PROFIblog

Dec 2 2006

News from Nuremberg

loading… There were plenty of press releases pronounced in press conferences at the SPS Drives Show, but the real news was what was waiting to be discovered in conversation in the aisles and booths.  We’ll see how long I stay awake here on the flight home to set down what I learned. PROFINET chips.  Siemens…

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Nov 29 2006

SPS Drives Day 2 in pictures

loading… There was news, too, but for now enjoy the pictorial tour here.

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Nov 28 2006

SPS Drives Show First Looks

loading… SPS Drives in Nuremberg: busy and crowded – the crowds on the first day of the giant automation show started early and kept going all day.  The aisles were crowded.  The PI booth was full all day.  PI is PROFIBUS and PROFINET International, the global association of regional organizations like the PTO.  PROFINET was…

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Nov 25 2006

All Engineers Are Socially Inept!

loading… “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of engineers being stereotyped as socially inept,” says Dan Hebert in “Less math = better engineers” at ControlDesign.com. The author’s point is that engineering curricula should include more electives so engineers have time to have a social life – the resulting people skills will serve them…

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Nov 21 2006

Through the (virtual) magazine pile

loading… My magazine pile is virtual because most of my magazine subscriptions are for the digital version.  Regardless of the virtualness or reality, here are some recommended reads: “Avoiding the Culture of Double Fieldbus” in Control Engineering is a PROFIBUS application story.  A key benefit to the user is the ability to use one fieldbus…

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Nov 9 2006

Klaatu barada nikto! And salad dressing.

loading… Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you. –Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still) So began Eric Cosman’s presentation as part of the Automation World webcast…

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Nov 8 2006

InTech indiscreet

loading… Actually, I mean InTech magazine is also in discrete, not just in process.  Richard Simpson and Greg Hale, publisher and editor of InTech, dropped in to see us today.  If your perception is like mine you think of InTech as strictly a process magazine.  Greg explained that while that is certainly where they came…

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Nov 6 2006

Sneak Preview

loading… Now that the next issue of PROFInews North American Edition has been put to bed, I can pop my head back up into the blogging world again.  The newsletter will hit inboxes Wednesday morning.  (You can subscribe here.) The big news in the newsletter is about SUE, our new little booklet on PROFINET, officially…

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Oct 24 2006

Ending up in Long Beach

loading… Our final PROFINET one-day training event of 2006 concluded earlier today in Long Beach.  The group was a little small but they asked so many good questions we actually ran late – didn’t wheel the bar in until 4:30pm.  We had an IT person in the group again.  That’s always a good sign in…

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Oct 20 2006

In War Everyone Loses, Unless…

loading… In War Everyone Loses, Unless… it’s the “fieldbus wars.”  Greg Dixson of Phoenix Contact made the point that usually in war everyone loses, but in the fieldbus wars, if you picked one, you won.  This was in the one conference session I attended: Ethernet IO.  His point was that there are more similarities among…

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