Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

When you look around at many of the smart home systems coming to market,mostrequire what is called in the business tech world afork lift upgrade, meaningyou have to throw out your old hardware and replace it with new gear in orderto get theadvantages of new technology.

Takethe Nest Protect smoke alarm. Its a neat device that enables you to get alerts and to control it via a mobile device, but in order to do so you have to toss out the oldsmoke alarmin the process.

But now, some newer smart home products are coming to market that enable you to use what you have by transforming a dumb device to one thats smart.

Consider the Roost smart battery. Just announced a week ago, the Roost is a Wi-Fi enabled battery that turns any smoke alarm that takes a 9 volt battery into a smart smoke alarm. The battery, developed by a team that helped pioneer some of the earliest low-power Wi-Fi chips, can last for up to 5 years and costs $25 to $35 depending on how many batteriesyou buy.

Swapping out batteries too much work for you? Then try the Leeo smart night light, which sends you alerts when your old smoke or carbon monoxide alarm goes off.

The Roost Smart Battery

And whatabout that door lock? If youve been thinking about making it smart, new smart locks from the likes of August and Danalock fit over your existing lock mechanism and make it a Bluetooth enabled smart lock.

Dont want to throw out those LED light bulbs you bought for $20 a pop at Costco a year ago? Try the Emberlight, which makes a smart light socket that transforms existing lightbulbs into smart bulbs.

And so on.

You might ask why not just throw out the old gear and replace with the new? For one, its a bit wasteful. A million homes throwing out a whole households worth of smoke alarms results ina whole bunch of electronics heading to landfills.

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In Smart Home, Retrofit May Be The Next Big Thing

Nicor

Tips:

Open curtains during the day to allow sunlight to heat your home naturally, and close curtains at night to reduce the chill you may feel from cold windows

Keep furniture, drapes, stuffed animals and other objects away from your heating sources

Caulk and weather-strip drafty doors and windows

Use a heavy-duty, clear plastic sheet on a frame or tape clear plastic film to the inside of your window frames during the cold winter months

Caulk and seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring penetrates through exterior walls, floors and ceilings

Install insulated gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on exterior walls to prevent drafts

Make sure you have a working carbon monoxide detector in your home

Check your attic If your insulation is just level with or below your floor joists (or you can easily see your joists), you should add more insulation.

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Your Money Matters: Energy Saving Tips

The government offers two different tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements.

The more-generous credit covers expensive and somewhat exotic equipment and has no dollar limit. So it can be a major tax-saver.

The smaller credit cannot exceed $500, and it expired at the end of 2013. But it will probably be resurrected for 2014 right after the election.

However, you cant claim either credit on this years return unless the improvements are up and running by year-end. Heres what you need to know to cash in.

It's a conundrum even in 2014: Who pays the dinner check on dates?

The bigger credit equals 30% of expenditures to buy and install qualifying energy-saving equipment for your home. As mentioned earlier, there is no dollar limit on this credit. So big qualifying expenditures can generate big credits. Unlike many tax breaks, there are no income limits on this one, so even billionaires are eligible. If your 2014 credit is so large that you cannot use it all up on this years return, you can carry the excess credit forward to 2015 and beyond.

Qualifying expenditures

The credit equals 30% of qualified expenditures (including costs for site preparation, assembly, installation, piping, and wiring) for the following gear.

You cannot claim the credit for equipment used to heat a swimming pool or hot tub (that would be too good to be true). Special rules apply to expenditures for residential co-ops and condominium buildings.

Make sure to buy certified gear

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Tax Guy: Even billionaires would qualify for these energy-saving tax credits

How Long Is The TotalProtect Home Warranty Wait Period?
http://homewarrantyquestions.com/can-use-total-protect-home-warranty-joining/ How long before I can use my TotalProtect home warranty? There is a 30 day wait...

By: HomeWarrantyQuestions

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How Long Is The TotalProtect Home Warranty Wait Period? - Video

On Sunday night's episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver and Nick Offerman teamed up to help save a couple's marriage in a hilarious fake ad for Home Depot.

The funny parody commercial was part of Oliver's response to news that Lowe's home improvement stores will be testing out personal robotic shopping assistants for customers this holiday season.

"Robot assistants are a terrible idea and here's why," Oliver said while setting up Offerman's Home Depot clip. "Sales associates at home-improvement stores are not there to help people find things, they're there to stop couples from tearing each other apart. If you really want to test your marriage, go buy home supplies together, because Lowe's is like a swingers party or a couple's brunchno one is leaving on speaking terms."

VIDEO: John Oliver's pumpkin spice latte rant will change your life

Cue the parody Home Depot commercial! Offerman portrays a sales associate helping out a troubled couple whose search for a sink turns into an argument about their deeper personal issues and crumbling marriage.

"Why are you fighting me on this? It has a 10-year warranty," the husband (played by Bob's Burgers'H. Jon Benjamin) says to his wife (Sarah Baker). "Oh, I'm sorry. Are we going to be in this house for 10 more years?" she responds.

"Where else are we gonna go?" he replies. "In a house big enough for the second child you promised me we were going to have!" she yells.

Later, a conversation about houseplants turns into an argument about his mother being put in a retirement home and his brother's joblessness. The couple goes on to fight about watching porn, adopting an Asian child and infidelity.

LOL! Watch the hilarious Home Depot parody for yourself.

PHOTOS: Meanwhile, see these stars' stunning bathrooms

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Nick Offerman Stars in John Oliver's Hilarious Home Depot Commercial Parody: Watch Now!

By Neil J. Rubenking

Got antivirus? If not, stop reading this article and go install an antivirus utility. There are plenty to choose from, and some, like Avast Free Antivirus 2015, are completely free. With this edition, Avast adds a network protection scan that finds any problems with your home router's security. I'm a big fan of this network scan, but the product's central antivirus protection is just average.

The user interface hasn't changed much since last year. Oh, the colors are slightly different, but it still features four big panels for fast access to your favorite security components and a line of buttons down the left side to access everything else.

Out of the box, the four quick-access panels link to Browser Cleanup, Home Network Security, Software Update, and SecureLine VPN. A menu link in each panel lets you change that panel's association to any of 13 security components. I would recommend swapping in one of the system-scan choices.

Scan Choices In addition to the expected scan for malware, Avast offers three other security-related scans. It can check your installed programs for missing security patches, analyze your router's settings to flag security problems, and check for performance issues. Clicking Smart Scan runs all four scans in sequence. That's handy! I'll go into more detail about the additional scans later on.

A full scan of my standard test system took 32 minutes, just a little above the current average of 27 minutes. With some products, a repeat scan runs extremely quickly. Trend Micro Antivirus+ 2015, for example, managed a second scan in less than a minute. Avast's repeat scan still took 23 minutes, but that's some improvement.

Real-time Protection For some antivirus products, the minimal file access that occurs when Windows Explorer displays the filename is sufficient to trigger real-time protection. Avast waits until just before a program executes to run a real-time scan. In testing, it wiped out almost 80 percent of my malware samples immediately on launch.

Avast detected most of the remaining samples at some point as they attempted to install and run. In a couple of cases, it activated a powerful analysis tool called DeepScan. Avast also invoked DeepScan to make sure that a couple of my malware-testing programs weren't themselves malicious.

In one case, fortunately the last sample I tested, Avast requested a boot time scan for complete cleanup. That scan took almost an hour, and required my attention every so often to make decisions about the disposition of particular malware traces. You can launch a boot time scan at will, if you suspect the regular scan has missed something.

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Avast Free Antivirus 2015

TUSCALOOSA COUNTY, AL (WBRC) - Experts say homeowners may accidentally be making their homes more inviting to thieves. So we turned to a former burglar to find out how to thief proof your home.

From landscaping to lighting, wooden doors to window blinds, the choices you make at home could mean the difference between a thief targeting your house -- or skipping it altogether.

"I'm always concerned about crime," said Porsche Stevens.

Andre Guy-Reed spent years living a life of crime, but now he is out to help others.

After looking at Stevens' house he had plenty of concerns. He points out windows without bars, a fence blocking the view of the backyard and a lack of dead bolts as major concerns.

"You can take a butter knife and get in with that right there," says Guy-Reed while looking at a lock on Stevens' door.

He says, exterior doors should have a cylinder lock as well as a deadbolt. Also, make sure your doors are solid not hollow.

For added protection, install a metal screen door or hurricane door with break-proof glass. Pastor Guy also points to proper lighting and landscaping.

"You would put a motion light with something that makes noise," said Guy-Reed.

In flower beds, choose wood chip mulch or gravel that makes noise when it's stepped on. Plant bushes beneath windows but keep them trimmed.

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Ex-burglar shares home security tips to thief-proof your house

Whats better, dispatching the cops after a burglar breaks into your home? Or convincing the criminal that your place just isnt a desirable target? The BeOn Burglar Deterrent promises to do the latter in a minimally intrusive way.

Like a Nest thermostat, BeOns smart LED light bulbs will quietly learn your patterns. When you leave the house, use a smartphone app to set the bulbs to away mode, and theyll automatically turn on following similar patterns (although each day will be somewhat unique). If someone rings the doorbell while youre away, the bulbs will automatically turn on in a sequence that suggests youre walking from another part of the house toward the door. In either situation, a burglar casing your home will get the impression that the house is occupied and will likely beat a hasty retreat.

BeOn launched a Kickstarter campaign today to bring its product to market. The company expects to deliver its bulbs to backers in April 2015 if it can raise $100,000 by December 19. Yeah, we get tired of these crowd-funding campaigns, too. We do our best to cover only the most compelling projects, and this one fits that description.

The yellow part of the bulb is a plug-in module. This design allows BeOn to develop new modules with different functions, so you can add features without throwing away the rest of the bulb.

We think people want products that solve problems, versus investing in platforms, BeOn CEO Alexei Erchak told me during a quick demo last week. We wanted to approach home security the way the experts do, in layers. But we didnt want to be just another video camera, or a motion sensor, or an alarm. Once an alarm sounds, the break-in has already happened; the emotional trauma is already there. The best home security starts before the break-in. So we embraced an unloved spacethe security deterrent.

Erchak said his team also wanted to avoid over-reliance on the smartphone. BeOn has an app, but the only thing he thinks youll use it for is to put the light bulbs into away mode. The app, still in development, might also have an optional reminder that alerts you to arm the lights once youre out of Bluetooth range, but Erchak didnt seem to like the idea. We want to get away from the phone as much as possible, he said.

BeOn bulbs operate just like normal incandescent light bulbs, but theyre outfitted with a Bluetooth Low Energy module; a microphone that listens for your doorbell, your smoke detector, and your carbon-monoxide alarm; and a battery backup that can turn the light on even in the absence of AC power.

The smoke detector/CO alarm use case could be a lifesaver if youre home when a fire breaks out or your gas appliances malfunction, turning on lights to guide you out of the house to safety (something the otherwise-excellent Leeo Smart Alert Nightlight can't do).

The battery backup is both a safety feature and a crime deterrent. A burglar faced with a neighborhood of darkened homes would never pick the one thats all lit up.

BeOn bulbs are available in two configurations: Standard (they look just like a normal incandescent bulb) and Recessed (these look more like floodlights and are designed to be installed in ceiling cans).

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BeOn Burglar Deterrent uses smart LED light bulbs to deter home break-ins

MARTINEZ, Calif. The Martinez City Council will meet Wednesday, Nov 3.

According to the agenda, Alan Shear, assistant city manager, will present the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the 2014 fiscal year that ended June 30. The General Fund ended at June 30, 2014, with an unassigned fund balance of $5,720,878.

Also, the council will vote on a motion to appoint Shear as acting city manager until a permanent city manager has been hired.

Since July 28, Jim Jakel has been serving as interim city manager. On Nov. 15, Jakels service in that role will end and Jakel will remain available to the city on an hourly basis to assist on complex and time-sensitive projects.

Shear has served as assistant city manager since 2010 and has acted as city manager a number of times in the past. A new city manager is expected to be hired in the first quarter of 2015.

Among the presentations on the agenda are a proclamation that Nov. 25 will be Joe DiMaggios 100th Year Birthday Celebration, a presentation by Central Contra Costa Sanitary District and Rising Sun Energy Center recap of the 2014 California Youth Energy Services Program.

Also on the agenda is hiring a contractor for two sidewalk projects in the city.

The Alhambra Valley Road Sidewalk Project will install 400 feet of 5-foot wide sidewalk behind an existing curb along John Swett Elementary School frontage from the school driveway north to Gilbert Court and curb ramps at Gilbert Court. Currently there exists a non ADA compliant gravel path. The path is difficult to maneuver strollers and wheel chairs during dry weather. The path is nearly impossible to navigate after rain events. Completing this segment will provide continuous ADA compliant access between John Swett Elementary School and Alhambra Avenue. Current funding includes a Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) grant and CCTA Measure J monies.

The Shell Avenue Pedestrian Improvement Project will reduce the potential for conflicts between motor vehicles and children walking to school. The project is along the southern side of Shell Avenue and would consist of demolition of existing improvements and the installation of curb gutter and sidewalk. The sidewalk will extend from Pine Street westerly approximately 700 feet. There is currently no sidewalk on the proposed section of Shell Avenue and there are no suitable alternative routes for children to avoid walking along this busy street. Most of the project area has no road shoulder and has obstacles such as steep slopes, landscape rocks, mailboxes, trash cans, and parked cars that force children to walk in the street where they are exposed to fast moving traffic. Existing sidewalk joins both ends of the proposed project area.

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Council to meet Wednesday

Gutter Cleaning Cincinnati and NKy
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By: Jason geiman

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Gutter Cleaning Cincinnati and NKy - Video