When I was little, I remember I was forced to make my bed every morning.
I had to looked for my pillows (I got 2 pillows), most of the time they were on the floor. The blanket was impossible to fold into the shape my mom demanded, and did I tell you the condition of my bed sheet? It was like I had the most fearsome battle with a monster on the bed the night before.
What I am trying to say is, it is difficult enough just to make our own bed in the morning, let alone sorting out the unlabeled cables laid by some jokers.
That is why in our CCTV industry we will charge more to cleaning up someone else poor cabling mess. Also please check out my previous posting on poor cabling job in Snakes Pit.
I know, today is Monday after a long extended Raya holiday. Here is little something to zest up your day.
This posting is also for those CCTV System Integrators who had many failures in their CCTV job tendering attempts.
CBS Sept 18, 2009: There's nothing sweeter to a golfer than a hole-in-one. However, the chances of that happening are about one-in-30,000. So it seemed like a pretty safe bet to hold a contest: Get a hole-in-one, win $1 million!
However, luck was on Jason Hargett's side this week at a golf charity tournament in Utah. He initially said he didn't plan to play, but then changed his mind -- a decision that would change his life.
Jason said he doesn't remember much from the moment he sunk the ball. Jason hit a hole-in-one last year, but this, he said, was life altering. In fact, when he learned he won, he sent a text message to his wife, Amyee Hargett, telling her their "lives had just changed.
The Hargetts' money will be gradually disbursed over 40 years, with a $25,000 payout each year.
But the money hasn't changed them yet. Jason said he plans to keep his job as a restaurant manager Utah's Ruby River Steakhouse.
"It's good place to meet a lot of people, a good place to work," he said.
The couple has four children ages from 10 to 17. Jason said the money has taken "a lot of pressure off" of paying for their future expenses.
But does the couple plan any extravagant purchases?
Jason said "no." They plan to have the same car and the same house.
However, the avid golfer added, "(I) might play a few different golf courses a little earlier than I thought."
The other day my dad told me that the Muhammad Ali, the man who is widely considered to be one of the best heavyweight boxing champions ever, was in Malaysia in 1975 and had fought Briton Joe Bugner.
Here are what I got from the net, it is rather interesting;
The match was held in Merdeka Stadium, Kuala Lumpur.
Most videos of the fight had disallowed embedding but you can search www.youtube.com to see for yourself how Muhammad Ali float like a butterfly, sting like a bee in Kuala Lumpur.
The fight is great to watch but at the same time I am truly impressed and intrigued by those round card girls dressed up in their traditional costumes.
In video " Muhammad Ali vs Joe Bugner 2 (1975) Rounds 2and3 " I had spotted card girls dressed in Malay, Chinese and Kadazan traditional costumes. It is beyond cool! Way beyond cool!
Now, who had actually won the fight? Why don't you find out for yourself?
Some CCTV users are commissioning non CCTV specialist to design and to deploy their surveillance system.
Those non CCTV specialist might be good in their specific fields like MATV, PABX, Autogate, Burglar Alarm etc. but CCTV is not their forte.
As CCTV gear, software and more importantly customer's CCTV requirements are getting more and more sophisticated, a generalist is simply not good enough to meet the needs of an ever-demanding surveillance market.
Check out this cloth's label and you will understand why it is absolutely important to commission a CCTV specialist to design and to deploy your next surveillance system.
These videos were recorded on MicroSD with vandal proof Vivotek FD7130 IP cameras which had been deployed recently on buses in Brazil and Ecuador.
Vivotek FD7130 Mobile Surveillance in Brazil
Vivotek FD7130 Mobile Surveillance in Ecuador
Vivotek FD7130's IP66-rated, vandal-proof metal housing effectively provides robust protection from being damaged by water and dust as well as vandalism. In compliance with EN50155, the standard for electronic equipment operating in railway vehicles, the FD7130 is an economical mobile surveillance solution packed with high reliability and rugged performance.
With the support of tamper detection, the FD7130 is a robust and intelligent camera, keeping security staff notified at all times once it suffers video loss from being blocked or spray-painted. The FD7130 utilizes PoE (Power-over-Ethernet), allowing it to be operated and powered from a single Ethernet cable, giving greater ease of installation and cost savings. In order to facilitate on-board storage and data portability, the FD7130 is also complete with a MicroSD/SDHC card slot for local recording.
Some customers are overly paranoid over break in from outside but they have forgotten about internal theft and shrinkage.
When we design a surveillance system it is utmost important to pay attention to both the internal and the site parameter.
Actually this reminds me of the John Travolta's movie, Phenomenon;
George Malley (John Travolta) had an unusual “light” encounter. Later that night, George lies awake, suddenly he knows exactly how a rabbit keeps getting in his fenced-off garden.
Few days ago one prospect shown us his office layout plan and asked us to come out with a inexpensive CCTV solution proposal with no blind spot.
I told him it is good to have a CCTV system to cover every inch of the office but it is not possible ( eg. toilet ) and it is not practical (way too expensive).
The better solution is to have good quality cameras deployed at the carefully thought out strategic spots like entrances and some hot spots. This is not only more economical but at the same time shows the employee that the company actually respect their privacy.
The rest of the uncovered area can be filled by logic and imagination. Like this suggestive Wonderbra advertisement. We can't see the whole picture... but enough.
Once a customer complained to me that ever since CCTV was deployed at his home, he and his wife has to spend long time to watch the recorded video footage.
He said both of them used to watch TV after dinner but now they have to watch CCTV video footage before they can watch TV program.
Here are a few suggestions to CCTV users with maid and young kids at home;
1. Set the DVR recording mode to 'motion'. Motion trigged recording will greatly reduce the recording time.
2. Let the maid know that CCTV is deployed, she will be monitored. Lets psychological do the trick.
3. Instruct the maid to keep the kids within the CCTV coverage area while you are not at home.
These are no foul proof suggestions but be kind to your maid and constantly talk and play with your kids instead of watching TV I bet is the best solution to parent who has little kids spending time alone with maid at home.
While we have been enjoying the fruits of rapid technology development, the earth is suffering the negative consequences of the technology boom. With global warming and climate change deteriorating, people are beginning to realise the inseparability between the fate of the globe and the future of all human beings.
Hence, before you make any decision on your CCTV deployment please give green designed CCTV gear a thought.
Last month an IP camera user called to complained.
He said he had installed 3 nos of IP cameras since early this year, only recently he checked the cameras' system log, he discovered that unauthorized users had been logging into his IP cameras from time to time since the past 2 months.
After talking to him we realized that he uses the IP camera manufacturer's default user name and password.
An IP camera with default user name and password is like to use a coin lock to lock your car, anyone with small change can easily drive away your car.
We guided him to change his password.
Yesterday he called us again, he said his problem is solved and he want to get 2 more cameras for his office.
Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides for many streets in the world 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic views from a row of positions along the street (one every approximately 10 or 20 metres), from a height of about 2.5 metres. It was launched on May 25, 2007, and has gradually expanded to include more cities, and in these cities more streets, and also some rural areas.
Privacy advocates have objected to this Google feature, pointing to views found to show men leaving strip clubs, protesters at an abortion clinic, sunbathers in bikinis, cottagers at public parks, people picking up prostitutes and people engaging in activities visible from public property in which they do not wish to be seen publicly. Google maintains that the photos were taken from public property.
Here are some funny but controversial images from Google Street View;
Today marks the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US.
The CCTV industry has undergone total change after 9/11 terrorist incident. This industry has been battling with the issue of security awareness prior to the 9/11. But the incident made a huge psychological impact on the people around the world.
Thanks to the paradigm shift in the thinking of the public and the Government on security had since ballooned the surveillance market manifold.
These are 2 old advertisements for the WTC....... ironic and sad.
Day before yesterday major newspapers in Malaysia published an Indonesian maid's grotesque act being caught on CCTV. I will post that piece of news once I manage to gather more info and images.
But the very act of the maid reminds me of another case which also involved a maid in year 2005.
Check it out.
Maid looking for soiled sanitary pads and baby diapers from the trash bin
Minutes later coming out from the toilet with a bowl of water with soaked sanitary pads and diapers
Pouring half of the water into a bottle
Pouring another half into the thermal pot used by her employers' family
More and more customers are looking for portable or mobile DVR, a Digital Video Recorder which can be mounted to a moving vehicle, vessel or plane as a CCTV surveillance camera recorder.
Please check out this video, the coolest part is that with the help of GPS this device can be connected to Google Earth during playback so that user can view the playback of the recorded video footage together with the location of the moving vehicle on Google Earth.
Wonder if this mobile DVR could spell the end of dishonours children, cheating husband or naughty wife.
A friend told me that a house without CCTV camera is an act of incitement.
In English criminal low, incitement was an anticipatory common law offence and was the act of persuading, encouraging, instigating, pressuring, or threatening so as to cause another to commit a crime.
To me that statement is too extreme but in my previous post, Talisman, I did mention that big outdoor CCTV camera is a talisman which can ward off potential burglar or thief.
Today not only we can travel to overseas with budget airline but we can travel with Google Earth.
The beauty with Google Earth traveling is that we can travel for free (both money and H1N1) and to explore places that it is hard to reach with normal means of commercial traveling arrangement.
Like these 2 interesting finds;
1) Telegraph UK, Feb. 20, 2009 reported a British aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford, 38, found Atlantis while playing around with Google Earth 5.0, which includes undersea data, and noticed something funny off the coast of Africa, about 600 miles west of the Canary Islands, that resembled a pattern of a street grid. The pattern of streets equated to an area the size of Wales.
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias written in 360BC. Plato described it as an island "larger than Libya and Asia put together". He said Atlantis was a land of fabulous wealth, advanced civilization and natural beauty destroyed by earthquakes and floods 9,000 years earlier.
Wanna take a look at this legendary island? The underwater image can be found at the co-ordinates 31 15'15.53N 24 15'30.53W.
2) The Sun,UK, Sept. 4,2009 reported Jason Cooke spotted “Nessie”, The Loch Ness Monster, a myth or monster that inhabits its namesake body of water in the Scottish Highlands, while browsing the Google Earth's satellite photos. The shape is seen on the surface of the water and measures about 65-feet long. It appears to have an oval-shaped body, a tail and four legs or flippers.
To see “Nessie”, enter co-ordinates Latitude 57°12'52.13"N, Longitude 4°34'14.16"W in Google Earth.
If you had a lot of time on hand, you can also look for and gather whatever is of your interest with Google Earth, like the alphabets below;
Yesterday a CCTV prospect came to our showroom, he was looking for a maintenance free CCTV solution. I explained to him that the only CCTV gear which required no maintenance is a dummy camera.
CCTV gear is like any other electronic gear, maintenance from time to time is unavoidable.
Now let me show him the world's only maintenance free elevator and escalator.
I had finally concluded that most CCTV deployment problems were due to lack of planning or no planning at all.
I used to wonder why some installers are more bad luck compare to other installers. They somehow encountered more problems during and after their CCTV job deployments.
After getting to know them better, I found out that those 'bad luck' installers in fact are those who are bad planner and never take preemptive measures like to install power surge protector, to insist on a customer to sign the pre-deployment consent check list etc.
'Hope for the best and plan for the worst' is the rule of thumb in CCTV deployment.
He said an IP camera is an IP camera, so long he can record the video footage and to perform distance monitor via Internet and hand phone, the cheapest IP camera will do.
Well, I dunno what to say, no doubt a facial mask is a facial mask, but which one do you prefer?
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