Software and soldering irons

Over the weekend, I tried to repair a USB thumb drive that contains years worth of files. The drive was inserted into a laptop and the power cord got wound around the drive. A tug of the cord resulted in the connector bending and breaking its leads off the drive’s circuit board. I opened the case and tried soldering the leads back onto the board, but my soldering iron’s tip was too large for such a small space. Fortunately, I regularly back up the drive. Only a few files were missing since the last backup and were in my sent mail box. In the end, nothing was lost.

Speaking of soldering irons, electronics engineers, technicains, hobbyists, and ham-radio operators aren’t the only people who use soldering irons. Believe it or not, some software engineers are getting into the act. In an article in today’s Boston Globe, some programmers took a course this weekend at Microsoft’s Startup labs in Cambridge, MA.

According to the article, "Jimmie Rodgers demonstrated how to cut a resister off a small circuit board." The reporter needs to take the class as well.