More than a decade ago, I was a site director for an organization called TechOnLine. It was an editorial position, placing me in charge of writing and obtaining articles and product news for both the EmbeddedNet and DSPnet parts of the site. The brand has undergone a number of transitions since then, but has just re-emerged as a library of technology training materials.
Back when TechOnLine started, its purpose was to be an online information resource similar in content to what EDN and related publications provided in print. It was one of the earliest forays into making an Internet-based information resource that was not simply a digitized print magazine. It had high ambitions and some significant challenges in making itself financially viable.
In the first of many evolutionary steps the organization took, upper management decided to move away from an editorial focus and toward an educational one. This meant elimination of editorial positions such as mine, and I moved on to other opportunities. I lost track of the company after that.
Ultimately, the brand was acquired by UBM, the parent company of Microcontroller Central and such former print and now online publications as EDN, Test and Measurement World, and EETimes. UBM has learned much in the intervening decade about how to operate as an online information resource instead of print. It has restructured the TechOnLine brand, giving it a central role as a repository of educational materials. Now, you have a one-stop shop for such things as webinars, tech papers, courses, and videos gleaned from the UBM family of sites.
Like any library, it takes a bit of time to figure out how to find what you are looking for. But not too much time, as there are lots of options for locating what interests you. You can browse by topic, then refine by subtopic or industry. You can browse by vendor, or you can search the site by keyword. Browsing and search results give you options for reordering or filtering the lists to help you quickly narrow things down further. Posting dates give you insight into the currency of materials.
Check out www.techonline.com to see what it has to offer. You can freely browse and search for content to evaluate for yourself what the site can provide you. You will, though, have to register your email address in order to access that content.
Check it out, and let us know what you think.
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