Put at least two fully patched ethernet outlets in any room. Create an infrastructure star with a centralized "server room". Make sure to have enough power outlets in each room. Check wire quality and fuses. For sensors you want to look into 1-wire technology. This is the cheapest way to measure temperature or count usage of e.g. water, natural gas and power. Think a lot about energy and consumption like heating support with solar thermal water heating or insulating the whole house. Also check tubes and water outlets. Consider the need of security elements like sensors and cameras. Power over ethernet might come handy. Look into combined house automation technologies like Konnex/EIB or EnOcean or z-wave. But be aware, this stuff gets expensive.
Welcome to a never ending playground.
I suggest you start implementing stuff that saves you money, like optimizing your energy consumption and monitoring that.
I would strongly suggest having OSX running only on very special HW. If I would be Steve, I would go for key users. On some weblog I read, that in Silicon Valley commute train you can see Apple, Dell and IBM Laptops. Forget Dell, but definitly go for Lenovo. I would offer Lenovo OSX as is. Get your drivers going and offer it optionally on all Thinkpads. I am sure it would fly. In my area of influance there are about 2 dozend Thinkpads, all owned by key developers. 90% of them would migrate to OSX right away........ and they would tell others how sweet it is to use OSX, family, friends and so on. I would definitly NOT go for Dell or any generic x86 HW. But the key HW platforms would be of interest. You want key users and developers. As Balmer once yelled: developers, developers, developers
And another thought: Go for appliances. I want OSX in my living room. Give me the HDTV ultra cool TV appliance.
I work with a lot of ProLiants. They are very good server hardware with decent Linux support. But I wouldn't use them at home, may be in the garage. When I'm installing them in my office, my coworkers get annoyed quite fast since they start making noise even when you just plug them in. Once you turn them on, the fans get on speed and it is super loud. They do have even a third noise level once they are getting warmer. And they are quite heavy too, so definitely no machine you want to move over the atlantic with.
I would agree with some comment more downwards that suggests a mini-itx solution.
Slashdot Mirror
Put at least two fully patched ethernet outlets in any room. Create an infrastructure star with a centralized "server room".
Make sure to have enough power outlets in each room. Check wire quality and fuses.
For sensors you want to look into 1-wire technology. This is the cheapest way to measure temperature or count usage of e.g. water, natural gas and power.
Think a lot about energy and consumption like heating support with solar thermal water heating or insulating the whole house.
Also check tubes and water outlets.
Consider the need of security elements like sensors and cameras. Power over ethernet might come handy.
Look into combined house automation technologies like Konnex/EIB or EnOcean or z-wave. But be aware, this stuff gets expensive.
Welcome to a never ending playground.
I suggest you start implementing stuff that saves you money, like optimizing your energy consumption and monitoring that.
You might want to look into the IT Infrastructure Library - http://www.itil.org/
;}
Best practices, key performance indicators, you name it
I would strongly suggest having OSX running only on very special HW. If I would be Steve, I would go for key users. On some weblog I read, that in Silicon Valley commute train you can see Apple, Dell and IBM Laptops. Forget Dell, but definitly go for Lenovo. I would offer Lenovo OSX as is. Get your drivers going and offer it optionally on all Thinkpads. I am sure it would fly. In my area of influance there are about 2 dozend Thinkpads, all owned by key developers. 90% of them would migrate to OSX right away..... ... and they would tell others how sweet it is to use OSX, family, friends and so on.
I would definitly NOT go for Dell or any generic x86 HW.
But the key HW platforms would be of interest. You want key users and developers.
As Balmer once yelled: developers, developers, developers
And another thought: Go for appliances. I want OSX in my living room. Give me the HDTV ultra cool TV appliance.
thx a lot
someone please donate him or pbs an akamai account. akamai is cheap these days...
Peter Drucker
I like the Index series books,/ qid=1100597533/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/002-0837367- 4741662
e.g. Color Index, Design Index or Idea Index:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1581800460
They are cheap and help you get up and running...
euXle
I work with a lot of ProLiants. They are very good server hardware with decent Linux support.
But I wouldn't use them at home, may be in the garage. When I'm installing them in my office, my coworkers get annoyed quite fast since they start making noise even when you just plug them in. Once you turn them on, the fans get on speed and it is super loud. They do have even a third noise level once they are getting warmer. And they are quite heavy too, so definitely no machine you want to move over the atlantic with.
I would agree with some comment more downwards that suggests a mini-itx solution.