1. WSN Blog
If you're trying to stay current on the happenings in the wireless sensor network (WSN) world, here's a suggestion: read the WSN Blog. Maintained by three WSN researchers—Marco Zennaro, Claro Noda, and Muneeb Ali—the blog contains notes about upcoming conferences, books, installations, and products. The blog has been in existence, covering the developing technology and its applications, for the last two years. Be sure to check out the links in the right hand sidebar to visit the Web sites of the various WSN research groups and projects.
2. Industrial Ethernet Resource
Published in the U.K., the Industrial Ethernet Book is a magazine devoted to industrial networking, with a focus on industrial Ethernet. Here, I'm highlighting its Web site, where you can find articles on networking standards and implementation, case studies, and lists of networking products. Add it to your list of handy online resources!
3. Rube Goldberg Machines
I love the Internet. On the one hand, it's like having a huge reference library at your fingertips (as long as you're picky about your sources) and, on the other hand, it's a source of little entertainments to brighten your day. Take YouTube, that vast repository of animations, music videos, snippets of movies or TV shows, and film of people showing off. Should you have some time on your hands (and a tolerance for terrible video quality) how about watching some of these videos of Rube Goldberg machines and revel in the cleverness and creativity.
New to Bookshelves
Precision Spindle Metrology
Author: Eric R. Marsh
Publisher: DEStech Publications Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-932078-77-0
Page count: 162
This hardcover book discusses how to measure machine tool and instrument spindles, and is intended to help interested parties to identify and correct problems and achieve better performance. The author, who's researched this topic for years, wrote the book in cooperation with two professional instrumentation companies: Lion Precision and Professional Instruments, so he knows whereof he writes.
There are six chapters, a bibliography, and an index. In order, the chapters are the Introduction, Spindle Metrology Concepts, Test Instrumentation, Data Analysis, Production Equipment Case Studies, and Applications.
The spindle metrology chapter includes explanations of spindle metrology fundamentals, how to classify spatial measurements, and classification of different types of errors. The test instrumentation chapter includes discussions of various types of sensors and data acquisition, processing, and storage hardware while the data analysis chapter talks about filtering, data processing, and how to separate out the various types of error.
The text contains a wealth of figures and diagrams, in both black and white and color, and in several of the chapters the author has included a case study to more clearly illustrate the concepts discussed. If you are concerned with the efficient and accurate operation of spindles and want to learn what to measure, how to measure, and how to make sense of your results, then this is the book for you.