IP Camera Systems and Surveillance Blog

An IP Prescription for Hospitals

Posted on April 18, 2016August 13, 2024 by Virginia Fair

How IP Camera Systems and IP Access Control Systems Increase Safety in Hospitals

By Virginia Fair

The following appeared on NBCLA.com, the website of the Los Angeles NBC affiliate station.

“A man who allegedly dressed as a nurse to fool security personnel was arrested for stealing medical supplies from a Fountain Valley Hospital, police announced Monday. The suspect is accused of stealing from Fountain Valley Regional Hospital three separate times since May.”

Fountain Valley Regional Hospital is not alone. According to the 2012 Crime and Security Trends Survey, underwritten by the Foundation of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), the crime rate of hospitals rose by close to 37 percent in just two years, from slightly less than 15,000 in 2010 to over 20,500 in 2012. This increase occurred in all crime categories: larceny, theft, simple assault, vandalism, rape and sexual assault. The highest-ever number of homicides occurred, as well, with 8 reported by responding hospitals.

Technical Jokes and Cartoons 15

Posted on March 21, 2016March 22, 2020 by Bob Mesnik

Zen Sarcasm

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow.
Do not walk beside me either.
Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

Challenging Real Time Applications for IP Cameras

Posted on March 12, 2016March 22, 2020 by Virginia Fair

Interview with Todd Vohs of Holstein AG Services About IP Camera with WDR

by Virginia Fair

In our thirty years of being, Kintronics has had the pleasure of doing business with the armed forces, the education sector, library systems, and businesses of every stripe and niche, not to mention quite a few enterprising individuals intent on monitoring such natural phenomena as:

salmon swimming upstream
seals in underground caves
eagles nesting in trees
Hawks perched in New York City’s famed Washington Square.

However, we rarely get a chance to see any of our IP cameras in action once they leave Kintronics. That was, until we had the pleasure of doing business with Todd Vohs of Holstein AG Services. He’d consulted with Keaton Baker, one of our sales engineers, in February, for suggestions about a camera that would help him overcome lighting problems he was encountering in monitoring his warehouse out in Iowa. Keaton recommended an IQ862, a camera with Wide Dynamic Range.

The Difference Between Jukeboxes and CD/DVD Servers

Posted on March 11, 2016March 22, 2020 by Dennis Gallen

CD Servers, RAID, Optical Disc or Cloud Storage? That is the question
by Dennis Gallen

“What’s the difference between a jukebox and a CD/DVD Server?” That was the question we used to get. It was a time when CD-and DVD discs were a great way to archive data. Today the there are a number of different storage options available. We continue to get questions about the best way to store data. We are asked, “What is the difference between Cloud storage and optical disc storage? And, “What is the difference between tape and optical discs”?

How to Comply With the Archiving Regulations Without Paying an Arm and a Leg

Posted on March 8, 2016March 22, 2020 by Bob Mesnik

Optical Archiving Libraries make it easy to protect your data.
by Bob Mesnik

So you are being dragged kicking and screaming to archive your e-mails and data. What can you do that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Well, the new jukebox library systems with the latest 100 GB media are now an economical alternative to tape, and provide the best way to archive your data.

The library software makes the jukeboxes easy to use so you can archive your data quickly and automatically. Blu-ray media is now the same price per megabyte as the tape media, and provides archive quality that’s not available with tape.

Let the Recorder Beware

Posted on March 1, 2016October 10, 2025 by Virginia Fair

You can record audio and video but be careful of the law.=

by Virginia Fair

These premises are under video surveillance.
Convenience stores post this no nonsense warning at their front doors. Banks who display a height chart at their exit door are indirectly issuing the same warning.

This conversation may be recorded for training purposes.
Most if not all companies and utilities issue this warning before connecting a customer to a representative.

IP camera surveillance is a given these days. In most cases the camera warnings are intended to warn the “bad guys”, and the recording notice is for “the rest of us.” The majority of people take these messages as givens and the concept rarely registers.

How Blu-ray Optical Discs Work

Posted on March 1, 2016June 22, 2020 by Bob Mesnik

The technology for storing data continues to bring us ever-increasing capacity. First, there were CD-ROM discs, next the DVD-discs, which increased capacity and data transfer speed. Now we have blu-ray discs that provide 100 GB of storage. They are used in optical jukeboxes or libraries for archiving computer data

Blu-ray Discs (BD) was introduced by Sony in October 2000. Even though this new technology was developed for the consumer market, it also was capable of handling computer data. As a matter of fact, Blu-ray became the standard in both markets.

How to handle all the Information that needs to be Archived

Posted on February 29, 2016March 22, 2020 by Bob Mesnik

Meeting the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

As I recall, the first optical discs became available in the fall of 1984. I was working for Sony at the time, and one of the engineers from Japan visited our office in New Jersey. “Bob”, he said, “Do you want to sell WORM in the US?” I looked at him kind of funny and said, “We don’t eat worms in this country”. “Oh no Bob-san, not worms, Write Once Read Many – W, O, R, M. This is optical disc”. This was my first introduction to optical storage. The technology has improved dramatically over the years and the market for the product has grown. Today optical disc systems are starting to replace tape libraries. The cost per megabyte is about the same, but optical storage is archival while tape is not.

There are many reasons to archive corporate and government information. For example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 defines regulations for saving information. Here is a summary of some of the reasons for using optical jukeboxes to meet these requirements:

How Surge Protectors Work

Posted on February 28, 2016March 22, 2020 by Virginia Fair

Ligtning’s Thief, by Virginia Fair

Once upon a time a major university installed IP cameras throughout its campus in reaction to a wave of violence perpetrated against female students. All went well until a passing thunderstorm brought a lightning strike which just happened to hit an IP camera mounted on the parapet of a dorm. Of course the camera was destroyed, but have you ever heard the phrase “greased lightning”? It’s a very descriptive term for within seconds, the surge created by the lightning traveled through the IP camera system, and the network destroying both the server and the switch, creating havoc right down to the network cards in students’ laptops at the end of the cable runs.

Comparison of the Classic Analog Paging System to the PA over IP Systems

Posted on February 27, 2016March 22, 2020 by Bob Mesnik

This article compares central analog amplifiers to distributed digital network attached amplifiers.

The latest IP paging systems utilize the Ethernet network to distribute sound over your organization. This is quite different than the classic systems that used a large central amplifier with wires to all the speakers. How good is this new approach to paging?

The following article compares the traditional approach that utilizes one large amplifier to the latest PA over IP systems.

The classic method of providing a paging system was to connect many speakers to a central very large amplifier. The latest IP amplifier method is much more flexible. It connects a few speakers to many small network attached amplifiers that are distributed around the organization. You can attach several speakers to one small IP amplifier or attach one CAT5 ready IP speaker directly to the network. Here’s a comparison the two types of systems.