I recently purchased a wireless doorbell from Wallyworld. I should have been more careful about picking one out. I bought the 2nd cheapest one available,
I could’ve swore I bought one that had the speaker that plugs into a standard wall outlet and the doorbell buttons were wireless. Apparently, I did not. I have one that runs on batteries.
I got it all loaded with batteries and was met with a moderately OK doorbell volume. I figured it was good enough, but was frustrated it wasn’t louder.
When I went to mount it, I started to remove the old doorbell, when I realized it was actually an alarm speaker that was wired to the home security system that came with the house.
Then I had a eureka moment. I removed the small speaker from the wireless doorbell, ran speaker wire out the front of it, and spliced it into the speaker that was already mounted to the wall. I was able to hide the wireless doorbell box behind the wall where the original speaker was mounted.
So I now have a damn loud wireless doorbell for the price of a good sized meal at Wendy’s :)
It does still run off batteries, but when I have some extra time, I may see if the home security system will power it.
If I get really motivated, I may wire the doorbell into the surround sound system. That way my nosey neighbors will be able to hear when someone rings the doorbell haha.
Today I am trying out Windows Live Writer after a long search to crosspost blogs and updates. Those of you that know me, know I frequently use ping.fm to update my statuses across almost every service ping.fm supports (about 30 sites). While it works great for status updates, I did not find it to be preferable for blogs.
My most current blogs have been on Myspace. Nothing seems to work directly with Myspace’s blog. That makes me sad. However, Windows Live Writer does integrate with Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, and Ping.fm (via a plug-in called xPollinate).
Windows Live Writer (WLW) only updates a single blog at a time by default. However, with xPollinate, it will update all blogs you are able to setup as accounts in WLW.
WLW is a WYSIWYG editor. It allows you to insert hyperlinks, ordered and unordered lists, various fonts, etc.
Examples:
You can easily insert Photos from the desktop or web (respectively):
Video is no issue either:
Plug-ins let you easily integrate with Flickr, Picasa, or even maps (of my new place)
As far as I know, it is only a desktop application. I do not think it currently has a web version. I see that as a small hindrance when compared to the amount of features available with the app. Of course, being able to crosspost and update all my social sites at once is fan-freaking-tastic.
Thanks Microsoft. Please update for Myspace. :)
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