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To be fair, there are some advantages to smarter switches - adjusting light levels automatically based on current demand, keypads for controlling multiple lights to set (potentially different) levels at a time (ex: turn everything off, put lights to a comfortable TV viewing level), and for some setups allowing you to trigger your lights based on time or occupancy (though occupancy/vacancy is built in to switches now too).

For example, I have a switch that does vacancy sensing in my bathroom - now I can leave my fan on to air out the shower when I leave for work in the morning. A friend of mine has an occupancy sensor in his stairwell that turns on (and off) his entryway lights so he doesn't need to walk down and turn them off from their only switch (bad design, but something that happens).


Full disclosure: I work for a company that makes light switches and their control systems.

lutron makes a collection of programmable lighting control systems that might be able to be adapted to what you're trying to do?

it would cost some money, as lutron stuff isn't cheap, but it could be made to work.

http://www.lutron.com/

Switching and dimming of lights is key. (Yes, you can dim fluorescents).

Rule of thumb is 1 watt of cooling requirement saved for every 3 watts of lighting savings from dimming/daylighting/etc

Just get Lutron's Quiet Motorized Window Shades.

X10 is a joke. Our company is one of the largest home automation/lighting control integrators in the state, and we wouldn't use X10 if they gave it to us.

These are the big guys, the ones the pros (us) use.

http://www.control4.com/
http://www.lutron.com/
http://www.crestron.com/
http://www.homeauto.com/

They're quality. X10 is... not.

[OP:] If you're great at what you do, there will always be a market for your skill set.

Tell that to the great buggy-whip manufacturers

Hi!

Sorry, but you happened to trigger one of my pet rants. People DO still make buggy whips--and they make buggies, and carts, and drays, and all sorts of horse-drawn conveyances. And they have web sites.

And since I have some knowledge of how prosperous some buggy manufacturers are, and also recruit and hire electrical and computer engineers, I'd venture to guess that the original poster was correct--if you're good at what you do, you'll succeed at whatever you do. I'd be willing to bet money that the family that owns Smucker's Harness does substantially better than your average electrical engineer.

Cheers!

John Murdoch
(Who spent the late afternoon breaking a pony to drive a carriage, and has two buggy whips on his shopping list.)

Sorry, not true. It's the heat that kills the filament, not the "shock" of turning it on. The filament is simply a resistor. There is no damage done to it by cycling it on or off. In fact, solid state dimmers, the kind you can buy at home depot from Lutron or Leviton, reduce the light of the bulb by altering the ratio of on and off while cycling the power to the bulb 120 times per sec (or 2x the frequency of the power source).

If you're curious, hook up an oscilloscope to a dimmer. You'll need a bulb or similar wattage resistive element. You'll see that, at each half wave, the dimmer holds the power source off and then flips on partway through the half wave.

Check out Lutron's dimming paper at:
http://www.lutron.com/technical_info/pdf/LutronDim mingBasics.pdf

• Room that can be dark or light midday
• Dual high resolution projectors mounted to seemlessly meet on your specially painted wall, that run your dream high-end machines via wireless keyboard, mouse, gamepads, KVM, network
• Closet designed with a rack for your computers, ventilation, power, sound insulation - why look and listen to all this stuff? Put it in a special little room of its own.
• Comfortable couch, chairs, you know - furniture
• Nice Bose sound system, properly configured for your room
• Good Lighting - this is critically important. Check out these fancy control systems from Lutron. If money is no object, you can have some seriously cool sh1t.

• bathroom attached for quick emergency access
• fully stocked wet bar at the back of the room
• sound insulation for all walls, floor, and ceiling in the room
• heavy solid hardwood door with a lock

• Energy saving materials and appliances - this is the most important advance in home construction on a practical level
• Central sound system could be cool, but you can roll one yourself with wireless network and some small appliances these days. A PDA with some control software through wireless to your media computer(s) would be a nice project, and not all that costly.
• If you're in a cold climate, heated drives are very nice. No back-breaking snow shoveling.

• Central computerized climate system? You can get a programmable thermostat for $70, so why get heavy with this? The climate in my home doesn't need that kind of mustard, I keep it around 70 degrees when I am awake, and set back at night.
• Intercom? What for? I can yell at my kids - its more personal ;)
• Security systems? If you live like Scarface maybe.
• Touch panel central control systems? I have a nice compact touch panel PC sitting beside me right now, and when I took possession of it, I was thinking, "Oh cool, I can install this in my house and do all sorts of cool shtuff", but I couldn't think of anything useful for it besides the obvious lighting/media control/climate control, and shrink-wrapped systems are available that do all of those things already without me needing to build my own relays and such. I suppose it could make for a nice media room master control...

Hi!

I work for an electronics manufacturing company--and develop software. I'd recommend standardizing on a very limited number of development tools, and standardizing on a limited number of fasteners.

First, the development tools
There have been 3.2 zillion posts already arguing whether to use a single language or to use any language anybody wants. That's not really the point: what you need to consider is the number of technologies, or skill sets, that you will support. Competency in a language is a skill set--but so is competency with a database server (in addition to the server's database language, like Transact-SQL or PL/SQL), or competency with different libraries or third-party tools. How you decide which skill sets are important is where you demonstrate your wisdom and skill as a manager--but it is crucial to your long-term survival to keep that number as low as possible.

If you've been around application software long enough, you've probably been on a project that included a bunch of this-will-save-so-much-time tools--custom controls, third-party libraries, etc. And then discovered that your team was totally, utterly, fsck'ed when you went to release version 2, and discovered that the libraries had changed, the custom control vendor had gone out of business (or his mother made him get a real job), etc.

It isn't just the risk that the third-party tool won't change with your product--you are also dependent upon the one or two people on your team who mastered that particular tool. If they're gone, you now have to figure out who to task with taking over responsibility of being the GridDotWhatever guru. The more of these skill sets you have to support, the tougher it is to manage a team--and the more bodies you need to keep on a maintenance staff when it is time to scale the development of that product down.

In short--count up all the skill sets your company uses, and do what you can to reduce the number. That's a good strategy.

Limit the number of fasteners, too
The original post includes a comment that standardizing on a language would be just as silly as standardizing on a particular fastener. Well, guess what: you should.

In the real world of manufacturing there are a zillion bits and pieces that go into a product line. If you can use the same micro-processor across a broad range of products, you can achieve economies of scale in purchasing, and you can achieve economies of scale in other areas, like writing code for that particular micro family.

The same is true in lots of other areas--all the way down to screws. If you standardize on a particular screw (say, for instance, 4mm metric-threaded hex-heads of various lengths) you can achieve substantial economies of scale in purchasing, but in all of your manufacturing operations. Machine tools can be fit with bits to drill appropriate holes, robots can be equipped with nut drivers for the 4mm hex head, and so forth. If you permit the kind of anarchy in your mechanical engineering department that the OP's colleagues think is good for programming, you'd have a disaster on your hands.

There's an engineering point, here
There are people who think that software is a form of engineering. I'm not one of them--and this article is a good example of why. There is lots that we can learn from engineering--and there is oodles of stuff that real engineers have known and practiced for a long, long time that we still don't know enough about to even ask. But that's another rant for another time....

I think that the wiring part got covered in another post. the other items that your talking about though are:

home "control" is normally kind of customized to the home by the installer, but the last one that i helped put in was an elan system. (http://www.elanhomesystems.com/)

For lighting you really need to look into lutron (http://www.lutron.com/) and then hook them together.

Has anybody had any luck with Lutron? http://www.lutron.com/. According to some of the home automation dealers I've spoken to, their network is proprietary but it allows you to use wired devices in new constructions, wireless devices in retrofit constructions and a combination of the two if you really want it.

Hi!

What is Microsoft doing?
Microsoft is shifting more and more of their revenue stream to server products. There are only so many features you can stuff into Word, and let's face it, OpenOffice is perfectly suitable for most office workers. Microsoft is also pushing hard to have third-party software (and hardware) vendors embed Microsoft components in their software. We're in the Microsoft ISV program--and I have spent time with the corporate legal staff discussing whether or not Microsoft will indemnify us against any claim for IP infringement. This announcement clears the issue up--they will.

What's the big deal?
I work for a company that makes lighting controls. We make the dimmer in your dining room--but we also make control systems for very large projects, such as Lincoln Financial Field (home of the Philadelphia Eagles). We provide Windows-based control software (among lots of other things)--it would be a serious issue if a vendor to Microsoft sued us for infringement based on Microsoft's code. That's exactly what SCO did to AutoZone. SCO didn't contend that AutoZone intentionally infringed--they alleged that AutoZone was using an app developed by IBM that infringed. Nonetheless, AutoZone lands in court in an IP infringement case. Microsoft's indemnification effectively means that if somebody sues us on the same kind of claim, we don't have to worry. Microsoft will defend the case, bankrupt the attorneys, crush the plaintiffs, reduce their homes to rubble, enslave their children, and--and ruin their self-esteem!. We won't have to be involved at all. 8-)

From our perspective, that's a good thing.

But doesn't this portend an onslaught of Microsoft attorneys arrayed against the forces of Open Source? Isn't the battle of Armageddon nigh?
No. This simply means that Microsoft is telling vendors that embed Microsoft products that they do not have to worry about getting caught up in an IP infringement case. That's all.

Right. Because technological innovation never happened before 1627.

First, the Industrial Revolution happened (in England) in the 18th century, not the 17th. Intellectual property laws were established in the 1740s and 1750s, and the explosion of innovation began immediately.

Prior to that, the pace of technological innovation was--glacial. If you look at the common work tasks of the day (in farming, in inland transportation, in shipping, in manufacturing) the pace of technological innovation was so slow as to be difficult to measure.

Some examples:

• Ships: essentially unchanged in fundamental design for 700 years (evolutionary design, but a master mariner transported from 1066 A.D. to 1766 A.D. would have little or no trouble sailing from one end of the Mediterranean to the other). By 1866 most naval vessels had steam power and paddle wheels (in addition to sails), and the Russians had launched the Great White Fleet of all-ironclad ships. Within another 40 years sail disappeared entirely from naval vessels, ships hulls were made of steel, displacements rose from hundreds of tons to tens of thousands of tons (two orders of magnitude), and ships were signaling one another with blinker lights.
• Explosives: Black powder was developed in (I think) the 11th century. And remained essentially unchanged--and the only game in town for blasting rock, mines, etc. By the end of the 19th century Nobel had invented dynamite, and DuPont had developed a whole range of explosives--revolutionizing civil engineering (yay!) and war (boo!).
• Manufacturing: the weaving of wool clothing, and the ubiquity of woolen clothing, remained essentially unchanged from the beginning of recorded history into the mid-1700s. With the development of IP laws, new technology to comb, card, and spin cotton into thread, and weave cotton thread into cheap and washable clothing, revolutionized clothing--and ended the Black Death (spread by fleas that infested woolen clothing).
• Metallurgy: Iron and its manufacture remained essentially unchanged for centuries. The development of black powder, among other things, facilitated the development of canals, which in turn made possible the development of larger-scale iron mining and manufacturing. By the 1870s steel was being mass-produced--and the manufacturing revolution was on.

The list goes on, and on, and on. The pace of technological change before the adoption of IP laws was non-existent. The pace of technological change after the adoption of IP laws was torrid at the start, and has only increased in speed since.

And, in the main, IP laws have done precisely what the framers intended. I work for the company that invented the electronic dimmer--back in 1961. We still make that dimmer, and a number of competitors make cheaper knock-offs. During the years when the company had a patent on the dimmer (and subsequently the fluorescent dimmer) the founders had the time and revenue to build a business and develop newer products. When those patents expired, a number of competitors launched their own versions. Bully for them. Society as a whole benefits from the development of new technology--and we have incentive to continue to develop new products and newer technology. Strip away the protection of IP laws, and we have zero incentive to develop anything new--we'd have to shift our focus to becoming a commodity producer in search of the lowest possible manufactured cost. Outsource everything to Madagascar, and tell the employees to go get jobs at McDonalds.

Nope--better to use IP laws to stimulate innovation, and let us export technology (which we do) to Japan, Korea, China, and every other major country in the world.

Hi!

The technology you're referring to is called DALI (digitally-addressing lighting interface? Not entirely sure). DALI is a means of digitally addressing a fluorescent fixture--it is a popular technology in Europe, although it is presently rare in the United States. (I work for a lighting control systems manufacturer who is about to change that. And...(golly! gee!)...we use XML. 8-)

There are a lot of reasons for using DALI--turning off the lights at night isn't generally considered to be one of them. (We use relays and a clock to do that.) But digitally-addressable ballasts permit us to offer personalized lighting control--so if you're the kind of programmer who likes lower light over your cube, you can lower your light level. If you are in a meeting room giving a presentation, you can dim the lights near the screen, but keep the rest of the lights in the room at a higher level. If you're laying out a floor filled with cubicles, you can (simply) specify that light levels over your corridors will be higher than lights over the cubes. If you build a room with walls that extend to the ceiling (and thus are required to have a light switch by the door) you can "group" a set of ballasts to respond to keypress events from the wallstation. DALI gives you a lot of benefits in managing a building.

Buildings talking to each other?
Um, no. But it does make sense for buildings to talk to a control system. We figure that 30% of the total operating cost for an office building is lighting. Even if you don't have brownouts where you are (the phrase "taxpayer-subsidized coal mines" springs to mind) you probably do have demand pricing for electrical power. If you run a campus of buildings (a university, an apartment complex, or a corporate office park) electricity represents one of your major costs. And--in the minds of many facilities managers--electricity is generally regarded as a "controllable cost" that is anything but. People turn the lights on, the electric company sends a bill. If people turn the lights on at times of peak demand, the power company sends a much, much bigger bill. What to do?

It's called "load shed"
There is a basic idea called load shedding--when the price of electricity goes up, start turning things off. In general it is pretty binary--the price exceeds X, so we turn off all the machine tools. The price exceeds X2, and we turn off some other part of a manufacturing plant. And so forth.

But that kind of load-shedding is a kind of brute force solution: you're using less power, but you're turning things off. Which means you're not doing something--something that presumably is part of your business. Using technologies like digitally-addressable ballasts, and photo sensors, and occupancy sensors, and algorithms that measure light levels and determine whether to adjust the lights and/or change the level of motorized shades, we can shed load in such a way that you probably don't even notice--even though we're saving you a bundle on your electric bill.

Stand back! I have XML and I know how to use it....

While this is a sad story--especially about the poor guys with Indian "consultants" following them around asking a zillion questions about how to do their jobs--it's worthwhile to remember where the article appears: CIO magazine. CIO is focused on the needs/wants/interests of the guys in ties in a corporate IT environment--and in general a lot of CIOs think that outsourcing/offshoring is a hell of a good idea. The general tone of this article is "look at how these yobbos bungled the implementation of Siebel CRM." What they didn't mention at all is, "look at how these geniuses totally misunderstood their business, and pissed away roughly $40 billion in stock capitalization in just three years. And therefore died the death that they so richly deserved."

It's the technology, stupid...
There are companies, even in the 21st century, that can ignore cutting-edge technology. You don't need to be e-commerce enabled to be a plumber. But if you're in the wireless telephony business, in the midst of a headlong rush into a blizzard of new technologies, the core focus of your business isn't marketing or sales or re-carpeting the executive suite. Your core focus MUST be on the technology--and as soon as you lose sight of that focus, your competitors will consume you.

And these geniuses decided to offshore 3,000 jobs. And were doubtless shocked--shocked, I tell you!--to hear that employee morale about the developers was down.

I'm no techno-protectionist
I remember discussing the inevitable introduction of competition from overseas back in the late 1980s, and debating the possibility endlessly while working in Japan in the mid-90s. There will be companies that decide that, in their businesses, in their business models, IT work is a cost, not an investment. They will decide that they want to minimize that cost. They will focus on maintaining existing systems (with marginal, incremental improvements) and eschew major new developments. They will find that that approach may make it feasible to hire developers in the Third World. But those businesses that do so are making a conscious, deliberate decision: we're not going to focus the company on technology. We're going to try to minimize the company's dependence on technology. IT is a cost--it does not contribute to revenue.

For a wireless telephone company to take this position is simply insane: they are in the technology business. They are smack in the middle of a global technology race--one of the few technology races with competitors from practically every part of the northern hemisphere. They need to be faster to market with new products; the new products must be faster, better, more efficient, and more effective; and they have to have a world-beating customer service experience. Instead of fleeing from technology, they should be driven by it. They should be absolutely focused on it. They should be actively recruiting talent to build their strengths....

Because that's what every other company that's focused on technology is doing. Subcontracting out your technology--in a technology business--is sort of like farming, but buying all your crops at the supermarket.

I am not a lawyer...
But I am an engineering team leader at a U.S. electronics company that leads the world in our industry: lighting controls. We export electrical and electronic equipment to countries around the world--including Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and every country in Europe--because we focus on five core principles. And Principle #4 is "Innovate with high-quality products." In other words, we're in the technology business, so we focus--relentlessly--on the technology.

Once upon a time, AT&T did too...
AT&T Wireless was spun off from AT&T--but the corporate heritage is obviously there. And AT&T, once upon a time, ruled the world--literally chan

While this is a sad story--especially about the poor guys with Indian "consultants" following them around asking a zillion questions about how to do their jobs--it's worthwhile to remember where the article appears: CIO magazine. CIO is focused on the needs/wants/interests of the guys in ties in a corporate IT environment--and in general a lot of CIOs think that outsourcing/offshoring is a hell of a good idea. The general tone of this article is "look at how these yobbos bungled the implementation of Siebel CRM." What they didn't mention at all is, "look at how these geniuses totally misunderstood their business, and pissed away roughly $40 billion in stock capitalization in just three years. And therefore died the death that they so richly deserved."

It's the technology, stupid...
There are companies, even in the 21st century, that can ignore cutting-edge technology. You don't need to be e-commerce enabled to be a plumber. But if you're in the wireless telephony business, in the midst of a headlong rush into a blizzard of new technologies, the core focus of your business isn't marketing or sales or re-carpeting the executive suite. Your core focus MUST be on the technology--and as soon as you lose sight of that focus, your competitors will consume you.

And these geniuses decided to offshore 3,000 jobs. And were doubtless shocked--shocked, I tell you!--to hear that employee morale about the developers was down.

I'm no techno-protectionist
I remember discussing the inevitable introduction of competition from overseas back in the late 1980s, and debating the possibility endlessly while working in Japan in the mid-90s. There will be companies that decide that, in their businesses, in their business models, IT work is a cost, not an investment. They will decide that they want to minimize that cost. They will focus on maintaining existing systems (with marginal, incremental improvements) and eschew major new developments. They will find that that approach may make it feasible to hire developers in the Third World. But those businesses that do so are making a conscious, deliberate decision: we're not going to focus the company on technology. We're going to try to minimize the company's dependence on technology. IT is a cost--it does not contribute to revenue.

For a wireless telephone company to take this position is simply insane: they are in the technology business. They are smack in the middle of a global technology race--one of the few technology races with competitors from practically every part of the northern hemisphere. They need to be faster to market with new products; the new products must be faster, better, more efficient, and more effective; and they have to have a world-beating customer service experience. Instead of fleeing from technology, they should be driven by it. They should be absolutely focused on it. They should be actively recruiting talent to build their strengths....

Because that's what every other company that's focused on technology is doing. Subcontracting out your technology--in a technology business--is sort of like farming, but buying all your crops at the supermarket.

I am not a lawyer...
But I am an engineering team leader at a U.S. electronics company that leads the world in our industry: lighting controls. We export electrical and electronic equipment to countries around the world--including Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and every country in Europe--because we focus on five core principles. And Principle #4 is "Innovate with high-quality products." In other words, we're in the technology business, so we focus--relentlessly--on the technology.

Once upon a time, AT&T did too...
AT&T Wireless was spun off from AT&T--but the corporate heritage is obviously there. And AT&T, once upon a time, ruled the world--literally chan

Hi!

First, please let me apologize for the unbelievable number of cretins who have posted most of their sexual fantasies. "Pathetic" isn't nearly enough of a word.

Second, let me suggest doing something that combines technology and ergonomics, and will constantly remind your beloved of you. And this wee giftie includes the Two Things Every Guy Wants Most:

• A remote control
• Lots of flashing LEDs

Let me suggest that you guy your beloved a Lutron Spacer dimmer. There is a wallstation version you can install in a den or office; or a tabletop version that controls a single lamp (perfect for a cubicle). Either version comes with a remote control.

It's not just what you give, but how you give it.
It's a guy thing--even for non-geek guys. We like to do the Manly Thing and install stuff. Especially if it involves tools. (This is central to Home Depot's business plan.) Buy the wallstation dimmer, and give it to him. And let him install it--whereupon you can take the remote and dial the lights down a click or three. (It is Valentine's Day, after all.)

If you opt for the tabletop version you don't have the instant opportunity for romance--but you will likely guarantee that he'll have the coolest cubicle at work. (He'll probably have to lock up the remote to keep it from being swiped.) Either way, it's a killer geek gift.

X-10 is a child's toy. Real men use AMX or Crestron. Try Lutron Radiora for wireless lighting controls. You can integrate anything with these systems.

One high end alternative I've found is Radio RA, but I haven't get tried it. I think it's like 10 - 20 times more expensive then x10. Anyone else try this?