Cindy and Greg

While I was in DC this week a new toy showed up. The Drobo is a little data robot that provides you with storage for your movies, music, pictures, or whatever you want to store. Cali Lewis over at GeekBrief goes on and on about these things. A friend from IU, Scott, bought one a couple weeks ago and liked it, so I thought I would replace our older ReadyNAS NV with a brand new Drobo rev2.

I was shocked this morning at how quickly it setup. I was literally up and running in like 4 minutes. The unit is small and sleek looking. I was disappointed with the quality of the build as it related to drive insertion and such, but overall, I can live. I copied over all of our data and then shared it out using OS X Leopard Server.

So far so good. It come with a cute little dashboard app, see the picture below. I will let you know how it performs. I also got word that my MSI Wind shipped on Friday from Amazon. Looks like I will have a little toy to play with while Cindy is traveling this week.

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As some of you know, my brother is in the midst of a re-model of his townhouse in Washington, DC. During this re-modeling he has been thinking about adding a security system to the house as a general pre-caution. He has one problem, no landline in the house. He utilizes Perceiva VoIP for his home phone (read: “spam phone number”) and he he uses his Sprint Blackberry for everything else. Most alarm systems from the likes of ADT, Brinks, etc require an analog phone line, or an ungodly expensive GSM transmitter (which is all fine and good if your home is in an area that has good GSM coverage). During his search, he came across a company called Ingrid Home Security. These folks have thought out of the box and developed a home security system targeted to service providers like Cox and Comcast to resell to its customers as part of a “triple play” type solution (telephone, Internet, television and now home security). They have made their product available to consumers.

So after some time reviewing the technology (while Stephen reviewed the company, their investors, etc), Cindy and I decided to place an order. We have been looking for a security system on an off for a few years because of the traveling I do, I hate leaving Cindy home alone. Anyway, we placed the order Sunday morning (5/25) and our order arrived on Friday 5/30 (they apparently upgraded us to 2 day shipping). The boxing was very Apple like (that will make sense to a few of you). It was clean and neat, with easy directions. As I was installing the system, it was incredibly easy to follow and understand. I would recommend reading the directions so you can really understand the system. I had the doors secured in about 30 minutes. We have 14 windows on the main level and choose to go with window sensors, in lieu of the more economical motion detectors because of the pets. The windows took a little bit of thinking to make sure the senors did not impact the way the window opened (either for air or for cleaning), but I found a good method of installation. I did run into 2 problems during the installation, both user related. The keychains didn’t program at first, but I found I needed to program them while standing near the keypad console (makes sense if you think about it). And the senors in my office didn’t seem to want to connect to the security grid the first time I installed them. I fired off an e-mail to IngridHome support desk and had a phone call within 2 hours. They said that sometimes you just need to play with it a little bit, which I asked if that was code for user error, the woman kind of chuckled.

Some of the  truly unique about Ingrid is that it connects to your broadband AND your analog phone line. You can use either or both to support your system. You get a web console called MyIngrid (creative, yes) that gives you a full view of the system, its health and all the configuration options possible. You can have it send you text messages/emails when you have a change in system status, a failure, or breakin. You can program various users and assign notification levels based on the user code entered to disarm the system (for example, the kids coming home from school, get a text page to let you know they are home). You can even bridge systems in geographically diverse locations together (how cool is that)?

There are a couple of wish list items for the Ingrid:

1. Temperature Sensor (monitor temps in specific locations within the house)
2. Carbon Monoxide Monitoring
3. Water Sensor (for flooding)

Check out a couple things:

• Comparison matrix
• Various components of the system
• InGrid Videos

I should add, the entire system was under $700 bucks and less then $30 a month to monitor. This compares incredibly well. ADT/Brinks advertise a system for $200, but then if you have more then 1 window or door, you need to add senors for those, if you want smoke detection you need to add those as well. So the system from ADT/Brinks for our home was well over $1000. Plus the monthly monitoring was more expensive especially when you included the smoke detectors.

So color me impressed!

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As you all know, I am what they call a geek. I have been thinking about this topic for a little bit and was hoping I could get some suggestions from some of my geek friends (*cough* Jim, Mark *cough*). I would certainly welcome any suggestions.

So the challenge, put together the ultimate gear bag for your technology needs. Include as much detail as you possibly can (type of back, hardware specs, accessories, etc). To get the conversation started, this is what I currently carry:

• Timbukt2 Laptop Messager - Blue/Grey
• MacBook Pro 15″ 2.4Ghz 4GB/160GB/SuperDrive/Glossy)
• Sprint v740 EVDO revA
• Western Digital Passport 250GB USB Hard Drive
• SanDisk Cruizer 1.0GB (x2)
• Keyspan USA-19HS USB/Serial Adapter
• Cisco Serial Cable
• Cat5e Ethernet Cable (green)
• DVI - VGA Adapter
• Bottle of Advil

What else would you suggest?

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This evening Cindy and I decided to watch Live Free or Die, the final installment in the Die Hard series of movies. We noticed that it was on DirecTV OnDemand, so we downloaded it to our HD DRV and sat down to watch it, but got error message 732, check phone line. I thought this to be a little odd since after all we had downloaded this HD quality movie over the 100MB connection that was connected to our home network. So I called DirecTV after waiting for about 15 minutes, and got what must have been the dumbest customer service rep I have ever spoken to. Anyway, it appears that despite having an ethernet connection to the Internet that you must also have a phone line connected to this modern marvel of television technology so it may bill you the $3.99 for the movie. Am I the only one that things this is the dumbest thing you have ever heard?

So, okay I will play their little reindeer game. I deleted the download, strung a telephone cable from my office to the DTV receiver and rebooted the received. After waiting at least 20 minutes for the received to reboot, I tested the phone line and it came back okay. So I went back to OnDemand and purchased the movie again. We wait about an hour for it to download, yet again, and we go to start it. Guess what? Yes, you are right, error 732 *again*. So now, I am on hold with DirectTV again (now for 20 minutes and counting). So for those keeping time, I have now spent more time screwing with this to get it working, then the length of the entire movie, what a way to spend a Friday night.

Okay, I will stop venting now…

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As a part of the technology upgrade in the family room (a very small part of the over all budget if you can believe it), we decided to get rid of the 4 remotes we needed to control the TV and consolidate into 1. We (read I) decided to go with the Harmony 1000 with the RF extender, so we could keep the components of our system in the built-in and not have to worry about direct line of site. So we have had the remote in the house for months now…but as with most projects as soon as I run into an issue, instead of reading the manual I put it off to the side. Yesterday, while Cindy was on duty at the office, I made it my mission to get it up and running. So as of last night, we went from 4 remotes, to a single color touch screen unit…pretty darn sweet. I am sure it will require a little tweaking over the next couple of days and I do want to get the overhead fan/light working with it, simply for the coolness factor. Here is a little picture of our new remote.

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Well after months of playing little cartoon characters, I finally made Tennis Pro this evening.

If you ever feel the need to learn a little humility, go find a Wii and play a few rounds of tennis or boxing.

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So I haven’t posted a cool technology gadget in a while. This weekend as we prepare for our anniversary trip to Banff, AB I realized that we need some way to be able to get phone calls in an emergency. After talking to a few friends I decided to check out the T-Mobile HotSpot@Home offering. Essentially what it lets you do is use WiFi to connect your phone to their network. So if you are in a spotty coverage area or traveling internationally you can have your normal cell phone number follow you at no additional charge provided you have WiFi coverage. This is pretty amazing because after I called Verizon I was left scratching my head at the .79/minute charge for using my phone in Canada. Not to mention the fact that I would be paying be kb for data on the Blackberry. After all, isn’t Canada the 51st state? (just kidding my northern friends).

I have always been a fan of T-Mobile as a company, back to my days with 3gWiz.com. Currently there are 3 phones that work with  the T-Mobile offering, none of them terribly sexy or revolutionary in and of themselves. But I think this offering could have impacts on the rest of the cell phone industry.

Stay tuned for a full review…

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