, we don’t care.
I’ve written about email security and having the proper records set in the past, but last week I ran across probably one of the most interesting (and really bad) ones to date.
I use an email service that I pay for, simply because I like having my own domain name - as you can probably tell by the links that pepper my posts, and the fact that you’re reading this on Wereboar.
Sunday, I (was supposed to have!) received an email from a large corporation that contained information that I paid for. Didn’t get it, so I logged in to my email maintenance console - and there they were.
They were quarantined in a way I’d never seen before. All text and links were struck out. Nothing could be clicked. You could move them around, but they would never pass into visibility in any IMAP folder. The only thing I could do is delete them in the maintenance console. The system would not release them - they were so suspicious that they just wouldn’t. Period.
The first thing I do is check the company in question’s email records using mxtoolbox - and there it is. Two SPF records. While this was acceptable at one point, a change to the way email worked - IN 2014! - made having multiple records of this type a red flag, and any email system worth it’s salt will, at minimum, dump these into spam.
SPF is a text record set in an email service that tells the email server who is allowed to send mail. You’re allowed one. Having more than one means that someone else could have set one without your knowledge - and that leads to all kind of interesting scenarios, the least of which is lots of spam being relayed through your email server.
The change that allowed only one SPF record was made in 2014. That means this large multi-national corporation has had 10 years to make this simple fix to their email system.
My email service didn’t put these in spam, it simply said “Nope, not going to let you have these, they’re suspicious beyond compare.” The fact that it’s a world-wide operating company that many use on a daily basis is even worse. They have the time and resources to take 10 minutes and set their email server up properly. I made a complaint. Will they change it?
No. They literally don’t care. Send an email to the ones set in their other security record (DMARC) and it comes back “mailbox full.” No one is even looking at issues.
So, did I get my information? Yes. I keep a couple of old Gmail addresses for whatever reason - nostalgia I guess. Gmail used to be the gold standard for consumer email service, but now it’s the library book of email services. It accepted the malformed records without complaint, which it absolutely should not have done.
What do you need to take away from this? As email becomes more and more weaponized, you’re going to have more systems rejecting your email. Fix your $&#&$! crap. If you don’t know how, hire someone to do it for you.
If you don’t, there’s going to be a time when you can’t get your email through. And that’s going to be purely your fault.
Don’t wait. Fix it. Now.
- 2024
- Jan
- 23
All of the documents currently in wereboar’s archive - Part II.
I’ve added a few more documents to the Wereboar archive on both the previous entry, as well as this (new) entry. More will be added as I gain more manuals for equipment featured here. These are hosted by my webhost’s cloud storage system, OXDrive.
Original document archive post:
https://wereboar.com … n-wereboars-archive/
The Knight KG-690 and 83Y135 Signal Tracer (Same chassis, different cabinet):
https://privateemail … 11cf/1/8/NDY/NDYvMTU
Radio Shack “Science Fair” 28-177 Crystal Radio Kit Owner and Assembly Manual: https://privateemail … 8376/1/8/NDY/NDYvMTY
All of the documents currently stored in the wereboar archive, as of April 8th 2024 (165MB zipfile) - anything below this is not in this archive:
https://www.dropbox. … w2v18oho5tib9vu&dl=0
The EICO Model 540 Readi-Tester:
https://privateemail … ed43/1/8/NDY/NDYvMTc
- 2023
- Nov
- 30
I didn’t take it because it’s not enough money…
I have enough time in the industry to comfortably “sit back and reflect on things that have happened over the years,” and one of those things that came up in conversation recently was why I turned down some positions that I applied and worked towards getting.
It took me some time to come up with a reason for this, but I read a short article about the same thing and that described it very well. It helped me put into words what my reasons are - that all of the positions I’ve been offered and turned down were either lateral or downgrades, pay wise.
There are a number that were serious downgrades in pay that just got tossed by the wayside because the company had not been truthful about what was being offered at the start. These places generally had a bad company attitude as well, and it’s probably for the best that they revealed their hand before I took the offer.
There are two that really stick out in my mind, however. One was a company looking for an engineering technician. This person would be entering a “Now apply what you learned” situation. The company offering this knew what I made currently, and knew I would be picking up and moving. I had a good feeling about this one, and assumed that because of the increased skill level required it would be paying accordingly.
“Accordingly” was a number based on some people I knew doing similar work at comparable companies.
They didn’t offer that number, and offered somewhat (not a lot) less than I told them I made currently. I turned it down. I received a call later from the company asking what they could do to make me interested. It’s the money, make me a reasonable offer for an engineering technician. You’re not giving me any reason to be attracted. I know the job is longer hours and more intellectual work, pay for that.
I never received any further contact, so I have to assume that they either went with their second choice or started interviewing again to find someone that would take their offer. I found their HR person on LinkedIn years later and extended a “Can I talk about that?” but never received a contact.
The second was more of a plain lateral move. The company did offer slightly more than I was making at the time (about $0.24 / hr more) but their benefits structure would have eaten up considerably more than that. It would have turned out to be a net negative with a longer drive. Again, the contact asked why I was turning it down.
It’s the money. It may be a bit more gross, but the net is less and you’ve not given me any reason to be attracted to your company - make me a better offer. You know what I said I’d like to see. I’m not leaving this job for that job when I’m not gaining any benefit. You seemed very pleased that I could pass your test and talk shop with you. You want my skills, how about a bit of compensation for them?
That didn’t go anywhere either. I did contact them later when some stuff happened, but they weren’t interested in talking anymore. No big deal there, I understand.
The takeaway here is I’ve had plenty of offers over the years, but in almost all cases it was the exact same thing I had or less, even if the position was a step or two up. At no time did I feel the company recruiting me understood that I wasn’t going to leave something for something identical, that I wasn’t going to take less. They just knew I wasn’t taking their offer but were unwilling to offer more.
It’s all kind of frustrating, but I’ve since read other’s accounts of the same thing. Someone wants them, but offers essentially the same thing they have and wonders why they don’t come running. We’re not in this for our health, it’s the money. If you want a special skill or years of experience, offer the holder something that attracts them.
If you don’t - you don’t get it. That’s all there is to it.
I’ve talked in depth about some of those experiences. If you’d like to read them, you can find them here: https://wereboar.com/stories/
- 2023
- Nov
- 29
An odd thing with Flatpress…
This blog runs on a self-hosted system called Flatpress. It’s what it sounds like, it’s a Flat file publishing system. No databases or anything, just a bunch of files.
One of the odd things I’ve noticed about this system is how it pulls thumbnails and presents them to the user. Sometimes the thumbnails will be blurry, and sometimes they won’t. No idea why, save it seems to be related to the name length of the folder the images are in - and perhaps the name of the folder?
Thumbnails in this case refers to both the reduced size (but still large) images on a normal page using the img tag, as well as those presented by the gallery plugin I use.
For example, a recent post about the Fort Wayne hamfest gave me blurry images for the thumbnails. While they aren’t necessarily clear, you can generally tell what they are - not so this time. I changed the name of the folder from “fh23” to “fortwayneh23,” pointed the page to the new folder, and the thumbnails look good.
Later me wants to add some things - Don’t start your image or folder names off with a number, always use a letter. I don’t know why, but using a number will result in a blurry thumbnail. If you get this, change your names and delete the thumbnail folder in the image directory where you have your files stored!
I have other folders in my image directory that are only four letters long, so I’m really kind of clueless here unless it’s some random thing with both length and name. If you’ve run across that yourself (and it doesn’t matter if I’m using the gallery or normal view) then try to rename the folder your post’s images are in to something longer than 4 characters. It may resolve your issue.
- 2023
- Oct
- 18
pygg.xyz is gone.
As the SSL cert for pygg.xyz will expire on November 2nd, I’ve turned off the site. It now automatically redirects to the homepage of wereboar.com. It will probably give you SSL errors at some point, but the redirects should still work.
If you have any bookmarks from that site floating around, simply replace pygg.xyz with wereboar.com and you’ll end up exactly where you wanted to go. If not, you should get sent to the wereboar homepage.
When the hosting plan expires, I’ll set a simple wildcard redirect and be done with it. Until then, pygg.xyz is for sale - hit me up at the email address on the front of wereboar.com if you’re interested.
- 2023
- Jun
- 22
This little werepig has settled in his new home.
Originally, I thought I’d keep pygg.xyz duplicated with the same content as my new home, but really, when it comes down to it, there’s no reason for that. A simple redirect in the website’s code will automagically bring people to my new home. You’ll land on the project page since that’s where the good stuff lives.
So, take a look around. You’ll find everything pretty much looks the same. You can even replace the pygg.xyz in any URL you find with wereboar.com, and it will take you to the exact spot you were looking for. (For the most part, I’ve trimmed a bit here and there to make for a leaner piggy!)
If you landed here looking for the homepage, click this link to go there: https://wereboar.com/
Thanks for stopping by. Hope you enjoy the slice of unusual that I find in the electronics world.
- Bryan