Engineered Systems - October 2008 - (Page 6)

Editor’sNote BY ROBERT BEVERLY EXTREME HOMEPAGE Makeover! All the news that’s fit to byte. After a complex construction/testing process that involved a large R&D budget, several months’ work by internet experts, and some handy high-speed testing assistance from the folks at the Hadron Collider, our website redesign is complete. Take a moment for the the fifty-cent tour, won’t you? YOU CAN’T SPELL ‘PRODUCTIVE’ WITHOUT ‘PRODUCT’ When we did our usual reader research last year, a theme emerged about what people want from our website: more new product info. This made perfect sense, so you’ll notice this change right away. The first thing you’ll see is our new Product Spotlight, a showcase gallery featuring images and quick summaries for a few rotating products. Click on the photo, and you proceed to the item’s dedicated page with more details. You can also follow the Product Info tab under the Current Issue menu. That will take you to a list of what is in the current issue’s Products section, along with an option to check a box to receive additional info for any of those. While that’s great, we get a lot of product releases. Very, very many. So we’ve built a new Product page as an online exclusive. Here, we can post photos and descriptions for any number of products as we receive the releases. Sure, some of them will make it into subsequent print issues. But with this page, we eliminate that pesky lag time between getting info and delivering the magazine to your door. We also eliminate the annoying length constraints of a hard copy issue. We can toss these online faster than you can say “exhaust recovery and condenser reactivation desiccant,” and you can be specifying or purchasing the latest and greatest in HVAC advancements before the competition knows they exist. And isn’t that the idea? BIG-TIME BLOGGING Some of you have already noticed that we’ve ramped up our blog, too. You’ll see a few new posts each week, and not just featuring tidbits and insights from managing editor Caroline Fritz and me. Kevin Heslin, who helps us out 6 En gi neer ed Sy stem s and is also the editor of Mission Critical magazine, writes weekly on developments in the fast-paced MC world. We’ve also welcomed the latest addition to our blogging roster, Tim Fausch. Tim is the publishing director for BNP Media’s Architecture, Engineering & Construction, and Mechanical Systems groups. He’s been following the construction field for 27 years, so he is full of good comment and insight as he weighs in on the trends and concerns affecting the business side of the business. You know what I mean. The blog is its own page, but to streamline your experience, we’ve created a box on the homepage. This box lists the headlines an dates of the last blog entries by each of the four of us. You can give it a glance, and click through to what’s new. That’s more info and opinion faster than we could ever get it into print (along with reader comments), with a lot of it available on the blog and nowhere else. OLD AND NEW While we like to emphasize the Web-only content you can now peruse, of course you can still access the contents of the current issue as well as the online archives. We’ve removed those old registration requirements to make that a simpler experience, too. At the bottom of the page, we’re posting handy top ten lists for Most E-Mailed Articles, Top Searches, and Most Popular. That’s another way to see what’s making the rounds and to make the most of engineering value stashed away in articles from months gone by. Finally, you can tack on stuff like a burgeoning Web-only White Papers section, Issues & Events updates posted by yours truly, the Back2Basics solutions, podcasts, archived webinars, e-newsletter signups, and a constantly updated Lexis Nexis industry news box. There’s even our digital edition for those who want that page-turning, print-magazine experience (except with handy hyperlinks and search functions). At its essence, the best part is that you get more content than ever, more frequently than ever. Do stop by when you have a minute, that concludes our tour, and don’t forget to visit our gift shop on the way out. ES Industry Calendar OCTOBER 16-18 AMCA International 2008 Annual Meeting Air Movement & Control Association Savannah, GA. For info, visit www.amca.org. NOVEMBER 6 Workshop On Improving Data Center Energy Efficiency ASHRAE/NYSERDA New York. For info, visit www.ashrae.org/education/page/1578. NOVEMBER 12-13 AFEC Conference 2008 Advanced Facilities Management & Engineering Conference Denver. For info, visit www.afec.biz. NOVEMBER 16-18 AHRI First Annual Meeting Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute Carlsbad, CA. For info, visit www.ari.org. DECEMBER 11 Datacenter Dynamics Dallas. For info, visit www.datacenterdynamics.com. ES Webinars All webinars are free. Registration and archives at http://webinars.esmagazine.com DECEMBER 17 Back2Basics, Vol 5: 3-Story Dormitory Howard McKew, P.E. and Amanda McKew Sponsored by Danfoss October 2008 http://www.amca.org http://www.ashrae.org/education/page/1578 http://www.afec.biz http://www.ari.org http://www.datacenterdynamics.com http://webinars.esmagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Engineered Systems - October 2008

Engineered Systems - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Letters Back2Basics HVAC Challenge Case in Point Commissioning Building Automation HydroTech HVACR Designer Tips Special Insert: Engineer's Technical Library Fall 2008 Living Wild! Chilled Beams in Chicago Phoenix Convention Center: On The Rise Cold-Climate HVAC Challenges Humidification Strategies For Data Centers & Network Rooms Special Advertising Supplement: Tabb Talk Computers & Software Issues & Events Products Literature & Catalogs Glossary Classifieds Advertiser Index Tomorrow’s Environment

Engineered Systems - October 2008

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