Geek-Chic Power Houses

nakhla writes "Wired.com is running a lengthy article on wired houses of celebrities. The article describes some of the tech that has gone into the houses of actors, businessmen, and professional athletes, outlining the steps they've gone to in order to obtain techno-nirvana. Included in the article is a profile of JAG's Catherine Bell (my vote for sexiest geek), and her use of a wireless network to connect her to her TiBook, Gateway Laptop, and...get this...Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA. For those of you who are just dying to string fiber around your entire house, this article will have you making a run to your favorite networking hardware store."

Comments

Money

[sheepab]

You can make a shitload of money setting up these houses too. My neighbor does it for a living...he even wired the house of the guy that created Doom. Done with my claim to fame.

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

On a pseudo-related note, Catherine Bell is a Scientologist.

What about reusability?

[josh crawley]

The houses sound sweet and all, but this stuff'll be obsoleted in a few years anyways. How about some easily upgradeable houses, like conduit wiring or upgradable wall-stereos?

yes, watching TV is a quite a lot of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

"The hi-def screen spoils you," says Cuban. "I can't watch regular TV anymore. It just isn't worth the effort."

Quotes like that make me question the right-wing wisdom that concentrated wealth is good for the economy...

Re:iTunes

[glesga_kiss]

I've done similar. Redhat based firewall/NAT/samba box sharing 180 gig of storage (one half is a backup of the other to be truthful, highly recommended with hard-drive reliability these days) to every PC in the house. PC in living room is hooked up to a hi-fi, which also uses the tape-outs to pipe music to a couple of rooms. VHS RF-out also piped around the house, allowing DVD, video and cable to be viewed anywhere. Laptop in bedroom connected to midi stereo and wireless lan gives me independant music if I want.

With VNC, you can remote control your home jukebox from anywhere in the world, but I do prefer the couch. Total cost: Not much! The server is an old 200MHz box, that's all it takes. Wireless lan cost a bit, but it has other uses.

With the addition of a cable modem, streaming files anywhere in the world is great. I could be in work or a hotel miles from home with full access to my music collection. Bliss!

Re:Determining the right infrastructure...

[glesga_kiss]

We ended up going cat-5 with pre-wiring and space for wireless access points in the attic and conduit in the walls to pull fiber (or something else) later when it becomes feasible.

There is always a place for cat-5, cheap and reliable. Even if you have wireless, hooking up two desktop PCs is a waste of RF bandwidth. If you are confident with a drill, go for it. In a few years, a home network might make a desireable selling point for a home.

Like the idea about running conduit, very forward thinking.

Re:Catherine Bell Scientology Front??

[Anonymous Coward]

Same goes for NARCANON which has been advertising on TV lately (though I think that everyone who knows about Scientology knows who they are).

They even have that wierd background which I seem to remember from the cover of Dianetics or something, probably to 'restimulate' the "memories" of being obliterated by atomic weapons on an atoll that wasn't there at the time (Hawaii, millions of years before it formed).

Only memory it stimulates in me is that of L. Ron who married his second wife before divorcing the first, then turned in the second one to the FBI as a "communist" before leaving her for a very young (either 18 or 21, I forget which) woman (he was ~50 now, IIRC) who later was one of the high-ranking Scientologists indicted in "Operation Snow White" wherein they conspired to steal all the documents the govt. had by now that made them look like a wacky cult... :)

Why yes, I am a flaming SP...