Automating my Home with my iPhone

Streaming Media is ONLINE!

bill — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:24:36 +0000

After days of attempting to get my ripped DVDs to play across the network to my DirecTV DVRs, I was ready to give up. I knew that the DVRs would play media streamed over the network (well, at least some), but I couldn’t find ANYONE who could give me a definitive answer as to what [...]

My Pool is on the Road to Automation!

bill — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:28:20 +0000

So apparently, while we were away on a recent trip, our pool timer decided to stop working. So, I took this opportunity to automate the pool. I wanted to do two things – automate the pool light so that I don’t have to go back to the equipment to turn it on, and automate the [...]

I’m Doing .Net Development on a MAC?

bill — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:00:15 +0000

Image via Wikipedia Yep, I did it… I took the plunge and bought a MacBook Pro 17″, along with Parallels software. I’m now doing all of my development in virtual machines on the MBP… and it’s actually faster than running it native on my HP Quad Processor 64bit machine (probably because of the Vista version I [...]

Windows Home Server is here!

bill — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:12:58 +0000

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife Recently, I purchased an HP MediaSmart EX485 running Windows Home Server. What an awesome machine… it comes with 4 internal SATA bays, and an external SATA connection, as well as USB 2.0 ports. The case is very small… basically the size of 5 hard drives high, 6 inches wide and [...]

Boy, was I wrong about that!

Bill — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:57:28 +0000

So, it’s been a little while since I posted. I had a major contract to wrap up, and then the economy came along and put a halt to just about everything. But, now that’s all sorted out – it’s time to focus again on home automation! I attempted to get mControl installed, but strange things [...]

It’s mControl for me!

bill — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:46:00 +0000

Ok, I’ve found the software that I will be using…. it’s mControl from Embedded Automation. This system is written in Microsoft .Net (and I just happen to be a .Net developer)… it also works with all of the devices I already have or plan to purchase. One thing I’ll need to concentrate on is a good [...]

Not gonna wait anymore!

bill — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:32:17 +0000

Well, I think I’ve given the folks at Cinemar MORE than enough time to help setup my MLServer, but their “CIO” has completely blown me off. He was all excited about working with me to get it working so that we could have a case study online of it’s use… but I guess that was [...]

Still waiting…

bill — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:08:13 +0000

Well, I’m still waiting to setup my MLServer. The CIO has promised to connect to my machine and check out the configuration, but to date, I’ve heard nothing from him. I hope this isn’t an indication of how “well” their customer service is. If I don’t have this configured by next weekend, I may have [...]

Setting up the MainLobby Server

bill — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:58:24 +0000

I’ve spent a couple of hours this morning installing and configuring the MainLobby Server by Cinemar on my controller server. It was fairly easy to install – they have a wizard that allows you to choose what parts you want installed, which device drivers you will need, etc. Then it starts downloading and installing. I [...]

My Global Cache GC-100 arrived!

bill — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:02:35 +0000

I just received my Global Cache GC-100 today from Smarthome.com. I’m surprised at how small it is! I’ve already wired it up (simple really – an AC adapter, a network cable, and 3 IR emitters stuck on the front of my TV controller, my Bose 3-2-1, and my DirecTV HR21 DVR). The next step is to [...]