Category — General Commentary

My blog plans for 2010 are my blog hopes for 2010 because it will  be challenging to do them all.

What I’d really like to do:

1. More software development posts, including real world examples of what can go wrong (and right — but wrong is more funny)
2. Finish my current PCB series
3. Start a series on real world system integration using CANOpen and AMC DX15C08 servo drives
4. Improve the site, including adding a blogroll and maybe changing the theme

Other hopes include:

1. A bit more on mechanical CAD software
2. More automation product posts
3. Embedded development experiences with my new toy (and how it could be useful in a factory environment)
4. Get rid of my backlog of draft posts (currently > 30)

For my Factory Software Blog projects, the winner is Mouser.

It’s easy for me to order from catalog distributors like Mouser and Digikey, and with their wide range of products, I can get almost everything I need from either one, which is convenient and saves on shipping.  Both have excellent search engines that really help pinpoint the products I need.

Mouser’s result pages are prettier than Digikey’s, but that’s not all.  Mouser shows volume pricing on the result page, allow you to sort by price, and allow you to continue to filter even with less than one page of results.  Typically Mouser is a bit cheaper than Digikey (though not always).

The real reason I’ve done all my Factory Software Blog ordering from Mouser is that that I’ve been choosing a lot of Phoenix Contact Combicon PCB connectors for various interface PCB boards, and Mouser stocks a much wider variety of Combicon components than Digikey.  Digikey won’t sell many Combicon parts in single quantities: you have to buy the whole pack (e.g. 10 parts or 50 parts).   Ugh!

Newark also has a good range of parts but is often pricier than Mouser (although I’ve heard that prices can be negotiated).  Allied Electronics has a better selection of industrial products (such as pneumatics).  But the big problem with both: their search engines are terrible.

One reader puts in a good word for Premier Farnell’s new social forum site.  It might be great, along with other such forums (e.g. TI E2E, ADI’s new one, CNCZone, Control Engineering’s LinkedIn and Facebook groups, etc), but I’m not interested in forums right now.  Been there, done that.

The jumbo distributors like Arrow and Avnet do have the widest range of electronics, but aren’t as friendly to individuals.  Neither are local automation distributors (although I’ve bought a couple items from them), but they typically do have better prices and service than the catalog distributors.  So I use them a lot at work, but they’re too much of a hassle for my Factory Software Blog projects.

It’s not worth it.

Based on my traffic, adding advertising would just about cover my hosting costs, which aren’t a big expense anyway.  But advertising would add a lot of annoying distractions.  The only thing I might eventually add is a referral link for my hosting company, Webfaction, since I’ve been very happy with them.

My big expense is the hardware and software I buy, play with, and then write about here. I’ve spent a lot more on CANOpen servo drives, CAN interfaces, Alibre Design, VX Innovator, connectors, breakout boards, and PCBs than I have spent on hosting.

I have not received any money or gifts for this blog, and will not accept any money.  There are some sample products that I’ve received for free (actually, work related, not blog related freebies) that I will write about, but I will make it clear when the product was a free sample, not something I bought.

One of my biggest costs is the time I spend here: each blog post does take a substantial amount of time to write, typically much more than I expect.  My drafts have an annoying way of expanding.   I don’t plan on taking quitting, but since blogging comes after family and work, at times new posts might take a while to appear.

Premier Farnell, a major electronics distributor (subsidiaries include Newark and Farnell), has purchased Cadsoft Computer, developer of Eagle PCB.

If you’re interested in the financial details, go to the press release.   Since I use Eagle as my primary PCB design program, I’m interested in what might happen to Eagle.

Companies in another business that buy a company for “synergy” often destroy the business; examples include Exxon buying Zilog.  It looks like Premier Farnell is buying Cadsoft to increase their business, by increasing the integration between Eagle PCB and their distributor companies (e.g. so it’s very easy to specify and order parts from Newark in an Eagle design), similar to what Sunstone, Digikey, and NXP are doing with PCB123.

I am curious to see what changes the new owners will make.  Will they continue to invest in Eagle PCB to make it better?  Will they change the current pricing?

By default, the middle button on my Thinkpad’s  Trackpoint is set to a proprietary scroll mode.  This proprietary scroll mode doesn’t work in many applications (although sometimes changing config files can fix that), but the real problem is that I need the Trackpoint to act like a three button mouse.

For example, in CoCreate PE, I need all three buttons to easily manipulate the model: Ctrl+Right mouse button pans, Ctrl+Left zooms, and Ctrl+Middle rotates.

At least in Windows Vista, the Trackpoint configuration page  is not a model of clarity, but after some googling and playing around, I’ve found two configurations that make the  center Trackpoint button work like the middle button of a 3-button mouse.

The TrackPoint setup is a page on the Mouse Control Panel applet.

Trackpoint Setup

The first configuration is to select Neither for the Choose Scrolling or Magnifying Glass Functions.  Then the middle Trackpoint button works like a middle mouse button, but there is no extra scroll mode.

The second configuration is to select Scrolling for the Choose Scrolling or Magnifying Glass Functions, then press the Settings button, and select Smooth for the Scrollling Type. This is my favorite, since I can use the center button  both as a third button, and also to scroll horizontally and vertically.

Center Button settings

I’ve just passed the two year point (and 75 posts) on this blog, still averaging about a post every ten days.

My plan for the immediate future is for more on CANOpen and PCBs, partly because that is what I am working on for other projects.  I may also add some embedded adventures, which isn’t directly related to factory automation, but I’ve always been interested in embedded computing — and embedded computing is the foundation of industrial automation.

I haven’t forgotten about other areas; I will still write about other topics such as using version control.

I do need to spend some time upgrading the site itself – but I have no plans for adding advertisements.  They wouldn’t bring in enough money to be worth the hassle (web hosting is an incredible deal – I’m paying less than $8/month).

I am still thankful for all the useful information I’ve found at other blogs, and I hope I’ve helped some people out with this blog.

Following Tom’s suggestion, I’ve added the Subscribe to Comments plug-in so you can be e-mailed when someone responds to your comments.  If you have problems with this feature, please add a comment here.

I’ve also added a page to provide a central place listing posts with on-going discussions.  I’m considering adding some posts just for discussion; for example, I could add a new post just for discussing air bearings.

In the not too distant future, I will look at further improving feedback options.  I do not like options that require casual visitors to register, either to comment or with a third party site such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

I’m also not a big forum fan — about the only forum software I liked was the old pre-2000 InfoWord Electric forums.  In general, I think most forum software does not promote good discussions.  On the other hand, I’ve seen mailing lists work very well.

I think wikis are excellent for some types of information, such as structured reference content (the air bearing discussion is a good candidate).  That’s why I added a trac server to this site — but it needs upgrading.

As always, I’m open to suggestions.

So I’ve finally reached 50 published posts, at a rate of about a post every 10 ten days – not bad, considering how busy I’ve been.

I’ve made a small site change – my trac and subversion sites are now on http, not on https.  Https wasn’t really necessary, and as I plan on making better use of these sites I decided the hassles of secure sites weren’t really worth it.

I’m still going to stay off politics, but it does amaze me that many (most?) people are perplexed by the current financial crisis.  Although the exact details couldn’t be predicted, the fact that the US had a housing bubble in 2004 was obvious to anyone who looked clearly at the facts (house prices were going up faster than the fundamentals, e.g. medium house price versus medium income, house price versus rent, etc).  It was also obvious that many of the loans (e.g. Interest Only, Neg-Am, Option-ARM) were never going to be repaid, as they relied on house prices increasing.

Anyone who has lived in Silicon Valley since 1998 definitely has no excuse for getting caught up in the housing bubble after seeing the rise, the hype ("it’s the new dot-com economy and the old rules don’t apply"), and fall of the dot-bomb bubble.

And, yes, being able to see bubbles has practical applications; for one, chasing the latest bubble isn’t the best career path.

If you want to see the craziness that was going on, and the fact that some people called the bubble in 2004 or earlier , look at the archives at the Housing Bubble Blog or Housing Bubble Casualty.  Christopher Thornberg was one of the few economists to get it right.  Finally, it’s important to note that the housing bubble is in fact world wide (UK, Spain, China, etc) and started first outside the US.

Tony 

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a couple companion sites that use a secure connection (https). But when you go to these sites, you get an error message from the browser. Basically, what is happening is this:

1. A secure session needs a security certificate.
2. My sites are using my hosting company’s certificate (located at webfaction.com)
3. But my sites have their own domain (e.g. trac.factoryswblog.org) which does not match the certificate’s domain (e.g. web13.webfaction.com)
4. So the browser displays a message, because if I were running an e-commerce site, you should be concerned (and not do any business with me until the problem is fixed).
5. But I’m not running a business (and do not want to spend the extra money for a fixed IP address and my own security certificate), so you can trust me and accept the certificate. With Firefox 3, you can add a permanent exception (so the security message only appears the first time), unlike Firefox 2, IE6, and Opera, where the message appears every time you visit.

Here are some pictures of what happens (other browsers should be similar):

Firefox 2

Press the OK button to view my site.

Internet Explorer 6

Press the Yes button to view my site.

Firefox 3

You need to add an exception, so start by pressing the Or you can add an exception… link

which brings up the display below.  Click on the Add Exception button.

which brings up this dialog.  Press the Get Certificate button.

Now we’re almost done.  Press the Confirm Security Exception button, and Firefox 3 won’t bother you any more (assuming you have left Permanently store this exception checked).

Tony