Back in October we reported on a shower room TV at a around £550.  It appears like the slide in costs is continuing as this most current water resistant using on sale in Japan is the equivalent of just £170!   lets hope the Evergreen EG-FTV71S makes it to these shores soon.

“Called “Evergreen EG-FTV71S”, this television is waterproof, no diving diving right here however just resistant to a couple splashes, the resolution is a respectable 480×234 while the battery will last 3 hours, damn the water would be chilly by then…154x200x38mm, 600g as well as 37980 Yens!”

www.everg.co.jp  [Via: www.akihabaranews.com]

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produce a welcoming, sophisticated area for entertaining household as well as good friends this year with hits of greenery, winter white and rustic elements. In designer Betty Theodoropoulos’s home, small touches add relaxing appeal as well as ageless holiday cheer. try these ideas for a advanced handle holiday decor.

For a genuinely low-key tree, take a break from the normal menagerie of ornaments as well as wrap a towering fir in a natural garland of magnolia leaves as well as white berries as well as coordinate with white, gold as well as emerald gift wrap.

Dress down sophisticated areas for the holidays with twinkly tiny trees in rustic wicker baskets.

Products: Rug by Stark, side table, Elte; throw (on chaise back), Hermès; sconces, Circa Lighting; tree, greenery, Sheridan Nurseries

Dress interior doors with little unadorned boxwood wreaths hung with broad, glossy ribbon.

Pile gently iced gingerbread treats onto a tiered silver cake stand or embellish an empty kitchen area counter with a gingerbread house. Gingerbread treats can last for weeks — so they’re worth the investment or baking time.

Products: Cupcakes, eat My Words

Try a high-low pairing like an orchid potted in a big silver punch bowl as well as accented with a gnarled branch — knotty as well as nice!

Products: Stool, South hill Home; gingerbread house, whole Foods Market

Cluster tiny potted trees around a fireplace or doorway for a fresh hit of green.

Products: Coffee table, Elte; sofas, Montauk; throws, Hermès; Kelly Wearstler rug, Patterson, Flynn & Martin; trees, Sheridan Nurseries

Punctuate the newel publish with a gigantic pinecone — it’s basic as well as natural, however impactful.

Products: wall colour, panelling colour, horizon (OC-35), Benjamin Moore; sconces, Circa Lighting; greenery, Sheridan Nurseries

For a joyful vignette, fill a table with white orchids or amaryllis as well as gifts in matching paper. 

Products: Skylight, Solarium; console, metropolitan Barn; tile, Waterworks; greenery, Sheridan Nurseries; ribbon, Mokuba

Pretty up bathrooms for holiday celebrations with aromatic want clippings as well as fresh-cut blooms.

Products: Vanity, tile, Waterworks; sconces by visual Comfort, Summerhill Hardware.

Go ahead as well as pull out all the stops in kids’ spaces — they’re only young once!

Products: Linens, Auggie; custom-made wallpaper, De Gournay; pendant light, Circa Lighting; pouf, Elte; tree, metropolitan Barn

In the first of our new ‘My Automated Home’ series,  Soitjes Soit talks us through the idea behind his home brew digital home Server.  created using an economical Mimo USB monitor and a mini-ITX PC, the system offers a variety of functions around the home…

How it started – I was searching for an Internet Radio player.  one of those little hardware devices like the ones from TerraTec. but none them were really flexible.  Well, you could listen to Internet radio, but not much more.  then the other day I was surfing on the web and stumbled on the Mimo monitors website, where they sell those little 7” monitors, powered only by USB.  At that moment I chose to built my own Internet Radio player, which I would install on a PC.  but during the course of the development numerous things have been added, so now I talk about my digital home Server.

The Hardware – I purchased a mini-ITX motherboard (Intel D945gclf).  I read on forum that the CPU was not very silent, and yes, it was not silent at all.  So I threw out the fan, and

installed a passive cooler.  I also replaced the PSU with fan with a PicoPSU, which has no fan.  So now it was pretty silent.  The last component which makes noise is the hard disk, but despite numerous attempts I never found a good alternative.

Although I tried numerous (booting from USB stick, booting from USB hard disk, booting from CF card etc), I’ll just have to wait until the SSD become cheaper.  With a pair of speakers and a little hub my system was complete.  now I needed an operation system and an Internet radio player.

The software – The operating system is Windows XP.  I have made numerous attempts to decrease the OS size with XPLite and nLite, but in the end I had too numerous problems.  now I just use conventional XP.  Why XP ?  I started on Linux, but there is simply no good development environment for Linux.  I tried Lazarus but that was very unstable.  I have used Delphi about 15 years ago, and had very good memories.  Now, would Delphi still exist ?  actually yes, although the product has gone through some challenging times.  now I was facing some interesting challenges :

The USB monitor size is 7″, with a resolution of 800×480.  That is a small monitor, believe me.

No keyboard or mouse, only a touchscreen to operate all modules

Multitasking : listen to audio, video or make phone calls, all at the same time

The last time I programmed was 15 years ago, and I hate making designs and testing

But Delphi is an amazing powerful development environment.  combined with a good graphical library I was able to make some very good screens, especially on a small screen.

I actually wrote the program twice.  The first attempt was still rather ugly, and I had difficulties because it was so long ago I had programmed (I do something completely different in my professional life).  When working on the Internet Radio player I started to have other ideas, and this is what you can find today in my digital home Server :

Audio – A streaming MP3 player capable of playing local MP3 files and Internet radio streams.  While listening to music, you can see the time, speak with the weather forecast, or look at the playlist.  It can also parse the RSS feeds for podcasts, so that I-  can follow a few podcasts to which I listen regularly.

Photo – Such a small 7″ monitor looks like a kind of photo frame, so I programmed a photo slideshow.  The module has 172 transitions that are rendered between images.

Video – This module would not have made a lot of sense on a 7″ monitor.  Instead, the small monitor is used to control the film which is displayed on a second monitor.  note that this is not a video streaming module, it’s just playing a local video file.

Calendar – From a software point of view a real nightmare.  I use Google calendar a lot (free SMS notification, useful !!).  but the Google API is cumbersome and very badly documented.  but my module allows to speak with my Google Calender.

Calculator – A little calculator.  Not much to tell about this.

Phone – another very challenging module.  The idea was to control Skype through the little monitor.  I finally succeeded, and if you use video in Skype it’s displayed on the second monitor.  I experimented a lot with bluetooth for this module.

Stopwatch – A stopwatch, counting down from any number of minutes.  actually a request from my girlfriend.  She needs this when she is baking bread.

Things I like in the current setup – The choice for the small 7″ usb touchscreen was defninitely a good idea.  It forced me to be careful in not putting too much on the screen, and at the same time it had to look good because it’s standing in my living room !  It really looks cool.  The mini-ITX PC was good as well, and quite cheap.  You can make them silent, and they are still quite powerful.  much more than enough for what it’s doing now.

What needs improvement – The focus is multimedia, but I would like to extend my digital home Server in a real home Automation server, but then the current architecture has some limitations.  I’ve already done quite a bit of research with USB connectors, Arduino microcontrollers, X10 and all that other home automation stuff.  The main problem is to find an open solution, which I can integrate in my digital home Server v2.0.

More details and screenshots, and explanation of what going on can be found on www.digitalhomeserver.net

Mimo Monitors   :   Send us Your ‘My Automated Home’ Story

Want More? – Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed. You can even get these news stories delivered through email, straight to your inbox every day

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This morning, data Robotics have officially introduced DroboApps.  since the statement of the Drobo SDK beta back in July, over 100 designers have signed up for the program creating around 20 applications for the unit. amongst these are a number of applications that will already charm to the wise house enthusiast.  uPnP, iTunes as well as DLNA apps all assist to transform the Drobo from a storage gadget into a media server.

Many if not all of the present applications are free as well as open source.  nevertheless DR aren’t ruling out apps that are chargeable too.  While many applications will need the Linux powered DroboShare (various IP based servers for example), some will be offered to run on stand alone Drobos too, or may even be desktop based like the Drobo dashboard for Linux.

Keen not to upset the “it just works” philosophy, the apps system will not be enabled by default, however will be quickly changed on by the more technical individual thinking about the added performance it provides.

We asked DR exactly how they got round running several apps on the fairly moderate DroboShare hardware.  The response is “Add switch Memory”, a piece of software application that enables you to boost the memory offered for running programs by either utilising 512 meg of difficult drive area or cleverly a USB thumb drive plugged into the back of the unit.  Running several apps, particularly something like a hectic FTP server will of program have an impact on Drobo’s core performance as a NAS.

DR will provide no guarantee or support for 3rd celebration apps as well as it will be delegated the designer neighborhood to vet them for malware.  a few of the success stories in the applications already offered include:

Fuppes – A UPnP / DLNA media server, Fuppes will enable DroboShare to stream media to your Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 or many other network enabled media players.

Jumbo Frames – If you have a Gigabit Ethernet network with Jumbo Frames then the Jumbo Frames DroboApp modifications the MTU level to 9000 on your DroboShare to ensure that you can get  additional performance.  DR state individuals have reported a doubling of read/write performance from this 1k application.

Time Tamer – designed to stop Apple’s Time machine backup system taking over all the area on Drobo, Time Tamer produces a disk picture for Time machine to utilize that will grow to 2x size of your difficult disk, however no larger.  The utility is supplied in a Mac .app data which enables it to work on all disks, not just Drobo.

Many other useful apps like SSH, WOL, PERL, FTP, rSYNC are offered now.  DR have already seen a beta version of AFP running on the system as well as well as they are likewise predicting the command line bit torrent client will soon have a GUI front end.  The DDC (Drobo designer Community) is free to join as well as we look ahead with rate of interest to see what other applications can be produced for Drobo.

drobo.com/droboapps : www.drobospace.com/forums : Our Drobo/DroboShare Review

Buy Drobo

Amazon.co.uk

The official press Follows…

“DATA ROBOTICS ALIGNS WITH designers TO provide 20 new APPLICATIONS FOR DROBO as well as DROBOSHARE
Community-Created, Community-Supported DroboApps provide personalized performance for iTunes, BitTorrent, Time Machine, Yoics as well as more

SANTA CLARA, CA – October 21, 2008 –Data Robotics, Inc. today revealed that since opening up its storage platform to third-party designers in July 2008, 20 DroboApps have been established or ported for utilize with the award-winning Drobo as well as DroboShare. DroboApps allow clients to interact with their Drobo as well as DroboShare in interesting as well as book methods that everybody from typical house individuals to Linux lovers will appreciate. DroboApps opens up a world of possibilities including, iTunes™ music server, UPnP as well as DLNA media streaming, BitTorrent™ downloading, FTP as well as web server performance as well as remote gain access to via the Yoics™ client, among others.

The Drobo designer neighborhood (DDC) as well as DroboApps efforts underscore data Robotics’ commitment to working carefully with the designer neighborhood to provide a totally personalized experience to every Drobo customer. anyone thinking about establishing or porting applications to Drobo as well as DroboShare can indication up for the DDC at www.drobospace.com/developers.

“The Drobo solves consumers’ ever-expanding requirement for storage in a simple as well as dependable way. When integrated with Yoics, the kept data becomes immediately accessible from anywhere on the internet,” stated Ryo Koyama, president & CEO of Yoics. “The application we produced as part of the Drobo designer neighborhood transforms the Drobo into an Web appliance, where the data kept on it is offered from any type of web-browser–even the one on your iPhone.”

Some examples of DroboApps offered today include:

Firefly iTunes Media Server: An extremely popular, open-source, Linux-based iTunes media server that has been ported to DroboShare. The application provides Mac as well as PC individuals the power to search as well as stream terabytes of music in their home.

Yoics: A powerful solution that transforms Drobo as well as DroboShare into an quickly accessible as well as shareable Web resource. featuring an intuitive individual interface, Yoics delivers a remote gain access to solution that enables individuals to immediately gain access to data on Drobo or DroboShare from any type of web browser or mobile device, such as the iPhone.

Time Tamer: A radically simple tool that limits Apple’s Time machine from utilizing all offered area on Drobo. Time Tamer solves a major problem for OS X Leopard clients that desire to use Drobo for both Time machine as well as other applications.

Linux Dashboard: A community-created Linux dashboard for Drobo that provides many of the functions offered to Windows as well as OS X users. produced by a DDC member from scratch, the application opens up endless possibilities for Drobo’s growing individual base of Linux designers as well as enthusiasts.

rsync: A fast, versatile, regional file-copying server that is prominent on Linux as well as Unix. This cross platform tool assists individuals synchronize data either locally or to remote locations.

Enhanced CTorrent: A BitTorrent client designed for utilize downloading Torrent files.

FUPPES Multimedia Server: A UPnP / DLNA multimedia server for music, pictures as well as videos that can be utilized in conjunction with compatible clients, such as the Sony Playstation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360.

“We are extremely excited about the community’s fast response to our designer program in producing as well as porting DroboApps for Drobo,” specified Dr. Geoff Barrall, creator & CEO of data Robotics. “Unlike traditional storage gadgets that limit individuals to a fixed number of features or applications, Drobo now provides an open atmosphere that enables almost limitless growth of new functionality. individuals will no longer have to select their storage solution based upon fixed function lists.”

To view the full suite of DroboApps currently offered for download, or produce as well as submit a new application to the DDC, please go to www.drobo.com/droboapps“

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I understand its barely flip-flop weather, however in the world of magazines we work a season ahead as well as are hectic trying to wrap our brains around what we will want to online with four months down the road. So with the crisp days of early autumn 2009 in front of mind, we editors headed off to the Indigo books autumn “sneak peak” last week. Indigo is always a fantastic go-to for housewares as well as gift concepts (I like their olive wood cutting boards as well as bowls), however this “wrap me around you” throw ($45) truly caught my eye. offered at Indigo stores September 1st, it’s soft, cosy, as well as the graphic type provides it a contemporary edge. It would look great on a neutral sofa or folded across the foot of a bed, as well as will be just the ticket for those awesome autumn nights. 

Check Indigo‘s site for their store locations.

Photo credits:
1. Indigo Books
2. Sarah Hartill