A Geek’s View of Technology
By john on Jul 18, 2008 | In Home Security, featured | 4 Comments
I’ve had my home security system for a few weeks now, and let me just say - I still love it. While I have had some minor issues with sensor placement, the company (FrontPoint) has been very good, thorough and fast about resolving the issues and helping me be sure I’m getting the best coverage possible.
Popularity: 100% [?]
By john on Jul 11, 2008 | In Apple, featured | No Comments »
Today is the long awaited release day for the iPhone 3G, as well as the day when MobileMe finally shows up and is accessible (while some were able to get to it yesterday, I was not amongst them). It’s also supposedly the release date for the iPhone 2.0 software update release, though an unofficial leaked version was available early yesterday. A few brave souls decided to take the plunge and install the unofficial version - I’m not that daring, especially with a major update like this. And of course, the much anticipated App Store is now officially online as well.
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By john on Jul 10, 2008 | In featured | No Comments »
I wrote in my last post about the structured wiring I am having installed in my house to allow for my home network to properly function. I was pretty stoked about it since it’d give me gigabit networking to all of the important parts of the house. I wasn’t really looking forward to the COST of doing it, but was more than willing to deal with that if it meant getting things done correctly, and well.
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By john on Jul 9, 2008 | In featured | No Comments »
When I first moved into my house (almost two months ago), I didn’t really plan on having a robust home network - and certainly had no plans on doing any network wiring. I planned on having my home office machines wired to an airport extreme base station, and the remainder of my gear using the airport’s wireless capabilities. That initial concept failed to take into account on very important thing: my servers.
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By john on Jul 1, 2008 | In featured | No Comments »
A few weeks ago, while on a business trip to Baltimore, I learned about a service called Evernote that provides software and a web service enabling you to store a “notebook” of data that you want to keep track of. The data can be in the form of web pages you want to save, images you take (of say, business cards or receipts), or written notes. You can then access this data across multiple devices (they have software available for Windows and Mac, as well as some mobile devices), as it’s synced across them.
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By john on Jun 27, 2008 | In featured | No Comments »
Hey everyone - nothing new to really write about technology wise, but I did want to ask for your comments and thoughts.
I’m in the process of preparing to build my home office - and I’m trying to think of “tech” oriented things to include in the design. Since this is my first go at building a home office I thought I’d ask others what they have done that worked out well, and what they’ve done that didn’t work out at all.
If you were going to build a home office - how would you go about it? What kinds of things would you be sure you included?
Either let me know via the comments here, or via email (john at youwillgetavirus.com) - and if you need more info by all means ask!
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By john on Jun 25, 2008 | In Apple, Home Automation, featured | No Comments »
Earlier in the week I mentioned I had a project cooking that I thought was pretty cool. Last night, after I received the last piece of hardware I needed to make it work, I got it all set up and working. This didn’t involve much heavy lifting (none, actually) as I had already done the difficult parts when I set up a proof of concept to show Ann ( my girlfriend, for those who don’t know).
I’ve had it set up for a while such that, when I wake up in the morning I press a button on a keypad (mounted in wall) in my room and my room light comes up slowly - so as to be easy on the eyes - and the bathroom vanity lights turn on. The vent fan is then set on a 5 minute timer to turn on about the time my shower really starts producing steam - and turns itself off after about 15 minutes, ensuring it got all the steam. I press the same button on my way out my bedroom door and the bathroom light shuts off, as does my bedroom light.
Pretty cool way to do things - one button controls everything. It just got cooler.
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By john on Jun 23, 2008 | In Home Automation, featured | 3 Comments
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the home automation gear I’ve been installing in my house, specifically mentioning the Venstar T1700 thermostat I bought. At the time I initially tried to simply replace my existing thermostat with the Venstar, but found I was lacking a very important piece - the common wire. Not to let something like that keep me down, I decided on a new course of action.
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By john on Jun 19, 2008 | In Home Automation, Home Security, featured | 1 Comment »
Last night I wrote how I was disappointed that my home security system’s X10 controls weren’t robust enough to allow me to trigger lights and other actions off of output from the various security sensors in my home. For instance, having lights turn on near a particular door when it opens. I did a cursory inspection of the X10 output from the alarm panel when I triggered these sensors, and saw nothing that would really help me.
It would appear I spoke too soon.
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By john on Jun 18, 2008 | In Home Automation, Home Security, featured | No Comments »
So last night I was able to get some neat stuff going to integrate my alarm system (provided by an awesome company called FrontPoint Security - check them out if you’re looking for an alarm system) using it’s native X10 signaling and my home control server’s ability to understand it.
Tonight I wanted to play around with it to see what all the X10 commands are it sent out - primarily to see if what I would LIKE to do is possible (it’s not, yet).
Popularity: 43% [?]
