OTHER TECH

Day 1

For the Posts, it's Christmas at Easter when a motley S&V crew arrives at their house one sunny April day bearing a few choice eggs: a pair of Accurian digital receiver/speakers, an Accurian digital audio transmitter, a Slingbox video streamer, two SlingLink Powerline Ethernet adapters, and a LukWerks digital video surveillance camera starter kit with an extra camera (total cost: $840).

Now Kevin has to figure out what to do with this unexpected swag.

Eyeing the second floor, he ponders where to put the speakers. "If we're talking about whole-house audio, for sure you'd have something in the hallway," he muses. "Say you're cleaning up - you're talking background music. And for entertaining, we'd have something down in the living room. We'd also have it in the kids' room. And it would be neat to have speakers outside. Oh, and the kitchen - I've always wanted to have speakers there. Now we're just working off a clock radio."

Being an electrical contractor, Kevin certainly could have wired his home for sound when he and Denise moved in 11 years ago. But they were on a budget then, and the project would have cost anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000, depending on how much of it Kevin took on himself.

As for the security cameras, which can broadcast through the home wiring to any household computer - they've already been drafted by Denise. "We could monitor the kids," she says. "None of the windows in the back of the house really let us see the backyard. Right now when they play, I have to poke my head out the door every couple of minutes to make sure they're okay. With this, I'd only have to look out every five minutes or so."

Then there's the Slingbox, which lets you access everything from your cable service to your DVD player to your TiVo's "Now Playing" list from any Internet-connected computer on earth. Cool! - except Kevin's not quite sure what to do with it. He doesn't travel much or even own a laptop. "I probably could use it to watch a Yankees day game at work," he says, with the closest thing to a devilish grin he can muster.