As someone who went DIY and built one of these (Highly modified, including FM transmitter) about 5 years ago, it's good of you to start now, it takes much more time than just putting some lights in and set it up. Not sure what exists now but remember you need to power each "Station" so not sure how much wireless gains you. There are forums for people devoted to these things, and I suggest starting there. It will also matter on how many channels you want as well as how custom you want the sequences to be. There use to be a Mr Christmas setup that was about $150 that just kind of randomly flashed a small number of lights almost randomly to music. Much easier but not a very good sequence either. Cheap is relative and LED's are not generally cheap. Let us know a budget when you can.

So this means my virtualized headless server won't have a touch screen interface? Glad someone used some common sense.

Not at all.

"Cheryl Williamsen, a Los Alamitos architect, has three of the boxes leased from her cable provider in her home, but she had no idea how much power they consumed until recently, when she saw a rating on the back for as much as 500 watts" Rating doesn't equal consumption. I can put a 1000W power supply in my computer but just watching youtube videos doesn't mean it's consuming all 1000W. It consumes far less than the 1000W unless the system demands it. Only way to know how much a device like this consumes is to measure it. One inexpensive way to do this is the KilloWatt meter.

Cloud isn't a concern as long as your software is done right. By all accounts Lastpass has been done well. The cloud only gets an encrypted blob. Let the NSA go to town on it, not a concern. So do you manually sync your phone to PC then with your keypass DB?

Why are you unable to use one of the online systems like Lastpass? It's been very well vetted, offers offline and online modes. I personally find 1pass to be very Mac centric and expensive but it's a good product too. Keypass is a good opensource alternative, although its a local program so there are those downsides. It has android and iOS apps too so you can have access on a mobile device if needed.

So the same contractor who built the health care website builds 3D printers now? Joking aside this would not be a very good test if the agency regulating guns came out and said the ones you make yourself without regulation work better than the ones we regulate, now would it.

Break the bad habits that are holding her back such as AOL. Next time you see her educate her. Show her the internet works without aol (I suggest chrome since it has flash and auto updates). This way you can move on from win XP. Where you go from there is up to you. IF she is just doing email, it sounds like a perfect solution fro a Chrome book. Logmein Free works pretty good for remote support. You can get in whenevery you need to run updates.

Who has the perception that the USPS is A) A fashion designer B) Leading edge technology in anything (Just try using their tracking that updates once a day at best), especially clothing C) A logo people want to pay for and wear. I guess if it brings in money. . .

1st thing to do would be see if my router was compatible with something like DD-WRT or Tomato. These don't have the insecure WDS in them. I assume you have the most up to date firmware. Other things to do would be to turn off your wifi for a few days. Chances are the neighbor will get bored and move on to someone else. You could also enable QOS and restrict the heck out of his connection. You could also start messing with things like redirection, block DNS lookups (Let your local machine do the DNS for your connection) and lastly replace your router.

True, business conditions drove the decision and thats important, I just wonder if there are not enough checks in place etc due to the new system of manufacture.

I wonder if the manufacturing and quality problems has anything to do with the change on this plane that it is made all over the world, by tons of suppliers, then all moved to a common location for final assembly. This is a departure from the way Boeing has done manufacture in the past where most things are done under one roof.

I would agree here for the most part. They change sockets so often that very few people switch processors and keep the same MB. Most people upgrade both at the same time. So you will buy the MB at the same time as the Processor as one piece. Ya not ideal but makes sens. I don't see this happening for a while.

Yes this exactly. If the USPS did not have to prefund 10 years in advance its retirement plans they would be at least breaking even. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/08/03/Going-Postal-Congress-Adds-to-Systems-Woes.aspx#page1

They waited this long because? First?