Letters to the Editor

Submit your letters by Email to news@hometoys.com. Please include "Letter to the Editor" as the subject and make sure you give us your name and home town. If you don't want your Email address included with the letter then indicate that in the message.

Comparisons - Harry Anderson, Dallas TX (han751@airmail.net)

Wow, what a great start! The comparison was a great help. All the HA systems sound capable, and can probably do most of the same things, but some are certainly easier and more cost effective than others.

To me, the ultimate HA article would be a fairly complex, full house system, lights/scenes, audio, intercom, security, etc. -- implemented with high end pro equipment such as AMX, PHAST, TRON ARCH, or other --- compared with the same results obtained using JDS STARGATE, HOMEVISION, ECS or other capable PLC system -- showing the cost differential.

Most of us DIY's can't justify the high buck stuff and it would really be great to see what the savings are for comparable results.

I am looking forward to your next issue! Please add me to your mailing list.

Regards,
Harry Anderson

Editors Note: OK Harry and all of the others interested in this topic ... we'll get right on it. Look for a review in an upcoming issue.

HA in the UK - Mark McCall, Northern Ireland (UK.HomeAutomation@btinternet.com)

I've just discovered the first edition of your great HA newsletter. I am very new to HA but I have (at last) found a supplier of X10 units in the UK !

There seemed to be little or no information for people over here regarding HA so I decided to set up a UK specific web site.

Although I am now happy with its format I need some more content and it's with this I hope you can help.

I would appreciate it if you could publicise my site in the next issue of your Newsletter so people will visit it and help to spread the word over here. The URL is...

http://www.btinternet.com/~uk.homeautomation/

If you get time to visit the site yourselves I would appreciate your comments and suggestion.

Many thanks for your help.

Regards from Northern Ireland.
Mark McCall

James Hunter - (linctech@gdi.net)

I must say, your Online Publication is FANTASTIC! Finally someone has taken the idea of the affordable online publication for HA and run with it! If this is your first issue, which I believe it is, WOW...GREAT JOB and Keep up the good work!

James

Chip Orange - ORANGEC@PSC.STATE.FL.US

I would like very much to encourage your news letter effort; however, I am very disappointed in your web site, and the atitude that "you must be using a specific browser with specific capabilities to use this site properly." That shows both a rahter discurtious atitude towards the users (dictating which browser you think we should use) and a rather poor understanding of HTML. Frames aren't necessary to do a nice lo0oking design. Not everyone has access to a browser that supports frames. I don't. I'm using Lynx. Many freenets around the country, providing a great deal of internet access for a large population, offer only or primarily Lynx.

I'd like to suggest you visit the usenet news group concerned with HTML authoring (I believe it's comp.www.html.authoring) to get the general consensus re writing HTML for a specific browser and writing non-standard HTML (frames aren't part of any standard).

Chip Orange

Editor's Reply: Sorry Chip. I gave a lot of thought to the use of frames before I made the decision to use them. My primary reason for doing so was that they allow for much better organization and navigation of the site. I did however provide for non frame browsing by including the "noframes" tag which presents the cover page with all of the links described and included. If you cannot see this page then try http://www.hometoys.com/htinews/covr0102.htm.

Adrian Dunn - (adunn@domosys.com)

Great stuff! Although somewhat sparse on details, it's a great start for a first issue.

I especially like how you included CEBus as a regular column, I'm sure you've started to receive some feedback from manufacturers, and should start to receive a lot more in the near future.

Keep it up!
Adrian Dunn

Richard Sovitzky III <rickiii@csd.uwm.edu>

I just learned about X-10 yesterday, and came across your site this morning. It's great! I've read the faq and have a pretty good understanding about the concept - your site was the best source of _up-to-date_ info I've seen yet.

The article on CEBUS was interesting, but what are the advantages over X-10?

Just wanted to drop a note...I'll look forward to visiting your site often...I don't own anything yet, but the new ActiveHome product sounds cool...

Editors Note: Maybe some of you CEBUS experts can answer Richards question. Please send me a copy so we can get a CEBUS thread going.