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I work for a home builder. When it was time to do my house, I was priviliged enought to do it myself - since I worked for them. I did Cat6 and RG-6 in every room, plus a whole bunch of other stuff. Go nuts with the cable because, wireless etc aside, you will be kicking yourself in the ass if you don't do it and later you try to retrofit - and - it is far cheaper to do it at the time of build PUT IT IN YOUR BUDGET because it is F/A compared to your mortgage. Run Cat3 to every window, every door, and in odd locations, that way you can do sensors in all sorts of locations. Run three RG-6 to the peak of the roof, and from there down to the living room, master bedroom & kitchen, then you can run your sattelite recievers anywhere you want (make sure your are under 100m). Run Cat6 into the attic - you may never use it, but what if you want to put a WAP up there, or a weather station on the roof? Ask the builder to nail a dozen sheets of plywood to the rafters in the attic, then after they put in the insulation in the attic, rip them down and drop them on top of the ceiling joists - instant floor and storage space (384 square feet!). Run Cat 6 to the garage (sounds stupid? i have a pc in the garage i look up car repair / service diagrams online). Oh, and the speaker wire!!! run speaker wire from your living room / family room to everywhere you can think of. A pair of in wall speakers is $50 and so easy to install it's stupid. Then you buy a speaker switch box, and you can pipe in tunes anywehere you want. Use X-10 for your control protocol, it works great and it's cheap. Don't get the builder to put it in, too expensive. Buy it later and get your electrician friend to put them in. Don't get them from x10.com get it from www.x10pro.com, it's a different product made better. Buy an X-10 phase coupler http://www.x10pro.com/pro/catalog/x10tools.html and have the builder put it in, so your X-10 stuff will run on both sides of the phase (read:more reliable). For physical interface to PC, get the $60 plug-in interface, don;t get the Firecracker, it is crap. For control software, do not use Home Director or X-10 software, it is crap. I use MisterHouse www.misterhouse.net, the interface is brutal but it is easy to customize, platform independent, and open source so if you don't like it, fix it. Mine looks purty now and I can control the house at the office, or wherever. With voice recognition interface, you can use a FRS radio to control the house while you are at the grocery store. Don't forget electrical, put it in your budget. Stick a 220 in the garage, it's only $100 and you may never use it, but it will add to the value of your home, and you can run a welder or a 220 heater. Double up on your AC outlets where your PC and stereo is going to be. Get weatherproof GFI receptacles put in the soffits, it's only $150 per plug and rip them out later & get your electrician friend to put in an X-10 outlet - turn your Christmas lights on from inside! Make sure you get X-10 switching modules in the furnace room inline with your thermostat and your garage door opener - these are low voltage contact switches that allow you to open your garage door or furnace fan remotely. Budget $200 for one of those keyless entry deadbolts, it will pay for itself the first time your dumbass wife forgets her keys somewhere. Good luck, and if you have questions email me colenski_tek@hotmail.com.

PS: if you liked this post, move to Alberta and buy one of our houses. See my URL.