Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

One idea I've been tossing around is a serial port virtualizer for XP. What I'd like to do is plug in one GPS and have it's output muxed out to n virtual serial ports. Each program would hook to a virtual serial port and would think it had control of the device. I think it would be pretty trivial, but it never gets high enough on the list to implement.

I've been wanting to create a "Bluetooth enabled home" where every device is bluetooth enabled & can be controlled by a .Net CPU module. I want to be able to open the door to my house, immediately, the bluetooth headset I have should be connected into my home environment allowing me to issue voice commands for different tasks such as :-
- Turn on the Tv
- Change channels
- Record programs
- Listen to music
- Start a coffee pot brewing & have the system inform me when its done
- Turn on/off the lights in different parts of the house
- Accept incoming calls to the house
- Allow me to have a Speech to Text converstation with my MSN contacts (ie. see who's online, who has just IM'ed me etc)
- Allow me to order food over the net
- Program a little service robot & have it perform tasks (ie. Fetch me a bottle of water or some juice from the fridge)
- Call for cleanup (yes call the roombah to cleanup)
- Alert me to temperature conditions & other MSN like alerts

There are tons of other things that can be done but this is just a small set I want to develop. Only probelm - too poor to afford any equipment.... :-)

CueCat, there's a blast from the past. I think I might still have the .NET 1.0 web control that includes the JavaScript for decrypting the CueCat text.

I like the car diagnostics idea. The baby monitor/front door is brilliant. I've been thinking that the biggest challenge there is going to be getting a second video to overlay on top of the currently playing media. I'd hate to steal the video away by changing to the video source on the detection of motion, but it might be a good start just to prove it out.

"Get a CueCat or BarCode Scanner to catalog all my books using Amazon.com Web Services" -

Oddly enough I was just putting a catalog app together the other night and realised I needed a bar code scanner (I was bored of typing in ISBN Numbers). I was also using A-WS to grab book images and descriptions.
I found a couple of webcam-as-scanner apps via google but all failed miserably.

My original aim for the catalog was to find a way to swap books with others who travel. I'd be content for now just to be able to catalog all of mine though.
I might have to make a quick Frys run when I get back home and grab a cheap scanner pen.

I like the Lego mindstorms idea. There's an article floating around the web on how a guy exposed his Lego robot as a JINI device over the internet. You could do the same thing with web services.

yes, n programs getting data from one gps. For instance, when I was making maps of snowmobile trails, it would have been nice to use the logger program, mappoint, and topoUSA all running with live data at once.

"Get a CueCat or BarCode Scanner to catalog all my books using Amazon.com Web Services" -

Check out Delicious Library for the Mac. I wish we had something like this for Windows...\

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

I once wrote a simple Delphi component for decrypting the CueCat. I think I still have it somewhere. If I can find it I will convert it into c# and post it for anyone who wants it.

CueCats are still available on Ebay for a dime a dozen (actually about $3 apiece) and many of them have had the modification done so that they don't encrypt the data, so the little decyption software isn't strictly necessary. Besides, their encryption was a joke as I recall.

There are instructions on how to hack the CueCat to remove the encryption here...

http://members.aol.com/cuecatguy/

and here...

http://www.cexx.org/cuecat.htm#decode

The second one has mad detailed information (apparently for some weird underground CueCat movement).

This cuecat thing is really cool. That's my vote. I'm going to buy one on eBay right now!

I like the CueCat idea for cataloging DVDs and Videos. I've actually already made an app that uses an Access Database (yikes) if you want something to start with.

I like the GPS idea. I can see traveling (wardriving) and anytime you find an open access point for long enough jump on it and blog your position. This would be ideal with a handheld, GPS, Wifi combo. Of course you are stealing wifi and all that and it wouldnt be hard to prove you did so if your hosting company is willing to give up the logs...

Traveling across the US you stop at the Petrified Forest, pay at the ranger station, get the warning about stealing rocks and then without even realizing it your laptop/pda/gps whatever blogs a location.

As far as the multiple serial problem it has been overcome by writing your own NMEA logger and pointing the needed application at the GPX file possibly with a file watcher. When it logs, your multiple apps pick it up. This would still cause a problem with applications that you dont have control over and thus access the serial port themselves.

If you haven't looked at Homeseer already, take a peek. They've (and by they I mean the community and the company) taken the x10 computer interface pretty far and do have an MCE plug in. Good extensibility.

http://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/services/weblog/