RSS Feed Keeps Web Visitors Informed
News comes fast at AutomationDirect. While we’d like to think that our Web sites are a daily destination, we know in reality that they are likely just one of the many sites that you visit, and that keeping up with the latest news can be very difficult. To help you stay on top, we’ve begun publishing our own RSS feed. It’s updated any time we have news such as a new product, updated firmware, a new issue of Automation Notebook, and so on. RSS is basically a file format used by Web sites to syndicate news. Using free or inexpensive programs called newsreaders (or “aggregators”), it is possible to track dozens or even hundreds of Web sites for updates in a very small amount of time. Your newsreader automatically scans the RSS feeds you specify, so you don’t have to visit each site individually wondering if anything has changed.
News comes to you on your schedule. RSS feeds (also called “news feeds”) are all over the Web – major media like the New York Times and the BBC all the way down to individual weblogs offer news via RSS. Are you already reading RSS feeds? Subscribe to AutomationDirect’s by putting this link,
https://notify.automationdirect.com/newsletter/news.xml, into your newsreader. If you’re curious and would like to learn more about RSS and newsreaders, this Wall Street Journal column is a good place to start:
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050505.html
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AutomationDirect Exhibits At Isa Show In Mexico
In June, AutomationDirect participated in its third ISA Expo Control show in Mexico City, Mexico. The company has been actively marketing products in Mexico for 3 years, working with a local distributor, Lasso, located in Monterrey. This year’s show was the best so far; many attendees indicated their awareness of AutomationDirect because of the annual trade shows and other marketing campaigns. This year’s booth featured a slide presentation of product highlights, as well as a tutorial on how to use the Web site for selecting and purchasing products. There were also interactive demos and product displays, including PLCs, drives and HMI.
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Nanotechnology For Industry
One of the many technologies that seems to be making the transition from theoretical science to possible practical application is nanotechnology. A combination of engineering and chemistry, this area of research focuses on the manipulation of objects measured in nanometers (a billionth of a meter) or, to help envision the size in practical terms, approximately one fifty-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. Methods developed in the laboratory allow the construction of devices or materials atom-by-atom. Atomic or molecular manipulation is already benefiting many industries, such as medicine, manufactured goods and materials manufacturing. The miniaturization of electronics by scaling down has made those goods smaller and less expensive in recent years, but has just about reached its physical limits. Nanotechnology promises to take the process much further. In the September 2003 issue of IEEE Spectrum, it was reported that the Samsung Group in Seoul, South Korea, had demonstrated a full-color 38-inch display using carbon nanotubes that can handle normal video frame rates. Such a display promises higher resolution, better image quality, and more efficient operation than the best liquid-crystal display or plasma screens on the market today. Applications in other industries include The Gap clothing store, which in 2003 began selling pants impregnated with a new stain-resistant chemical developed with nanotechnology.
For a basic description of nanotechnology and its possible uses, seehttp://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm.
For more detailed information on the science and its progress, visit www.ieee.org and search on “nanotechnology.”
