Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. December 1, 2004
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596004052
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596004057
-
Book Dimensions:
9.6 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
- Weighs: 1.4 pounds
Product Description
Take a geek and a PC, add one soldering iron, a home, and a copy of
Home Hacking Projects for Geeks, and you'll give new meaning to the term, "home improvement." From fearless neophytes to tool-wielding masterminds, the home hacker in any geek will find new inspiration and plenty of hands-on guidance to take on a variety of home-transforming projects once relegated to the world of sci-fi. This fun new guide combines creativity with electricity and power tools to achieve cool--and sometimes even practical--home automation projects. Never again will you have to flip a light switch when you enter a room or use a key to open your front door. With a few off-the-shelf devices, some homemade hardware, and a little imagination, you can be living in your own high-tech habitat.
Home Hacking Projects for Geeks shows hackers of all ability levels how to take on a wide range of projects, from the relatively small but energy-conscious automating of light switches, to building home theaters using Windows or Linux-based PCs, to more complicated projects like building home security systems that rival those offered by professional security consultants. Each project includes a conceptual diagram, a "What You Need List" and a small "Project Stats" section that describes the relative difficulty, time involved, and cost of the project. What's more, each project is a workable, practical way to improve your home--something unique that you can customize for your individual needs. The thirteen projects in
Home Hacking Projects for Geeks are divided into three categories: Home Automation, Home Entertainment Systems, and Security, and include projects such as:
- Remotely Monitor Your Pet
- Make Your House Talk
- Remotely Control Your Computer's MP3 player
- Create Time-Shifted FM Radio
- Watch Your House Across the Network
- Build a Home Security System
If you've ever thought the Jetsons had it made, or looked around your house and thought, "I could make that better " then you're ready for
Home Hacking Projects for Geeks.
About The Author
Tony Northrup, a Boston-area network security consultant and technology author, developed his interest in home automation after renting an apartment where every light was controlled by pulling a string. Tony turned to home automation products to add light switches without needing to hire an electrician or cutting into the drywall. Tony later bought a house and now uses computers to control and monitor virtually every system in his home:electrical, home theater, security, and even plumbing. Tony's wife, Erica,ensures his home hacking projects are easy to use and reliable, while his cat, Sammy, mangles every project within paw's reach.
Eric's Love affair with technology began as a child with his first electronics project kits from Radio Shack. In his early teens, a friend's Texas Instruments TI99/4A intoduced him to computers and programming, thus sealing his fate to be a lifelong geek.
Reader ReviewsA better title for this might be "Introduction to X10 Technologies," because that's all it was. That being said, I learned many interesting things about X10, from an end user's perspective. Frankly, before I bought this book, I didn't even know that X10 was a protocol, and not a product. (You've seen all those X10 camera links on the web.) But, to pretend that you'll get many ideas from these cookie-cutter projects, or to pretend that this is a book "for geeks" is to seriuosly mislabel this book. As I said earlier, the book on it's own merits, isn't bad. The projects are step-by-step recipes for doing things like hooking up X10 controls to light switches, motion detectors, and radios, and managing them using (downloadable, no programming knowledge is required or expected) scripts and applications in both Microsoft Windows and Linux. It's geared for the casual technophile: if you're comfortable in a conventional home electronics store, then there aren't any projects in this book that would be out of your reach.
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