FAQs about Etherwire

1. What is Etherwire?
Etherwire is a virtual forum dedicated to the ever growing technology of Industrial Ethernet. Built on a standards-compliant platform, it is owned/ administered by Kazio Networks, an industrial network services company based in Leesport, Pennsylvania.

2. What is Etherwire's purpose?
Etherwire's purpose is to be a non biased resource for Industrial Ethernet discussions, to help all engineers/ technical personnel get quick answers and sound advice globally.

3. Is Etherwire free?
Yes, it is a free resource of information.

4. Do I have a limit of how many questions or discussions I can post?
You can post and answer as many questions as you like. However, each answer/ reply is limited to 5000 characters only (the equivalent of 20 double sides pages).

5. What functions does this forum have?
Users can currently bookmark discussions within their account, bookmark and spread the word with other social media outlets using the Sharethis option, automatically tweet a discussion on twitter, filter unanswered discussions, quickly search for answers using a powerful tag based search engine and communicate with an author via a "whisper".

6. What is a "whisper" and how do I use it?
A whisper is a way to privately communicate with a forum author or user. A person receiving a whisper will be notified with a short message when they log into their account. In each authored post, there is a "whisper" option located on the right side of the discussion title. Clicking on it will automatically insert the authors name in your comment form's whisper field. You can then type your comment and submit it. Whisper posts are shown visually with a different color. When using this feature, we ask that you refrain from sending out confidential information, respect the privacy of the person you are whispering to and adhere to the forum rules/ guidelines.

7. How can I follow the discussions posted on Etherwire?
You can either bookmark a discussion within your account or another social media outlet (using Sharethis), subscribe using a RSS reader or follow the discussions using twitter. We currently use tweetmeme to group discussions on twitter.

8. Why do I have to register to post a comment or participate in a discussion?
We would need to know that you are a real person, not a spam bot or a spammer. In addition, registering allows us to monitor the forum more effectively with automated bots and minimal human administration.

9. What makes Etherwire different from another forum?
Etherwire covers a highly specialized technology niche within the engineering and manufacturing world. It is a simplistic forum with an emphasis on content, quality and non biased discussions.

10. Can I reuse and reference the discussions within the forum?
Yes, you can copy, reuse and transmit all discussions within the forum with proper reference of its author. In some cases, there may be specific copyrights and trademarks which have to be respected. Please refer to the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License of which this forum abides to.

11. In posts and discussions, what is that picture next to my profile name and how do I change it?
It is called a Gravatar. Gravatar is a universal picture that appears beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. It is linked to your email address and helps identify your posts on any blog and web forum on the web. To change it, sign up for gravatar and upload your picture profile here. Make sure you sign up with with the same email or else it will not propagate to this site. As it is universal, another site supporting Gravatar will display the same picture when you comment or post on the site.