The real job of the locks on your doors is defeat the attacks of the opportunist, or amateur thief, to make it tough enough that they will bypass you and go to an easier target. Lock manufacturers produce locks that are designed to resist varying types of attempts to defeat them, these range from hitting them with a hammer to picking the lock. As soon as a new type of attack is introduced they will come up with a way to defend against it. The result is that there are a wide variety of deadbolt locks on the market, that offer varying degrees of protection, knowing which features to look for will make a huge difference in the ability of your lock to keep honest people honest.

Locks manufactured in the US are graded by their ability to withstand attack by the American National Standards Institute, or ANSI. They are generally graded from grade 3 to grade 1, with grade 3 being the least secure. Many locks are imported from other countries some are not graded at all, others are built to the specifications of the various grades, however not actually tested. If this is confusing to you ask your professional locksmith for a recommendation.

Minimum features to look for include;

* A 1 inch bolt throw

* A solid metal tapered outside housing

* A reinforced strike plate that is fastened with long enough screws to attach to the underlying support framing.

* A pin tumbler locking mechanism

* The bolt should be solid and contain a hardened roll pin to resist sawing.

There are deadbolt locks on the market that far exceed these minimum requirements. For information about high security deadbolts, key control deadbolts, and other high end or special use deadbolt locks, contact your professional locksmith.

Please visit http://www.secureyourstuff.com/ for links to lock manufacturers sites and crime prevention sites, many of which have additional security tips. This information could save your property or even your life!

Jim Newell a Security Professional and Consultant for over 35 years, operates a web site who’s mission is to bring you information about security systems , security devices and security hardware. To help you to make informed and educated decisions about securing your personal property, your home and your business property. Visit http://www.secureYourStuff.com for more info. Sign up for our newsletter!

But where does this leave the small company or worse the sole trader? Well traditionally 0800 numbers have been the reserve of the big boys only, not so much due to cost, but simply because you need a fixed line to divert the 0800 number to. This is pointless if you are out of the office for 80% of the day as many sole traders are.

The ideal situation would be to have the ability of switching your 0800 number in real time to your office number Mobile Phone home number etc. Even better if messages were taken for you if you are unavailable. Better still if these messages can be recorded and emailed to you, or even a live answering service, where a real human being will take the message for you.

This is now a reality using the latest technology in telecommunications the following features are now available for any business large or small:

Call Groups – Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Billing, 3 for Support, 4 for etc.

Product Information Option – Record messages for your customers.

Divert to Landlines or Mobiles in the UK and Worldwide – On demand.

Intelligent Call Routing – Divert calls wherever and whenever you need them.

Voicemail to Email – Share voicemail between departments and staff.

Record your own Greetings – Personalised greetings

Sound Library -Use our Online Sound for greetings

Caller Identification – Ideal for Entrepreneurs with multiple businesses.

Time of Day Routing – Direct calls dependant on time of day.

Out of Office – Manually set to Out of Office so you don’t miss calls while away.

Second Call – Place a caller on hold and make a second call without a 2nd line.

Call Transfer – Place caller on hold – make a second call and Transfer the call.

Call Holding – Place a caller on hold just like on non virtual switchboards.

Call Logging – Who called, where call was routed and at what time.

Web Control – Total control 24/7 TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE.

FREE FAX TO EMAIL SERVICE:

Pick up faxes while your travelling

Store and archive faxes on your computer

Sharing faxes with your colleagues in a few seconds

Increase security of your fax with encryption

Avoid fax machine and other hardware expenses

Forward incoming faxes to the most convenient computer

Receive faxes in your email as a TIFF/PDF image file

Faxes are delivered immediately direct to your email account

Ensures total confidentiality and mobility

It is easy to share faxes with colleagues

Your fax number is never busy, allowing you to simultaneously receive multiple faxes, thus improving productivity.

Virtual Porting – Point your existing number to get all these great features.

All the above features are totally free of charge with any number (0800, 0845, 0870, 0871, 0201 London Numbers & 070 Personal numbers) ordered through our website.

http://1sttc.com High tec Telecoms for the smaller business.

Monitoring firms come in all sizes. The largest are UL (Underwriters Laboratory) listed facilities with Fort Knox like security. These facilities have large backup generators as well as the ability to instantly switch your signals to the closest available station in the case of a natural or man made disaster. There is great stability in doing business with these firms due to the fact that your account will rarely be sold to another company, who would constantly raise your monitoring rates. Small alarm dealers use monitoring agreements as a way of infusing cash into their business as often as needed, To them your account is like stock.

The largest National and International companies are at an advantage because they have a great number of facilities, and are able to provide local monitoring for their clients. Local monitoring is preferred because you are less likely to loose a signal if it is coming over a local phone line. An example of this is as follows. Lets say you live in the central US and your alarm is being monitored on the east coast over an 800 number telephone line. If a storm knocks out the phone lines between you and the monitoring station, how would they receive your signal for help?

The smallest firms could be a couple of people taking turns watching a digital receiver in a home office. These are undesirable because you may not be able to depend on them when needed. Your personal information is also at risk, due to a potential lack of security in this type of facility. All of the advantages of the large well- funded central stations are reversed when your alarm dealer saves money by doing business with these smallest of companies.

Monitoring stations large and small all have the same function. When your alarm is violated it sends a digital signal to the monitoring stations receiver. The receiver takes only a few seconds to decipher where the signal is coming from and what type of response is required. This information is than translated by computers and a dispatch screen is shown to the first available dispatcher. The dispatcher connects to the proper authority and relays your systems request for a response.

On most non- panic situations the monitoring station should call the house before they dispatch to the proper authority. If you answer the phone and give the correct password they should disregard your signal as a user error. If you give the wrong password, the better monitoring stations will say Thank You hang up and dispatch for a holdup/ hostage situation. This is yet another great people protector that is built into your monitoring service.

If you are not home to answer the call a dispatch will be made and the monitoring station will begin at the top of your call list in hopes of contacting you or your agent with a warning of dispatch. This is not so you will go check; it is so you will not walk into a dangerous situation. Looks like another one of those people protection features when used properly doesnt it? This process of dispatching and then calling you or the people on your call list has come under the microscope of late, and many municipalities are adjusting this process. More about ECV (Enhanced Call Verification ) is posted on the “Experts Know” web-site at the provided link.

Your local authority, based on how the signal is reported to them, prioritizes dispatch responses. Your monitoring company should also have dispatch protocol based on the signal type.

A request for a response to a hold up or distress will usually take precedence over a burglary signal.

A request for an ambulance should be dispatched immediately and a phone call to the house made afterwards.

A request for a fire dept. response should be dispatched immediately and a phone call to the house made afterwards.

A distress call made by the use of an ambush code or panic buttons should trigger an immediate dispatch with no phone call to the premise.

An alarm signal dispatch that is trailing a burglar through a protected area such as:

Violation-
Zone 1 entry, front door.
Zone 5 main floor motion detector.
Zone 3 Upstairs hallway motion detector.

should excite your local authorities into a quicker response, as they are sure it is most likely not a false alarm. This type of reporting format is called Extended Reporting and while some cities require it to help prioritize dispatch, most do not. It is always available to you if your control is capable of reporting that way and you request it. Now that you know about it you should ask for it by name.

The alternative dispatch that would just say Burglary signal coming from the Jones residence 123 any street and would most likely become a lower priority response.

A monitoring facility that monitors alarms for other local dealers as well as their own installed systems needs a way to control the quality of the systems it monitors, if it is going to have its dispatch requests trusted by the authorities. Some large facilities will monitor only the systems that are capable of sending the most sophisticated signals. When a company such as this limits the amount of false alarms it reports, it will earn a better response record.

If there are many signals coming into a monitoring station at the same time, the signals can only be handled as fast as an operator can get to them. The number of trained employees it has on duty will limit the small to medium size companies. The largest firms have the ability of employing many dispatchers at the same time. One such company that I have worked with has over 700 on duty every day, every shift.

(TID-BIT!)
The National average for an alarm dispatch is 13 minutes. The largest firms can boast a 60- second or less average.

Monitoring your alarm is not only its greatest feature, but is also one of the few services of which I can say with confidence You will most likely get what you pay for. The smallest dealers will monitor your alarm for sometimes half the monthly fee of the largest dealers. Now that you know a few of the differences of this end of the business, I would hope you make the proper decision based on your understanding how important this service is to the protection of you, your loved ones, and your other irreplaceable belongings as well.

I implore you not to cut corners on your choice of monitoring services!

(HOT TIP!)
Many municipalities require an alarm permit to be purchased by the alarm user. If a dispatch is made without a permit on file you could receive a hefty fine or worse yet a failure to respond. Some permit holders are charged a one- time fee and others have to renew annually. Check with your alarm company if there is a permit requirement in your town. This way you can avoid being surprised by an unexpected expense.

Phone Hookup- Most alarms report over your existing phone line. You dont need another phone line for the alarm. People that have DSL (Digital Subscriber Lines) can still use their line for alarm reporting but a filter will need to be installed on your DSL line. If you do not have a phone line you will have to have one installed for alarm monitoring service, or consider one of the alternative methods of transmitting your signals made available to you by your alarm dealer.

Line Fault Monitor- Many of the high- end alarm systems have a line fault monitor built in to them. The mid-range systems have the ability to have one added and the low-end systems are often too simple to even consider this device. The line fault monitor is always on the lookout for an available phone line. If your line goes down while your alarm is armed it will cause an alarm. This way if a burglar cuts your phone line outside of the house or business they will hopefully run, due to all the noise drawing attention to their intentions. If your alarm is not armed, there will be no sirens but the keypad will beep rapidly and let you know that your communication link is down.

Many people think that if the phone line is cut and the line fault monitor goes into alarm there will be a dispatch. This is false because if there is no phone line to carry the signal it has no way of getting to the monitoring station, unless you have an alternative communication system as a backup. Instead this type of alarm will protect you if you are at home by:

Letting the burglar know that they violated a system hopefully causing them to flee.

Giving you an opportunity to call 911 from your cell if one is available.

Allowing you to prepare to defend yourself and your loved ones.

Giving you time to see if all that dog food you have purchased over the years is going to pay off.

Line Seizure- Any quality alarm installer will take the time to make sure that your phone line is set up for line seizure. There is no additional equipment needed to accomplish this feature of phone line protection. The phone line is run from your interface jack outside of your house to one of the closest phone jacks inside. It is then run from that jack to the next and this process is continued until your electrician during construction or the Phone Company has wired all of your phone jacks.

The alarm installer that is in a hurry or doesnt know any better will tap your alarm into the closest phone jack. The problem with this is that if a burglar picks up any of the phones that are between the outside interface jack and the jack your control is tapped into it will stop the transmission of your alarm signal.

The knowledgeable and concerned installer will run your control phone line directly to the outside phone interface assuring that it is first on line. They will then run from the control to your first phone jack making it second on line. When an alarm is violated it will seize the phone line completely for its own use and return service to the house after the signals have been sent to the receiver in the monitoring station.

Long Range Radio- This is a radio transmitter that is used by many large monitoring firms to monitor your alarm instead of over a phone line. The Transmitter sends a radio signal to a repeater much like your cell phone does, and the repeater sends your signal to the monitoring stations receivers in a local station. Many customers that need an increased level of security use the radio transmitted signal and the phone line transmission simultaneously.

This level of protection obviously costs more than the average homeowner would care to pay. Even as a stand alone system the radio signal is less likely to be interrupted than a phone line that is exposed outside your home or business.

Cellular Communicators- This is a communicator that is wired to your alarm control and processes the signals over the cellular communication towers. Most applications I have seen for this device have utilized it as a backup to a phone connection. However I have seen it used as a sole means of communication for the alarm system in a few cases where long range radio and a phone lines were not available. You would have to purchase the usually expensive cellular communicator separately, because it is not built into your alarm control.

Alarm owners that use Long- range radio and cellular communicators as a backup reporting device usually have to pay an additional monitoring fee. As an added measure of security, the alarm companies will often send these backup signals to a separate monitoring central station. This assures two complete dispatch processes from different operators at different locations, thus increasing the level of security.

Opening and Closing Reports- Most of the average to high-end systems have the ability to report enough data to create opening and closing reports if desired. Opening and closing reports are named as such, because they are mostly used in commercial applications to log the times and users that are opening and closing the business.

There are different levels of opening and closing reports. Some of the most common are listed below as examples:

(Supervised) This type of report lets assigned code users open and close at will, if within the specified window of normal activity. It will log the event into a report that can be forwarded to a report manager at a pre- determined frequency or upon request. If a code user opens or closes outside of a pre-assigned schedule of normalcy it will trigger a supervisory phone call to a manager.

(unsupervised) This type of report lets assigned code users enter and exit at will. It will log these events and can be checked by a supervisor upon request.

I have seen supervised opening and closing reports used in a residential situation on a few occasions. You can for example contact an elderly relatives refrigerator door and have a phone call made to you if it does not open within a predetermined amount of time. Or you can set it to have you notified if the kids come home early from school. You can imagine how many creative ideas you can come up with if you want to.

(INSIDE SCOOP!)
The Alpha Keypads and controls of many high-end systems allow you to scroll through and read the last 100+ events. By having one of these systems you can create your own opening and closing controls and reports without having to bear the monthly expense of this service. The small amount of dollars spent on this upgrade will pay for itself in a hurry.

Paging- Many of the alarm systems have an onboard paging device so you can receive the time and code user of each event such as arming and disarming when opening and closing reports are programmed to the on position in your alarm control. You will also receive a code for alarm violations and the zone or zone numbers that are violated during an alarm breach. You would have to have a digital pager for this to work and once again your teenagers are going to hate how much you now know about alarms!

Other articles you should read when considering who will monitor your Alarm System are:

These articles are posted on The Experts Know! Alarms web-site

Matthew Francis Alarms@expertsknow.com

Matthew is a 22 year veteran of the alarm industry. He has served as an installer, salesman, licensed alarm company owner, monitoring station designer, promotions and marketing director with one of the worlds largest security dealers. He now works as a consumer advocate, teaching consumers how to buy or get systems for free (without being taken). He also consults alarm dealerships on how to market to the educated consumers that todays alarm dealer is finding. He is committed to being unbiased. His web site is http://www.expertsknow.com

Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com

To purchase Spy Products and Surveillance Products Read other related articles on our Spy products blog

This is probably the cheapest form of advertising you can have. Many companies use it, and they should as a part of their total advertising budget. What has happened is that because it is so cheap every Tom, Dick and Harry use it. Much of the material you receive is unwanted and many times it is objectionable material to the receiver.

A question arises. We have the Constitutional right to advertise our business or service. I think that is called “Freedom of Speech”. My problem is that much of this material I receive I did not ask for or for that matter do not want. The come back is, so what, just delete it, you dont have to read it. That may be true, but what if one of my children sees it first. Here in lies the problem.

This article will not solve this issue. The only choice you have at the present time is to use some sort of “Spam” blocker. Most of this software must be purchased by the consumer. I did not want it from the beginning, why do I have to buy something to stop something I didnt want in the first place. A discussion for some other time.

If you use Microsofts Outlook 2003 there is a spam filter built into the package. That makes it some what easier. There or other spam filters available on the market. You should look into them.

Now the problem I have with spam blocking software is that I must configure it to filter out certain email types, categories and words. I happen to use Outlook 2003. The filter is nice, but I have found that there have been instances that email I wanted was put into the filtered email category. So I have too view each email separately even the ones put into the Spam category to make sure that I dont miss any email. Using filters require you to periodically reconfigure the filters. Now I ask you, the time I spend first going through the spam filtered email and the configuration time, I have found that if I turn off the filters and just go through each and every email and delete the ones I dont want takes far less time.

All of my email is opened by me only so any objectionable email I just delete. This may not be an option for everyone. So maybe the filters are better for you.

This is a problem that I suppose will never go away. With the ability to advertise so cheaply there will always be someone that will attempt to circumvent the filters and send the email. No form of legislation will completely solve this problem.

At the present time get out the check book and bite the bullet and buy some form of spam filtering software package. Look around there are many, many out there. Some are good and some are not so good. Ask your friends for recommendations, read a few magazine articles, what ever it takes. The employees at some of the retail stores have some knowledge in this area ask them.

This is one of several articles I have written in the Computer field. I have been in the computer industry for over 15 years. I love it and now I am branching out. Unwanted intrusions to computrs is an area of interest and concern to me. My name is Chuck Stephens and I can be reached at cstep@3rdm.net. No web site or anything to sell yet.

Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com

Robert H the author of this article, invites you to Find more informative articles on home security, and news on all the latest home security products at his his website here www.homesecurity.info-net-work.com

The latest technology buzz is WiMAX wireless networks. We have heard many things about this wonderful new long haul wireless technology that it almost seems as though you are just a phone call away from having yours’ designed and installed. Well before you start assuming things like we all do, we thought as engineers and network architects we would share personal experiences and the experiences of colleagues from around the world, in a manner that is direct, helpful, educational, and certainly reality based. This is a backpocket Primer for anyone now dealing with the implementation of a WiMAX network.

First, there are several misconceptions surrounding WiMAX that need to be cleared up so that the business aspects and engineering basis have a common understanding.

Secondly, the people who make the various decisions within your organizations need to understand that there are differences between a private network and an interoperable network strategy. This subtle difference does exist and requires a plan which considers the final transition aspects, if considered now, to easily provide a lower cost upgrade to a true interoperable network, now incorporating diverse vendor equipment.

Finally, while WiMAX has been out internationally for several years, it is very new to the United States, only a few months old, with very little training and education available to those who have the responsibility to build these systems or those who will make the financial and technical decisions to have these systems built for them as part of their long haul wireless strategy.

Our experiences and the experiences of our collegues are offered here as contributions as well as tying these in to the standards and certification authorities all meant to provide a reality based quick reference education for anyone in the throws of How to Build a WiMAX network.

Primer

WiMAX is a standard designed for fixed broadband wireless access featuring a controlling base station, that connects subscriber stations not to each other but to various public networks, such as the Internet, linked to that base station. The acronym means worldwide interoperability for microwave access or (WiMAX).

WiMAX, as a standards initiative, is based on a “set of profiles” supporting a wide range of frequencies (up to 66GHz)with channel sizes (1.25MHz to 20MHz) and applications (LOS and NLOS), and finally PTP and PTMP. The WiMAX profiles narrow the scope of 802.16 to focus on first service specific configurations. The IEEE titled the specification 802.16 and released it December 2002. The profiles addressed in that profiles release are 802.16-2004 (old d) and 802.16e as presented further down.

The WIMAX forum was formed eight months earlier in April 2002 to support, promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of devices based on the 802.16 specification, and to develop such devices for the marketplace. Founding Members of the organization include Airspan, Alvarion, Analog Devices, Aperto Networks, Ensemble Communications, Fujitsu, Intel, Nokia, OFDM Forum, Proxim, and Wi-LAN.

WiMAX is the IEEE 802.16 Point-to-Multipoint broadband wireless access standard for systems in the stated frequency ranges. WiMAX will initially provide fixed nomadic, portable and eventually, mobile wireless broadband connectivity. To that end there are two standards (802.16d (new -2004) and 802.16e respectively) although they will both perform similar functions because they must be interoperable. One clearly is a fixed solution and the other a mobile solution that must still communicate with a fixed solution. So one of the first considerations is whether you want to build out a mobile or fixed network. In many cases you would have already considered your target market segments, spectrum availability, regulatory constraints and your deployment need.

Which One do I Need?

Generally speaking, the current 802.16-2004 (originally 802.16d) fixed network products are less complex than 802.16e mobile network systems because; they can be used in a wider range of unlicensed bands, they offer a faster time-to-market, and in many cases a higher throughput than 802.16e equipment. On the other hand, there is better support for mobility and a wider range of terminal form factors advantages of 802.16e equipment.

Its certainly a consideration but no matter what you chose the migration paths to move in either direction are easily achieved through overlay networks, software upgradeable base stations, dual mode devices and dual mode base stations. This consideration assures you are not stuck in one mode or the wrong mode and that your initial investment is protected. Makes the CTO and CEO happy.

WiMAX base stations transmit up to 30 miles, but because it is a cell-based topology, would yield a more typical range of 3 to 5 miles. WiMAX systems can deliver a capacity of up to 75 Mbps per channel, for fixed and portable access applications. This is enough bandwidth to simultaneously support hundreds of businesses with T-1 speed connectivity and thousands of residences with DSL speed connectivity as we have seen.

WiMAX technology will be incorporated in portable computers and PDAs expected in late 2006 and early 2007, allowing for urban areas and cities to become MetroZones, the new buzz word, for portable outdoor broadband wireless access. In addition, Wireless service providers and telecommunication equipment industries are embracing WiMAX technology because of its tremendous cost advantages to provide that last-mile connectivity to large parts of the world that are too expensive to serve with wired technologies requiring all that trenching.

Security

Due to the security issues with WEP in the 802.11 Wi-Fi arenas, the standards bodies took no chances with WiMAX, and wisely prioritized security from the onset. Base station designers went to work to assure a dedicated high performance security processor. The WiMAX security standard requires that all traffic be encrypted with CCMP (which is Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol).

According to the WiMAX forum, the group’s aim is for end-to-end authentication. WiMAX uses PKM-EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol), which relies on the TLS standard following public key cryptography. Having addressed this level of security from the start provides an excellent reference point to add multi-level security options as well, if your implementation requires an MLS approach. Secure (blacker) implementations would require such an approach.

What is Released?

The first certification release for 802.16-2004 fixed is out there already and includes products from certified vendors with two profiles in the 3.5GHz and the 5.8GHz bands supporting fixed and nomadic access. The profiles for 802.16e mobile are not available nor released as of this writing but are expected to be in the ranges of 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz when officially released. WiMAX profiles based on 802.16-2004 are better suited to fixed applications that use directional antennas because OFDM is inherently less complex than SOFDMA used in the mobile application. As a results, 802.16-2004 networks will be deployed much faster and at a lower cost. Our experiences are with these released systems in the US and around the world in ground applications, mobile military, public safety and maritime applications.

Planning for WIMAX

Companies, cities or projects in maritime or ground systems in the US that have decided to or are considering building and operating a WiMAX network will have a few important issues to consider. The initial spectrum for WiMAX in the USA is unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz range. Given this spectrum is open it will have inherent interference issues and risks which will require attention. There are many ways of overcoming interference issues. The answers come from a proper site selection, following your RF survey training and from the actual selected equipment. So, the planning and site survey results remain the key to your confident success.

Summary

WiMAX provides optimized solutions for fixed, nomadic, portable and mobile broadband wireless access. There are two flavors in various release and implementation modes. The first is 802.16-2004 WiMAX with two initial frequency profiles the 3.5GHz and the 5.8GHz bands supporting fixed and nomadic access in LOS and NLOS environments now. The other flavor is 802.16e WiMAX with expected profiles in the 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz ranges optimized for dynamic mobile radio channels supporting hands-ff and roaming –arriving by 2007. Another exciting technology for all of us. Have fun! an extended version of this Primer is presented in our OnLine-CTO e-magazine. Contact Gina Smith at onlinecto@networkanatomy.com

Doug Linman is an award winning and industry recognized domestic and international communication systems architect with over 30 years experience. He is also the CEO and Chief Product Architect of NetworkAnatomy, a wireless, wearable and transportable communication firm located in Pleasanton, CA. http://www.networkanatomy.com