This is a special extended presentation of Computer Talk Radio.

He makes computers seem easy, but that pocket protector says otherwise.

Translating Technobabble to English, your translation expert Benjamin Rockwell is here with Computer Talk Radio. The website Computer Talk Radio.com. Computer Talk Radio. The website, Computer Talk Radio.com.

Computer Talk Radio.com.

I'm doing a series here, and when we get done, we're going to assemble this entire series

into one big, huge audio file, as well as all of the notes that I have for this, and we're going to put it online at

Computer TalkRadio.com.

And this is a project.

This is all about home automation.

And let me start off by saying, introducing this at least, 17 years ago, my grandparents passed away within just a short time of each other.

In their passing, they left behind a home that needed to look like it was lived in,

at least nominally, to prevent any kind of break-in.

That meant I had to automate some lighting.

All right.

As a nerd, you know that I didn't do this with a simple timer and a few things.

I set this up to be activated enough to scare off anyone meaning to do harm.

So I spent a couple hundred dollars or so, and I had an old laptop, and I was set to go with something called X10.

X10 is still around, but it's laughable compared to what's available now.

On the other end of the spectrum, okay, there's a regular feature that we've had here on the show for about three, four years, and it's received a lot of attention across the country.

Marty Winston's 40-year house project is on a different level than anyone is likely to do today in one fell swoop.

He is doing a level of automation that is astounding. It's amazing.

He has these things called caps that scan the entire room. He will be able to do things like

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