Katherine Bonfante is senior digital editor for
Control and
ControlDesign. You can email her at
[email protected] or check out her
Google+ profile.Do you remember the last book or article you read? I hope you have been keeping up with your reading because it would worry me if the last meaningful reading you did involved a cereal box, chain email or street sign. I know that work and life are hectic, and the last thing on your mind is making time to grab a book, newspaper or tablet to do some good old reading.
Maybe you don't have the time to pick up the next 50 shades of anything book, but know that ControlDesign.com offers you shortcuts and snippets to read the latest news and trends in the machine builder world.
For example, if you have only a few minutes to read, oh, let's say about 140 characters worth of news, stop by our Twitter account. Using Twitter on your computer or mobile device is a quick way to stay informed. Our tweets vary from news such as "Clippard Receives Appreciation Award From FIRST" to white paper alerts: "Reshape the Way You Do Business With Industrial Ethernet." We even alert you of job openings: "CST is hiring for a field network engineer based in Clovis, Calif."
You can find these tweets and others on our Twitter account, but if Twitter is not your thing, you can also find us on Google+ and Facebook.
Some readers just like to visit our site to get industry news. Our Machine Builder Forum and STEM to the Core blog allow you to do quick reads on industry trends and interesting items, and also chime in with your own perspective.
On STEM to the Core, we recently blogged about Curiosity landing on Mars. During the Olympics, we talked about who the latest and best athletes were. No, we weren't talking about the strongest and most physically fit individuals — we were talking about nerds (see "Nerds Are the New Athletes"). We also touched on how video games can teach our youth about STEM subjects.
Stopping by our Machine Builder Forum gives you the opportunity to share your expertise with your peers. Our latest "Real Answers" question is posted there. Do you know what a PAC is, and does it matter if PLC vendors or PC-based control suppliers say they make PACs?
You can also share your perspective on who really has control of industrial networks. Is it the IT departments or the control engineers? Follow the discussion our editors and readers have started by checking "Is Harmony Really the Exception?"
