This is default featured slide 1 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 2 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 3 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 4 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

This is default featured slide 5 title

Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.

Sunday 19 January 2014

Smart home: bigger pictures and killer issues


Have you ever tried visualizing about a smart home where most of the mundane chores will be done automatically or with minimal manual intervention? Dumb gadgets like heating and cooling system will start and stop automatically. Lights will be switched on or off depending on your presence. All your entertainment systems will be connected wirelessly and will communicate with each other wirelessly. Home security system will be activated when you are away and you will be able to monitor and view your home on your Smartphone wherever you are. Your imagination can go on and on…. To fuel your thoughts you can watch this interesting video:
In the past, we have seen discrete efforts in this direction. I have seen and wowed an air-conditioned system which can be started and the temperature set by sending an SMS. Its innovative but very simple. Basically a GPRS receiver is connected with an on-off controller and a thermostat. We have seen doorbell system with the camera can send pictures of the person on your doorstep. There is a basic flaw with this kind of system. They are smart, but designed with a narrow vision of connectivity. They are fit for purpose but fails to address the greater issues of interconnectivity and interoperability. This seems to be the greater emerging issue right at this moment.
So, how do the present preparedness and future plans look like? Frankly speaking, this article is provoked by Google’s acquisition of Next, a connected thermostat and fire/ smoke safety device. In a statement about the purchase, Google CEO Larry Page commented that “Nest’s founders, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family. They’re already delivering amazing products you can buy right now – thermostats that save energy and smoke/CO alarms that can help keep your family safe. We are excited to bring great experiences to more homes in more countries and fulfill their dreams!”
nest-thermostatI personally believe that Google’s intention is far greater than a mere thermostat. The recent developments in smart home at CES 2014 gives me enough reason to believe that Google is more interested in the connectivity side of Next rather than thermostat per se. It reminds me that LG during CES 2014 announced about the HomeChat app partnering with Line messaging service. The whole idea of this is to provide a means to communicate with the home devices through your Smartphone.
lg-line-sms-2013-12-26-01Appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners, or washing machine can be controlled through HomeChat app on one’s mobile devices. Line is an expert messaging company who devised interesting communicating services beyond human to human communications and LG found them apt for communicating with the devices. Probably, you will be able to query your fridge about the current status in terms of temperature etc. and it would text you back immediately. That brings an interesting proposition about asking the fridge about the status and stock of the items stored in the fridge when you are shopping in a grocery store. Similarly, ask your  vacuum cleaner to start cleaning at a scheduled time or set washing cycle and preferred modes on a washing machine using the HomeChat app.
Samsung is another major player in this particular field. Samsung is planning a common platform which gives you the ability to control and communicate with all the smart devices in your home. It even plans to roll out the product during the first half of 2014.
Samsung’s plan is to do this in three parts, Device Control, Home View, and Smart Customer Service. Device Control will set up the various behavior profiles of the devices depending on if you”re at home or away. The major catch is that Samsung will support its own products in the first go which is a big marketing ploy. Samsung’s Smart Home software protocol is supposed to support other company products at a future date.
samsung-smarthome1: smart home
smart home
The Home View feature will let you have a look at your home when you”re away through cameras built in to your appliances. The Smart Customer Service will subject your devices to pre-emptive maintenance so that reliability is never compromised.
appleIn the meantime, Apple, the other giant has been awarded a patent, which enables Apple to determine your locations based on the usage and proximity to other devices. This is called “System and method of determining the location of wireless communication devices/persons for controlling/adjusting operation of devices based on the location”. Again, the major aim is to set the behavior profile of the devices/ equipment based on your whereabouts.  The immediate usage is to turn-on the security system when you are out or turn on the lights when you are in. Interestingly, it makes the home into different zones and assigns the zonal behavior profiles depending on your proximity. This system will be sophisticated enough to hold multiple human/ pet profiles and assigning the zonal or individual equipment behaviors in different ways.
So, we are in an interesting phase. All we can do is to sit back and watch who can bring out your dream home automation system truing your home into a true smart home. We all know that Compatibility and interoperability of equipment from multiple vendors will be the fey factor which will determine the outcome of this game.



X - The Ultimate WordPress Theme
































































































 


X WordPress Theme – Overview

Stacks – X includes multiple unique designs inside of one powerful theme. No setup required, works simply and easily. We refer to these designs as “Stacks.” There are currently three Stacks available in X, with more on the way. It’s like buying one theme and constantly getting access to new themes all the time! The Stacks currently included in X are as follows:
  • Integrity
  • Renew
  • Icon
Experts – X was built upon the input of industry-leading experts. We consulted numerous individuals and asked them what sort of features they wanted to see in a theme from an SEO standpoint, design, feature-set, et cetera, and built their suggestions right into the theme. Forget the marketing speak, X truly delivers on what it promises.
Customizer – Being on the cutting edge of WordPress development is something we wanted to do from the start. Because of that, we made sure that we avoided the use of clunky additional admin panels and instead, opted to utilize the native WordPress Customizer (or rather, our souped up version of the WordPress Customizer). With this setup, you can preview all of the changes you make to your site live without any need to switch windows or refresh the browser over and over again. When you’re happy with your changes, select “Save & Publish” and your updates will go live. Within the WordPress Theme Customizer, the following can be edited:
  • Stack selection (IntegrityRenew, or Icon)
  • Site layout (fullwidth or boxed)
  • Site max-width (in pixels)
  • Site width (in percentage)
  • Content layout (content left – sidebar rightsidebar left – content right, or fullwidth)
  • Background colorpatternimage, and image fade
  • Countless Stack-specific options
  • Enable custom fonts and their subsets if desired
  • Logo fontcolorsizeweightletter spacing, and choose to enable uppercase styling
  • Navbar link color, link color hoversizeweight, and choose to enable uppercase styling
  • Headings fontcolorweightletter spacing, and choose to enable uppercase styling
  • Body fontcolorsize (base and content area), and weight
  • Link color and link color hover
  • Button style (3Dflat, or transparent)
  • Button shape (squarerounded, or pill)
  • Button size (minismallregularlargeextra large, or jumbo)
  • Button font colorbackground color, and border color (and set values for the hover as well)
  • Header position (static topfixed topfixed left, or fixed right)
  • Navbar top height (in pixels)
  • Navbar side width (in pixels)
  • Logo upload
  • Make logo retina ready
  • Navbar top and side logo alignment (in pixels)
  • Navbar top and side link alignment (in pixels)
  • Mobile navbar button alignment (in pixels)
  • Mobile navbar button size (in pixels)
  • Header widget areas (onetwothree, or four)
  • Header widget area button color
  • Header widget area button color hover
  • Enable or disable topbar
  • Topbar content for taglinescontact information, or secondary navigation (accepts HTML input)
  • Enable or disable breadcrumbs
  • Enable or disable top footer area)
  • Footer widget areas (onetwothree, or four)
  • Enable or disable bottom footerfooter menufooter social menu, and footer content area
  • Bottom footer content (accepts HTML input)
  • Enable or disable the Content Dock, a unique widget area perfect for alerting your users of important information
  • Enable or disable the Scroll Top Anchor, allowing your users to return to the top of your site with the click of a mouse
  • Enable the excerpt or full post content on your index page.
  • Custom URL slug for your portoflio
  • Custom portfolio title
  • Portfolio column layout (onetwothree, or four)
  • Enable or disable portfolio sidebar
  • Posts per page for the portfolio
  • Enable cropped featured images
  • Custom portfolio tag list title
  • Custom portfolio project title
  • Custom portfolio project button text
  • Manage and preview all of your Slider Revolution sliders
  • Select which sliders to display
  • Select which page to display your slider on
  • Select page location (above or below the header)
  • Enable optional fullscreen video backgrounds if needed
  • Enable scroll bottom anchors (moves page to the bottom of your slider on click)
  • Manage and preview your WooCommerce shop
  • Update shop layout
  • Select product columns
  • Posts per page for the shop
  • Enable or disable various product tabs with ease
  • Enable or disable Related Products and alter their appearance (post count, columns, et cetera)
  • Enable or disable Upsells and alter their appearance (post count, columns, et cetera)
  • Enable or disable Cross Sells and alter their appearance (post count, columns, et cetera)
  • Adjust WooCommerce widget image alignment
  • Integrated social sharing for FacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestReddit, and email
  • Profiles for FacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestDribbbleLinkedIn, and RSS
  • Input custom CSS right in the Theme Customizer
  • Input custom JavaScript right in the Theme Customizer
  • And so much more!
Responsive – Let’s face it: we live in a mobile world. It’s absolutely essential that your website be as accessible as possible on all devices. However, we felt that responsive design was something else we wanted to make even better. Instead of utilizing a design that merely changes every so often at fixed breakpoints, we opted for a completely fluid (percentage-based) design that looks great on all screen sizes (even the “in-between” ones). It’s something that truly has to be seen to gather the whole experience. So fire up your 27” iMac, 11” netbook, Kindle Fire, Android phone, or anything else you can conjure up – X will look fabulous on all of them.
Typography – The web is first and foremost a typographic medium. Because of that, we wanted to ensure that the level of control over your site’s type was unparalleled in any other WordPress theme on the market. We’ve not only included over 600 free Google Fonts to use in your theme, we’ve made it so that all respective weights of each font are dynamically loaded, ultimately providing you with more choice, and better overall site performance. Adjust sizes, colors, letter spacing, capitalization, and so much more with X’s near endless typographic options.
Shortcodes – The bread and butter of any good theme. Shortcodes enable you to become a power user and take your site to new heights. But you’re only as good as what you’re provided with in your theme. With X, we’ve built 40 stellar shortcodes (plenty of them truly one of a kind), allowing you to build virtually any layout your mind can imagine. All shortcodes are included via a custom built plugin for easy maintenance. Included plugins are as follows:
  • Accordon
  • Alert
  • Audio Embed
  • Author
  • Block Grid
  • Blockquote
  • Buttons
  • Callout
  • Clear
  • Code
  • Container
  • Content Band
  • Columns
  • Columnize
  • Custom Headline
  • Dropcap
  • Entry Share
  • Feature Headline
  • Gap
  • Highlight
  • Icon List
  • Icons
  • Images
  • Line
  • Map
  • Popovers & Tooltips
  • Promo
  • Prompt
  • Protected Content
  • Pullquote
  • Recent Posts
  • Responsive Lightbox
  • Responsive Pricing Table
  • Responsive Slider
  • Responsive Text
  • Responsive Video
  • Responsive Visibility
  • Search
  • Skill Bar
  • Tabbed Content
  • Table of Contents
To see examples of the shortcodes and how they look in each stack, check out the links below:
WooCommerce – Easily transform your WordPress website into a full fledged eCommerce storefront with the click of a mouse (and for absolutely no additional cost). The X WordPress theme is fully integrated with the WooCommerce plugin for those who need it; however, if you don’t need an eCommerce feature on your site there will be no additional impact on your site’s performance. X only uses what needs to be used at any given time, keeping load times fast and visitors happy. But that’s not all! Since X was created to support multiple, completely unique designs called Stacks, each Stack has it’s own look and feel when it comes to WooCommerce integration. If you are looking for an eCommerce solution, you now have three completely unique looks to chose from!. Check them out below:
Marketing – Some people merely provide you with a theme and send you on your way to figure the rest out yourself. With our comprehensive member area, you won’t be alone in purchasing X. You’ll not only receive advice from industry experts on how to finely craft your content to reach a larger audience, but you’ll also receive training on how to use the theme itself. Dozens of HD videos and detailed documentation make working with X one of the best experiences you’ll ever have.
Site Layout – It’s always nice to have decisions. Choose between boxed or fullwidth layouts across all stacks to find a design that truly suits your needs.
Custom Backgrounds – Setting a background to your site helps to set the mood you’re trying to achieve. Simple colors can be light, clean, and professional, patterns can provide some texture and depth, while whole images can make a powerful statement. With X, there’s no fuss with any of these options as you can easily alter each Stack fit your style. Additionally, you can even set unique background images on individual pages, including using multiples to create fullwidth background slideshows (a very creative use for portfolios). You’ve never had this much fun playing around with background images.
Helpful Page Templates – X comes with numerous pages templates to provide you with plenty of flexibility and power when it comes to building the site you want. Easily turn off certain elements like your header or footer on particular pages to assist you in creating marketing squeeze pages, long form sales letters, and anything else you can think of. Our included blank templates are perfect for crafting unique homepage designs along with our powerful shortcodes, ensuring that your site will never look like anyone else’s who is using X. Included page templates are as follows:
  • Blank – Container | Header, Footer
  • Blank – Container | Header, No Footer
  • Blank – Container | No Header, No Footer
  • Blank – No Container | Header, Footer
  • Blank – No Container | Header, No Footer
  • Blank – No Container | No Header, No Footer
  • Layout – Content Left, Sidebar Right
  • Layout – Sidebar Left, Content Right
  • Layout – Fullwidth
Unlimited Sidebars – It’s a given with most themes these days and it’s no different with X. You have unlimited sidebars at your disposal to achieve whatever your project desires. Our sleek, intuitive sidebar manager interface has a couple tricks up it’s sleeve, and paired with our layout templates, you can accomplish anything. Some of the things you can do with sidebars in X include:
  • Create and manage unlimited unique sidebars
  • Set sidebars on either side of the page (left or right)
  • Manage all unique sidebars from one streamlined interface
  • Set sidebars on parent pages to be inherited by all child pages as well
Unique Portfolios – Each Stack in X features it’s own unique, one of a kind portfolio layout. While each portfolio appears visually different, you can still achieve all of the same desired results across all of them. Some features of the portfolios include:
  • Set a unique URL slug for your portfolio
  • Set how many posts per page you want to appear on the index listing
  • Set how many columns you want to use on the index listing
  • Supports imagesgalleries, and video
  • Display either the featured image or the media type (e.g. galleryvideo) on the index page
  • Set unique backgrounds on each individual post to mirror your work
  • Categorize and tag your portfolio pieces like normal posts for easy organization
Portfolio photography generously provided by James Brandon, top-photo-spots.com.
Slider Revolution – X not only supports, but includes the premium Slider Revolution plugin (a $15 value) for free along with your purchase of the theme. Effortlessly create and manage unique slideshows with captivating transitions and animations that are all completely responsive. With X, you can easily include a slider at the top of any page using a simple option dropdown, or to the body of your pages and posts using the generated shortcodes.
Icon Fonts – They’re all the rage right now, and for good reason. Icon fonts are easy to use, look great across all devices (we’re talking about you retina displays), and aren’t much of a performance hit. With X, we’ve chosen to include two icon font libraries, Font Awesome, and the Foundation Social Set, combined to give you nearly 400 icons to use throughout your paragraphs, buttons, lists, and just about anything else you can think about.
Integrated Social Sharing – Facilitating the sharing of your content is a breeze with X. Built-in options allow for a quick, efficient, and seamless sharing experience that always feels custom tailored and never tacked on.
Retina Ready – Along with HTML5, CSS3, and icon fonts, X also ensures things like your logo look crystal clear across all devices.
Dynamic Thumbnail Sizing – Since we’ve provided you with not only the ability to control the width of your site, but also your content area, that much variable room can cause problems with your media (i.e. too big, too small, et cetera). However, we’ve included some custom scripting that takes care of all that, dynamically sizing all featured image content across your site based upon the dimensions you’ve chosen for your theme. What does it all mean in the end? Better performance and happier users. What else could you ask for?
Photoshop Files – Yep, we’ve got those, too. All available Photoshop files are included with your purchase of the X WordPress Theme.
Clean Code – X conforms to industry best practices at all levels. The attention to detail given by our developers on all levels is absolutely unparalleled. Implementing the latest HTML5 and CSS3 techniques, along with cutting edge WordPress standards ensures that your theme will provide you with the best possible experience you could hope for with a premium theme. Better load times and performance means your content is more readily consumed by your visitors, leading to repeat customers and increased exposure.
Demo Data – Sometimes it’s nice to get a little head start. Included with your purchase of X is a set of demo data illustrating how to accomplish dozens of unique layouts, along with how to take advantage of X’s unique feature-set. A truly valuable addition.
iLightBox jQuery Plugin – To make your images as beautiful as possible, we’ve integrated the iLightBox jQuery plugin directly in the theme in conjunction with the responsive lightbox shortcode. This $13 value is free with your purchase of X, and will ensure that your photographs look beautiful as ever in it’s fully responsive, minimal display.
Custom Post Formats – Manage your blog posts better by taking advantage of WordPress’ custom post formats. The following post formats are included, each with their own unique set of data inputs for managing content efficiently and easily:
  • Standard
  • Image
  • Gallery
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Quote
  • Link
Search Engine Optimized – A lot of people boast about search engine optimization. We actually have data to back it up. X was built with the help of industry experts, SEO included. Rest assured that everything from the foundational markup utilizing the latest semantic HTML5 elements, up to specialized shortcodes for increased clickthrough rates have all been expertly crafted to ensure that your site ranks as best it can.
Translation Ready – X is translation ready and comes with included .mo and .po files.
Unlimited Styling – Trust us on this: virtually any layout or design you can think of is possible with X WordPress Theme. We even believed in this so much, we created 30 demo sites (yes, 30), to show off what is truly possible with X, and these were just from our team. Imagine what you could create with your own imagination and the tools necessary to make it happen.
WAI-ARIA Roles – X includes WAI-ARIA roles throughout each and every template file to ensure that your site conforms to the latest accessibility standards set forth by the W3C.
Unbelievable Member Resources – Experience a member area like you’ve never seen before. Fully responsive, helpful support forums, HD tutorials, expert contributions, and so much more. X is more than just a theme, it’s an experience unto itself.
Updates – Our #1 priority is to keep X on the cutting edge of functionality, and our team is quick to address bug fixes as well as adding new features.
Multisite Tested – X has been thoroughly tested across numerous multisite setups (including our own demo installations), so you can rest easy knowing that everything will function as it should across your network.
Child Theme Compatible – X is child theme compatible, with child themes available upon your purchase of the theme to make customization easy and painless.
Custom Widgets – It’s a breeze to include your Flickr or Dribbble feed into your theme with X’s custom widgets. Simply drag and drop them wherever you desire, input your user information, and you’re good to go!
Cross Browser Compatibility – No browser is left behind with the X WordPress Theme! All modern browsers supported by X include:
  • Google Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Opera
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Internet Explorer 10
  • Internet Explorer 9
  • Internet Explorer 8
Threaded Comments – Threaded comment support is active in X and fully responsive, allowing your users’ comments to be easily viewable and readable on all devices, no matter how small.
Best WordPress Theme 2014 – X is truly the ultimate WordPress theme, and we look forward to proving it to you. Pick up your copy today!