Gifts, Reading, Watching, Traveling

I did not get to all that reading I planned to over Christmas vacation.  I did finally start to watch Firefly though*.  That was a gift last August.  My Christmas gifts included a new suitcase, which I’ll put to the test starting tomorrow.  (Don’t check the one-day training event schedule; you haven’t missed one.  Our first one is in Anchorage on February 19.  Mike A is handling that one.  I’m taking my wife to Hawaii again.)

But here are links to some of the recent magazine articles and blogs that I did get to:

An introduction to network topologies from the Ask Charlie blog: “How can ring topology help control networks?  This does not cover a new, clever PROFINET approach to ring topology that does not require a master.  We describe this in our PROFINET one-day training events.

More on stacks: “Not your grandma’s layer cake” is from Gary Mintchell’s blog, responding to my blog on stacks.  An Automation World introduction to the layers in the stack is in “Ethernet Shoulders e-Communications.”  Even more about stacks although not as the main topic in “Industrial Ethernet delivers a networking paradigm.”

I said “Never, Ever Use a Fieldbus” after reading “Crossing the Chasm” at ControlGlobal.com.  Another look at the chasm and how to avoid it, also on ControlGlobal.com, “Yikes! Look out for that Chasm!

*Gene Roddenberry originally pitched Star Trek as “Wagon Train to the stars.”  Firefly is more like “Maverick to the stars.”