I bought a simple case via Amazon. Nothing too fancy … extremely functional (it allows the LEDs to still display which is nice).  For storage, I went overboard and splurged on a $29 MicroSD card from SanDisk. While it’s definitely oversized for my Linux needs, when I install Windows on the Pi 2, I wanted to have sufficient extra space for whatever tinkering I would do … and not need to worry about buying a larger card then.

I also purchased a cable that permits toggling the power to the Pi. The Pi doesn’t have a power switch on it, but now the cable I use does instead. I suppose I could have just unplugged it, but this seemed handier.

I also bought a 2A USB charger/power for it. This power supply apparently is great for preventing what might be considered a brown-out to the PI when there are many devices connected (as it will hold the voltage much closer to the required 5V). As that seemed Like a Good Thing, I splurged (an extra $4) and bought it. If you don’t have peripherals connected, this isn’t necessary from what I’ve read. Most any 1.0A USB charger should work. Again, as I didn’t want to rebuy down the road, I spent a tiny bit extra. There are dedicated wall transformers that “are designed” for the Raspberry Pi, but I selected something generic that could be reused for other tasks, so the USB cable is removable (there are a lot that are hardwired to the transformer). The dedicated transformers are $4-6 cheaper.

I also picked up a tiny keyboard from MCM (where I bought the Pi from as well) for when VNC doesn’t make sense. (I’d be shocked if the Windows on ARM for the Pi will support Remote Desktop).

I already had a OK USB mouse, so I skipped that.

Node (Current)

Node v0.12.0 from Node-Arm.

wget http://node-arm.herokuapp.com/node_latest_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i node_latest_armhf.deb

VNC Server

I couldn’t get the scripts on raspberrypi.org to run the vncserver correctly upon startup. So, I found a combination that works.

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

tightvncserver

Log into a terminal on the Pi as root:

sudo su

cd /etc/init.d/

# First configure the user you want to run this under - this will generally 
be pi, unless you've created your own users
export USER='pi'
eval cd 
~$USER
# Check the state of the command - this'll either be start or stop 
case 
"$1" in
 start)
 # if it's start, then start 
vncserver using the details below
 su $USER -c 
'/usr/bin/vncserver :1 -geometry 1920x1080 -depth 24'
 echo 
"Starting vncserver for $USER "
 ;;
 
stop)
 # if it's stop, then just kill the 
process
 pkill Xtightvnc
 echo 
"vncserver stopped"
 ;;
 *)
 
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/vncserver {start|stop}"
 exit 
1
 ;;
esac
exit 0

Make this file executable:

chmod 755 vncboot

update-rc.d /etc/init.d/vncboot defaults

update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing

update-rc.d: error: unable to read /etc/init.d//etc/init.d/vncboot

update-rc.d vncboot defaults

sudo reboot

.NET/Mono (current)

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
echo "deb http://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian wheezy main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-xamarin.list
sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade 
sudo apt-get install mono-complete

By installing the current Mono as shown above, you’ll have access to mscorlib 4.0 by using dmcs for C# compilation.

I updated the Html Grabber earlier this year in response to some requests at work. It was performing poorly with long documents, and occasionally crashing in a few edge cases. I rewrote a few portions of the core code and created a new shell in .NET.

The core functionality is basically the same. Press and hold the primary mouse button on the button. Then, with the mouse button still pressed, drag and point at a window/region that you believe is using Internet Explorer. If it is, the cursor changes to include a small green circle. You may then release the mouse button to capture the contained HTML.

Once captured, double-click on the capture row and then paste the results into your favorite text editor (ideally, a syntax highlighting editor).

As usual, use at your own risk. It’s designed for debugging, so treat it accordingly. It’s been tested with IE8 and IE9. It requires .NET 4.0. 

Download it here. (Yes, the file name is called v2 … don’t worry, it’s correct). There’s no installer, just run the included EXE.

While it’s possible that Adobe has a codified error database for “CANT” … it would seem more likely that someone will need to search through source code to find out what operation cannot complete.

(To fix the above problem, I reset the settings for Illustrator by running as admin and holding down CTRL+SHIFT+ALT. Illustrator starts in a weird mostly not working state, but after shutting down that instance and restarting normally, the error went away).

This one is slightly better:

Although, in a clean install of CS6, I don’t know why I’m getting this error.

Photoshop upon first run was giving me an error message:

Could not open a scratch file because the file is locked, you do not have necessary access permissions, or another program is using the file. Use the "Properties" command in the Windows Explorer to unlock the file.

You’ll note that it mentions a file being locked, but no clear action to take because of this issue.

Here’s what apparently is one cause of this error:

A non-default installation of Windows (or Macs), where your temporary and user folders are not on the installation disk for Photoshop. In my case, I have 3 disks in my computer:

1. SSD  < Apps installed
2. 600GB HD  < Users, temporary
3. 600GB HD < Virtual Machines, backups, etc.

Photoshop (and Illustrator as well actually) try to create the scratch folder on the primary drive, even when they don’t have permission to do so. I changed the setting by:

1. Run Photoshop as Administrator
2. Immediately hold CTRL+ALT+SHIFT.
3. Photoshop will ask if the Settings should be reset. Answer OK.
4. Go to Edit > Preferences > Performance
5. Make changes to Scratch Disks:
   
6. Click OK and Exit Photoshop
7. Restart normally.

Some of the details may be found on their blog.

A few of the new features include an historical view of the heating/cooling usage:

On Friday, April 6th for example, you can see when the heat turned on and what the set points were for the day for my First Floor thermostat. The data isn’t as interesting during our Midwest Spring as the furnace doesn’t run nearly as much.

Here’s from another day:

I doubt I’ll use this feature much. It only has 10 days of information available apparently right now, so I just can’t see this being very useful. I’m skeptical that this will affect my choices as it comes to how we use our HVAC system. I could see potentially how aggregate data of many users (in a similar geographical area) could become more compelling and potentially a source of data that Nest might be able to sell.

The settings for a thermostat have been tweaked visually. The same basic data is available as before:

The learning tab has been cleaned up as well:

For some reason, our thermostat that we’ve had for four months is apparently still in training (Time to Temp). That seems like an issue that maybe I’ll look into. Although I don’t really care much about the “time to temp” feature normally as I don’t manually adjust the affected thermostat much.

The “Away” tab changed:

Not a big improvement for usability. Probably more touch friendly (and it’s logically correct as it heats when less than 58 degrees for example), but it feels wrong. Thermostats aren’t normally left to right oriented (temp goes up and down), so this breaks a typical UX model.

On the Equipment tab, they’ve tweaked the UI as well:

I clicked on the Safety Temp word (? it’s not a button, nor a link, so I don’t know what to call it) and the above UI displayed. The same temperature range UX is displayed, but here I like it even less. I suppose we don’t have a maximum temperature in the house during cooling season, but this is clunky. (And given that it’s safety related, I wish it were more clear). I can hear some of you say, “but it’s clear to me.” I do understand it, but I’m confident there is a better way of displaying and adjusting these temperatures that would be more obvious.

(And Nest Labs, go ahead and spell out “TEMP” please? Thanks!)

The technical info tab is the same basically.

There’s now a lock feature (which I have no need for, and am not going to experiment with right now):

One of the big new TM’ed features is called Airwave. Apparently, when it’s hot and the humidity is low (not typical for Wisconsin, as our summers are usually hot and humid), the thermostat apparently will try to do more cooling by turning off the air conditioning system early and using the fan more. (I always thought our air conditioner already did that as the compressor turns off before the fans). If it helps lower our electricity bill, awesome. I’ll report back if I can tell that it is working and helping (without historical data though, it will be difficult for us, especially as we added solar panels to our house last fall).

The scheduling tab looks basically unchanged. The support tab has more content, so you don’t have to go to their web site to read the information. That’s a nice improvement.

OK, this was very strange. As I was writing this post (and in the middle of using the application), I saw the following:

Now, the thermostats are all disconnected in some odd way:

A few minutes later, things improved (but not perfect):

Twenty minutes later, the BASEMENT thermostat is still disconnected. I reset the thermostat and it’s back now.

Apparently, there are a number of potential causes of a blank or empty screen when trying to access the Dashboard or administration screens of a self installed version of WordPress.

Before doing anything to your installation, I’d strongly suggest making a complete backup of your Database and installation folders. If your web host offers a handy way to do that, take advantage of it. There are plenty of walk-throughs on the Internet available with explanations of how to manually perform a backup. Don’t skip this step.

The most common apparently is a bad or incompatible plug-in. To test that theory, using an FTP application, just rename the plug-in folder that’s located in the wp-content folder.

Navigate to the root of your WordPress installation, then the wp-content folder. Rename the folder currently named plugins to something like plugins-test. This temporarily disables the plug-ins. Don’t worry, the settings for the plugins aren’t stored here.

Try again to navigate to the Dashboard.

Some suggest that a bad theme can also cause this problem. Assuming you haven’t directly modified the original copies of the themes of WordPress that are included with the default installation, twentyeleven and twentyten, rename the folder of your current theme (just add “-test” to the end again for example). This causes WordPress to revert to the default (which currently is twentyeleven).

Try again to navigate to the Dashboard.

Another option is to delete several of the folders of your installation and copy in the current versions. (Follow this if you’d like to try it). While fun to do, it didn’t help with my problem.

In my case, and the reason I’m posting this, is that it wasn’t any of those things. Somehow, the configuration file located in the root of the WordPress installation was no longer compatible with the current version of WordPress. I have no idea how this happened.

I made a copy of the original file wp-config.php (by copying it locally to my computer). If you just make a backup on your web site host, don’t give it an extension that makes it downloadable as it contains the keys to your installation.

Open the copy of the wp-config.php file that you’ve made locally on your computer. By doing that, it will be much easier to grab the values from there that you’ll need shortly.

Now, as soon as you perform the next step, your web site will be unavailable for  a few moments while you get things running again. It’s up to you if you want to do something special during this time (you could make a backup of index.php for example and edit the file to say that your site is undergoing a bit of maintenance).

I chose not to as I knew that it would take about 30 seconds to create a new configuration file.

Delete the file, wp-config.php from the root installation directory. Your web site is now officially down.

Now, using your browser navigate to the root folder of your WordPress installation and append wp-admin/install.php to the URL. It might look something like this:

www.example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

“blog” represents the root of the WordPress installation in the example above.

WordPress notices that your installation is missing a configuration file. Go ahead and walk through the few steps. Refer to the original wp-config.php file that you opened locally to provide answers to its questions. Pay attention to the table prefix question in particular and make sure that it matches with what you were using before. Look for a line that looks like this in the configuration file:

$table_prefix  = ‘wp_’;

The value in single quotes (wp_ in the example above) represents the prefix for the database tables that were created and being used by your WordPress installation. If you’re using a shared database, it’s very likely that you didn’t use the default of wp_. If you don’t match these up, you’ll end up with a completely fresh installation of WordPress, which isn’t likely what you want. (Don’t worry, if that happens, delete the config file and start over and this time, be sure to enter the correct prefix).

The other questions it asks should all have equivalents in the wp-config.php file you’ve got opened locally.

When it’s done, try logging in again. As soon as I completed the steps above, the WordPress Dashboard became available again. I renamed the plugin folder (removed the “-test” I’d added) and renamed my theme folder (again, by removing the “-test” I’d added). I went to the Plugins to re-activate each of them (as apparently, they became deactivated by default).

I verified the web site again was working and behaving as expected, and went on my regularly scheduled day. Hours lost: 3.

Hopefully this will help someone else.

(FYI, the new configuration file that was generated by the “fresh install” was syntactically and structurally different from the original. I don’t know why this was the case or when it happened, but I was happy to get things working again).

I looked at a few of the options and for one reason or another, I decided that I didn’t want to use the plug-ins/extensions and came up with a simple solution using a bit of naming trickery. I use this technique for SnugUp.

Here’s what I did in Lightroom version 3.

1. I selected the photos I wanted to export.  (I generally use the Quick Collection Feature)
2. File > Export (CTRL + SHIFT + E)
3. Adjust the Export To option to point to a specific folder of your choosing (in the example below, I set the folder as E:\PhotosBackupJPG
   
4. You may optionally put them in a subfolder of your choice (I did not)
5. Next click the Rename To option and select "Edit…”
   
6. Clear any value that may already be in the text box below the Example (just highlight the text and press delete).
   
7. Then, edit the template to be Folder Name and then Original filename. Select those by using the Image Name grouping. Click the Insert button after each.
   
8. Then, I added some text that I knew would be unique to be used as a separator (=-= equals minus equals). To add the text, just click with your mouse  between the two values you just inserted. I know that none of the file names in my library have this exact combination of characters in them. It’s important later. You can confirm this by using the search feature in Lightroom if you’re not sure.
   
9. Click on the Preset (yours may say something else) and then click “Save Current Settings as New Preset”
   
10. Give it a name that you’ll remember (I called mine Folder-Filename) and hit Create.
    
11. Adjust the remaining settings per your export needs and begin the process by clicking the Export button.
12. Wait patiently. Then go do something else as you realize it’s going to take a lot longer than you had expected/wanted.
13. Now, the next step is the simple trickery. What we’ve done is named all of the files so that they include the folder name as well. So, using a Powershell 2.0 script (Powershell is available for all modern versions of Windows as part of a package download here). So, download it now if you don’t already have it. (You can check for it by looking for Powershell ISE as described in the next step if you’re not sure. You probably have it if you’re using Windows 7).
14. Start Windows Powershell ISE (in Vista and Windows 7, just type “power” into the Start menu search):
    The reason I suggest the ISE (integrated scripting environment) is that it’s easy to just get stuff running without a lot of hassle.
15. The ISE will start:
    
16. I performed the move/rename in two steps so I could verify things between each step. If you’re familiar with Powershell, feel free to combine them into one step. It’s simple enough. First grab the entire script below and paste it into the top pane (under the tab labeled Untitled1.ps1):
    

    $root = #"E:\PhotosBackupJPG"
    $items = Get-ChildItem $root 
    foreach($item in $items) {
        $path = [regex]::split($item.Name, "(=-=)")
        if ($path.length -eq 3) {
            $destPath = $root + "\" + $path[0]
            if (!(Test-Path -path $destPath))
            {
                New-Item $destPath -type directory
                "New folder: " + $destPath
            }    
            Move-Item $item.FullName $destPath
        }
    }

    I’ve intentionally left an error in the file so that you’re forced to make the change. Unless you have an “E” drive and the path, “PhotosBackupJPG”, the script needs a tiny modification to make it work.

17. The first line of the script, $root = #”E:\PhotosBackupJPG” needs to be changed to match with the export location you selected earlier AND also the “#” needs to be removed (it’s a comment character in Powershell script). So, if you exported your photos to C:\Users\Steve\ExportedPhotos, remove the “#” and remove the text inside of the quotes on the first line and replace it with your photo location.
18. After confirming the location points to where you exported your photos (and videos), hit the Run button (the green arrow in the screen shot below). Or hit the F5 key on your keyboard.

    

19. The output (or any errors if you made a typo) appears in the light blue box in the center and when it’s complete, the word “Completed” appears in the status bar at the bottom of the application. It may take a few minutes to complete. I’d suggest looking at your export directory using Windows explorer to confirm everything looks fine before continuing. At this point, you should have some subfolders and all of the files should have been moved into the proper subfolder. Next, renaming.
20. Click the “New” icon (first icon on left shown above) to create a new Powershell script file (or just replace the existing one, you won’t need it again for this process). In the new file, copy this Powershell script and paste it:
    

    $root = #"E:\PhotosBackupJPG"
    $items = Get-ChildItem $root -recurse 
    foreach($item in $items) {
        $path = [regex]::split($item.Name, "(=-=)")
        if ($path.length -eq 3) {
            # $destPath = $root + "\" + $path[0]
            Rename-Item $item.FullName $path[2]        
        }
    }

21. Again, fix the $root to match with the export folder you created.
22. Confirm it, and hit the Run button.
23. All of your photos (and videos) will be renamed to only the original file name. The extra folder name and =-= are removed.
24. Bask in the glory of Powershell and your file wizardy. No plug-ins necessary.

If you’d like to use something other than =-= as the delimiter between the folder and file names, you’ll need to fix the Powershell scripts. The delimiter is on the line:

$path = [regex]::split($item.Name, "(=-=)")

But, unless you understand how Regular Expressions in Powershell work, you may want to avoid this change … it’s not necessarily as simple as just replacing the text.

The scripts above do these things with each file:

1. Check to see if it has the right pattern
2. If so, grab the folder name and check to see if the folder exists.
3. If it does not, create it.
4. Move the file to the new folder.
5. Rename the file name, removing the folder and delimiter

If you have questions, please leave a comment.

While this shouldn’t cause any harm, (especially if you just point it at a folder of exported photos and videos, which worse case you just re-export), you use technique and code this at your own risk. I can say I successfully used the script on over 30,000 exported photos without a single problem.

New features:

• (Changed to version 2)
• Completely revamped look and feel (which did remove a few ‘flashy’ features)
• Uses Click once for application updating (which should make it easier to push updates and bug fixes out to users)
• Added settings for automatic upload (when application starts)
• Added setting for Subcategory selection (only selection, no creation of subcategories through SnugUp)
• Added setting for custom gallery naming
• Completely changed settings user interface to more logically group and explain settings
• Fixed a number of bugs (that shouldn’t have appeared to user anyway!)
• Added support for new file extensions (to upload videos in particular)

It does require .NET 4.0 Framework Client profile (which likely you’ve already got on your machine, but if you don’t the installer SHOULD make it easy to download).

Go here (http://www.wiredprairie.us/SnugUp) for more information and to download. I’d recommend uninstalling the old version first.

Our order wasn’t scheduled to ship until January/February of 2012, so I was pleasantly surprised by their early arrival.

It’s evident that Nest has paid careful attention to the entire experience of purchase and installation as you’ll see. I can’t think of another appliance in our home that has come close. Hopefully, other manufacturers are starting to take notice that as consumers, we don’t want everything sealed in a nearly impossible to crack open plastic casing.

More consumer electronics packaging is slowly becoming part of the product experience. Apple deserves credit for being a consistent proponent of the packaging being part of the product purchasing and initial “ownership” experience.

The Nest thermostat is no different.

Opening the top immediately reveals the product. There’s no drama here, just a thermostat (covered in a plastic shell to protect the case from scratches).

The top of the box has a mold to keep the thermostat safe and secure. It’s glued to the top so it too stays out of the way of “product.”

No annoying twist ties or anything here .. the thermostat is easily removed from the box. In fact, make sure you don’t drop it as there’s nothing holding in the box.

Under the bottom mold for the thermostat is a small color welcome packet and B&W installation instructions.

When you pull out the instructions, you’ll find the remainder of the installation parts. Inside you’ll find a mini multi-bit screwdriver, the installation base, a few screws and drywall anchors, and the optional wall plates.

I had the (unfortunate?) need of 2 of the different sizes of wall plates to make installation easier.

The multi-bit screw driver was a nice touch. My only suggestion to Nest would be to investigate making the screwdriver have a slightly more “grippy” exterior. I found in a few cases where screws were overly tightened that the screwdriver rotated too freely in my hand.

As is very typical of home thermostats, Nest has included a set of stickers for the various wires you might encounter during installation. At first I read through the instructions and then went hunting through the paperwork looking for a loose set of stickers.

In fact, they’re part of the instructions and I had completely overlooked them! I’ve installed more than my fair share of thermostats over the years, and found that the ones that are labeled and colored are the nicest. The blue, while attractive from a design perspective, just isn’t as nice. If you have more modern house, it’s likely that the color of the wires match the connections, so the stickers may not be needed. While our HVAC wiring did have the modern wiring, I still use the stickers, just to make certain everything is properly connected (as I’d rather not have to call a HVAC specialist out to our house to get the HVAC working again!).

First step is to turn off the furnace. Don’t leave it on. Either kill power at your electrical panel or at the furnace itself. Many furnaces/HVACS have a power switch on the furnace itself which you can use and may be more convenient. In either case – make sure you’ve turned off the power.

To remove a thermostat, you’ll likely need to remove a few screws and maybe a wall plate. I found that the included screwdriver wasn’t long enough to reach the screws of the old thermostat, so you may need an extra (the included Nest screwdriver was still handy for removal of the wires from the older thermostat).

After removal of the wall plate and old thermostat, you may be greeted by a giant “HEY, I SUCK AT CUTTING A HOLE IN DRYWALL BUT YOU’LL NEVER NOTICE YOU STUPID HOMEOWNER” hole like I was when removing the old thermostat. If you’re as handy with drywall repairs as I am, you’ll be thankful that Nest included some wall plates.

I labeled each of the wires using the enclosed stickers and then removed the wires from the thermostat.

Be careful to not allow the cable to fall back into the wall! If the wires are stiff, you can wrap a few loose wires around a pencil or pen which should help prevent the cable from sliding back into the wall. (Or if the wires aren’t stiff, consider a piece of tape, a pencil, and the wires to be a reasonable alternative).

Next, you’ll want to see what you might be up against behind the wall. During installation of two of our new Nest thermostats, I found that the best location for the thermostat meant that one of the screws would line up with a wall-stud behind the drywall. If you weren’t blessed with a giant freaking hole like in the example above, do a bit of gentle prodding with a screwdriver to see if there are any unexpected obstacles. Use a stud finder if necessary.

For one of the installations in our house, I needed to use the long drywall screw to accommodate the thickness of the Nest thermostat mount, wall plate, and drywall into a stud. It’s a 2 inch screw. Without it, the screw wasn’t deep enough to hold the thermostat securely to the wall. I found that although the screw-head of the drywall screw was larger than the original screw included, it didn’t cause any problems when the main unit was connected to the base.

If you’re using the included drywall anchors, do the right thing and predrill. While I predrilled the hole, it wasn’t large enough to allow smooth entry, and it quickly stripped the anchor’s Phillips screw head. I had to use some electrical pliers I had in my tool bag to remove the partially set wall anchor (thankfully, I was able to just twist it slowly out).

Thankfully, I had a replacement wall anchor available that nearly matched the original, yet was a bit stronger and better made. So, a second attempt worked without a hitch.

You’d think I’d learn my lesson … however, I proceeded to wreck the second drywall anchor just as quickly as the first. Again, a replacement with a better made anchor did the trick. As you may not have replacements, be more careful than I. Don’t expect them to work well without predrilling. Note to Nest: your included drywall anchors suck and you saved money in the wrong place. The bulk package of plastic anchors I already had on hand were far better. I’d suggest considering metal ones instead – I’ve got some of the those – and they rock! (However, they were slightly too large for this installation, otherwise I would have switched to them without hesitation).

I used the square plate to cover the giant hole in the drywall and then connected the wires. As this was my third thermostat installation, getting the wires in place on this unit was much easier than the first two. I’d like to think it was “experience,” but I’m actually going to say it was a bit of luck. On the second unit, I struggled getting the 24V “C” wire connected successfully. Each time I pushed it in … it would pop back out. It was bad enough that I thought it was connected and then not until I had installed everything did I notice that the thermostat reported that I hadn’t connected the “C” wire.

(Note, the “C” wire is very important, as it’s where the Nest thermostat draws power for the unit and without it, you may have a less than stellar experience).

I’d made sure that the “C” wires were powered before beginning the installation (I actually had to add the connection myself to the furnace).

Here’s with the wires connected. If you’d wondered how you’d level a round object like this – no worries! There’s a small “level” at the top of the Nest thermostat which makes leveling a breeze (right below the nest logo in the photo below)!

I snapped the front of the unit onto the base carefully and then turned on the power to the furnace again.

A few moments later, I could see a tiny green light in the lower right corner of the thermostat and the screen activated. It’s a really great touch to the over all experience that the screen is round like the device.

It takes a few minutes for the device to begin the setup process.

The device has a tiny speaker so, it makes a few little “clicks” as it nears readiness.

As you’ll see throughout the installation, the Nest thermostat has a very simple and elegant user experience. It’s not got much flourish, … just clean lines and a simple UI. Very pleasant. Thankfully, no EULA! :)

You’ll only need to do this once ideally – setup of the Internet wifi connection. Our home’s wifi password is sufficiently complex and was particularly annoying to spin, click, toggle, spin, click…. But, it’s done with. I can’t think of a better way to do this that wouldn’t take just as much time. To select a number or character, spin the outer frame, and then “push” the frame to select. That’s really the only input the device takes from the user. Spin and click. Nice.

As soon as the wifi is connected, it downloads an update. It took about 5 minutes to download the update, install the update, “backing up software” and reboot.

I don’t know what “Backing up software” is doing. I hope the “Cloud” is involved somehow because that makes all Internet things better. :)

This was a very nice touch – an image of the connections I made. On the second unit I installed, this was key to my discovery that the “C” wire had become dislodged already!

In order to receive the time and temperature, your zip code is needed.

If you’ve got more than one thermostat, you’re asked for a name for each thermostat. It’s got a few reasonable defaults. You can do a custom name if you’d like directly on the unit, or later on the web site.

The thermostat asks if it should start in heating or cooling mode:

I don’t know if the unit tries to make an educated guess based on the outside temperature (obtained by using the Zip code provided earlier), or if it always defaults to heat.

OK-doky.

Done!

One setting I‘d immediately suggest is going to settings (push the display once, spin to “SETTINGS”) and changing the “BRIGHTNESS” to auto. Just spin the outer wheel until you find the BRIGHTNESS setting and then push to toggle through the options. It defaults to medium which was much too bright at night in a darkened hallway.

After completion of installation, set the temperature as desired.

Here are some things I learned:

• The display activates when it detects nearby movement.
• It shows the current set temperature in the “large” font size and the current temperature in a very small font (and graphically). I’d prefer if the current temperature was made slightly larger for at a glance reading. During heating seasons, I don’t care so much about that, but I know that I use the “current temperature” far too much during the “cooling” season to decide how freaking hot the house is and whether it’s finally time to turn on the air conditioning.
• There’s no on-screen clock. I’m amazed how much I relied on the clocks on the thermostats for knowing what time it is (or at least a confirmation of what time it is). I miss that already. They easily could add that and would love to see it added.
• Predrill for the screws (both the drywall anchors and other screws). You’ll be more successful and end up less frustrated.
• Expect that it will take you longer than you’d thought. It took between 30-60 minutes per thermostat to install. If you hit a problem (like a wall stud for example), you may find it takes longer. In fact, you might want to remove the old thermostat by removing the wall mount before you even start to see what you might be up against – in case a trip to your local hardware store might be necessary.
• Install power to the unit (the “C” wire).
• Be careful and go slow.

Download the app for your iPhone or Android device and enjoy remote control of your HVAC system!

You may also use their web site to adjust settings, temperature, etc. You can even change the name of the thermostats (in a multi-thermostat dwelling at least).

The web app shows the current set temperature and the current temperature.

Not that here they did the same thing and put the current temperature on the spinning gauge of the dial. It’s more difficult to read there than it should be. I don’t know why Nest considers the current temperature so unimportant.

UPDATES:

Update #1, Update #2, Update #3, Update #4, Update #5, Update #6

I took many of the nest box photos in a white portable photo box with my iPhone 4S (all photos were taken with the iPhone). Our Ragdoll cat thought it was great fun, so I’m including a few obligatory pet photos. I’m amazed by the quality of the camera (especially the second one)!

A bit of hunting on the Internet later – no one had a clear path to success. Most reported continual failures when trying to start the LaunchPad or start a backup manually.

I had success by doing the following:

1. Start > View Local Services (you can type “services” for a quick match)
2. Find Windows Server Health Service and start it if it isn’t already started.
3. Find Windows Server Client Computer Backup Provider Service and start it if it isn’t already started.

Neither of these were running on my laptop even though they both were set to Automatic startup. As soon as I started them manually, the LaunchPad immediately began working, and manual backup became available again.

There were no errors in the Windows Event Viewer explaining why they may have failed to start. As I don’t reboot my laptop frequently, this fix will remain in place for a while (and I’ll need to remember to check these in the future potentially).

Hope this helps someone else.

Now, you’ve sent me a notice that Windows Live Mesh 2011 is available?

I’m confused. I must not be alone in this.

Windows Live Sync which replaced the Beta of Windows Live Mesh apparently has been renamed to a less consumer friendly name, but regained the features of the old Mesh beta product. 

XP isn’t supported any more. I wish Windows Home Server was officially supported. It would make for a great place to sync files and a easier way to gain access to the full WHS desktop from anywhere.

By the way, during this confusing period, I switched to DropBox anyway. Sigh.