Archive for June, 2010

HDMI over Cat5e

// June 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // DIY, Tech

As you may have read, I’ll be moving into my own place very soon, and this will give me the opportunity to ‘Pimp My House’. She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) has largely given me free reign to do whatever I like so long as “there aren’t cables running all over the house”. Well, there will, but none you’ll see.

The key element of any smart home is structured cabling – in my case Cat5e. I was planning on running HDMI to a couple of different rooms, but in lengths greater than 10 metres, its unreliable and expensive. So, how do I plan to get the HDMI signal from my V+ box in the loft, to my TV in the living room? By using a pair of HDMI baluns, of course! By using a pair of these boxes, I can use my structured cabling to send the HDMI signal from the V+ box to my TV. Simples! In case you’re wondering what these baluns look like, here they are:

Quite small and unobtrusive, I think you’ll agree. It’d be easy enough to cable-tie one of these bad boys to the wall mount or the VESA fitting at the back of the TV, or just to hide away with the rest of the cables, so SWMBO will be happy, and this leads to a quiet life for me. Its really a win-win situation. SWMBO is happy, I don’t have to spend loads of money on long HDMI cables and these boxes are £30 on Amazon. In fact, you can buy them here.

I’ll post a review when I put them to use, but all in all, these look great!

Review: ReboundTag

// June 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Products, Reviews

Have you ever lost your luggage? Has an airline ever lost your luggage? Are you worried that someday your luggage will be lost? If so, then ReboundTag (www.reboundtag.com) is for you!

ReboundTag takes an old idea to a new level, but it does it with such elegance and ease that my inner geek struggled to get to grips with it at first. Let me explain.

Each ReboundTag contains three things: a tag number, a barcode which equates to that tag number, and a microchip which also contains that tag number. So, how does it work? Well, first of all, you need to register your tag on the ReboundTag site. You enter your personal information (email address, telephone number, etc), the description of the item the tag will be attached to, and your itinerary. Then you attach it to your bag. That’s it. You don’t need to do anything. With any luck, your bag won’t get lost.

If you are unlucky enough to lose your bag though, help is at hand. Thanks to the human-readable tag number printed on the tag, the person (or airline/travel company) who finds your bag can visit the ReboundTag website, enter your tag number and state that they have found it. As soon as they submit those details, you get an email/SMS making you aware that someone has found your bag so you can arrange for its safe return. You can even mark your tag as anonymous so that the finder doesn’t see any of your details, just a notification that you’ve been alerted to the fact that they have located your luggage.

Another feature ReboundTag have included in their product is a second RFID chip which is readable and writeable by airport/airline security staff. This allows them to enter your flight details, onward destination, etc., making it very easy to return your luggage to you in the even of a loss. If this was where it stopped, I’d be happy, and this would be the end of the review. However, I have a privacy concern regarding this second RFID chip.

From the ReboundTag front page:

Since our microchips contain several memory banks, if desired it is also possible to have security information added to the chip through a password protected layer. The security information can be changed by the airport/airline whenever the person travels and cannot be viewed or changed without the password.

Wait. WHAT?

It would appear that ReboundTag are giving airlines and airports the ability to store information, presumably about you, to YOUR microchipped tag, and then allowing them to password protect it so others – including you – can’t read, amend or delete it. I have very real privacy concerns with this ‘feature’, and whilst it may be immensely useful and/or popular with the security fraternity, the fact that you aren’t able to choose whether you have this second RFID chip or not, ReboundTag may find that they lose out on the business of those who value their privacy.

I’ll be giving it a go on my upcoming honeymoon. Hopefully the security services don’t leave a note saying ‘Suspected Terrorist’ on the chip.

If you fancy getting your hands on a ReboundTag, you can get one for £19.99, three for £49.95 or ten for £149.99. All are available at www.reboundtag.com.