Training away from local

You hear a lot about the decline of the local bike shop. Somehow it’s the customer’s fault that they are struggling. But perhaps it’s not quite that simple. Today I visited Wilmette Bicycle (my local bike shop), asking about a part, only to be told on the first ask that the worker didn’t know what it was, and (most importantly) […]

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Silence is golden, er… platinum

There are myriad quiet PSU out there, but Fractal Design’s new Ion+ Platinum is the first I’ve seen that can be configured to run in a semi-passive “Zero RPM” mode. Which frankly sounds like the perfect approach to selecting a PSU for a HTPC, or any PC, that will be used in a noise sensitive environment. Introducing the Ion+ Platinum […]

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Maelstrom Fan Controller

I’ve considered building a “smart” fan controller several times, but my planned implementation (rPi + ANT dongle + dimmer) is nowhere near as slick as what Keith has implemented. Which makes sense, because his plan could actually include selling it… Count me in.

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RHA TRUECONNECT ADDS COLOR

If you’re old enough to remember when the world went from black and white to color (examine the photographic evidence if you don’t believe me), then RHA’s latest addition will be a welcome reminder of that see change. After all, why should headphones only be black? OK, one of the “colors” they’re adding is white (is that really a color, […]

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RHA Announces 3.5mm-to-Bluetooth Wireless Flight Adapter

While I’ve never experienced the issue the RHA Wireless Flight Adapter solves, it’s only because I always travel with wired headphones. But, if you have a great set of wireless headphones, and forget the wire, or it doesn’t have one. For $50, this neat little Bluetooth adapter is a brilliant way to sort the how-do-I-get-airplane(or any 3.5mm wired source)-audio-on-my-headphones problem. […]

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LifeShield announces 1080p Wi-Fi doorbell

Smart doorbells are awesome. And one that integrates, even if only via IFTTT, with other ecosystems is even more awesome. So it’s great to see the new 1080p 170º video doorbell from DIY home security oriented LifeShield. Price is competitive at $200, so one to watch if you have a LifeShield system, or even if you don’t… LifeShield Enhances DIY […]

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Is Thread 1.2 The One True HA Protocol?

With real support for BTLE, and massive sensor pools, Thread 1.2 takes a major step forward towards being the home automation (HA) protocol that can really do everything. Even more importantly, all the big players (cough… newcomers) are lining up behind it, so there is massive backing. While I personally have a [mostly] Z-Wave installation at home, I would love […]

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SiliconDust releases support for multiple recording engines

Details are a bit light on how SiliconDust’s new horizontal scaling scheme is implemented, but it seems a welcome addition to the flexibility of the platform, especially with the introduction of the Scribe and Servio models. While the long time users are used to the “complexity” of adding additional storage to the NAS/PC/whatever these new hardware bits obfuscate that complexity […]

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