H.M. Castor's Blog, page 11

History of Smart Thermostats

Within the evolutionary scope of our Smart Homes, the idea of a smart thermostat is becoming somewhat commonplace. People are slowly coming to the realization that the monthly savings realized by these devices will allow them to pay for themselves reasonably quickly. And as more of these devices become visible in the homes of our friends and family, even the tech skeptics will accept them as a mainstream solution to controlling their heating and air conditioning systems, thus accelerating the adoption rate. But in reality, however, these devices are relatively new and their history is less than a decade long.

Back in 2009, Time Magazine selected a device called the EnergyHub Dashboard as one of its 50 Best Inventions of the year. The device was the brainchild of a guy named Seth Frader-Thompson who was inspired by the fuel efficiency screens that were a feature of the Priuses of the day. While studying the screen it dawned on him that houses face much the same issue of energy efficiency. With that in mind, he built the EnergyHub Dashboard which communicated wirelessly with your furnace and other appliances and reported how much gas or electricity each was using, and ultimately what it was costing the consumer. Lev Grossman, senior writer at Time said “In a car, you can usually see how much gas you’re using. With electricity in a home, you never could before. But now, in real time you can, using EnergyHub, and I think it’s going to save America billions and billions of dollars.”

That may have been somewhat hyperbolic, and ultimately the EnergyHub failed to become a household name, but it did birth a new market and highlight a consumer problem in searching of an elegant solution. Enter Tony Fadell, an Apple engineer, who was building a new vacation home for his family. When it came time to select a thermostat for the home, he found all available options to be inadequate and lacking. He recruited a fellow Apple engineer named Matt Rogers and they designed and brought to market the Nest Smart Thermostat in 2011. From its introduction, like most Apple products, it was met with universal praise despite its elevated price in respect to traditional competitors. Ultimately it would garner enough praise and sales to lead it to its current position as a market leader.

Nest’s success also proved the viability of this market space. And as such, it attracted numerous new upstart competitors to space, as well as motivating the old school manufacturers to throw their hats in the ring and update their products lines. The current industry leaders: Honeywell, Nest, EnergyHub, EcoFactor, Schneider, ecobee, Emerson, Comverge, Carrier, presents a mix of established companies and newer tech companies. As they battle it out for market supremacy the nagging question remains, is the market dominator listed among this group or will some unknown explode into this space with a killer app (à la the iPod) that blows the other away? Only time will tell.

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How To Go About Soundproofing The House

Quiet surroundings are blissful to live in. It can be really disturbing to come home after a tiring day at work and find it noisy. here are some of the ways on how to soundproof the whole house (if you live close to an airport, for instance) or rooms in it that are used for recording, playing percussion instruments or home theatre viewing.

Best soundproofing is achieved when it is done as the house is being constructed. To make recording rooms totally soundproof, they are constructed as floating rooms that have no structural or acoustic dependence and relation to the main house. Doors in houses that must be soundproof are not aligned with each other on walls that are across one another. This arrangement is to prevent noise coming in through open doors. Double walls with gaps in between and thick walls also provide sound insulation.

Installation of fiberglass sound insulation batts prior to finishing with drywall leads to the partitioning of the hollow space in the wall. The soundproof sheeting can also be put just before the drywall is applied. Post-construction soundproofing methods are given in the following paragraphs.

Cellulose can be blown into the space between the walls through small holes drilled at the top of the wall close to the ceiling. Finishing of the wall has to be done after this. Soundproofing paints and sheets are available in the market and are for use over the drywall.

For a quirky appearance as well as goof sound insulation, you could opt for cork walls. Solid doors instead of hollow ones will also aid with keeping the noise out. While they aren’t the best way to soundproof spaces, carpets and drapes definitely enhance the acoustic quality of the house/room and muffle noise a bit.To contain sound generated in the home as well as to prevent noises coming in from outside, double paned windows are very useful. Like cork, egg crate mattress pads for the wall can be considered provided you don’t have an objection to the way they look. Soft furniture, because of the absorb noise, contribute to keeping the house quieter.

It is quite expensive to get professional soundproofing done but sometimes you might not have a choice but to do it as otherwise, you will face some health problems. It is more effective and cheaper to do soundproofing during the construction of the house. Soundproofing is even great for residential homes. For instance, if you are going to be renting out your basement to a tenant, you might want to think about soundproofing so that you do not have to listen to them flush the toilet, get in fights with their spouse, or do anything else that could be loud. These types of things happen, and if you have soundproofed walls, you will not be able to hear them. Construction companies and businesses that sell this equipment are the types of companies that you need to contact.

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Important Tips To Consider When Buying The Right Cell Phone Car Mount

Although it’s a good practice to pull over when texting or calling, most people do not. Attempting to pick up an important call with your hand can result in an accident. To remedy this, a driver should invest in a cell phone car mount that will allow him or her to use the phone hands-free. With hundreds of options to choose from, picking the right mount that matches with your device can be tricky. In this article, we have summarized for you the factors to consider before making your purchasing decision.

Durability

Securing your phone should be the top priority. You should invest in a phone mount that is strong enough to hold your phone in one place. A good phone mount should be made of a high-quality plastic material, glass or rubber. It’s advisable that you avoid mounts that lose their suction during extreme cold or hot weather. If you don’t want to use the back case of your phone, choose a mount that is fitted with a magnetic back plate. A rubber coating makes sure neither your phone nor car is damaged. Distraction-free driving with a high-tech phone boils down to choosing the right cell phone car mount.

Design and features

Not all car mounts are the same. Some are designed for specific smartphones. Check whether your phone fits in the small, medium or large category. However, you can choose an adjustable car phone mount that is designed to hold multiple brands of cell phones. It comes with a tilt swivel which allows the user to position the phone in landscape or portrait viewing. This feature is important to those drivers who use smartphones for navigation. To be sure you have chosen the right phone mount, double-check the dimensions. The phone mount should not leave any space for vibrations. Some come with an amplification system. The main four types of phone car mounts include windshield mount, dashboard mount, vent mount, and cigarette lighter mounts.

Ease of use

The mount should keep your phone at eye level. If you prefer windshield-mounting, be sure it does not block your forward visibility. In some states, the local law enforcement agencies do not allow drivers to place a phone mount on the windscreen. Depending on the design you choose, some double as a charger. However, passive mounts will require that you connect your phone to the electrical system of your car. The mount should give better accessibility of the phone without covering important ports and buttons. Further, it should allow the driver to put the caller on the speaker. You will not only hear better but also keep your hands on the steering wheel.

A car phone mount allows the driver to easily access the phone in a moving vehicle. In addition, it’s easy to check the GPS and access your favorite music. Even better, some can be used to charge the phone. This will ensure you’re more focused on the road. If you want to avoid fumbling inside your pocket every time your phone rings, you should consider getting a cell phone car mount. If you have already picked a brand, be sure of the road rules and regulations in your area.

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Google WiFi vs Orbi

Selecting the best home network devices is essential, especially when choosing the wireless network devices. There are two best routers that one can choose from when setting up a home or office wireless network.

Google WiFi

Routers come at different prices. A single unit is $129, and when you need the whole set, it will only cost you $299.

Installation

Installing Google WiFi is easy. It takes around 15 minutes to setup all system. You can use your Android phone and follow all the instructions in the manual. Therefore, setting this device is fun it does not require any expertise to set it up.

Data transmission

When using the internet, data transmission is excellent. Data speed is approximately 470 Mbps. This for any WiFi user is breathtaking.

Coverage

Coverage of the WiFi depends on the range you will setup. Though, a single router has been made to set to cover around 1,500 square feet. The best way is to set the range to be within the premises to minimize weakening of the WiFi signals. The best part of the Google WiFi router is that it can be easily expanded by adding more routers to the network and therefore cover as much area as you may need.

Reliability

Google wifi is reliable in that you can make calls through the wifi and the signals are not failing. As long as you are within the network, you can transact your businesses at any given time.

Orbis

Orbit comes in with many few hardware units such as the router and the satellite, which may cost you approximately $400. A single unit of Orbi is $250.

Setting up Orbi is self-explanatory and does not require any expertise. To setup, you need to fix an internet source to the Orbi router. When the internet source is connected to the router, move the satellite unit to a distance and turn it on; make sure you are within the coverage range. It is important to know the distance to move to have the best service and curb the problems with signal failures.

Data transmission

Orbi transmits data via three frequency bands. That is, has two 2.4 GHz; which is for WiFi connection, and 5 GHz which offers peak throughput of 1.2 Gbps data flow. The 5 GHz is the connection between the primary router and the satellite.

Coverage

The Orbi router by itself covers approximately 2000 square feet. But when you purchase the two kits it covers about 5000 square feet. Therefore, the WiFi connection is available throughout the premises for you can buy more hardware unit if you need to expand the coverage distance. The additional satellite will cover 2000 square feet.

The Orbi unit measures 6.67*2.36*8.89 inches and therefore can be set anywhere in the house. It has different led lights which have different meanings. A white glow on top means the device is starting up, when it is blue the system is performing normally, when it turns to amber it means the network is weak, and when it turns to magenta it means there is no connection.

Therefore, if you want to setup wireless network in your home or office and want to get the best performance, choose Orbi or Google wifi. Though Orbi is quite expensive compared to Google Wifi but has a wider coverage than the google wifi.

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More blogposts!

Here are the links to some more of my recent blogposts:

Beauty and the Buerk – April, 2014

The shape of grace – March, 2014

Looking for Gladys – February, 2014

London’s Buried Treasure – January, 2014

The Year’s Deep Midnight – December, 2013

A different kind of remembering? – November, 2013

Twelve Years a Slave – October, 2013

The Bristol Bus Boycott – September, 2013

…or The Little Glass Slipper – August, 2013

Monthly blog

On the 12th of each month, I blog over at the site called The History Girls. Here are links to some of my recent posts:

The Making of a Monarch – July 2013

Misplaced Medieval Treasures – June 2013

Dressing the Children – May 2013

When words are not enough… – April 2013

“Obscure the place, and uninscrib’d the stone” – March 2013

Dem Bones, Dem Bones – February 2013

Longlist excitement!

I’m so excited that VIII has recently been included on the longlists of two major prizes: the CILIP Carnegie Medal, which is judged by librarians (read more about it here) and the UK Literary Association Book Award, which is judged by classroom teachers (read more about it here). What fantastically important & expert judges – and what an amazing honour for me. Books by some of my absolute favourite authors are on these lists, too. Take a look and get reading!

NEW book out!

I have a new book out! It’s a 127-pp non-fiction biography of Winston Churchill, aimed at (upper) junior and senior school readers. I’ve blogged about it today at The History Girls – take a look here.

The Grand Finale!

Yesterday was the last full day of my VIII tour (today just involves getting back home to Bristol). So it felt a little like the last show of a theatre run – it had something of the same sense of overtired-but-jolly hysteria (in my case only, I hasten to add), something of the let’s-not-crash-at-the-last-bend extra concentration, and something of the sentimental oh-we’ll-never-do-this-again feeling – although this last was a complete illusion, since I actually have another event next week, & then another the week after that…

Still, the last day of the tour felt like a significant something - and, in addition, I was in a whole new place where it wasn’t raining, which was an extra joy.

In the morning, Liz Scott & I set off from an extremely wet Leamington Spa, where the station either retains some lovely old features, or has some very nice replicas:

We were bound for Bramhall in Cheshire, and we changed trains en route at…

…where my husband grew up (so I had to take the picture, to prove I’d at least stood on the station platform there). When we arrived at Bramhall, we were greeted by a sight that hasn’t been a large feature of this tour: blue sky. I’ve become so used to torrential downpours that it actually felt odd (in a nice way) to stroll into Bramhall with dry feet & no need for windscreen wipers on my specs.

Our destination was the famous independent bookshop Simply Books, which is run by Sue Steele & Andrew Cant – both hugely energetic & expert booksellers.

Sue & Andrew gave me a very warm welcome – it’s a gorgeous shop, & even has a small cafe inside, where Liz & I had a fab lunch. After that I couldn’t resist browsing…

…could you in this place? It’s my idea of heaven. And I bought a bag of books to take home to my daughters (I could easily have bought far more, but sadly there’s a limit to what I can lug onto the train), including this from Gecko Press:

…and its sister volume H.O.U.S.E., which I reckon are going to be huge hits back home.

After lunch, Andrew drove Liz & me to Wilmslow High School, where a group of 6th formers and keen Year 9s stayed after school to hear me talk about VIII. It was a great session – many thanks to history teacher Helen Birchill & to all the students, a few of whom are picture with me here:

(l-r) Molly, Max, Holly, Alex, me, Anna

Then it was off to my hotel for a couple of hours’ rest before the grand finale of the tour that evening: an event at Simply Books itself.

One of the displays at Simply Books for my event

Sue & Andrew are famous for hosting an extraordinary number & variety of fantastic events, as well as book groups, activity sessions for children and even, now, screenings of films. Their guest book is full of messages and pictures from the most illustrious authors and artists – it was with a rather nervous hand that I added my own and managed to burble on so much that I hardly had room to sign my name. Anyone who’s had trouble shutting me up in conversation will find this very easy to believe.

The evening was a delight. The shop was full & the audience so encouraging & warm that I felt buoyed up by a swell of Tudor-based enthusiasm. I met some wonderful women (Andrew was the only man present!) including a postgraduate history student who kindly offered help with particular areas of research for my new books about Mary I & Elizabeth I, which is marvellous (thank you so much, Sophie!).

Then it was off for a lovely dinner with Sue, Andrew & Liz at an Italian restaurant opposite the shop.

So, now, I am homeward bound. And, thanks to Sue & Andrew, I am the proud owner of a fine new vessel for my all-important coffee in the mornings…

What a fantastic way to bring the curtain down on the VIII tour. Slumped in this train seat is one exhausted but very happy author. Huge thanks to Templar Books & Philippa Perry for all the mind-bogglingly tricky, Krypton-factor-like puzzle-solving work that went into putting this tour together, and to Jayne Roscoe, Helen Boyle, Jessica Dean and Liz Scott who looked after me so expertly on the road.

Thanks, too, to all you kind souls who’ve read and commented on my blog diary along the way. It has meant a lot to me to have your company.

 

A venue fit for a king…

A Tudor rose coffee?

Liz Scott (my PR aide & all-round helper on this tour) & I had a caffeinated start to the day. We arrived admirably early at our first event… or – let me correct that – ridiculously early. So, having notified the school – Arnold Lodge in Leamington Spa – of our presence, we went off in search of coffee, & found a cafe called Niccolini’s on The Parade. My coffee did not look exactly like the one above, but it did the job most pleasantly, & we marched back to Arnold Lodge pepped up and raring to go.

My contact at Arnold Lodge is Angela Smith, who taught me (at a different school) for A level English many moons ago – and fortunately, as I discovered this morning, we both have happy memories of the experience! Miss Smith (as she was to me then) helped me grow to love George Eliot’s Middlemarch (I was daunted at the beginning, but by the time Miss Smith had finished with me, I adored it). Now the Arnold Lodge pupils are lucky enough to have her as their teacher.

Today I spoke about VIII to the Year 6, 7 & 8 pupils – and a fantastic, friendly & enthusiastic bunch they were too, with some brilliant questions up their burgundy sleeves. They were kind enough to present me with a beautiful bouquet afterwards (thank you, Angela!) and many queued up for book-signing too.

The hall I spoke in, according to a plaque on the wall, had been opened in 1972 by an MP called Margaret Thatcher...

My gorgeous flowers!

Thank you, Arnold Lodge!

Now, as I write, I am busy preparing for this evening’s event. It’s a public event organised by the independent bookshop Warwick Books, which has been a fantastic cheerleader for VIII right from the beginning, when the hardback was published last autumn, and even chose it as their Book of the Year for 2011, which was a huge honour. I don’t know the owners – Keith & Frances Smith – so I am looking forward very much to meeting them tonight, and thanking them in person for all their support & enthusiasm.

Another author is speaking at the event tonight as well as me: Nicola Shulman, whose book about Thomas Wyatt, Graven With Diamonds, I have been reading (& hugely enjoying) during this tour. Warwick Books’ window currently has a lovely display of both our books (plus my sister Helen’s book She Wolves – can you spot it?)…

…and I am looking forward to meeting Nicola very much. Also present tonight will be Prof. Eric Ives, who lives in Warwick & will introduce the proceedings. Prof. Ives is the country’s leading academic authority on Anne Boleyn (see his excellent book, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn), and has also written a fantastic (and deliciously controversial) book on Lady Jane Grey. I am a huge admirer of his, and will feel very honoured to have the chance to meet him. As for speaking in front of such august and erudite guests as Prof. Ives & Ms. Shulman – well, gulp… I must admit to a few butterflies…

The event tonight is going to take place in the most wonderful venue: the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick.

Although the original buildings date back much further, in 1571 they were acquired by Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He established a ‘hospital’ there for aged or injured soldiers and their wives, and it is still, today, a retirement home for ex-servicemen. The hall is available for public hire, and that’s where I’ll be speaking tonight.

I imagine that I’ll return home rather late – so I am intending just to add a few pictures before I post this blog.

…And here they are:

I arrived at Lord Leycester Hospital, & this was the handle on the big gate that I turned to get in:

Here’s the gate from the other side, once I was in:

I saw the Bear and Ragged Staff, Robert Dudley’s emblem:

And wonderful bears and a porcupine on this building, which I think is the Master’s Lodge:

Here (below) is the beautiful Great Hall, all set up ready for the event. The Master very kindly came and set up the computer equipment for my presentation himself. He was wonderfully welcoming & chatty, and remarked that he’d just been looking through the visitors’ book (which goes back hundreds of years) and found Oscar Wilde’s signature! (Dickens’ and Darwin’s signatures are there, he said, but he hadn’t realised Wilde’s was too.) He also told me that James I dined in this very hall & they still have the chair he sat in…

Here’s one of the hall’s windows – I love the higgledy-piggledy lattice:

And here – left to right – are Prof. Eric Ives, Nicola Shulman, Brother Peter (resident of the Hospital), and me before the event began:

It was a fantastic evening. It was such an honour to meet Prof. Ives, and he was a skilful & hugely generous chairman. I was so pleased to meet Nicola, too, and her talk was fascinating. To top it all, the audience were lovely and included three of my teachers from 6th form days. How nice it was to see them! Keith & Frances of Warwick Books couldn’t have been nicer, and – supported by staff from Warwick Library – they had arranged the event perfectly; I can’t thank them enough. They told me that since publication of VIII, they’ve sold about 200 copies, which makes it the highest-selling book ever for them! What stunning news… I am gobsmacked & over the moon all at once.

I’ll finish with some more photos from Lord Leycester:

Heartfelt thanks to the Master for letting us into this fabulous place & to Keith & Frances for arranging for it to be tonight’s venue!