A typical conversation with a Chinese PCB manufacturer - a g

[Peter]

I send them a zipfile containing the gerbers. I've been doing this for
20-30 years.

This is a company I last used 2 years ago, with same data format.

The source is Protel PCB.

Dear Peter, Sorry I can not read the file you sent to me. Regards,
Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the gerbers.
Are you familiar with the ZIP format?
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Yes, I download the ZIP, but I can not open. What kinds of
files are you going to send to me? Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
I am enclosing a newly made zipfile.
If you are not able to read it, please find someone who worked in your
company two years ago.
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for the reply Please tell me more details about
this document, so I can find some professional people to handle this!
Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the standard gerber data files; one for
each layer.
Kind regards,
Peter

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday, although
asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same company for 2
years is pushing it a bit...

A google on RS274 (which is what everybody is quoting) shows the very
stuff I am sending. Has there been some new software which these
outfits have bought very recently and which cannot open a zipfile, or
is there a new gerber format?

 

[TTman]

On 27/09/2019 10:36, Peter wrote:

I send them a zipfile containing the gerbers. I've been doing this for
20-30 years.

This is a company I last used 2 years ago, with same data format.

The source is Protel PCB.

Dear Peter, Sorry I can not read the file you sent to me. Regards,
Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the gerbers.
Are you familiar with the ZIP format?
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Yes, I download the ZIP, but I can not open. What kinds of
files are you going to send to me? Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
I am enclosing a newly made zipfile.
If you are not able to read it, please find someone who worked in your
company two years ago.
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for the reply Please tell me more details about
this document, so I can find some professional people to handle this!
Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the standard gerber data files; one for
each layer.
Kind regards,
Peter

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday, although
asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same company for 2
years is pushing it a bit...

A google on RS274 (which is what everybody is quoting) shows the very
stuff I am sending. Has there been some new software which these
outfits have bought very recently and which cannot open a zipfile, or
is there a new gerber format?

Is winzip/7zip compatible with each other ?

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Dear Peter,

But what are those files, anyway?
Regards, Winnie

 

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Apparently your old PCB firm is now fooly populated with idiots if
they cannot even open a zip file.

Send the raw files with the extensions changed on those the email
system barfs on, and instructions to re-name the files. Yeah...
they have the aptitude for that, right? I mean they make precision
PCBs but they can't use a computer.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 27/09/2019 12:20, TTman wrote:

On 27/09/2019 10:36, Peter wrote:
I send them a zipfile containing the gerbers. I've been doing this for
20-30 years.

This is a company I last used 2 years ago, with same data format.

The source is Protel PCB.

Dear Peter, Sorry I can not read the file you sent to me. Regards,
Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the gerbers.
Are you familiar with the ZIP format?
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Yes, I download the ZIP, but I can not open. What kinds of
files are you going to send to me? Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
I am enclosing a newly made zipfile.
If you are not able to read it, please find someone who worked in your
company two years ago.
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for the reply Please tell me more details about
this document, so I can find some professional people to handle this!
Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the standard gerber data files; one for
each layer.
Kind regards,
Peter

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday, although
asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same company for 2
years is pushing it a bit...

A google on RS274 (which is what everybody is quoting) shows the very
stuff I am sending. Has there been some new software which these
outfits have bought very recently and which cannot open a zipfile, or
is there a new gerber format?

Is winzip/7zip compatible with each other ?

Some variants of maximally compressed ZIP file written with the latest
and greatest version of the official software won't open in older
versions or clones. ISTR the defaults are reasonably safe and portable.

I have known ZIP files get damaged in transit so it might be worth
asking them to send back the file they can't open and compare it with
the original as sent.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote in
news:qmkvks$1rrl$1@gioia.aioe.org:

Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern
day slavery.

Much... was suposed to be "do not get paid much".

 

[Sergey Kubushyn]

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Apparently your old PCB firm is now fooly populated with idiots if
they cannot even open a zip file.

Send the raw files with the extensions changed on those the email
system barfs on, and instructions to re-name the files. Yeah...
they have the aptitude for that, right? I mean they make precision
PCBs but they can't use a computer.

They might've installed some "security" software from Cisco or whatever else
company that was famous many years ago before it went to the dogs. Those
once famous gurus hired a bunch of idiots named "software engineers" who
have never seen anything but Windoze so their "security" software unpacks
zip (or whatever) archives, checks files inside and repacks them back. The
only small problem is that it treats everything as text and it is Windoze
text so it "fixes" the files by converting 0x0a to 0x0d 0x0a (it is how text
files should be, right?) thus corrupting everything beyond repair. There
might be other mechanisms as well but result is always the same -- all
binary files got corrupted in transit.

I had to deal with it at my previous job where corporate IT installed "the
best software available" for checking files on the fly and that was from "a
reputable" company named Cisco. This was used as proxy for everything
including copying files to shared drives so every archive just copied to
shared drive from a Windoze machine got corrupted. We had offices here in
Las Vegas and in Ithaca, NY so it was a nightmare to exchange design files
between offices. Usual hack was renaming those archives to *.pdf so that
stupid software wouldn't touch them (everybody knows that any file named
blah.pdf is a PDF and file extensions always tell what file it is and can't
be faked, right?) but at some point even that failed to work so we had to
resort to overnighting USB sticks with those files. That was easier than to
persuade IT to kill that stupid thing.

It is totally possible they also installed some of those weirdos so they
actually can't open those zip files because they _ALWAYS_ end up corrupted
when sent over the Net. It is difficult to convince IT it is broken because
"everything works fine here" i.e. all office lemmings send their Word and
Excel files without problems.

---
******************************************************************
* KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
* Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *
******************************************************************

 

On 27/09/2019 10:36, Peter wrote:

I send them a zipfile containing the gerbers. I've been doing this for
20-30 years.

This is a company I last used 2 years ago, with same data format.

The source is Protel PCB.

Dear Peter, Sorry I can not read the file you sent to me. Regards,
Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the gerbers.
Are you familiar with the ZIP format?
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Yes, I download the ZIP, but I can not open. What kinds of
files are you going to send to me? Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
I am enclosing a newly made zipfile.
If you are not able to read it, please find someone who worked in your
company two years ago.
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for the reply Please tell me more details about
this document, so I can find some professional people to handle this!
Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the standard gerber data files; one for
each layer.
Kind regards,
Peter

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday, although
asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same company for 2
years is pushing it a bit...

A google on RS274 (which is what everybody is quoting) shows the very
stuff I am sending. Has there been some new software which these
outfits have bought very recently and which cannot open a zipfile, or
is there a new gerber format?

Evidently they are unable to read the zip file contents for some reason. Being rude & unconstructive won't solve the problem.

 

[Robert Baer]

TTman wrote:

On 27/09/2019 10:36, Peter wrote:
I send them a zipfile containing the gerbers. I've been doing this for
20-30 years.

This is a company I last used 2 years ago, with same data format.

The source is Protel PCB.

Dear Peter, Sorry I can not read the file you sent to me. Regards,
Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the gerbers.
Are you familiar with the ZIP format?
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Yes, I download the ZIP, but I can not open. What kinds of
files are you going to send to me? Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
I am enclosing a newly made zipfile.
If you are not able to read it, please find someone who worked in your
company two years ago.
Kind regards,
Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for the reply Please tell me more details about
this document, so I can find some professional people to handle this!
Regards, Winnie

Dear Winnie,
It is a zipfile containing the standard gerber data files; one for
each layer.
Kind regards,
Peter

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday, although
asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same company for 2
years is pushing it a bit...

A google on RS274 (which is what everybody is quoting) shows the very
stuff I am sending. Has there been some new software which these
outfits have bought very recently and which cannot open a zipfile, or
is there a new gerber format?

Is winzip/7zip compatible with each other ?

So far, ALL Zip prgrams from PKZIP/PKUNZIP (DOS, 1993) to WinZip90
are totally compatible with each other.
Cannot say about 7-zip as i do not use it.

 

[Robert Baer]

Sergey Kubushyn wrote:

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Apparently your old PCB firm is now fooly populated with idiots if
they cannot even open a zip file.

Send the raw files with the extensions changed on those the email
system barfs on, and instructions to re-name the files. Yeah...
they have the aptitude for that, right? I mean they make precision
PCBs but they can't use a computer.

They might've installed some "security" software from Cisco or whatever else
company that was famous many years ago before it went to the dogs. Those
once famous gurus hired a bunch of idiots named "software engineers" who
have never seen anything but Windoze so their "security" software unpacks
zip (or whatever) archives, checks files inside and repacks them back. The
only small problem is that it treats everything as text and it is Windoze
text so it "fixes" the files by converting 0x0a to 0x0d 0x0a (it is how text
files should be, right?) thus corrupting everything beyond repair. There
might be other mechanisms as well but result is always the same -- all
binary files got corrupted in transit.

I have seen exactly this problem with PDF files (see your comment below).
Some e-mail clients/servers will do this, and cannot be changed.
In that case, i Zip the PDF and all is OK.

I had to deal with it at my previous job where corporate IT installed "the
best software available" for checking files on the fly and that was from "a
reputable" company named Cisco. This was used as proxy for everything
including copying files to shared drives so every archive just copied to
shared drive from a Windoze machine got corrupted. We had offices here in
Las Vegas and in Ithaca, NY so it was a nightmare to exchange design files
between offices. Usual hack was renaming those archives to *.pdf so that
stupid software wouldn't touch them (everybody knows that any file named
blah.pdf is a PDF and file extensions always tell what file it is and can't
be faked, right?) but at some point even that failed to work so we had to
resort to overnighting USB sticks with those files. That was easier than to
persuade IT to kill that stupid thing.

It is totally possible they also installed some of those weirdos so they
actually can't open those zip files because they _ALWAYS_ end up corrupted
when sent over the Net. It is difficult to convince IT it is broken because
"everything works fine here" i.e. all office lemmings send their Word and
Excel files without problems.

---
******************************************************************
* KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
* Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *
******************************************************************

 

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 11:50:20 -0800, Robert Baer
<robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote:

Sergey Kubushyn wrote:
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Apparently your old PCB firm is now fooly populated with idiots if
they cannot even open a zip file.

Send the raw files with the extensions changed on those the email
system barfs on, and instructions to re-name the files. Yeah...
they have the aptitude for that, right? I mean they make precision
PCBs but they can't use a computer.

They might've installed some "security" software from Cisco or whatever else
company that was famous many years ago before it went to the dogs. Those
once famous gurus hired a bunch of idiots named "software engineers" who
have never seen anything but Windoze so their "security" software unpacks
zip (or whatever) archives, checks files inside and repacks them back. The
only small problem is that it treats everything as text and it is Windoze
text so it "fixes" the files by converting 0x0a to 0x0d 0x0a (it is how text
files should be, right?) thus corrupting everything beyond repair. There
might be other mechanisms as well but result is always the same -- all
binary files got corrupted in transit.
I have seen exactly this problem with PDF files (see your comment below).
Some e-mail clients/servers will do this, and cannot be changed.
In that case, i Zip the PDF and all is OK.

Some e-mail systems may also remove .exe, .bat etc. files.
..
You may have to use some password protected zip files. Send the
password in the message body or with a text message.

I had to deal with it at my previous job where corporate IT installed "the
best software available" for checking files on the fly and that was from "a
reputable" company named Cisco. This was used as proxy for everything
including copying files to shared drives so every archive just copied to
shared drive from a Windoze machine got corrupted. We had offices here in
Las Vegas and in Ithaca, NY so it was a nightmare to exchange design files
between offices. Usual hack was renaming those archives to *.pdf so that
stupid software wouldn't touch them (everybody knows that any file named
blah.pdf is a PDF and file extensions always tell what file it is and can't
be faked, right?) but at some point even that failed to work so we had to
resort to overnighting USB sticks with those files. That was easier than to
persuade IT to kill that stupid thing.

It is totally possible they also installed some of those weirdos so they
actually can't open those zip files because they _ALWAYS_ end up corrupted
when sent over the Net. It is difficult to convince IT it is broken because
"everything works fine here" i.e. all office lemmings send their Word and
Excel files without problems.

---
******************************************************************
* KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
* Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *
******************************************************************

 

[Peter]

It was nothing to do with the zipfile.

It was just some people being incredibly stupid.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 3:53 PM, Peter wrote:

It was nothing to do with the zipfile.

It was just some people being incredibly stupid.

Same thing happens in the US all the time, you send an email to someone
whose job it is to handle a thing, you'd imagine they'd do it every day
but they seem confused how to do whatever it is their job is like it's
the first time anyone ever asked.

Or you go to like a UPS or DHL pickup location and the employee doesn't
understand why you're there. "I'd like to pick up my package..."
"package?" "Yeah I have a tracking number..." "tracking number?" and
they stare at the tracking number and the computer confused "Oh right,
package...probably around here somewhere..."

etc.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 3:53 PM, Peter wrote:

It was nothing to do with the zipfile.

It was just some people being incredibly stupid.

You can view it as people being "incredibly stupid" or that in a large
number of jobs other than engineer the employer doesn't want to spend
the money to train the employee how to do the jobs, and the employee
isn't getting paid enough to teach themselves.

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, September 27, 2019 at 5:02:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 9/27/19 3:53 PM, Peter wrote:
It was nothing to do with the zipfile.

It was just some people being incredibly stupid.


You can view it as people being "incredibly stupid" or that in a large
number of jobs other than engineer the employer doesn't want to spend
the money to train the employee how to do the jobs, and the employee
isn't getting paid enough to teach themselves.

I found a bunch of videos on YouTube titled "Malicious Compliance" about employer/employee relations where the company/boss is a dick and are given their comeuppance by doing exactly what they asked for. Often they try hard to explain how bad this may turn out and are given a hard time for trying to be the boss. The worst ones seem to be when the company tries to save money. lol They set such poor rules that things can get pretty bad before they figure it out.

--

Rick C.

- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 1:00 PM, Sergey Kubushyn wrote:

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Apparently your old PCB firm is now fooly populated with idiots if
they cannot even open a zip file.

Send the raw files with the extensions changed on those the email
system barfs on, and instructions to re-name the files. Yeah...
they have the aptitude for that, right? I mean they make precision
PCBs but they can't use a computer.

They might've installed some "security" software from Cisco or whatever else
company that was famous many years ago before it went to the dogs. Those
once famous gurus hired a bunch of idiots named "software engineers" who
have never seen anything but Windoze so their "security" software unpacks
zip (or whatever) archives, checks files inside and repacks them back. The
only small problem is that it treats everything as text and it is Windoze
text so it "fixes" the files by converting 0x0a to 0x0d 0x0a (it is how text
files should be, right?) thus corrupting everything beyond repair. There
might be other mechanisms as well but result is always the same -- all
binary files got corrupted in transit.

I had to deal with it at my previous job where corporate IT installed "the
best software available" for checking files on the fly and that was from "a
reputable" company named Cisco. This was used as proxy for everything
including copying files to shared drives so every archive just copied to
shared drive from a Windoze machine got corrupted. We had offices here in
Las Vegas and in Ithaca, NY so it was a nightmare to exchange design files
between offices. Usual hack was renaming those archives to *.pdf so that
stupid software wouldn't touch them (everybody knows that any file named
blah.pdf is a PDF and file extensions always tell what file it is and can't
be faked, right?) but at some point even that failed to work so we had to
resort to overnighting USB sticks with those files. That was easier than to
persuade IT to kill that stupid thing.

It is totally possible they also installed some of those weirdos so they
actually can't open those zip files because they _ALWAYS_ end up corrupted
when sent over the Net. It is difficult to convince IT it is broken because
"everything works fine here" i.e. all office lemmings send their Word and
Excel files without problems.

---
******************************************************************
* KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
* Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *
******************************************************************

it would be entirely plausible and somewhat hilarious if their software
was right and he was sending them viruses too

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 5:20 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 9/27/19 8:34 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

    They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery.  The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Oops! I read your statement wrong. My apologies. The lack of
contractions made that sentence a little hard to parse. I just turned 40
maybe I need glasses

well it still doesn't make sense but I think I know what was intended.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 8:34 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery. The only turnover is when they accidentally hire in idiot.

Oops! I read your statement wrong. My apologies. The lack of
contractions made that sentence a little hard to parse. I just turned 40
maybe I need glasses

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 5:15 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 9/27/19 8:34 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

    They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery.

?????????????????????????????????????????????

remind me not to sign up to work at your company! lol

 

[bitrex]

On 9/27/19 8:34 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qmkurn$1o9i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

This "polite suggestion" worked with another one yesterday,
although asking to find a Chinese who has worked in the same
company for 2 years is pushing it a bit...

They probably have better numbers than the US for worker tenure.
Just because they do not get paid, does not mean it is not modern day
slavery.

?????????????????????????????????????????????