Latest in home improvement

Don’t you hate those ugly tangles of spare cables? Eventually, we all end up with drawers or boxes full of cable spaghetti. And good luck if you actually need to find something. Not so long ago I moved into a new apartment. I had lived a semi-nomad lifestyle for over two years and moved in [...]
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Judging by the popularity of our last home surveillance article, it seems quite a lot of you are increasingly worried about the security of your home. Whether that fear is justified or not, it's always a good idea to take precautions and be ready. Read on as we examine technological tools and tips that you can employ to both protect your home, and help deal with the fallout should the worst ever happen.
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Last time, I showed you a few ways of making your Arduino projects speech controlled via SiriProxy, OS X's built-in speakable items, and some Automator scripting, or even a dedicated voice recognition hardware chip. I left you with a quick demo of me turning on my lights, but didn't explain how I achieved that on the hardware side. Let's look today at how you can control high power devices - like your kettle, or some floor lamps.
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Few things are as satisfying and relaxing as making something new with your own hands. Programming comes close, at least for me (and I've recently offered some tips on learning to code), but it's still quite different. Typing just isn't the same as clamping planks of wood together, drilling holes and watching something you've envisioned (or planned out in SketchUp) come to life. But where's a good place to start?
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For those of us lucky enough to not live in the middle of the city or to have a little land to call our own, the garden is often the most neglected part of the family home. Most fall into the category of either a complete mess, or the whole thing is turfed over. Well no more, geeks! Rise up, and MakeUseOf these wonderful apps and website to plan your complete garden makeover. Get your fingers grubby for once!
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I wrote a round-up review last month for anyone interested in using their webcam as a home surveillance system, but since then we’ve had a few updates from developers so I thought it appropriate to revisit the topic and take a look at these services.
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I live in England, the country with the highest number of CCTVs than anywhere else in the world - about 1 camera to every 30 people, it’s estimated. Obviously, that’s not enough (yes, that is sarcasm), so today I'm doing a round-up review of useful tools for adding CCTV to your own home. In all seriousness, having your own home surveillance system can be a powerful deterrent to would-be intruders or office workers who tend to pinch your stapler.
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Doing a home improvement project on your own isn't always a simple matter. Sometimes it seems simple enough when you get started, but before you know it, you realize that if you had just taken proper measurements and planned out your renovation in a little more detail ahead of time, it would have saved a whole lot of headache. Since I happen to have a DIY project that I'm planning out this year, I needed a program that would help me plan out the entire project.
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Shopping for a home can be an incredibly stressful event. Not only is a house the single most expensive thing most people will ever purchase in their lives, it is also hard to find a house that suits your needs perfectly. When you are spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars on something, you do not want to feel like you are settling. You want the house you end up with to be a place you can be happy and live your life without regret.
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Do you love your home? If you enjoy creating a beautiful living environment with a great atmosphere and if you are interested in Do It Yourself tips for your home and garden, you should have a look at Hometalk, an online home improvement community you will fall in love with. Hometalk is an active community for home owners, renters and professionals to share tips and tricks and ask for help with projects.
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As your new home starts to grow on you, you develop an obsession to keep everything perfect…every nail, every fleck of paint in its right place. But things go wrong, and with time the plumbing starts to leak or the plaster shows a crack. There are handymen around for home repair of course, but just sometimes a work of love needs a DIY approach.
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Everyone likes to occasionally sit. Sometimes people like to lay down. As a matter of fact, some people even like to set their things... on things. Fortunately, we have furniture to take care of that! However, sometimes furniture can be pretty expensive. Fortunately, there are people on the Internet who are just dying to give their own away. Below, we have four sites where you can find what you need to plant yourself.
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Tracing the history of your house by following even boring information like who built it, what stood here before, when was it built etc. could hold remarkable stories for a future fireside story. If you are lucky, you will get it all in one place. That’s rare, so you have to dig around a bit. Maybe even take the online route to discover more about your house.
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Unfortunately, a new apartment has always been an arduous process. It’s hard to judge management based off a few minutes of interaction, and the fancy demo unit you’re shown could be the only one in the complex kept up to date. Online resources can help you skip most of the pain – if you use them.
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Looking for an apartment can be hard work. You need to find a place that is affordable, in a good area, nice looking and so many other things, that it can be overwhelming. Sure, a million websites show you the prices for apartments, but sometimes you want to look at apartments while out and about using a dedicated application for your iPhone.
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