Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

Take an imaginary look at my desk. Just in front of me you can see my laptop with the mouse on the right hand side. The phone and papers are on the left, the pictures of my family are on the back and the coffee mug is on the far right.

That was easy and clear right? Now think you can organize your information in just the way as 3D information organizer. You can use it for personal information or even as a business organizer software.

The Topicscape 3d Organization Software lets you organize your information just the way you like in 3D space. You can have your recent documents in front, your personal data at the back and your financial data high above. Take a quick look at this demo video and consider signing up as beta-testers for the software.

See what other people wrote about 3d mindmapping software review.

Each year the picture.com web site hold a photography contest with great prizes. This year there are over 1,000,000$ in prizes. All you have to do in order to join the photo contest is to submit a picture. You are not obligated to buy anything!

Each year, approximately 400 contest entrants win cash prizes and 1,200 win gift prizes. There is an Annual Grand Prize of $10,000.00. Each individual contest awards a $1,000.00 Grand Prize, forty First Prizes of gifts with a retail value of at least $35.00, four in each category and seventy-three Second Prizes of gifts with a retail value of at least $25.00 each without regard to category.

Free Photography Contest- Enter Now! Win $10, 000!

Do you want to know the ending of the seventh and last Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)? If so just go to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows web site.

Just kidding :) the site does not reveal the ending of the book but it holds an ending contest. There will be two winners. One winner will be selected for coming up with the best ending and the other winner will be selected for coming up with an ending that is most similar to the ending that JK Rowling puts into her book. The first winner of the contest will be selected on the day before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released (July 20th 2007). The second winner will be selected two weeks later after we’ve had the chance to read the book and draw a consensus on the details of the ending. The person who gets the most facts right will be the winner of the second prize. The prizes are 500$ each! You can already see a number of entries right now.

If you want to keep up with the rumors about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Harry Potter rumors site is a place to keep a look at.

Schneider Electric enhances its HMI/SCADA software offering with the introduction of Vijeo™ Citect®, the new supervision software developed in collaboration with Citect Pty Ltd, a Schneider Electric company. Vijeo Citect software is one of the most innovative, high-performing HMI/SCADA products on the market, enabling Schneider Electric to provide its customers with automation solutions that are completely integrated. The unification of Vijeo Citect software in architectures preferred by Schneider Electric guarantees customers high productivity at all stages of system life, from development to maintenance.

“Vijeo Citect software is a scalable, flexible and reliable solution for industrial automation monitoring and control,” said Donna Smalls, HMI/SCADA product manager, Schneider Electric North America. “Its introduction allows Schneider Electric customers to take advantage of solutions that are completely coherent with our entire automation offer, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), HMIs and more.”

Vijeo Citect software responds to all types of production automation, infrastructure or electrical distribution solutions requiring HMI/SCADA. In addition, it meets the requirements of stand-alone control stations as well as redundant supervision systems. The software gives users a permanent and upgradable investment since its unique scalable architecture allows a system to develop over time without the risk of becoming outdated. Users can resize their system up or down without having to modify existing system hardware or software, thus reducing costs.

Reactive and flexible, Vijeo Citect software offers trouble-free development and implementation with turnkey migration services. The software also provides unrivaled redundancy through its task-based architecture and its Distributed Control System (DCS)-type redundancy. The redundancy features are integrated and easy to configure, with the LAN redundancy requiring no setup, and task redundancy setup configured in a few seconds using a simple wizard.

Source and more info: wateronline

Based on the requirements of oil/gas gathering, transportation and distribution industries, Yokogawa’s FAST/TOOLS scada is scalable from less than 100 to more than 1 000 000 I/O points, and supports multiple architectures from single node solutions to multinode client/server systems. The majority of the system’s installed base is in mission critical applications, especially for oil and gas, nuclear, infrastructure and monitoring industries.

Paulo De Sousa Gomes, systems manager at Yokogawa South Africa says: “The secret of this system’s success in critical applications is its reliable design, combined with high performance and on-line configuration capability.”

The design is based on open client/server architecture and supports standards such as ODBC and OPC. This allows users to easily integrate extra functionality in addition to the wide range of standard functions.

Source and more info: instrumentation

RWE, Europe’s second-largest power generator, is stepping up security for the systems that control operations at its UK power stations, and will consider whether to upgrade network security across its 8,000-megawatt generating capacity.

The move is a response to UK government guidelines for members of the critical national infrastructure (CNI) to tighten security in the wake of 9/11, the London bombs and the heightened threat from terrorists and activists. It will also enable RWE npower -the company’s UK arm – to compete more effectively in energy markets.

Source and more info: computerweekly

Power-io has released an improved DMA3-6V75T solid state contactor. This three phase contactors accepts an analog 4-20mA control signal and provides a 3 phase solid state contactor for resistive loads up to 25 or 35 amps/phase. The contactor converts the analog input into a high speed time proportional output that is directly compatible with most PLCs or SCADA systems. The switched outputs are zero-crossing solid state back-to-back thyristors for long life and minimum electronic noise.

Source and more info: thomasne

NSW government-owned water services corporation Sydney Water will replace its existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) infrastructure at five water filtration plants during the next twelve months.

SCADA systems are used by Sydney Water to monitor and control the operation of water and wastewater treatment plants. They typically comprise instrumentation, control equipment, local and wide-area communication networks, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and workstations and servers.

An interface is provided to integrate local SCADA system data into Sydney Water’s integrated instrumentation, control, automation and telemetry system (IICATS).

Sydney Water’s Cascade and Orchard Hills sites comprise a cluster of five water filtration plants (WFPs) in the western Sydney suburbs of Nepean, Warragamba, and North Richmond.

The Cascade and Orchard Hills WFPs, which are linked, were both commissioned in late 1993 and by Sydney Water’s own admission its PLC and SCADA networks “have insufficient redundancy or capacity to add new process sequences”.

“Also the existing PLCs are obsolete and procurement of spares is a major problem,” according to one tender document.

Recent projects at both WFPs have increased the loading and functionality on the existing SCADA systems resulting in “slow screen updates”. Consequently, the slow network speed has “created major delays” in diagnosing and fixing problems at WFPs.

“The existing network architecture is of obsolete technology and is not compatible with proposed modern PLCs.”

The Orchard Hills site contains 21 PLCs throughout the plant. The SCADA system consists of one primary server and another secondary server providing control and monitoring of both the WFP and pumping station.

The Cascade WFP contains 16 PLCs and the SCADA system consists of one global server and another local server to control the WFP and the clear water pumping and delivery system.

A key driving factor for the upgrade is the increasing difficulty of support for existing PLCs, according to Sydney Water.

Source and more info: computerworld