Intro/question

[drownedrat@xxxxxxx]

Hiya,
having posted my first question & read a couple of post about this
being a community, not a Q&A sesh thought it's be polite to introduce
myself. Sorry if this is inappropriate.

Basically I've recently bought a house & have a fairly technical
background (computing, rather than engineering) & am interested in
HA. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of spare cash, & doubt I will
any time soon.

Looking at a lot of the sites it seems to be a fairly pricy business.
I know cable is cheap, but all the other toys seems to rapidy add to
the cost of any project.

Is there a low end to HA? I've read Smart Home mag, which seems to
deal with the very high end stuff (and also seems like more of a
collection of ads than articles) and had a look at a lot of the links
>from
still in the 'you could do this, or buy a new car' category. Please
don't think I'm having a go, just wondering if I should shelve my
interest until I have serious savings.

My initial plans are a wired home LAN & some computer control of
heating, with AV & lighting coming later (probably at another house,
some time from now)

I know how to wire a LAN (pretty much), so any pointers on the
heating would be great. I know this has been discussed a bit, but
hard to find anything with yahoo's interface.

Babble over time for bed.

Cheerio

D.