Internet Service Providers (ISP) Prescott AZ

Our experience with Internet connectivity today is a lot like our expectations for the kitchen sink. When we turn on the faucet, we always expect water to flow. So its no wonder that we feel a panic akin to the pipes being frozen when we cant tap into the eternal spring of the World Wide Web. All it takes is for the Internet to go down and suddenly it becomes apparent how lifeless our computers seem without access to the vast quantities of information constantly running in the background.

Take that scenario and apply it to the increasing amount of electronic media that we rely on in our homes, and you will discover the crucial nature of the type of faucet we use to reliably and consistently pour forth our music, videos, weather reports, games, e-mails, and various subsystem controls. There is a shift in mindset occurring along with the proliferation of iPods, Media PCs, TiVos, and countless other storage devices: We want access to all of our media and information through a single access point. And that access point should provide two layers of control, one that reads our minds and automates a sequence of events at the press of a single button, and another, deeper layer that allows us to extract information and functionality through a system of menus. Fortunately, control interface technology is ready to serve both of these needs. Through the careful selection and programming of a range of keypads, touch panels, and the hybrid products that lie between these two categories, everybody who lives in a house can feel like the control system meets their usage ideals.

Yes, there was a time when only one button per function was needed on a control device. Then, as control became more complex as the functions it served became more numerous, the press and hold option came into vogue. However, that proved frustrating, and was all but abandoned. Today, thanks to more flexible keypads and more affordable small-scale LCDs and touch screens, the user interface is becoming more complex and more simplified at the same time. Now a button can function as either a direct trigger for an action or provide access to another layer of menu options. Many would say this streamlined approach to advanced control was made possible by the single-most significant recent evolution in user interface design, the iPod. Not only has this device trained some 70-billion purchasers of the product on how to access multiple gigabytes of information with a few simple clicks, but it also fed users desires to see track names, album titles, album art, and basic volume and transport controls all on one tiny screen.

As a result of the desire by end users to know whats going on with their control system (fancy that!) two-way control is now all the rage. For many years, our industry operated a little bit in the dark, we pushed a button and hoped something would happen, and most of the time it did, but it was a one-way world, observed Paul Starkey, executive vice president of ELAN Home Sy...

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