Author: rakesh

One of my weekend projects a few months ago was making it so I could open the garage door on my house with my iPhone. Here’s how I got it working.

First, a quick demo of the final product. Once I got everything working, using this thing is pretty simply. I launch X10 Commander on my iPhone:

Then I tap the “ON” button with my finger and after a small lag (1 second?), my garage door…

…springs open! (or closes).

“Who cares?” you ask… well, having my iPhone to control my garage means:

• I can be in a car that doesn’t have my garage code programmed into it and open/close my garage (e.g. a friend’s car)
• I can go out for a walk or a run, close the garage door behind me and open it again when I get back home
• Generally speaking, it’s one less box to worry about when I go out
• I can open and close my garage door from my iPhone… just for the sheer pleasure of the act
• And of course, I have a cool thing to show friends when they come over. 🙂

 

So how does this all work?  Pay attention because it’s a somewhat long-winded chain of events that makes X10 Commander control my garage door (almost a Rube Goldberg machine!):

1. I have the X10 Commander iPhone App installed on my iPhone (link, $9.99):

2. It talks, over my home wi-fi network (a pair of D-Link DIR-655s setup as access points), to the X10 Commander “Server” software I have running on an always-on Windows XP PC upstairs in my home office:

3. The X10 Commander Server software talks to an USB to RF X10 interface (the X10 CM19A)dongle on the same Windows XP PC:

4. That dongle on my computer talks to an RF to X10 interface device (the X10 TM751) plugged into a nearby power outlet:

5. Now we move downstairs to the garage where I have an X10 controller for low-voltage devices (an X10 PUM01) plugged into another home power outlet:

6. And the terminals on the X10 low-voltage control device are spliced into the control wires for the garage door opener:

7. And the control wires are, obviously, connected to the garage door opener which opens my garage:

And that’s it!

It’s all run pretty reliably for a couple of months now and never fails to impress.  Surprisingly the most fragile piece has NOT been the Windows XP PC (would have been my first guess), but the  TM751 (step 4 above).  Because it’s connected to a childproofed power outlet and it’s at the entrance to my home office, if it’s ever brushed by a passing child, a the cuff of my pant, or a projectile toy, it easily loses contact.  But even this hasn’t been a big deal — I can only remember one occasion where the whole thing hasn’t worked since I set it up.

Another tip: A lot of the X10 stuff can be found on eBay and elsewhere online at pretty low prices.  The $$$ savings are nice and I personally make an effort to avoid buying anything from X10.com thanks to their <BLINK>WOW!! DO WE HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU!!</BLINK> style of website design and ecommerce tactics (not to mention that almost every page on their site starts a video with audio and then there are the bikini-clad women being spied on and… sigh, I should just stop. Please tell me you won’t spend any of your money at X10.com?).

We lost track of time on our bike ride and got their late, but luckily tofu13 got a nice video. A friend of mine that lives in the building behind the Compass Bank Building (the video has shots of some people on their balconies in the same building) said the implosion shook his building and woke him up.

I happened to be on Post Oak (near the Galleria) earlier this morning and I had my camera with me so I took some photographs of the Compass Bank that’s Houstonist reported is going to be demolished tomorrow, Sunday March 15.

If you’re wondering where the building is located, it’s across the street from the Sports Authority and near Maggiano’s Little Italy on Post Oak, just up from Westheimer and Post Oak.  Here’s a Google Maps Street View of the building.

While Houstonist reported the building will be demolished at 7:45am, the foreman I talked to said it would be more like 7am to 7:30am.  People who want to watch will be able to from the Hilton, about a block away, a little bit north of Post Oak.  According to the guy I talked to, past there, all traffic (pedestrian, car, bicycle) will be blocked.

If the timing works out I’ll be there on bike with my camera!

UPDATE: Swamplot has a lot more background on the building.

This weekend, I set my sister up with some whole home audio courtesy of her iPhone, iMac, iTunes, and a couple of Airport Expresses (Lifehacker’s how to).  One Airport Express and speaker pair went in the kitchen but the cables were a huge mess:

• the Airport Express and speakers each needed power
• there was the cable connecting the speakers together
• there was the cable connecting the speakers to the Airport Express
• add to that the existing power cords for a digital photo frame and a cordless phone charger power cord

This is a good time to explain this particular sister of mine: I call her the Indian Martha Stewart (before Martha Stewart went to jail — ie when she was just known for being an freakishly obssessive homemaker). Yup, that’s an accurate description of my sister. So I knew that left alone, the mess of cables wasn’t going to survive more than a few days.

I found a solution in a wicker basket.  Here were the ingredients for my solution:

• squid power supply (Amazon link)
• a wicker basket (for some reason, my sister has a cabinet full of these things)
• some hefty scissors
• a bunch of cable ties

1. First, this particular wicker basket had a bunch of internal compartments.  I remove most of the walls that created these compartments with the scissors.  

2. Removing the compartments made it so I could rest the squid power supply inside the thing. The tentacles plugs were essential — with them, I could bend the outlets around the inside of the basket.

3. I cut square openings (about 1.5″ by 1.5″) on the left, right and back of the wicker basket.

4. Then I positioned everything inside and outside the basket and cable-tied all the loose cables, plugged everything in, and pushed everything inside the basket as low-down as possible.  Done!

The Container Store should be making and selling this thing!

Photographs of the final product:

 

I think it helped that the wicker basket I had stuffed all the cables inside of had this steel frame.  Here’s a shot inside the basket…

 

One of the square openings I made on the left side of the basket:

And the one on the left side of the basket:

Visiting my sister, I noticed that all their icons had disappeared from the dock on their iMac.  I asked what had happened, and my brother-in-law said, “That Mac is just strange!”

After thinking about it for a bit I figured it out: one of my sister’s children drags the icons off the dock because of the very cool poof-of-smoke sound and animation.  Ha!

Since he just giggled when I asked him to stop doing it, I figured I needed a way to actually lock the dock.  It turns out that this is possible with OS X’s parental controls, BUT you can’t apply parental controls to the admin account.  And of course, switching between users being what it is in OS X, creating an another account wasn’t likely to work for my sister’s family.

So I found a useful piece of software called SuperDocker by Ed Shiro that has a simple checkbox to lock the dock. Works perfectly!

In short, I’m not surprised at all.

I’ve had several e-mail exchanges in the last month regarding Boxee and what I consider to be the market’s second attempt at digital media adapters (the first was marked by devices from companies like BroadQ, Digital 5, Mediabolic, Oregan Networks).  And in those e-mails, I pretty much anticipated what’s happening now between Hulu and Boxee (Hulu’s blog post, Boxee’s blog post).  Things I’ve had to say:

“Generally, I think 3rd parties like Boxee that are trying to channel content from sites like Hulu to the TV without deals in place with those sites are headed for trouble.  I think the Hulus of the world are going to really want to tightly control how they get delivered on the TV (and in some cases, they won’t want to see their content delivered on TVs).  I think the way Roku and Netflix are working together is probably a model for partnerships like this.”

In an e-mail exchange with Brent Evans (author of the GeekTonic blog):

“What is Boxee’s value add?  They are essentially a user interface wrapper to a bunch of online services.  Eventually, I think those services (Hulu, ABC, etc.) will own their own living room user interfaces.  Maybe Boxee will goad the market into getting to that point…”

And in another e-mail exchange:

“The more a company can cut real bonafide deals with these content sources (like Roku has done with Netflix), the more successful they’ll be.  Most of these devices just scrape sites like Hulu and somehow display their flash player content on the television — ie Hulu, CBS, etc (the content publishers) can easily break all these devices that don’t have real partnerships.  That I can tell, they aren’t doing anything illegal per se, but it’s more that Hulu will eventually want to control and dictate the business terms of Hulu content on the television.”

So I wasn’t at all surprised by Hulu’s announcement that they had asked Boxee to remove them.  Not that I think it’s a BAD idea for Boxee to channel Hulu’s content… As long as Hulu’s ads are being displayed, it doesn’t break their business model so they should eventually be open to this kind of syndication.

So why does Hulu want to cut-off Boxee (who, according to the Boxee blog post, drove 100,000 views on Hulu last week)?  My guesses:

• Officially or unofficially, Hulu’s content licenses may limit them to delivering content on a traditional PC with keyboard and mouse.  Getting onto the TV might be make Hulu a threat to existing revenue streams created by the same content on the traditional TV. And Hulu may not be delivering as much money per “view” (or whatever metric) as those existing revenue streams deliver.
• Hulu just may want to control their TV experience themselves.  They have been very purposeful in the design of their website.  Why wouldn’t they want to be similiarly purposeful in the design of their user interface on a television?  Or if it’s not UI design, they may just not want Boxee to get too powerful at this early stage in the game.

From my 4 year old daughter:

Her: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there?

Her: Banana

Me: Banana who?

 

Her: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there?

Her: Banana

Me: Banana who? 

 

Her: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there?

Her: Orange

Me: Orange who?

Her: Orange you glad I didn’t say Banana?

[laughter]

Transcript from a chat with a “friend” earlier this morning:

Matt

hi

whats up?

7:20amMatt

hi

whats up?

7:20amRakesh

Hi Matt

Everything OK?

7:21amMatt

well,im really stuck here in london

i had to visit a resort here in london and i got robbed at the hotel im staying

7:22amRakesh

ack… that’s terrible. Sorry to hear it.

7:22amMatt

yeah,thanks

we just want some helo flying back home

7:23amRakesh

So why are you stuck there?’

7:23amMatt

all my money to get a ticket back home got stolen

7:25amRakesh

I didn’t understand this “we just want some helo flying back home”

7:25amMatt

help*

actually i got some money wired to me to catch a flight back home

but we still need $800 more to complete our ticket fee and fly back home

7:26amRakesh

good

Honestly, it sounds like someone’s hacked your Facebook account and is using it to defraud your friends.

7:26amMatt

i have the money in my checking acct,i cant just access it from here

this really me

Lauren is here with me

and my kids

7:28amRakesh

your wife’s name is on your profile page

7:28amMatt

what about my kids name?

7:28amRakesh

in photos?

how do we know each other? when did we meet?

7:29amMatt

from school

 

I do not know this guy from “school”… So when I responded and he figured out that I was on to him, he blocked me, etc.  I tried emailing Matt at his e-mail address, but who knows if that address was his real address or not…

One of the smartest elements of Palm’s design for the original smartphone was the hardware switch toggle sound on and off… you could call it the “shut up” switch:

And, of course, Apple stole this feature on the iPhone:

This thing is so useful! There are so many situations where you want your device to be quiet:

• In bed, at night, surfing the web on your iPhone while your significant other (or your infant daughter) is sleeping next to you.
• In a talk or a presentation that you don’t want disrupt with a ringing phone
• While you’re on a conference call and you don’t want to be distracted by your phone.

So how is that more laptop makers don’t have hard sound on/off toggles on their devices?

Until laptop makers figure this out, maybe someone could create a simple headphone jack gizmo I could shove into my laptop’s headphone connector and have it prevent sound from coming out of my laptop’s speakers? (kind of how my laptop’s speakers go “off” when I have headphones connected… except this would just be a headphone jack port of the headphones — no wires, no headphones.)

(and while we’re at it, hey Windows, would you stop making so many sounds? I don’t need a sound at login. I don’t need a sound at shutdown. I don’t need a sound when switching users. Be invisible!)

One day, our wallets will be digital (or maybe our wallets will be replaced by our “smart phones”… I tend to think the former is more likely), but until then, this is a great tip:

Buy a little, thin USB flash drive and keep it in your wallet’s change pocket. This way, since everyone almost always carries their wallet with the, you’ll always have a little bit of storage with you. I keep frequently used software on mine (Firefox, Picasa for the Mac and Windows, Chrome, Synergy, etc) and I use it to move data around.

One thing to watch out for, with this thing being so small, is it’s easy to forget it in someone else’s USB port!

Personally, I carry the Sony Micro Vault in my wallet (but I don’t think I paid $50 for it!), but I think a lot of manufacturers have the same type of flash drive.