I’d had my eye on a Sonos System for a while but was turned off by it’s price, lack of speaker options, and lack of inputs. I started looking for alternatives but was underwhelmed. The best of the rest was the Logitech Squeezebox system. Squeezebox is a network music player supported by Logitech developed hardware. It is also supported by standalone applications that can run independently of Logitech systems.
electronics
Automatic Martini Dispenser
I was looking for jobs in the summer of 2011 and came across an awesome sounding one for a product development company called Synapse. I was attempting to find a way to stand out from the other applicants when I read the last line of the job description. They wanted someone who had a personal martini making robot. The requirement was a joke but a challenge. What other applicant would actually make a robotic martini maker? I wanted to apply for the job quickly so my build needed to be fast utilizing components that I had laying around. Luckily, I had pretty much everything I needed.
Twittering Catfood Dispenser
In 2009, my wife and I adopted an overweight cat named Nermal. The Humane Society was concerned that she didn’t know when to stop eating so instructed us to feed her 1/3 a cup of dry cat food twice a day. I tried feeding her when I woke up and got back from work. Nermal got so hungry that she’d wake us up in the middle of the night, hours before her regular feeding time. It was also hard to keep her on the diet when we were out of town. We’d end up overfeeding her in fear that she would eat everything in one sitting. I hoped technology could solve the problem in the form of an automatic cat food dispenser.
MythTV DVR
I find it very frustrating when I have time to relax and there is nothing good on television. Tivo is a popular solution that allows you to record your favorite television shows and watch them at a later time. Storage limitations and monthly fees detract from the value though. A better option for the individual that likes to get their hands dirty is MythTV, an open source home entertainment application that has been under heavy development since 2002. It’s free, infinitely expandable, and can be used to capture and playback high definition over the air (OTA) television signals.