EyeTV, the paperless office, and more

This week, let's tie up some loose ends from previous articles in this series.

Firstly, following up on One Week with EyeTV, I'm happy to report that the EyeTV 3 upgrade was everything that the commenters promised it would be. Better performance and very useful features. Which brings me to one of my favorites, since it addresses a personal pet peeve. It always annoys me when I see a standard TV image (4:3 ratio) stretched to fill a widescreen TV. I do understand that people want to use all those pixels they paid for, but distorting the image so that everyone looks short and wide is just silly, in my opinion. EyeTV offers the perfect solution, turn on "automatic display ratio" and the TV window will smoothly resize itself to the correct dimensions for the video being displayed.

Although I was initially satisfied with the 22 channels I received sans antenna, a link at El Gato's website led me to Antennas Direct's Picture Frame Antenna. My office is part of our living area so a traditional, and ugly, antenna was out of the question. But the Picture Frame Antenna is almost undetectable as anything but a standard picture frame. (Except for the RG6 cable that runs up the wall and terminates behind the frame.) I can attest that the SAF (spousal approval factor, a key measurement of smart home success) is very high for this antenna, and it works really well. Without the antenna I received 10 digital channels; with it I receive 28. It also helped with analog reception too, boosting my choices in those from 12 to 21. Wow!

Next, Macworld's review of the Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner is worth reading if you'd like to eliminate the paper clutter in your home or office. As they note, the OCR software bundled with it isn't the best, but see my article My Paperless Office for my solution and others offered by commenters.

Finally, if the high-end home automation system from Savant caught your eye, and you have money left over, you'll want to read about the Integrated Theatre Console from SE2 Labs. It combines a lot of different components, including an Apple TV, for a hefty price. It's a good thing to keep in mind next time you're questioned about your smart home budget; you'll look thrifty in comparison.

I've been blogging at O'Reilly sites for about four years now, and writing about smart homes here every week for the last seven months. It has been great working with Derrick and the staff. I thank you very much for reading and all the great tips you've given me. A change in circumstances requires that I take a break from here for now, but I invite you to visit my personal blog, Nothing Up My Sleeve, where I'll continue to write about smart homes and other topics. So long, and thanks for all the clicks!