A few weeks ago we upgraded our home security system and added ADT’s Pulse service. In addition to the remote security features (such as being able to monitor, arm, and disarm the system from a browser or an app on my iPhone), Pulse also introduced us to home automation via Z-Wave devices.
Six months ago I got my daughter a refurbished 2nd generation Amazon Kindle from woot! and she has been inseparable from it. Thus, it was a distressing day for her this past Thanksgiving weekend when she turned it on and found just a series of black lines on the screen. None of the reset methods …
Last month I spotted a Fatwallet deal for the Buffalo WZR-HR-G300N gigabit wireless N router ($60 from Amazon with free Prime shipping) that I couldn’t pass up. I didn’t have any wireless N clients and wasn’t having any real problems with my four year-old Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router (running DD-WRT), but hey, cheap new tech, …
Last summer, my mini-tech project was installing some wireless internet cameras inside and outside the house so I could keep tabs on things while I was away. For the past year I’d just been using the built-in features of each of the cameras (motion detection, e-mail alerts, etc.) which was hit-or-miss since each manufacturer offered …
Back in May I spotted a woot! deal for Amazon’s second-generation Kindle e-reader and jumped on it, not for myself (I do my reading on my iOS devices), but as an end-of-the-school-year present for my daughter. We gave it to her on the last day of school in celebration of her straight As report card …
I guess I didn’t write about the TiVo Slide remote when I first got it last October but after going without it for a few days recently I realized how much I like it. The Slide is a combination infrared and Bluetooth remote that works with the TiVo Premiere, TiVo HD, and TiVo Series 3 …
Last week TiVo finally released its iPad app that it had announced back in November. The TiVo® App for iPad is a fun and FREE new companion for your TiVo Premiere box that lets you search, browse, discover and share without ever interrupting what you’re watching. Now you can quickly surface new content, view guides, …
I’ve been pleased so far with my in-house internet cameras and decided I’d like to be able to keep tabs on the outside of the house as well. TRENDnet sells weatherproof enclosures for their cameras but they won’t work with the night-vision models because the IR just reflects off of the glass. I started looking …
Another piece of tech I implemented before we went on our vacation roadtrip was a series of TRENDnet wireless internet cameras so we could keep an eye on the house while we were away.
My Dell OptiPlex Linux server was getting louder and hotter in its old age. For the past three years it has been running 24×7 as my media server in the closet. The fan in the power supply had started to whine (especially when the CPU was maxed), and I already lost one hard drive to …