Improve your home security with CCTV

There are now very affordable CCTV solutions available if you want to improve security at home or in your office.

I recommend one of the EyeSpy range of cameras which include:

1. an HD internal camera
2. an external camera
3. an internal moving camera
4. a budget camera

For cameras 1 -3, night vision is included.
Only option 2 can be used externally
Option 1 offer best quality image
They all offer two-way audio (but I personally would not rely on this feature)
options 1 and 2 offer wifi

The will all offer to store photos / video images online and allow you to view a location remotely.

For a comparison of the current models please look at this link.

If you would like further advice on installing one of these devices within your home or office, please contact us on 020-8209 2675 or email us support@friedmanit.co.uk

Affordable media box – BOXEE

Recently I purchased a media box called Boxee.

This “media box” connects to any television with HDMI and opens up a wide-range of new features.

These include:

1. Web search – just type on the remote control and search the web!

2. Apps – access to a huge library of applications available such as radio stations and BBC iplayer (UK only)

3. Music streaming – access to your music library that could be sitting on a computer elsewhere in your home

4. Photo streaming – access to your photo library that could be sitting on a computer elsewhere in your home (you can view these on the big television while playing music)

5. Movie / TV Show streaming – access to your digitised movie library that could be sitting on a computer elsewhere in your home. It also gives you access to a variety of movies/tv shows online (often with advertising).

It supports a variety of movie formats – see technical spec at the bottom of this blog.

With movie streaming:
(a) it will summarise your movie collection in production date order or alphabetical order
(b) show you ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes
(c) access to online trailers and descriptions of the movie
(d) access to a variety of subtitles

Boxee comes with a remote control (see below) which has a complete keyboard making tying relatively easy.

As an affordable solution to modernise your lounge, I highly recommend this. NOTE: you will need to connect Boxee to a storage device to benefit from access to your media. This could be an external USB drive, an external hard disk or access to your computer using a home plug for example.

If you would like further advice on installing one of these devices within your home or office, please contact us on 020-8209 2675 or email us support@friedmanit.co.uk

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Technical Details

Dimensions (LxWxH): 4.5″ x 4.5″ x 4.6″
Language Support: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Network Protocol Support: IPV4, ARP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, DHCP Client, DNS Client, DDNS Client, HTTP Server, Samba Client, RTP/RTMP, VPN: PPTP, DLNA 1.5 (DMP)
Wireless: 802.11n/g/b
Ports: HDMI 1.3, 10/100 Fast Ethernet, 2x USB 2.0, Optical Audio (S/PDIF), Analog Audio (RCA L/R);Memory Card Support: SD, SDHC up to 32GB, MMC
Audio Formats: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AIF/AIFF, AC3/AAC, OGG, FLAC, DTS, Dolby Digital/Dolby True HD
Video Formats: Adobe Flash 10.1, FLV/On2 VP6 (FLV/FV4/M4V), H.264 AVC (TS/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS/MP4), VC-1 (TS/AVI/MKV/WMV), MPEG-1 (DAT/MPG/MPEG), MPEG-2 (MPG/MPEG/VOB/TS/TP/ISO/IFO), MPEG-4 (MP4/AVI/MOV), DivX 3/4/5/6 (AVI/MKV), Xvid (AVI/MKV), WMV9 (WMV/ASF/DVR-MS)
Image Formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF
Playlist Formats: M3U, PLS, WPL
Subtitle Formats: SRT, SUB, SSA, SMI, ASS
Supported Resolutions: H.264: 1080p at 30 fps, 1080i at 60 fps
WMV9/VC-1: 1080p at 30 fps, 1080i at 60 fps
MPEG4: 1080p at 30 fps, 1080i at 60 fps
MPEG2: 1080p at 30 fps, 1080i at 60 fps
Two-Sided RF Remote: with 4-way navigation and full QWERTY keypad

Digitising your movies – DVD Ripping

Digitising music has become very popular. People are trashing their CD’s and keeping them on laptops, desktops, Tablets, mobile phones and MP3 players.

This saves space and allows you to carry a massive music collection with you wherever you are.

A similar concept can be carried out with your DVD collection with a process called “DVD Ripping”.

Digitising your movie collection has the following advantages:

1. Trash your DVD’s – save space

2. Trash your DVD player

3. Carry a large movie collection with you on the move e.g. on a Tablet such as an IPAD

4. A media box such as BOXEE will change your move viewing experience by collating your movies for viewing on a large television. It  offers movie summaries, trailers, ratings and various subtitles.

The process of transferring a DVD to a computer is called “DVD Ripping” and is done using software like AISEESOFT DVD RIPPER – A license costs approx $30 and purchase link for PC here and purchase link for MAC here.

I have only recently tested this software (there is such a wide-range to choose from) and it seems to be very user-friendly and offers optimal outputs for different devices such as an IPAD.

As you can see in my example, it is choosing to export a DVD as an AVI file for viewing on an XBOX 360. There are a wide range of choices here such as MP4 format for IPAD.

Happy digitising! (I prefer that term to Ripping!)

Exploring old websites

Have a look at this: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Dealing with theft

In the last 10 years I can only remember four clients whose laptops were stolen – two from the boot of a car and two from a house burglary. It is an extremely violating experience, since a laptop can contain your whole life – photos, e-mails, family history, various banking details, other aspects of personal finances, information about property etc etc. If you do not have a backup of your data, it compounds the disaster.

It is dreadful to think what a thief might do with a laptop. Will the thief just sell immediately? Or is there a risk that the data is interrogated? This uncertainty alone is traumatic.

There are ways to prevent your exposure should your laptop or Ipad or telephone be stolen.

1.       BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!!

There are so many backup solutions out there, there is no excuse!
Offsite backup is best: have a look at Carbonite or Dropbox or Sugarsync.

2. Improve your home security

At home you could prevent burglaries by installing and alarm, CCTV, and properly checking who is at your door with a door entry phone / camera.

3. Always protect your device with a password.

Although this can be cracked it is certainly a deterrent and will often lead the thief to simply wipe device before using or selling it. You may also want to consider setting up a BIOS password – this will add a second password to your laptop

4. Consider encryption

If you password protect you data using something like truecrypt, you can rest easy.

5.  Move your e-mail to office 365

This keeps a complete backup of your data and can be erased from a device remotely.

6. Store all your passwords in a dedicated program

There a plenty of password software packages that are designed to work on all devices, one example is 1password which will share data between devices using dropbox.

7. Store your notes in encrypted format

A note taking device live Evernote works on all kinds of devices and offers encrypted notes with password protection.

8. Install remote access software

Software like Logmein, this could give you remote access to your computer if it is online and active.

 9. Install dedicated stolen device software

There are now dedicated applications that have been created to help track stolen devices. Have a look at prey, theftaware, or LoJack

10. If you are on Apple Setup iCloud

If you have a Mac or an iPad when Iphone simply upgrade to the latest version and then activate icloud. This can help track your Apple devices or wipe them remotely.

If you would like any advice on any of these points, we would love to hear from you.

You can email us support@friedmanit.co.uk  or call us on 020-8209 2675.

Stop unwanted post to “The Occupier”

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/13904

It says:

Companies should not be allowed to circumvent the Mail Preference Service by sending Unsolicited Commercial Mail addressed to either “The Occupier” or “The Householder”. Commercial Mail senders should also be required to provide a reply-paid envelope so that recipients can opt out from receiving it. The opt out has to be honoured by the sender within 28 days, and the address tagged so that no further mail shots are sent to that address. As an additional benefit, reducing the number of unwanted commercial mailings will save money for Local Councils who will not have to use landfill or recycling utilities to dispose of millions of bits of unwanted paper each week.

another email scam

How’s your day going? I hope things are going well. Please I need you to help me out with something. Can I get a loan from you urgently? I`ll reimburse you under a week, I promise. I need to solve some personal problems at hand which have been giving me worries. I’d also prefer if we discuss this through email as I’m presently in Madrid, Spain for a friend’s funeral. I’m sorry if I didn’t inform you about it, but please try and understand. I had to leave in a hurry on-hearing that the date of her burial was re-scheduled & it seems I can’t access my credit card & bank here in Madrid. I`ll let you know how much I need if you are willing to assist me.

Thanks,

XXXXX

Please watch out for these scams. someone hacks into an email account of a person that you know and then sends this kind of email out to the all contacts in the address book.

The best way to deal with this is to try and call the person directly (or text message) to tell them you think someone has hacked into their email account.

Recent Skype Scam

I have recently become aware of a new type of scam, targeting Skype users. The victim would receive a Skype call from a bogus IT help desk account, offering help in dealing with various security threats (virus infection, spyware, malware etc.) These callers also claim that you have a virus.  The caller could ask you to visit to certain websites, or to download malicious software.

There is however a simple Skype setting which could greatly increase your online privacy and protect you against this particular threat. In the Skype main window, go to Tools / Options. Under Privacy Settings, select “Allow calls from people in my Contact list only”.

This will allow only people you personally know and trust to call you on Skype.

Microsoft Office 365

At the end of June 2011, Microsoft launched its cloud service  office 365

This is a subscription model starting at £4 per user per month which includes:

1. Exchange online - a massive 25GB mailbox for your emails (in hosted exchange)
This will work with almost any email program out there (e.g. Outlook, Entourage, Windows Mail) and keep a contact backup of incoming mail, sent mail, filed mail, contacts, calendar and tasks.
It will also work with most phones / devices – Android, Iphone, Ipad Windows phones and Blackberry to name a few.
The wonderful thing about hosted exchange is that whatever you do on one device will then appear on all your other devices.
So if you create a contact on your phone, it will seamlessly appear in Outlook, if you file an email in Outlook, it will be filed on your Ipad.
Everything you do is constantly backed up and there is a wonderful webmail with look and feel of Outlook 2010.

2. Office professional plus – you get access to Word, PowerPoint and Excel online. You can collaboratively work on documents with other users and word on any device even if it does not have office installed.

3. Sharepoint online – an intranet for your company allowing you to easily share information and documents with your colleagues.

4. Lync online – professional video conferencing.

 

 

 

Amazon Lockers

Credit to Amazon – what a fantastic idea!

For those of us that love to order online, but can’t wait all day for the postman to arrive, Amazon have now got a new way to get your items to you without relying on collection from the sorting office!

Amazon lockers

Amazon Lockers 2

Incredible!