[NBLUG/talk] Setting up X-10 home automation

[Lincoln Peters]

I'd like to use my Linux box to control a few appliances in my house, such as 
a lamp that I use as an alarm clock (my college schedule is too complex for 
an ordinary appliance timer to handle).  Of course, being a home automation 
technology that runs on Linux, I'm sure that once I've set it up, I'll find 
more wild and crazy applications for it.

However, the biggest obstacle I've encountered thus far is that I can't find 
any place that sells all of the necessary hardware.  Radio Shack carries the 
control modules but not the parts that allow the computer to control them, 
and nowhere else that I've looked seems to carry any of them.

Thus, I have two questions for anyone who uses X-10 (and I know *someone* here 
uses it):

1. Where do you buy X-10 hardware?  Is there any place that sells it locally?  
(I'd like to have it installed and configured by Wednesday, if possible.)

2. Any caveats I should know about regarding X-10 controllers?  I'm already 
aware that it's a good idea to send each command twice in case it got 
corrupted the first time, and some devices have a tendency to create 
electrical "noise" that interferes with the signals.


-- 
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

hangover, n.:
	The wrath of grapes.