Re: Mini-ITX PC's a the future of HA

["Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I'm not going to get into a post-length contest with you, but I'll
just make a few points.

1. Running a dedicated automation appliance type machine is a necessity, no
matter what type of OS you use. Anyone who is going to take the time and
money to implement a reasonable home automation system isn't going to choke
on spending a $K to set up a good dedicated machine to provide that service.

2. Windows machines are running multi-million dollar installations out
there, and stay up for a very long time if they are set up correctly and
left alone.

3. Embedded XP is a good alternative for a dedicated machine, because you
can strip out the bits you don't need, and it costs less and is perfectly
fine for running off a flash card and boots quite quickly.

4. One thing you are missing in your zeal for the VIA mini-ITX scenario is
media. Media and automaiton are tightly connected these days. A VIA mini-ITX
system cannot really act as a media server for any reasonably sized
scenario.

BTW, here is a picture of my old theater controller system, CQC based of
course. It's a VIA mini-ITX based system in a HushPC enclosure. It was very
nice and I liked it a lot, but adding media to the picture required moving
up the food chain to one of our new systems, which does RAID1 (don't want to
re-rip all that stuff) and does require fans, and a lot of PCI slots for the
various bits and pieces needed for automation without having to go to
external hardware.

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/MiscImages/HushPCSystem.jpg

------------------------------------
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
www.charmedquark.com

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ep6dnQeiBLzI5BPZnZ2dnUVZ_oSdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx
> "Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>
>> I don't think that's the case.
>
> Dude, context please!
>
>> Windows doesn't crash by itself. It crashes because it's mostly
>> used in a way that any system would crash, i.e. where a
>> non-technical person is free to do anything he/she likes with it.
>