You're the top

To be at the top of your industry, you really have to know it inside and out. No doubt you've discovered by now that you can view Design News articles online at www.designnews.com. But visitors may also view the pages of our international magazine, Global Design News (www.globaldn.com), as well as our sister magazine and website co-host Product Design and Development (www.pddnet.com). So if you're looking for articles on semiconductor manufacturing, you're sure to find them in one of the magazines or through Search Engineer, which conducts searches through your choice of the Design News website, the Product Design and Development website, Manufacturing.net, Google.com, or the World Wide Web.

Circle of engineers

When the only help you seek is discussion with fellow control engineers, the Web community on Schneider Automation's site (www.modicon.com) may be able to help. A partnership between Schneider Electric's Automation Business and Control.com, the site allows users to create a new topic of discussion, reply to existing discussions, or read over such topics as SCADA software, remote I/O, servo controllers, and networking protocols. Some of the discussion forums are pulled from the Control.com site, home to an online control engineering community, so that only those issues of interest to Schneider Automation customers are available.

Calculations for free

At Paratherm's website (www.paratherm.com/paracalc.htm), registered visitors can access the ParaCalc(TM) Online tool to calculate thermal fluid systems-related data live. The site gives users the option to download the ParaCalc 5.0 software for Windows or to use its two module features online for free. Module 1 incorporates thermal conductivity, specific heat, specific gravity, density, viscosity, and vapor pressure to calculate physical property versus temperature. Module 2 includes flow velocity, pressure drops, heat transfer coefficient, and Reynolds Number in a variety of flow rates, all configured and reported in a table. The modules use units in both the SI and English systems.

It's the end of the world...and we know it

Many scientists believe that a Near Earth Object (NEO) collided with the Earth 65 million years ago to cause the extinction of dinosaurs. Obviously the dinosaurs received no forewarning. But we are fortunate now to have NASA's Near Earth Object office and its public website, Sentry (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov), which tracks more than 1,800 NEOs at this point. The site features orbit diagrams of asteroids and comets, as well as Earth, so viewers may see just how close some of these NEOs pass us by. The moving diagrams can pinpoint the exact day in the future when a particular NEO will be closest to the Earth. The site is not intended to invoke an Armageddon-like panic in people; according to NASA, they hope that by tracking asteroids, they can avoid predicted impacts by sending up a spacecraft to steer the NEO off its intended course.

Look out for your safety

Flexco offers a Safety & Task Training Program on its "FAQs and Tech Tips" section of the website (www.flexco.com), where visitors may download task overview materials with guidelines and a review quiz. The program covers such tasks as: Lockout/Tagout for hazardous electrical energy control; Clamping a Belt for mechanical splice installation; Cutting a Belt for achieving a straight, square belt end; and Skiving a Belt for countersinking mechanical splicing. Check out the fastener and BCP technical tips to see in-depth guidelines, complete with drawings.