Internet commentary
Keywords: Internet, Computer software, Network operating systems
Any old iron, any old iron, Any any old old iron?[1]
Regular readers will know that I have promoted Norton anti-virus as being a good protection against many kinds of malicious software which can come our way either by browsing the internet or through e-mail. The version I used was incorporated in Norton System Works 2002, which I bought about two and a half years ago. This particular version has a number of other very useful utilities and I was very satisfied with the results.
Unfortunately, for reasons totally unconnected with the subject matter of this column, I had to re-install Windows XP Pro. When it came to re-install NSW,the installation application informed me that the version was no longer supported, after less than three years, even though I had paid for a year’s updates, only three-and-a-half months previously. This annoyed me, but I bit the bullet. I hunted around on the Symantec web site and found NSW 2006, which was available as an upgrade. After a very long download, I installed the version and started to set it up. I was appalled to find that it had practically taken over my computer but, above all, it refused to allow the anti-virus updates to be downloaded. I spent nearly two days going through the Symantec web site for help and tried several different methods of resolving the problem, to no avail. As the manufacturer offered no e-mail support, I sent a fax to the nearest offices,in Ireland. I received neither acknowledgement nor answer. At a cost, I tried to phone them, again in Ireland. A voice-mail message informed me that no technical support was offered by telephone but that I could consult their knowledge base on the internet, as if I had not been doing that for the previous two days! In the meantime, I found that NSW was more than tripling the boot-up time of the computer, which is an indication of how much it had taken over the system. Apart from that, their installation software could not even configure the Norton-protected Recycle Bin correctly, causing an error message on each boot-up.
As an aside, a neighbour, who also had NSW 2002 installed, suffered a similar fate (including 10 months of unexpired updates) except that she followed Norton’s recommendations by upgrading to a package of their anti-virus 2006 and Internet Security 2006. She asked me whether I could sort out her computer after installing them, as it had become sluggish. On investigation, I found she had three firewalls and three anti-malware utilities operating. I uninstalled the Internet Security and switched off the Windows XP Firewall, leaving her ZoneAlarm Firewall operational. The anti-virus was still sluggish, but the computer behaved more normally.
Fed up with this state of affairs, I decided to cut my losses and abandon Norton products altogether; my policy became “Naught-on” my computer!To give Symantec their due, they refunded what I paid for NSW 2006, very promptly (I even made about three cents profit, because of differences in exchange rates!).
This left me with two problems: I urgently needed a new anti-virus and a new defragmentation tool, the other functions of NSW being less important. My first task was to find a suitable anti-virus and, after some research, I opted for the Grisoft AVG Pro package. In comparison, this installed and automatically updated like a dream. It operated transparently with almost no overheads and the updating is very regular. The only change I did to the default installation was a weekly, instead of daily, complete system scan. For the “defragger”I chose Diskeeper. It, too, had a default configuration of daily defragmentation of all the partitions, which I changed to manual, because several of my partitions rarely change and this would cause unnecessary drive wear. It is remarkably more effective than the utility supplied with Windows, which I think is actually a very old Intel software.
What about the bottom line? Well, this is very positive, because the AVG and Diskeeper utilities, together, cost about half of what I did not pay for NSW 2006. Of course, there are features in NSW that I no longer have, but there are substitutes either within Windows XP Pro or available online for nothing.
While on the subject of invasive software for internet protection, Zone Labs have been telling me for some months that, initially, version 6.0 of their ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall, and then 6.1, was available. I succumbed to the temptation of 6.1 recently, to my instant regret. With it installed and set up by default, it seemed that I could hardly breathe before it shouted a warning that I was laying myself open to all sorts of dire consequences. Every software I installed or even uninstalled constituted a hazard. This was mostly because it has over-zealously assumed that it was prone to malware. The crux is that I have a very good, non-intrusive, anti-malware program, Pest Patrol, and I do not need a second one, least of all one that cries wolf without being able to stop it. Ergo, I have reverted to version 5.5, which does not have this intrusion. In a few months, Zone Labs will be asking for me to renew my update subscription and,guess what, I would not pay! I’ll continue to use their Freeware Firewall,which is all I need.
The important feature that can make or break a software house is support. Before Norton was taken over by Symantec, the support was excellent, an e-mail question being answered within a working day. Today, I can qualify it only as execrable; in fact, it is probably the worst that I have come across recently. If you have a problem that is not dealt with in their internet knowledge base,then you will have to whistle for your answer. They do not even run a forum,that I could find. So, how do I find the new contenders? I did have a question,while still on the trial version, for Diskeeper and I sent them an e-mail. Helpful and complete answer received about 8 h later. This is how it should be. I have not had occasion to contact Grisoft, but they do have a tech support message form on their web site, so I assume their service is probably reasonable.
The point I’m trying to make is that it would be far better if all these software authoring houses stuck to their speciality and developed it to the maximum, instead of trying to be all things to all men. Adding a few bells and whistles of unrelated products to their core business does not justify extra cost, especially when many other companies have offered better solutions for many years. And if they do not offer adequate support, then they may as well place their key under the doormat straight away. At the time of writing,Symantec share prices have dropped 21 per cent over the past year, bucking the trend of the Nasdaq index at up about 10 per cent in the same period. Could this be because they are losing market share to companies like Grisoft, which has been enjoying very good press reviews of late? This company, of Czech origin,does not appear to be quoted on the usual stock exchanges, so I cannot see how its value has progressed in comparison with any of the indices, but I have found that Intel bought a majority share in it, last year.
Before we look at some web sites, let me mention that, at long last, I have a broadband connection, albeit only 1 Mbit/s maximum download and 256 kbit/s upload rates. This makes a BIG difference to the comfort which I experience while reviewing websites, but it would not make any difference to the views I expressed on download speeds in the last issue of this journal. If I find that a site is too heavily graphics-oriented, I would not hesitate to say so. Believe it or not, I first applied for ADSL five years and eight months ago and it was installed just two weeks ago, as I write this. When the Spaniards say mañana,the Cypriots say α´ρι and that makes the Spanish look like amateurs!
For today’s review section, I propose to have a look at hand soldering,including tools and methods. With the advent of lead free soldering, the problem is exacerbated because of the necessity of higher temperatures for SAC alloys. In reality, I wonder whether higher temperatures are really necessary; with Sn60 or Sn63 alloys, we often soldered at 350°C. As this was 170° above the melting point of the solder, was it not already excessive? Is it not possible to use the same temperature with the new alloys, just by having more heat available? Another difficulty that can be foreseen is the increasing miniaturisation of passive components. How on earth can one retouch a faulty solder joint on a component that needs a binocular microscope before you can even see it?
No reader of this journal should really need to look at these pages, because they contain the real basics of hand soldering. However, they could very well be useful as an aide-mémoire for an initial training session for new,inexperienced, operators.
Without doubt, one of the most popular makes of soldering iron in our industry is Weller. This page catalogues the whole range of suitable soldering irons. The one that particularly catches my eye is entitled “Micro Rework Soldering Station” and, exploring further, one can download a PDF brochure giving full details. This is a tool that seems ideal for modern surface mount rework.
The very best soldering iron is useless unless the bit or tip is not well maintained or of adequate quality. This is a 48 page catalogue of tools for the electronics industry. Over the years, Plato have acquired an excellent reputation for the quality of their soldering bits, available to fit most irons. There is also a guide as to the best methods of maintaining these vital accessories and when to replace them. There is, perhaps, an aura of false economy by not replacing them as soon as it becomes necessary.
For the small enterprise, some fantastic bargains can be had on eBay. At the time of writing, for example, there is a complete new soldering/desoldering workstation, with a list price of £330, being bid at £15 with only a few minutes left. Most of the items on this page are professional equipment,many of them for the electronics industry, so this is the place to look if you need a small number of items at the lowest possible cost. I assume that there is an equivalent place on the eBay sites in other countries.
There are a number of well-known UK soldering iron manufacturers, such as Adcola and Litesold, that do not appear to have web sites for some peculiar reason. I would have thought that this would have been an ideal method of marketing such products. This site is the exception that proves the rule,belonging to Antex Ltd The company has had a reputation for miniature soldering irons as far back as I can remember – and that’s a long time! Their finest product has a bit diameter of 0.12 mm, which I guess is probably as fine as you can get. They have a full range of soldering irons and workstations as well as spare bits. However, the web site is not as good as it could be; I found a fair number of “server errors” although they could be overcome by going back and forth between tabs.
A.P.E. appear to have two web sites, but the other one did not work when I tried it. This one has an address that you cannot get further south in the USA without getting your feet wet. The company is, of course, well-known as a competitor of PACE in the field of rework equipment. The range of products is enormous including, of course, devices for reworking BGAs and re-balling them. Some of the PDF files that are available on the site are of very good quality,describing fully the equipment.
This is the kind of site that I really hate! The first thing you see is a big, time-consuming, noisy, flashy “video” which does nothing to convey any information to the surfer. This is repeated on every page with pings,whistles, scratching sounds, etc. every time you click or hover over something that may lead you elsewhere. This is out of place for a serious supplier of technical hardware. The actual equipment on offer is of course very wide in scope and I know from experience that the quality is excellent. An interesting item is what the company calls “process guides”. These are simple,step-by-step instructions on how to do certain operations. I believe some of them are accompanied by videos but they did not work for me.
I liked the design of the Home Page (Plate 1) of this German manufacturer of soldering equipment, although the graphics may be slightly on the heavy side for those without broadband connections. This continued throughout the navigation system, which allows you to go from the general to the specific graphically. Although it has no bearing on the quality of the products, it gives you a certain confidence that the company does things right. There are also available some documents for training and process understanding. Of course, being European, a certain emphasis has been laid on the requirements for lead free soldering and desoldering. This site is well worth a visit.
Plate 1Ersa's Home Page, which I found pleasing. By hovering the cursor, each menu picture went from low contrast to normal contrast – clever!
I have known of this company for many decades, although I have never used any of their products. As far as I am aware they have a very good reputation. I’m afraid though that the web site does not convey the confidence that I should feel for top-class products. Of course, as in the previous case, can one judge the products from the web site? This is a very moot point, like judging a book by its cover. The Home Page is ugly. Everything is cramped over to the left-hand side, looking like a web site of 10 years ago when the norm was a 15 in. monitor running at 800 × 600 pixels. The navigation takes you to soldering products and desoldering products neither of which are described very fully. What could have been interesting is an item on the menu saying “Technical Info”but this takes you nowhere! Could do better!
This is a very neat looking page, although the typeface is a little bit small in places. Unlike many web sites, it is available in English, French, German,Italian, Japanese and Chinese. Obviously, this befits an international company. Unfortunately, although the equipment looks impressive there is a lack of technical information on the products. On the other hand, there is a “Lead Free Zone” which contains a considerable number of very useful articles and documents in PDF format. These are very well worth examining. A number of them point out that fume extraction with the lead free solders, when hand soldering,is more important than with the lead containing solders, due to the higher time/temperature conditions causing more decomposition of the flux components,creating toxic products.
This Japanese company has a very interesting range of soldering and desoldering equipment. As far as one can judge from the web site, the quality appears to be good but there are a couple of features which are particularly eye-catching. The first is that some of their range of soldering irons have a relatively high power input for the size. This implies that the heating time can be very short, which is a distinct advantage when soldering at relatively low bit temperatures. It is no longer necessary to have hefty bits to provide sufficient heat to maintain the temperature. Another feature on some models is to have an integrating/differentiating power controller so that the temperature remains substantially constant, no matter what the load. A third possibility on some models is a sleep mode that automatically drops the temperature when the iron is at rest. As soon as the iron is picked up, the high power input pushes the temperature back to normal within a second or two. For me, these features make the tools particularly interesting and I suggest that anybody wanting state-of-the-art soldering equipment would do well to examine the possibilities offered by this company.
Another Asian company, this time from Taiwan, offers what appears to be a fairly complete range of equipment but I found the web site to be lacking in sufficient detail to enable a real choice to be made. For example, I could not even find any details about the bits to go with any particular model of soldering iron or desoldering iron. However, good the products may be – or may not be – it is simply not possible to make a choice on the basis of the website alone. Unfortunately!
It is clear that there is a very wide choice of hand soldering and desoldering equipment and I’m not sure whether it is possible or recommended to select a particular brand from the web sites. Some well-known manufacturers – and I do not mean just the British ones mentioned earlier– simply do not have web sites or, if they do, I certainly could not find them. The level of details within the web sites of the companies that do use the internet as a means of publicity is very variable. Obviously, for a company planning to purchase hundreds of workstations, it would be worthwhile to purchase one of each for evaluation. The difficulty would be for the SME, who might not need more than half a dozen, to make the best choice. In my experience, the most popular soldering irons are certainly not necessarily the best and some of those from more obscure companies may not be either! What more can I say?
Brian EllisCyprus
Note1 Charles Collins, E. A. Sheppard and Fred Terry, “Any Old Iron” (1911 comic music-hall song); the second line often sung “Any any any old iron?” See http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiOLDIRON.html
