Thursday, July 27, 2017

ZoneMinder Sample Infrastructure

So far I've been talking about how to configure ZoneMinder to do certain things.  I haven't said anything about what the ZoneMinder topology looks like.  ZoneMinder can be setup many different ways, but I'm going to stick to the simplest way for the purposes of this post.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Basic Security with ZoneMinder


ZoneMinder "out of the box" is setup with the most basic of features configured and simple to get going.  And security is never simple, so by default ZoneMinder is configured to be wide open to anyone who accesses the URL.  As I'm sure you've probably noticed.  In this post I'll cover some of the basics of ZoneMinder authentication, as well as some additional ideas on securing a ZoneMinder setup.


Tuesday, July 25, 2017

ZoneMinder - My First Zone

My saga with ZoneMinder continues!  In this post I'll discuss adding in my first camera / zone and testing in the web UI on a PC.  In theory at the end of this post there will be a camera setup that will capture motion events.

Monday, July 24, 2017

My Quest With ZoneMinder - Deciding and Installing

For the past several years, I've been using Milestone Systems XProtect as my NVR software package for my security cameras at home.  Recently I've ran up against the limits of the free version (8 cameras).  In looking at what it would cost me to keep up to date with XProtect, it's become obvious that it's not possible for me to continue using XProtect.  Further, XProtect is quite expensive for some of the people I do consulting work for.  As such, I started looking at alternatives and ZoneMinder came up.  I did some quick feature comparisons and for my purposes, ZoneMinder seems to fit the bill.  After doing some research on the Internet, I decided I should document my thoughts and work since there is a lot of scattered information out there, as well as lots of old information.


Thursday, July 2, 2015

SCUBA Diving At Night: A Comparison To Human Behavior

As you may have noticed from my last post, I just got back from a SCUBA vacation.  And while on that trip Carissa and I completed several PADI Specialty Diver classes though our local shop (SeaVentures).  One of the ones that I did (and Carissa already had) was the Night Diver Specialty.  During the class you always get asked "so why do you want to complete the X specialty".  My answer was "to get more comfortable diving at night, and be able to appreciate the creatures that come out on the reefs after the Sun goes down".  I finished the specialty, got some good experience, and had fun doing it.  I wasn't prepared for what came next.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Buddy Dive Resort In Bonaire Is Tops For Divers

Carissa and I just spent a a week at Buddy Dive Resort in Bonaire on a trip organized by our local dive shop, Seaventures in Roswell GA.  Other then me getting ill on the 2nd day, we had a great time and will do it again.  There are a lot of oddball reviews out there on Buddy's, so I wanted to write my own to throw my $0.02 into the mix.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

GoPro Cameras DO Fail! My Warranty Story

Why no recent posts?  Other then life getting insane recently, my wife and I took our brand new shiny GoPro Hero 4 Black to Key Largo, FL on a diving trip to cut out teeth on it.  We wanted experience playing with it before traveling internationally with it, in case we discovered we needed some random accessory.  What started with the best of intentions lasted about 4 minutes and ended in panic.

IT Accountability: Avoiding Murphy

Amongst technology experts, Murphy is someone we all try to avoid.  Murphy's Law states "Anything that can go wrong, will".  E...