Your right, which is why you should click that little Windows 10 Feedback icon they scattered all over the place and let them know. I've talked with the program manager and engineers a couple times and they really do want our feedback on this stuff. They will always have to weigh the needs of the many against the few (old IT curmudgeons) but the reason all that telemetry stuff is even there is that they want to improve their product.
Didn't say it was user error, but programmer error. On all of their routines that do telemetry, sounds like they didn't check the registry to see if the no call back was present. That said, use the feedback icon that's all over the place and let them know. I've talked to the Product Manager and a couple of the Engineers and they are actively listenting to all the noise, distilling it down and refocusing their efforts to make it a better product. So far I've had three emails back from an engineer asking for more details on my feedback comments, one of which they knew about and fixed in an update already. That's actually a good approach and they need constructive feedback to give us a good product. Yes, they have to weigh the needs of the casual user against the needs of the few IT curmudgeons, but it's up to us to fix it, and they gave us a good tool to let them know what to fix.
Also, if you're in a panic about it, download MS EMET and lock your systems down. It lets you lock down every subsystem on your box so it will ONLY do exactly what you want it to do.
Not saying you're wrong that it's broken, I bet that it's probably the case. I think it's more of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen in a hurry.
We're old hat IT, and kind of curmudgeonly. Feedback from actual users around having weather on their start menu and things like now having to manually update apps has been actually pretty positive. So they get to weigh the desires of the few against the desires of the many. I don't see that as evil, just pragmatic.
Keep in mind, things like that background app update, sync my data and settings to every computer I own. So when I set up something like a stock ticker, mail, weather or update Evernote, it syncs my preferences to every new computer I set up. I'll admit, I kind of like it that when I install an app on my laptop, it pops up on my desktop. As long as I have the resources to run it anyway. That does have a cost in the form of syncing overhead. I can disable most of that stuff, but I bet it'll take them a bit to get it 100% dialed in for use "off the grid." It's not perfect, and sure, there's some apps that don't make sense to sync, say a GPS app being synced to my desktop that doesn't have GPS, but I think with time we'll be able to fine tune it. To do that though, they need feedback from legitimate users. I've talked with the program managers and engineers a couple times and they legitimately want real, honest feedback on these things - that's why they left the feedback icons all over Windows 10. They really do want us to help make their OS better. That's why they have so many damn telemetry calls. I can't really fault them for that, but yes, they do need to fix their settings that respect turning it off.
This sounds like the administrative law folks decided, hey, you didn't follow proper procedure on this thing you did, go back and check the boxes on your paperwork. It doesn't sound like they are actually saying what they did was wrong or right. If they go back and check the boxes for public comment and still do what they did anyway, nothing changes.
H1B1 is a complex subject on one hand, I like the fact that we do end up helping start up economies that were stagnate and had a low standard of living raising some folks from absolutely impoverished to just poor but livable, on the other side there is some truth in the "They took 'er jobs" line of thinking where we did have a lot of job displacement.
It's seems much more impactful when the "host" country loses high paying jobs as a form of claimed altruism while really it just saved corporations money than if we'd have just sent over a bailout in the form of trade incentives that came out of our tax dollars. On the other side though India is in a drastically better state than it was 10 years ago and the outsourcing is leveling off and now starting to go elsewhere (China, Vietnam...) and they now have the skilled workforce to run their own modern economy without relying as much on other countries.
If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.
Eh, some of them are already cool with it and are on the pilot testing phase with plans to move forward very soon. It's either have an insecure desktop that the hackers already own (Win7), or something newer that has an at least usable GUI that the hackers may have not caught up with yet (10).
OS aside, it's actually the move to IE 11 that is causing the most effort. IE 8 & 9 are out of support come January but companies haven't recoded their web apps or sites. Lots of teaching them how to use Enterprise Mode in IE11.
If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.
It's good these posts come out, but having worked with it, it's probably just a case of some calls that didn't check for the telemetry lockdown registry key. Say what you will, but it's not likely they have a secret cabal going to collect which live tiles you resized to "large" or unpinned. There's enough of us that either ride with defaults or are actually OK with them learning how to make a better OS based on how we use it. Given how rushed it was on the last few months fixing major issues, it doesn't surprise me that a few things slipped through. If it isn't fixed via update once they can process the feedback, I'll be surprised.
For the live tiles, it's probably trying to pre-cache the images for default items. Even if they removed it from their start menu, I think that's still part of the default account profile. Maybe it needs removed from that one as well. That said, maybe it's just poorly coded (feigns shock).
It's good to keep them accountable though, I just wouldn't blow this out of proportion. I've got bigger fish to fry.
Looks like I was wrong about this being PHONE only, that said, I think changing the checkbox to default unchecked would be sufficent. How about letting MS know your thoughts: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Not saying it's not used for that, but the users I support complain constantly about having to re-enter wifi credentials. When I spot to MS over Win 8, the idea was to make it easier to support wiping devices and device migration. MS was in the middle of moving to the whole user model where my data is the same on phone, laptop, desktop regardless of where I go - isn't entirely there yet, but that's the framework they want to have in place. Still, it only applies if you bothered to link your account to a MS account.
Thanks for the correction! Seems the product teams weren't talking internally, I got bad intel from Redmond. It's still opt-in though, so I don't see the controversy. The save to server isn't new, only applies to MS accounts - not local only, and I had to be stupid enough to click a checkbox to share it before this works.
Why thanks! It's always nice to be recognized... No, just a MS consultant that works in the systems management space. I'm paid to clean up MS's mess, so I'm usually pretty busy:)
Eh? I didn't. I demo mobile device management and nuke my demo iPad daily. I've never had to re-enter my corp wifi. Way back both Google and Apple had breaches about some users' wifi passwords being lost, but I think it was only a tiny subset of users. Maybe they have changed practices.
First, we're only talking Windows 10 PHONE
Secondly, it's only available on networks you choose to allow this on.
Third, yes, your wifi passwords are being backed up to make it easier when you migrate devices - Apple, Google and Microsoft all do this on your mobile devices. This isn't new!
I can't imagine that this won't be opt in only by the time it RTMs (or whatever the equivalent is).
It really depends on your needs, but I suggest looking at your overall IT needs and making a platform play. Independant inventory systems aren't much more than fancy spreadsheets, and then even if they are up to date, the immediate request is - "Ok, Bob, now find every out of warranty system from Dell." But your spreadsheet had the original warranty and doesn't track warranty extensions. Or, ok Bob, every HP Z720 needs the following critical drivers installed, or has been approved for moving to Windows 8 or 10 as a pilot, your inventory system can do that right?
I personally prefer the options in Microsoft's System Center suite - using ConfigMgr for automatic discovery, using Service Manager as the CMDB for inventory of misc other assets. Then again, I'm biased as I deploy CM for a living. That said, it's what many very large enterprises use successfully. It automates discovery where possible, but allows extension (manually unfortunately, but it does support extension as you need). System Center has a lot of value in other areas as it also includes a lot of other tools for virtualization, backup of servers or workstations, operations monitoring and general automation/orchestration. Again, I'm biased as that's the platform I know the most.
For the free side, I used to use SpiceWorks until we upgraded to System Center. It worked, but it didn't have nearly the systems management capabilities or a lot of the useful add-ins. It's quite good for basic needs if just inventory is your game and there is a good community around it. I just kept running into the scenario where I had the inventory info, but had no way of tying that inventory info into other projects in meaningful ways - such as "Hey, deploy this GPO to all of the systems in this subnet, but no one else." I would know systems in the subnet, but had no way of tying it (easily) into an AD security group or OU.
Not out of the woods no, but at least a path towards treating infected populations which may lead to reopening of currently closed caves and rebuilding bat populations where previously impacted.
I grew up in Missouri in the area of this study where we have tons of caves, the local grottos (cavers) and conservation department have to either lock down caves that had been open to the public or be incredibly careful not to cross contaminate caves while doing studies on cave ecology, biology, water quality or simply recreational spelunking.
I've been to Yellowstone many times and yes, tourists can be horrible people. That said, you're talking about places like Prismatic Lake which, while fragile and beautiful, have a large population of resident American Bison (Buffalo) that lay in, and defecate in, these pools. The tourist trash I usually see is the occasional coin, flipflop (because idiot tourists), baseball hat (it's windy) and whatever paper blows in. Yes there's more, but compared to large amounts of biomass, I can't help but think the animal population has a larger impact on the bacterial mats.
I do this for a lot of clients. Automatic Deployment Rules in Configuration Manager, Scripts, Cron jobs etc. For test / dev, it absolutely makes sense as I usually have a monitoring system that goes into Maintenance Mode during the updates. If things take too long or if services aren't restored post update, the monitoring system gives me a shout that something needs remediated.
For production, it varies on the expected impact. If it's something I tested in pilot with zero issues and the application isn't something with an insane SLA, sure, I'll use an automatic deployment. When I'm working on hospital equipment such as servers processing imaging or vitals monitoring for surgery, that gets nix'ed no matter what due to the liability concerns. I usually suggest building up trust / experience by automating the less critical systems and phasing in more sensitive systems until you've both gained a lot of experience with it and have more management support to do so as when crap goes down, it's easier to say this is a tested processed we've been using for years vs yeah, oops, new script sorry that knocked down our ERP system.... Resume generating event right there...
So, I guess it depends, just another tool for the toolbox and it's up to the carpenter to know when to pull it out.
Z-Wave + Ethernet + Security wiring + whatever hub
on
New Home Automation?
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I have a similar layout, around 3,800 sq feet on three levels. Z-Wave is indeed a solid recommendation to build the individual items on. GE's Jasc products (in wall outlets, in wall switches, adapter outlets are pretty good, I've got a bunch and I've yet to have an issue. Amazon usually has decent prices but be VERY careful about what switches you buy as three and four-way switches are not wired like you'd expect as one will be a normal switch and the others simply send a signal to that outlet - very different from traditional wiring.
For the hub, you'll want to evaluate what type of features you want. Do you want internet or smart phone connected (you probably do) - in which case take a look at SmartThings or Mi Casa Verde. The problem I've run into however is that if you want to tinker, not all products play well with other products. You can't use SmartThings to control Phillips Hue light bulbs for example - instead you have to integrate the bulbs into IFTTT.com's web service and then trigger them via the web via actions in SmartThings. Totally does work, but it adds a small amount of latency. When you flip a switch, you really do expect instant results and that 1/2 to 1 second is perceivable.
Another question is security, do you want open/close sensors on your doors and windows? Now is the time to wire it if you can and the wiring is thin and cheap. The z-wave wireless sensors you buy work, but do you really want to swap out batteries on a house that size? Plus, they seem unreasonably priced by my standard. Wired ones are 1/3 the going rate and are much more failure resistant.
You'll of course want ethernet around for your normal PCs, but make sure to add in a good location for wireless routers and put a few jacks where you'd want video cameras, even if you don't want to install them right now. Cable is cheap, rewiring isn't. Also, while Z-Wave products create their own mesh networks, the hubs that translate from Z-Wave to WiFi or ethernet need to have a good connection for them to work well. I find that I have to buy an extended range model to cover the house, but my location isn't ideal. That said, depending on your building materials you might need a repeater or two so an extra jack is a godsend when you need it. Keep in mind, you'll need a switch closet somewhere if you put a jack in each room. I ended up with 14 jacks coming into a bedroom simply due to poor planning regarding where the cable drop for internet ended up. I really should have put that in an actual wiring closest or something but too much was already dry walled before I got involved.
Schlage makes good door locks by the way. Tried a couple before ended up with them. PINs are so much easier to manage when I need someone to dogsit.
Audio: do you want centralized music/media controls? If so, it's easy now and a PITA later. Wireless exists, but latency is always an issue and SONOS is damned expensive.
And Boulder is one of the most bike friendly cities in the world where drivers are used to cyclists and he's still had several major and potentially life threatening injuries (if it was enough force to break a collar bone, he could have broken his neck if he'd landed differently). Image what it's like elsewhere.
The part most folks are missing that while you could do this on certain custom roms, almost every phone maker has the NFC sensor turned off unless the device is unlocked. While I use tasker and NFC quite a lot, I can't make it do this without installing a custom rom that enables the NFC. Now the flip side is that if the device is processing NFC when locked, that means someone can bump into you and have your phone activate website URLs or trigger things like google wallet depending on your settings.
I have to do this all the time for work as I used to manage an large HR unit's IT needs - and they really do need your SSN, on every damn piece of documentation...
Find a secure service or hosting option that meets your security requirements, there are hundreds out there. Personally I tend to use LastPass's secure notes or if it's not super secure data I'll just use Evernote w/ attachments and send them a private URL. Again, if you don't like those options, there are literally hundreds of others including roll-your-own services, I've used Accellions (clunky but it works), Box.net and Dropbox or even just spinning up your own web server w/ a required password you give them over the phone. All of varying levels of security and hassle to the end users. To them, it's just an email with a link and perhaps they have to enter their email or go through a sign up process the first time.
It doesn't have to be that hard.
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Your right, which is why you should click that little Windows 10 Feedback icon they scattered all over the place and let them know. I've talked with the program manager and engineers a couple times and they really do want our feedback on this stuff. They will always have to weigh the needs of the many against the few (old IT curmudgeons) but the reason all that telemetry stuff is even there is that they want to improve their product.
Didn't say it was user error, but programmer error. On all of their routines that do telemetry, sounds like they didn't check the registry to see if the no call back was present. That said, use the feedback icon that's all over the place and let them know. I've talked to the Product Manager and a couple of the Engineers and they are actively listenting to all the noise, distilling it down and refocusing their efforts to make it a better product. So far I've had three emails back from an engineer asking for more details on my feedback comments, one of which they knew about and fixed in an update already. That's actually a good approach and they need constructive feedback to give us a good product. Yes, they have to weigh the needs of the casual user against the needs of the few IT curmudgeons, but it's up to us to fix it, and they gave us a good tool to let them know what to fix. Also, if you're in a panic about it, download MS EMET and lock your systems down. It lets you lock down every subsystem on your box so it will ONLY do exactly what you want it to do.
Not saying you're wrong that it's broken, I bet that it's probably the case. I think it's more of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen in a hurry. We're old hat IT, and kind of curmudgeonly. Feedback from actual users around having weather on their start menu and things like now having to manually update apps has been actually pretty positive. So they get to weigh the desires of the few against the desires of the many. I don't see that as evil, just pragmatic. Keep in mind, things like that background app update, sync my data and settings to every computer I own. So when I set up something like a stock ticker, mail, weather or update Evernote, it syncs my preferences to every new computer I set up. I'll admit, I kind of like it that when I install an app on my laptop, it pops up on my desktop. As long as I have the resources to run it anyway. That does have a cost in the form of syncing overhead. I can disable most of that stuff, but I bet it'll take them a bit to get it 100% dialed in for use "off the grid." It's not perfect, and sure, there's some apps that don't make sense to sync, say a GPS app being synced to my desktop that doesn't have GPS, but I think with time we'll be able to fine tune it. To do that though, they need feedback from legitimate users. I've talked with the program managers and engineers a couple times and they legitimately want real, honest feedback on these things - that's why they left the feedback icons all over Windows 10. They really do want us to help make their OS better. That's why they have so many damn telemetry calls. I can't really fault them for that, but yes, they do need to fix their settings that respect turning it off.
This sounds like the administrative law folks decided, hey, you didn't follow proper procedure on this thing you did, go back and check the boxes on your paperwork. It doesn't sound like they are actually saying what they did was wrong or right. If they go back and check the boxes for public comment and still do what they did anyway, nothing changes. H1B1 is a complex subject on one hand, I like the fact that we do end up helping start up economies that were stagnate and had a low standard of living raising some folks from absolutely impoverished to just poor but livable, on the other side there is some truth in the "They took 'er jobs" line of thinking where we did have a lot of job displacement. It's seems much more impactful when the "host" country loses high paying jobs as a form of claimed altruism while really it just saved corporations money than if we'd have just sent over a bailout in the form of trade incentives that came out of our tax dollars. On the other side though India is in a drastically better state than it was 10 years ago and the outsourcing is leveling off and now starting to go elsewhere (China, Vietnam...) and they now have the skilled workforce to run their own modern economy without relying as much on other countries.
If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.
Eh, some of them are already cool with it and are on the pilot testing phase with plans to move forward very soon. It's either have an insecure desktop that the hackers already own (Win7), or something newer that has an at least usable GUI that the hackers may have not caught up with yet (10). OS aside, it's actually the move to IE 11 that is causing the most effort. IE 8 & 9 are out of support come January but companies haven't recoded their web apps or sites. Lots of teaching them how to use Enterprise Mode in IE11. If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.
It's good these posts come out, but having worked with it, it's probably just a case of some calls that didn't check for the telemetry lockdown registry key. Say what you will, but it's not likely they have a secret cabal going to collect which live tiles you resized to "large" or unpinned. There's enough of us that either ride with defaults or are actually OK with them learning how to make a better OS based on how we use it. Given how rushed it was on the last few months fixing major issues, it doesn't surprise me that a few things slipped through. If it isn't fixed via update once they can process the feedback, I'll be surprised. For the live tiles, it's probably trying to pre-cache the images for default items. Even if they removed it from their start menu, I think that's still part of the default account profile. Maybe it needs removed from that one as well. That said, maybe it's just poorly coded (feigns shock). It's good to keep them accountable though, I just wouldn't blow this out of proportion. I've got bigger fish to fry.
Or just ask them to change the defaults on a checkbox: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Let 'em know: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Looks like I was wrong about this being PHONE only, that said, I think changing the checkbox to default unchecked would be sufficent. How about letting MS know your thoughts: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Not saying it's not used for that, but the users I support complain constantly about having to re-enter wifi credentials. When I spot to MS over Win 8, the idea was to make it easier to support wiping devices and device migration. MS was in the middle of moving to the whole user model where my data is the same on phone, laptop, desktop regardless of where I go - isn't entirely there yet, but that's the framework they want to have in place. Still, it only applies if you bothered to link your account to a MS account.
Thanks for the correction! Seems the product teams weren't talking internally, I got bad intel from Redmond. It's still opt-in though, so I don't see the controversy. The save to server isn't new, only applies to MS accounts - not local only, and I had to be stupid enough to click a checkbox to share it before this works.
Why thanks! It's always nice to be recognized... No, just a MS consultant that works in the systems management space. I'm paid to clean up MS's mess, so I'm usually pretty busy :)
Eh? I didn't. I demo mobile device management and nuke my demo iPad daily. I've never had to re-enter my corp wifi. Way back both Google and Apple had breaches about some users' wifi passwords being lost, but I think it was only a tiny subset of users. Maybe they have changed practices.
The sync my Password to Microsoft has been part of Windows 8 and newer from day one. It's just this poorly implemented guest access that's stupid.
You're friends (acquaintances) with someone who uses Windows PHONE?
First, we're only talking Windows 10 PHONE Secondly, it's only available on networks you choose to allow this on. Third, yes, your wifi passwords are being backed up to make it easier when you migrate devices - Apple, Google and Microsoft all do this on your mobile devices. This isn't new! I can't imagine that this won't be opt in only by the time it RTMs (or whatever the equivalent is).
It really depends on your needs, but I suggest looking at your overall IT needs and making a platform play. Independant inventory systems aren't much more than fancy spreadsheets, and then even if they are up to date, the immediate request is - "Ok, Bob, now find every out of warranty system from Dell." But your spreadsheet had the original warranty and doesn't track warranty extensions. Or, ok Bob, every HP Z720 needs the following critical drivers installed, or has been approved for moving to Windows 8 or 10 as a pilot, your inventory system can do that right? I personally prefer the options in Microsoft's System Center suite - using ConfigMgr for automatic discovery, using Service Manager as the CMDB for inventory of misc other assets. Then again, I'm biased as I deploy CM for a living. That said, it's what many very large enterprises use successfully. It automates discovery where possible, but allows extension (manually unfortunately, but it does support extension as you need). System Center has a lot of value in other areas as it also includes a lot of other tools for virtualization, backup of servers or workstations, operations monitoring and general automation/orchestration. Again, I'm biased as that's the platform I know the most. For the free side, I used to use SpiceWorks until we upgraded to System Center. It worked, but it didn't have nearly the systems management capabilities or a lot of the useful add-ins. It's quite good for basic needs if just inventory is your game and there is a good community around it. I just kept running into the scenario where I had the inventory info, but had no way of tying that inventory info into other projects in meaningful ways - such as "Hey, deploy this GPO to all of the systems in this subnet, but no one else." I would know systems in the subnet, but had no way of tying it (easily) into an AD security group or OU.
Not out of the woods no, but at least a path towards treating infected populations which may lead to reopening of currently closed caves and rebuilding bat populations where previously impacted. I grew up in Missouri in the area of this study where we have tons of caves, the local grottos (cavers) and conservation department have to either lock down caves that had been open to the public or be incredibly careful not to cross contaminate caves while doing studies on cave ecology, biology, water quality or simply recreational spelunking.
I've been to Yellowstone many times and yes, tourists can be horrible people. That said, you're talking about places like Prismatic Lake which, while fragile and beautiful, have a large population of resident American Bison (Buffalo) that lay in, and defecate in, these pools. The tourist trash I usually see is the occasional coin, flipflop (because idiot tourists), baseball hat (it's windy) and whatever paper blows in. Yes there's more, but compared to large amounts of biomass, I can't help but think the animal population has a larger impact on the bacterial mats.
I do this for a lot of clients. Automatic Deployment Rules in Configuration Manager, Scripts, Cron jobs etc. For test / dev, it absolutely makes sense as I usually have a monitoring system that goes into Maintenance Mode during the updates. If things take too long or if services aren't restored post update, the monitoring system gives me a shout that something needs remediated. For production, it varies on the expected impact. If it's something I tested in pilot with zero issues and the application isn't something with an insane SLA, sure, I'll use an automatic deployment. When I'm working on hospital equipment such as servers processing imaging or vitals monitoring for surgery, that gets nix'ed no matter what due to the liability concerns. I usually suggest building up trust / experience by automating the less critical systems and phasing in more sensitive systems until you've both gained a lot of experience with it and have more management support to do so as when crap goes down, it's easier to say this is a tested processed we've been using for years vs yeah, oops, new script sorry that knocked down our ERP system.... Resume generating event right there... So, I guess it depends, just another tool for the toolbox and it's up to the carpenter to know when to pull it out.
I have a similar layout, around 3,800 sq feet on three levels. Z-Wave is indeed a solid recommendation to build the individual items on. GE's Jasc products (in wall outlets, in wall switches, adapter outlets are pretty good, I've got a bunch and I've yet to have an issue. Amazon usually has decent prices but be VERY careful about what switches you buy as three and four-way switches are not wired like you'd expect as one will be a normal switch and the others simply send a signal to that outlet - very different from traditional wiring. For the hub, you'll want to evaluate what type of features you want. Do you want internet or smart phone connected (you probably do) - in which case take a look at SmartThings or Mi Casa Verde. The problem I've run into however is that if you want to tinker, not all products play well with other products. You can't use SmartThings to control Phillips Hue light bulbs for example - instead you have to integrate the bulbs into IFTTT.com's web service and then trigger them via the web via actions in SmartThings. Totally does work, but it adds a small amount of latency. When you flip a switch, you really do expect instant results and that 1/2 to 1 second is perceivable. Another question is security, do you want open/close sensors on your doors and windows? Now is the time to wire it if you can and the wiring is thin and cheap. The z-wave wireless sensors you buy work, but do you really want to swap out batteries on a house that size? Plus, they seem unreasonably priced by my standard. Wired ones are 1/3 the going rate and are much more failure resistant. You'll of course want ethernet around for your normal PCs, but make sure to add in a good location for wireless routers and put a few jacks where you'd want video cameras, even if you don't want to install them right now. Cable is cheap, rewiring isn't. Also, while Z-Wave products create their own mesh networks, the hubs that translate from Z-Wave to WiFi or ethernet need to have a good connection for them to work well. I find that I have to buy an extended range model to cover the house, but my location isn't ideal. That said, depending on your building materials you might need a repeater or two so an extra jack is a godsend when you need it. Keep in mind, you'll need a switch closet somewhere if you put a jack in each room. I ended up with 14 jacks coming into a bedroom simply due to poor planning regarding where the cable drop for internet ended up. I really should have put that in an actual wiring closest or something but too much was already dry walled before I got involved. Schlage makes good door locks by the way. Tried a couple before ended up with them. PINs are so much easier to manage when I need someone to dogsit. Audio: do you want centralized music/media controls? If so, it's easy now and a PITA later. Wireless exists, but latency is always an issue and SONOS is damned expensive.
And Boulder is one of the most bike friendly cities in the world where drivers are used to cyclists and he's still had several major and potentially life threatening injuries (if it was enough force to break a collar bone, he could have broken his neck if he'd landed differently). Image what it's like elsewhere.
The part most folks are missing that while you could do this on certain custom roms, almost every phone maker has the NFC sensor turned off unless the device is unlocked. While I use tasker and NFC quite a lot, I can't make it do this without installing a custom rom that enables the NFC. Now the flip side is that if the device is processing NFC when locked, that means someone can bump into you and have your phone activate website URLs or trigger things like google wallet depending on your settings.
I have to do this all the time for work as I used to manage an large HR unit's IT needs - and they really do need your SSN, on every damn piece of documentation... Find a secure service or hosting option that meets your security requirements, there are hundreds out there. Personally I tend to use LastPass's secure notes or if it's not super secure data I'll just use Evernote w/ attachments and send them a private URL. Again, if you don't like those options, there are literally hundreds of others including roll-your-own services, I've used Accellions (clunky but it works), Box.net and Dropbox or even just spinning up your own web server w/ a required password you give them over the phone. All of varying levels of security and hassle to the end users. To them, it's just an email with a link and perhaps they have to enter their email or go through a sign up process the first time. It doesn't have to be that hard.