Gordon Meyer
Track: Emerging Topics
Date: Wednesday, October 29
Time: 11:30am - 12:15pm
Location: Stevens Creek
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Upgrade your digital life to include your house and living environment--controlling lights, temperature, music, and more--all from your Mac. We'll start with the basics of controlling lighting and other physical objects, then graduate to true automation which turns your home into a living entity that responds to, and anticipates, your needs.
It's easy to get started, an afternoon's fun and less than a hundred bucks will get you going. Put an old Mac back into service or if you already have a home fileserver, use it instead. Before you know it, you'll be addicted. We'll look at how to use speech and telephony to have your computer notify you of important events, how to use inexpensive motion detectors to monitor your property and save energy, and how Bluetooth, broadband, and WiFi converge with home networking and automation.
The stability of Mac OS X makes it a great platform for the home of the future and we'll look at the latest Mac OS X home automation software, discuss how Apple's iApps enrich your automated home, and cover the basics of automation hardware and techniques. We'll also explore the best Internet resources for parts, information, and open source utilities that provide the ultimate in home customization.
