-------------------------Monitor------------------------ The Newsletter for PC-Based Data Acquisition and Control Issue 102 www.windmill.co.uk January 2007 --------------------ISSN 1472-0221---------------------- Happy New Year and thank you for reading Monitor. This month we would be very grateful if you could complete a short survey to help us improve the newsletter and our service. It also gives you a chance to comment on our performance or anything else you'd like to talk to us about. Should you wish to cancel your subscription, you can do so at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html CONTENTS ======== * New Year Survey * Excel Corner: Editing the Same Cell in Several Sheets * DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ New Year Survey ________________________________________________________ As an aid to improving Monitor, and our technical support service, we are seeking your views. We would be very grateful if you could answer these few questions. All information is confidential and won't be passed to any third parties. Miss out any questions you don't want to answer.________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Excel Corner: Editing the Same Cell in Several Sheets ________________________________________________________ Often all worksheets in a workbook will have the same structure. Imagine you are logging data every hour each day. Each worksheet contains a day's data, and there are seven sheets in a workbook. The sheets all have the same number of rows and columns (Time, Channel 1, Channel 2, etc). In a situation like this it is easy to simultaneously modify a particular cell in each worksheet. 1. Select all the worksheets in a workbook: right-click a sheet tab then click Select All Sheets on the shortcut menu. Excel shows [Group] in its title bar. 2. Make your changes to one of the worksheets. The changes are automatically made on every other sheet selected as well. 3. De-select the worksheets by moving to one of the other sheets. The changes you made on the first sheet will be made on all selected sheets. For more tips on using Excel for data acquisition and analysis see https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/ https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/excel-charting.html ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ Welcome to our roundup of the latest data acquisition and control news. If you would like to receive more timely DAQ news updates then grab our RSS newsfeed at https://www.windmillsoft.com/monitor.xml. Read https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsfeed.php for notes on how to display the news on your own web site, read it via e-mail or through a newsfeed viewer. Tool Helps Write Rules for XML Communication XML allows computers to exchange information and act on it. Rules called schemas that stipulate precisely the type of information included in the document and how to handle it are critical to XML communication. Every month thousands of new schemas are introduced. Not all of them, however, are precise enough to transmit the needed information without misunderstandings. NIST have just released a tool to help people develop well thought out schemas that are easy to understand, implement, maintain and expand. A test site contains sets of design rules for schemas as well as tests for the rules. Visitors to the site can use the rules to check whether a schema that they are developing or using meets good XML communication guidelines. Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology https://www.nist.gov/ Ethernet Leading Growth in Industrial Networking Growth in the world market for industrial networking is being driven by a substantial increase in the use of Ethernet based technologies, according to a new report from IMS Research. The report predicts average annual growth of 13% over the next 5 years. in terms of nodes installed. Over the same period Ethernet based protocols are forecast to grow at the substantially higher annual rate of 20.3%. Source: IMS Research https://technology.ihs.com/members/pr.asp?X=328 Vibrations could Reveal Landmine Locations A new acoustic sensor system is capable of spotting hidden landmines at distances of up to 30 metres. The acoustic array, about the size and shape of a dart board and studded with small canisters, emits a concentrated beam of sound waves at ultrasonic frequencies that is aimed at the minefield. Through a process known as self demodulation, the air in front of the beam converts the ultrasound to audible sound as it travels over a distance of about 10 metres. Unlike ultrasound, audible sound can travel through the ground. When the highly concentrated sound waves hit a solid object, they cause it to vibrate. The vibrations make their way to the surface where they are detected by a laser system. Source: New Scientist http://www.newscientisttech.com/ Smallest GPS Chip Developed Infineon Technologies AG and Global Locate, Inc. have developed the smallest Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver chip for mobile devices. The chip measures 3.74 mm x 3.59 mm x 0.6 mm, for a total footprint of less than 14 mm squared. Source infineon http://www.infineon.com/ Intel Reveals New Transistor Technology Intel are using new materials for its next generation chips. Silicon dioxide has been used to make the transistor gate dielectric for more than 40 years. Continued shrinkage has led to increased current leakage, resulting in wasted electric current and unnecessary heat. For their new chips Intel are usine a new material with a property called high-k, for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode. http://www.intel.com/pressroom/ Optical sensor detects viruses fast Scientists at the University of Twente in The Netherlands have developed an ultrasensitive sensor that can be used in a handheld device to detect various viruses and measure their concentration. The sensor could be used to quickly screen people at hospitals, airports and emergency clinics to control outbreaks of diseases such as SARS and bird flu. Source: University of Twente http://www.utwente.nl/ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ * Copyright Windmill Software Ltd * Reprinting permitted with this notice included * For more articles see https://www.windmill.co.uk We are happy for you to copy and distribute this newsletter, and use extracts from it on your own web site or publication, providing the above notice is included and a link back to our website is in place. An archive of previous issues is at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html and an index of articles at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html Windmill Software Ltd, PO Box 58, North District Office, Manchester, M8 8QR, UK Telephone: +44 (0)161 834 6688 Facsimile: +44 (0)161 833 2190 E-mail: monitor@windmillsoft.com https://www.windmill.co.uk/ https://www.windmillsoft.com/ Do you have a question, comment or suggestion on this newsletter? Fill in this form to contact the editor.
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23 January 2007
