Re: Switching audio via an Ocelot and SECU's

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:O-qdnQslb-4vNH_enZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Yes, I know that trick.  But why should *I* have to compensate for their
> > programming problems or poor choice of forum software?
>
> Hey, worth every penny that registration costs you, right?  <grin>

But I get so much more for the same registration fee out of Usenet!  :-)
And I get green stamps, too!

> Yeah, some sites suck more than others.  But think back a few years.  I'm
> not complaining!
>
> > My greater struggle is that "any time you come across a website with a
> > crappy search interface" usually means there's something *crappy*
> somewhere
> > in the company.
>
> No, I wouldn't go that far.  Too many of us online folks are SERIOUSLY
> over-skilled compared to the 'real people' slaving away at those real
jobs.

I suppose.  But the talent's out there.  Web design is a skill that can be
practiced remotely very easily.  I don't know what their marketing budget is
like but it seems hefty enough to support lots of roadshows.  They could
hire someone, somewhere to fix simple things like this:

http://www.appdig.com/adicon_new/application.htm

It looks very strange in FireFox and there's no reason to have HTML files
listed for download.  Then a little proofreading of the articles, removing
dead links
like those to www.futurestandard.com - just a general tune up.  The kind of
thing that every halfway decent site needs at least once a year if not two
or three times.

> > It's really put me off investing any more money in the ADI line of
> > equipment.
>
> Well, I'd put more emphasis on how well the actual product works, not just
> the web forums.

It's not just the forums, it's the shabby condition of the website, the
haphazard mix of Word documents, HTML, PDF and text files.  You just get the
feeling you're walking into some time warp.  All the documents seem to date
to 2002 when  ADI's Ocelot/Leopard area of the website seems to have gone
into hibernation.

Configuring the Modem  20 Dec 2002 (144K)
Driveway Sensor  20 Dec 2002 (144K)
Sprinkler Control  20 Dec 2002 (144K)
. . .

.> > Considering I can buy a Pentium class mini-ITX for roughly the cost of
an
> > Ocelot I think I need to re-evaluate my system design.  I'll always be
> able
> > to find a replacement controller if I choose the PC-based strategy.
>
> True, but babysitting a PC, over time, is a LOT more tedious that
> set-and-forget appliance-like boxes.

Agreed.  There isn't any denying that set-and-forget is better for
"autonomous" functions like home control but I've been researching these VIA
boxes for a few weeks now.  Lots of server-meisters are switching over
because the power consumption of the units is so low compared to a standard
PC and the reliability appears to be quite good.  There are lots of posts
describing which flavors of Linux and which builds are the most stable and
lots of creative ways of mounting and accessing the boxes.

The really low end (but still quite capable) VIA boards with CPUs sell for
$100.  At that price and with a low power consumption in the 5-15 watt range
you can offload some processing to other units.  Keep the HA server simple
and use separate media servers and HVAC servers to minimize the impact of a
failure or system hang of any one machine.

> > On the
> > other hand, things could get pretty hairy if ADI goes out of business.
>
> And if a meteor struck tomorrow we'd likewise be screwed.

Oh, I think we both know which is the more likely outcome given the host of
issues facing small businesses.  I've seen them shuttered because of forced
sales due to death of key personnel, dissolution of partnerships, a shift in
the company's market strategy, a technologic advance that strands them,
buyouts and all sorts of perils.  I forget what the failure rate is, but I
think it's either 1/3 or 1/2 of all small businesses fail.  Wait - I just
looked it up since last time I looked was ten years ago:

"The authors concluded that cumulatively 64.2% of the businesses failed in a
10-year period"

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvice/ask/sa990930.htm

You'd better pray your chances of getting hit by a meteor aren't equal!!!

Ever see a product called the "Omni Reader?"  They were going great until
technology brought forth the flatbed scanner and put them into jack-rabbit
quick bankruptcy.

> > I keep thinking of the gentlemen from the UK who recently posted with
his
> > burned-out control board who'll have to redo his entire system because
the
> > specialized CPU board was no longer available.
>
> The curse of proprietary/bleeding edge.

Ocelot no longer bleeds - it's on the trailing edge of the latest HA surge
indeed.  But proprietary it certainly is.  Obscure, too.  I would venture
that both you and I (and thousands more like us) could sit down at someone
else's HA PC and eventually figure out exactly what it was doing, what
programs were running and where there might be problems although we had
never seen the machine before.  That's because we know enough about PC HW
and SW to logically decompose the process.  I doubt there's 1/1000 the
number of people who could sit before an Ocelot and do the same debugging.

> > I think I might seriously
> > look into the Elk line of products to see if they're hitting more of
their
> > marks than ADI.  Although I can't find it with the forum search tool, I
am
> > sure that one of ADI's key technical people left.  I'll bet he took a
lot
> of
> > "institutional memory" with him.  That's a worrisome problem in a small
> > company.  It's caused more than one such shop to shutter their doors.
>
> SO true.

It's a danger that simply disappears with the mini-PC option because other
manufacturers make similar boxes.  Try converting your Ocelot setup to Elk
with just a copy of Ghost and a blank DVD-R.  When enough servers have been
converted from Dell and HP to VIA machines, Intel and AMD might nose into
the waters.  VIA's been making support chips for a long, long time.  They
have a proven track record.

With power prices up, 15 watts instead of 150 for people running multiple
PC's isn't chump change.  The Ocelot consumes less power, true, but try
getting it to play a DVD or pipe your front door cam to the wall LCD while
simultaneously recording all front door activity and keeping a running log
of all home events.

> > For the things I am trying to do, I'm becoming more and more convinced
> that
> > a mini-ITX PC is the proper way to do it instead of the Rube
Goldberg-ish
> > method of converting RF to IR to X-10 and torturing myself with ladder
> logic
> > programming to work around the shortcomings of the Ocelot.
>
> Oh now from THAT perspective, yes, a PC would certainly be a lot more
> flexible and less of a pain to get configured.  Just aim for building it
as
> 'appliance-like' as possible.  Heck, if you can run the stuff in linux I'd
> go for one of those low-end router device hacks.  Soekris (sp?) comes to
> mind.

I'm convinced from reading all the posts that I have from server operators
that the VIA machines are pretty robust under Linux.  They even seem to be
stable under W2KPro although I doubt I would use it.  Lots of people are
writing drivers for the VIA boxes and there's lots of enthusiasm for them
because they conserve so much (increasingly) expensive electricity to
perform the same tasks nearly as well as their full-sized brothers.

> > For a device
> > that's strongly oriented towards X-10 NOT to have some sort of X-10 RF
> > interface (especially when Dave even dumped on e in their laps!!!!) is
> just
> > bogus. There's no other word to describe it.  They've fallen asleep at
the
> > wheel, I fear.  [/flames off]
>
> Yeah, all your points are valid.  Hopefully they'll re-energize
themselves.

Hopefully.  But these flaws have been pointed out to them before and not
much has changed.  Here's but one sample:

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Code Monkey
Junior Member
Member # 950

Posted August 28, 2004 04:59 AM
The forum page could use a little updating. You can have the best product on
the planet, but if the place where you are referring your customers to for
support looks like it hasn?t been touched in almost a year it doesn?t
instill much confidence.
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As I said before.  Oy!

--
Bobby G.