 Audacious Software have recently announced their latest incarnation of the Shion home automation system for Mac OS X. Shion manages an monitors devices through supported hardware available from major retailers such as Amazon. Using the Shion GUI you can take control of normal house hold objects, such as lamps, dimmer switches, thermostats and any device which can connect to the supported hardware.
The interface is simple and easy to use, sporting instant on\off capabilities it also supports scripting of event driven actions, such as Solar Events, Temperature Changes and Scheduled events.
Shion also supports the ApplieScript interface, meaning you can create your own scripts to perform tasks around the home. The straightforward and simple scripting interface makes it easy to control your home automation. Example scripts can be found on Audacious's site
Theres a wide range of compatible devices available all from Amazon's website. Devices range from Dimmer Switches to Chime modules. INSTEON even offer a starter pack, which is all you need to wire up a collection of lamps to the Shion system.
Shion is a free download, and can be used with up to 3 hardware devices. If you require more devices you will need to purchase a license which you can purchase for £23.50 from the online store.
Home Automation is something I am very interested in, being a self confessed geek. Using applications and hardware such as the ones linked above moves it inside the realms of possibility. Especially as some of the hardware can also be found on eBay!
Check out how Guillaume Boudreau is controlling his AC using a simple PHP based iPhone web app.
|
|
 Firmware upgrades have always been a risky business, due to the ease of 'bricking' your device. Basically a failure to complete the upload or upload of a firmware file can result in a near useless device which can often be unrepairable.
However, if you are lucky (as I have been) there are steps you can take in order to try and recover the original EEPROM and re upload the latest firmware version.
If you have a DG834PN which has the 'Power' and 'Tick' light flashing on and off, then following the steps below may just bring it back to life!
Follow each step carefully, ensuring you select the correct options from the list!
- Connect your DG834PN to a power outlet.
- Connect a SINGLE pc* to the DG834PN using an RJ45(Network) cable. (Unplug any other devices as a precaution)
- Download the Netgear Recovery Utility.
- Unzip the utility to a new folder.
- Download the latest available from the Netgear Support Site. (See the downloads tab)
- Unzip the firmware file, and copy it into the same folder as the utility
- Double click the UpgradeWizard.exe
- Click Next, now select the network adapter that your Netgear DG834PN is connected to, Click Next again
- Ensure there is only one device in the list (this should be your DG834PN) highlight it and click Next
- Ensure the MAC address matches the one on the bottom of your router and click Next
- Now, click the Update button.
The UpgradeWizard will perform several steps on your router, the first one may take some time and during this part the progress bar will not move. Wait patiently for this to complete. Once done the router should reboot it's self and your PC will obtain a new IP address.
You should now find the router has returned to it's previous state, and should be working as expected!
* The PC you connect needs to be a Windows XP Service Pack 2 PC or higher. If you experience issues with the recovery utility, attempt the recovery on another XP PC. (I had to try two) Should you want to do this from a Mac, you will need to boot using bootcamp first of all.
If you still experience issues with the repair, please use the Contact Me page, get in touch and we can arrange shipping the router, I will then attempt the repair for you.
|
.... if you can see it, you can script it! Anyone who works or has worked with me will know that's something I often say. However, Project SIKULI takes that to a whole new level. Project SIKULI works by scripting around screen grabs, so even if you don't have any scripting knowledge you will still be able to automate those most mundane tasks! Anything with a GUI can be scripted.
Here's a quick video from YouTube on what it can do
|
 Any forum admin worth his salt will already know about Tapatalk. Tapatalk is a mobile application designed for most handsets which renders forums in such a way it makes using them from your mobile simple.
Installation of Tapatalk onto a forum is so simple anyone could do it! No doubt this is going to spread like wildfire, and since I have spent some time configuring my mobile template it made sense that I enable my forum for Tapatalk whilst I was at it.
If you have the Tapatalk application for your mobile, search for MikeSel and you should find my forum!
There are currently applications available for iPhones, BlackBerries, Android and Nokia's. You can download the client from Tapatalk's download page.
You can read more about it over in my Forum
|
 MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 is essentially an automatic update application which covers over 30,000 Mac applications. Desktop 5.0 has a really simple easy to use interface. Almost instantly displaying a list of all the apps installed on your Mac, and shows you which (if any) currently have updates available for them. But wait! It doesn't stop there, simply by clicking on the out of app gives you the option to download and install the update without even leaving the application! This is ideal if you have a large collection of apps which are regularly updated. There's even an option to update all out of date applications at the click of a button!
Not only does desktop cover your apps, but it's also capable of checking for and downloading updates for widgets, screen savers and preference pane apps.
Once you have downloaded and installed your updates the view switches to enable you to quickly confirm all updates have been installed successfully.
The application also supports watchlists (see picture to the left) which enables you to group together your applications, so that you can perform updates on only one category of application at a time. Handy if you are short on time, but want to update all of your regular use apps at once!
MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 is a subscription based service which is $20 per year, however for that you get some additional member only benefits: - Website watch lists - the website watch lists enable MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 to monitor and auto-sync watch lists from MacUpdate.com
- Daily Newsletter - Members get the added benefit of receiving a daily email featuring all the new software titles released that day
- Customisable Layout - As a member you receive access to an additional three different layout designs to choose from
- Email update notifications - If you don't want the pain of having to run the update check each time, you can sign up to be notified of new updates matching keywords of your choice
- Hide banner ads - As a member, you also get the option of switching off the banner ad's that the application displays
- and more
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 23 |
|
|
