December 18, 2023

Engineers Salaries 2023

 Electronics Design magazine published its annual salary and career survey. About 70% of the engineers said that engineering is still a secure career, and is as promising a career path as it used to be. And what good for the engineers, is the engineering shortage remains: it is difficult to hire people for new positions, with most companies seeking at least 3-5 years of experience for new hires.  According to a report from Oxford Economics, around 1.4 million engineering jobs will remain open by 2030 in the US. What not so good is 52% companies are already evaluating use of artificial intelligence for the designs. Which means very soon some jobs may be replaced by AI.

What professions are the most wanted? The survey says software and system engineers are the two most often-mentioned jobs needed, but generally there are needs for engineers in all design areas.  All electronic systems obviously need power. Not surprisingly, among all technologies, power management has the main design impact. 

How much engineers are making? 66% of engineers said they had direct compensation $100,000 or more. At this, 53% are making between $100,000 and $200,000. Not bad? In addition to the base salary, 72% of engineers got some kind of bonus. Especially for smaller manufacturers, profit sharing can be a big part of compensation package.

The bottom line is, if you are technically inclined, becoming an engineer can be a right way for you to go.

December 23, 2022

Message Could Not be Displayed WLM Encountered an Unexpected Problem While Displaying this Message: How To Fix

After upgrading Windows, Windows Live mail app may stop showing the content of the messages. When you try opening an email it will display this error message: "Message could not be displayed. WLM encountered an unexpected problem while displaying this message. Check your computer for low memory or low disk space and try again." 

Here is what you may do to fix it (it worked for me when I upgraded to Windows 11). In short, you need to add these three DWORD entries into the registry: 
RecreateFolderIndex   1 
RecreateStreamIndex  1 
RecreateUIDLIndex    1 

I'll show you step by step how to do it. But first, I want to remind you that if you modify the registry incorrectly the system may become unstable. Therefore, to be on a safe side backup the registry before you modify it. You can then restore it if you did it wrong. Here is a link on how to backup registry . The best thing is to let a computer pro do it for you. Otherwise, you do it at your own risk: see my Disclaimer.

1. To edit registry open search box from START menu and type RUN. In the RUN dialogue type “regedit” and hit OK (you may need administrative rights to open regedit).
 



2. Once you opened the registry navigate to the following folder and click on it:

   Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

3. Select EDIT>NEW>32 Bit DWORD
4. Name the newly created key: RecreateFolderIndex
5. Right click on this key and select MODIFY.
6. In the open dialog "Value Data" change from 0 to 1.
7. Repeat steps 3-6 for RecreateStreamIndex and RecreateUIDLIndex 
8. Close REGEDIT.
8. Close Windows Live Mail and re-open.

Note. If your registry already have the above three keys, you just need to modify their value from 0 to 1.
The content of the emails should now appear (you may also need to restart the computer).

August 7, 2022

How Power Over Ethernet (PoE) Works

Knowing how annoying it can be to watch long videos when all you want is a quick explanation, I put up a How PoE Works video, in which basic principles of PoE operation are explained in less than two minutes. Learn how power can be superimposed onto data pairs in ethernet cables.



July 31, 2022

What is Power Over Ethernet (poe)

If you have ever wondered about Power Over Ethernet (PoE), here is a quick technical explanation. If you want to calculate the PoE system, get this app.

March 27, 2022

Intel ATX 3.0 PC Power Supply Specification

19 years after publishing ATX2 power supply standard (a.k.a ATX12V2), Intel has released new ATX 3.0 Multi Rail Desktop Platform Power Supply specification. The main innovation in ATX 3.0 is new auxiliary 12VHPWR connector intended for next generation hardware, such as PCIe 5.0 desktop graphics cards. This connector can provide up to 600W on 12V bus directly to a graphic card. In addition, auxiliary "sideband" pins can communicate to the card the available power of PSU, and can also provide some communication back from the card to the PSU. 

For the details of the new spec, pinout of 12VHPWR connector and designation of the sideband control signals, see our review of ATX 3.0 Connectors and Pinout.

12VHPWR connector