Overall the trip was quite beneficial. However the time away was marred in that while I was gone, someone broke into our business on Sunday morning and stole a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately one of the things was my SpacePilot. So if anyone sees a new SpacePilot show up at a pawn shop or on eBay, let me know.
WT
Wayne,
I know you will write up something. Since I didn't make it this year (too far to drive). I would like to hear about what you learned regarding 2008 that would be useful. I think after SWW many people are going to start getting their feet wet with 08 so it would be a great service..
TOP
Dang, Wayne - sorry to hear that. I wish I still had the SpacePilot I won at the Denver Tech Summit...I'd GIVE it to ya.
Steve R.
This is horrible, and I hope the police get the bastards.
It does bring up the issue of using better modern electronics and communications to provide monitoring and video-audio documentation when an alarm is triggered.
I have thought about this, because the standard burglar alarm company solutions I have used, have often turned out to be a disaster because of false alarms, and the fact that an "alarm" doesn't do a damn thing for a smash and grab by guys here in Costa Mesa, CA.
I have experienced false alarms from maybe a dozen sources over 20 years. Bad batteries, sensors, wiring, phone line noise, bugs walking over sensors (yeah cockroaches), alarm panels that make little sense when buttons are pressed wrong and obviously malfunction, technicians who earn $8/hr and know less about debugging than I do, and many more things have occurred to me. "Call sheets" used by alarm companies sometimes do not get followed either, so I have wound up not getting called when an alarm does go off, which is human error.
What have users done in office security recently?
Bo
I have a family friend that runs a alarm company... they are a license to print money.
They charge like $20 / month for monitoring and then contract the monitoring out for $4.00/ mnth. If you are getting an alarm just find a company to monitor it over the internet and then get all the sensors... etc. and of course an cell backup in case the phone line is cut.
BTW. SolidWorks World was great. i have some post on it at
That substandard monitoring, or contracted out monitoring, is one of the key reasons today to just set up a link to the internet with video and audio that send an alarm to me directly & that I can pick up on my computer or even iPhone.
Bad soluti "OK, but given the problems I've had in the past, I will only contract with your firm if you guarantee in writing to phone me personally on the list of phone #s I give you whenever an alarm is sounded, before you notify the police and that you have to do it within 30 seconds of receiving the alarm, and that you take full responsibility for any false alarm fees and fixes, and the service must never go down with a bad or disconnected phone line."
The salesman just walked away without saying anything.
I know a good inexpensive alarm system is possible, and I suspect it is now not only possible, but it is not needed to hire an alarm company to set it up and run it. I just haven't had the time to look at what is going on.
Bo
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