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