Newbie seeking advice

[David Sussman <davids@xxxxxxx>]

So, I posted this on the uk.tech.home-automation, but only got a couple
of
replies - the traffic is really light there, and it seems this is the
place
to hang out. Here's the deal.

I'm currently wiring my house for cat5 (I'm in the
computer business and my credibility would drop if I don't have a wired
house!). This is quite a pain since most of the internal walls are
brick,
and the downstairs has a solid floor. But, since I'm redecorating top
to
bottom any, chasing out the walls isn't too much of a problem. And yeah,
I
know about wireless, so let's not get into that discussion. I want cat5 so
I
can hook into my my pc network, which will include a PC based PVR
(eventually), MP3 server, etc.

I've recently had a quote for installation of a burglar alarm, and for
the
exhorbitant
price they quoted I could get Comfort and have a more integrated
solution.
Having spent the weekend doing some research, I've a few questions:

1. If I put a normal alarm in, could I interface into this with X10
devices?
I like the idea of being able to troubleshoot if I'm away.
2. I've got LV Halogen lights in the kitchen, and I've read these play
havoc
with X10? The light is new and I don't want to have to replace it? If
it
does cause trouble, is it only a problem on the ring it's on?
3. I've seen KAT5, but would this be suitable if I wanted to wire up a
microphone to record from the piano?
4. If I want to control Comfort from the Web do I need their Web
Interface,
or could I use something like Homeseer?
5. I've got an oil fired Worcester boiler (a heatslave 20/25 with an
embedded Dominion Heating timer panel). I'd love to be able to control
this
with a better interface. More specifically, I want to use my computer to
set
the timings, and perhaps be able to set it remotely (eg if I'm away turn
on
the heating before I get home). Or would the only way to do this be to
have
the heating / & h/w on all of the time, but controlled by an X10
thermostat
device?
6. Is X10 the way to go? I've seen the cbus stuff, and that looks
pretty
cool to, and I kinda prefer the non-mains variety.

Err, that's about it for now.

Thanks

Dave

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