By brwood
at 10:48AM,
a year ago
|
under
Shop Smarter
In the mid-1800s door hardware to a great leap forward, along with most other things, due to the industrial revolution. Door handles went from blacksmith wrought thumb levers (
the style you still see in gate hardware today) and handmade brass and iron rim locks, to mass produced iron rim and mortise locks sold throughout the country by retailers like
Sears and Roebuck. By 1880, Yale had invented the modern pin tumbler lock and key system. About 1925, Mr. Schlage invented the modern cylindrical lockset and revolutionized the installation process--though these didn't really catch on until the post WWII building boom.
Then, sixty years of nothing.
Your hotel room and you ATM kiosk got electronic magnetic card reader locks. Your car not only got keyless entry, but it could remember where you wanted the mirrors and seats and change from wife to husband mode. How come your house didn't do this?
Well now your house, just like everyone else, is going on the internet!
By Rick.BroidaGuest Blogger
at 3:09PM,
3 days ago
|
under
Stuff We Like
There's never been a better time to ditch your landline.
If you're already paying for cable or DSL Internet service, you've
got everything you need to kiss your local and long-distance
telephone companies goodbye.
Well, almost everything: The missing ingredient is a voice-over-IP
adapter, which sounds complicated but isn't. It's a little box that
sits between your existing phone (or cordless phone system) and
your router and provides full-featured home phone service. For
pennies.
You've probably heard of one such product: the MagicJack, an
infomercial staple. A few months back, I reviewed its successor,
the
MagicJack Plus.
Today let's talk about its latest competitor, the
NetTalk Duo
WiFi.