IP Cameras or Network Cameras have ethernet interface to deliver video and PTZ(Pan/Tilt/Zoom) control to a standard PC whereas DVRs i.e. Digital Video Recording require analog to digital capture cards in the PC to deliver video and PTZ control. In many ways IP Cameras with NVR software is a better surveillance system compared to DVRs. Main advantages are easy-installation and cost-effective. For more differences between DVRs and NVRs please check this page
This post is about NVR surveillance system, a comparison of performance and prices on few surveillance software that I tried. I used Axis 214 and Vivotek PZ6112 network cameras to test.

ZONEMINDER

• This is a free Linux-based open-source surveillance application.
• Installation is rather tedious and may require dealing with quite a good number of errors before you can really use it. But the good news is you can get it pre-installed on a  liveCD at zoneminder.com in the downloads page. or  a Virtual appliance which is a VMWare Virtual Machine based off of Ubuntu from Viktor Petersson. I tried Virtual appliance
• After downloading the Virtual appliance I had to use VMWare's Vcenter to convert .vmx file to .ovf and chose to upload the VM to my ESXi datastore.
• To open zoneminder application's home page where I can add/remove cameras, I opened a browser and typed in http://localhost/ or I could've typed in VM's IP address in any of the LAN machines like http://x.x.x.x
• I clicked on "add monitor" and added my two cameras but only saw black screen. After matching the screen resolution on zoneminder's camera settings to that on the camera itself which was 352 x 240 I saw the video.
• Axis was working fine but Vivotek PZ6112 is flapping. If I open vivotek camera settings on the zoneminders page and save it even without making any changes it comes back up but only for a while and then it goes black.
• All-in-all zoneminder was not ideal in my case, I did not like the user interface but you can't ask much for free.

Argus Surveillance
Next I tried argus surveillance. I tried this on windows 2003.

• Installation is pretty simple and adding in cameras was fairly easy. I don't have to point the exact path where the video is on the camera, just put in the IP address of the camera, authentication info and port no. which by default is 80. And it picked up both the cameras, very nice user interface, you can view and control all your cameras at one place. No flapping on the Vivotek PZ6112, however, the video is not as smooth as it is for Axis. The software did excellent on Axis only, but on PZ6112, the frames are jumping, sudden transitions, like when a person walks and then disappears. On the Axis its really like a video. 
• Load on CPU is not high and price for 8 channels/cameras is $118 which is good deal.
• Definitely worth trying if you have IP cameras other than PZ6112.
• Here is their website http://www.argussurveillance.com/

VisionGS
Finally, VisionGS worked for both the cameras Axis 214 and Vivotek PZ6112. Axis as with any other software worked without a problem but this software handled Vivotek PZ6112 as well. Video is very smooth, user interface is simple and neat, you can view and control all your cameras at one place like in seperate windows, nice motion detection. There is a huge list of supported cameras and the software is quite updated. Check out the features:

Short feature overview of VisionGS BE and VisionGS PE

• Real multi-cam support with own profiles.
• Live streaming video and audio using the latest streaming technology (e.g. WMV8 and WMV9).
• Support for a large number of video devices and webcams, dv/firewire included.
• Support for a large amount of network cameras (IP-Cams).
• Configurable motion detection to monitor your desk, house, children etc. (also ability to capture video in realtime).
• Most storage location (local harddisk, NFS, FTP, USB-Stick etc.)
• Ability to run as true Windows Service.
• Remote control your PTZ camera.
• Logitech Quickcam Orbit- and Logitech Quickcam Sphere Pan Motor control.
• Ability to include file-contents (e.g. latest weather information) in your webcam image.
• Include an overlay image like your company logo.
• Comes with configurable Java Applet for your website.
• Support for Dynamic DNS Service, e.g. DynDNS.com
• Archive images in chronological or reverse chronological order.
• Send live picture by Email to a friend.
• Multi language support (English, German).
• Comes with a configurable HTTP Server.
• HTTP password protection.
• IP Upload Feature to automatically update your website.
• Automatically creates thumbnails of your webcam pictures.
• Comes with lots of html examples.

Surprisingly price is quite low, its $29.95. It doesn't say how many cameras but from the comparison chart of Private Edition which is free with lots of limitations and Business Edition we can see "unlimited operation with network cameras." Check out the comparison of features below from their website.

Description / Feature	VisionGS Private Edition (PE)	VisionGS Business Edition (BE)
Unlimited live stream streaming.	-
Can run as true Windows NT service.	-
No VisionGS PE banner added randomly to the webcam image.	-
Unlimited operation with motion detection.	-
Access to the latest beta releases and information.	-
Unlimited operation with network cameras.	-
Access to commandline-parameter.	-

EyeSoft

• This is a bit expensive than others but you get a lot more than what you pay for. I would say this is excellent, user interface is absolutely fabulous, lots of features like storage indicator which would tell if you're running out of storage space, storage recycling which allows you to choose to delete old recorded video files etc. It was able to handle both the PZ6112 and Axis 214.
• Price for 8 cameras is $264. 
• Compared with other expensive surveillance software out there I would say the price is nothing for what this software offers.
• Installation and adding cameras is fairly simple, not at all a hardware resources hungry application. There are youtube videos on how to install and add cameras which should be more than enough to get you started. Check out the screenshot of main window HERE 
• Here is their website - http://www.bikal.co.uk/network-surveillance/ip-software.html

To Sum up:
There are quite expensive surveillance software out there like Milestone XProtect, GeoVision, VideoInsight, BrickHouse Security etc. I haven't tried these just because they're way expensive, costing atleast $500 for only 4-channels. If you're budget is under $300, you may decide one among the four I tested. Although PZ6112 is the only model I had trouble with in Zoneminder and Argus Surveillance I am sure they'd cover most IP Cameras.

• If Argus Surveillance would've supported Vivotek PZ6112, I would've gone with that and pay $118 for 8 cameras.
• If I am running low on budget and prefer something free then Zoneminder is the option. 
• If I want some nice user interface, control, simple installation and configuring I'd go with VisionGS for $29.95
• If I want something real even if I had to spend $264 for 8-channels then Eyesoft is the way to go.

This post is about how I installed windows 7 and Fedora 12 on my HP laptop / notebook DV2500 / DV2700 and how I partitioned the disk.
Most of you already have some version of windows pre-installed and windows 7 doesn't need any guide on how-to-install. Its that easy. Anyway, this are the partitions I made on my 160GB hard drive.

Windows 7 (C drive)- 30GB primary
System Reserved - 100MB primary (i didn't create this one, windows 7 did that )
Fedora 12 - 13GB extended
Data - The rest of the Hard drive (yes, /boot for fedora 12 is on extended partition)

After installing Windows 7, hardware drivers, essential software like antivirus, adobe acrobat etc I am left with approximately 15GB of the C drive. Thats pretty cool compared to vista which took around 45GB but it included all the pre-installed HP stuff. I am sure 30GB is going to be quite sufficient for windows 7. With windows 7 laptop stays cool and the fan is on most of the time but very very low and it doesn't bother. So, for HP laptops known for heating issues, this is definitely a very good improvement.

From with in windows I created the 'data' partition leaving about 13GB for fedora.

Fedora 12 and its partitions:

• Download the Fedora 12 DVD ISO image from HERE 
• Fedora's Live-USB-Creator from HERE and install it. 
• Plug in your 4GB USB drive and open the live usb creator, you can see 'use existing live CD', click browse and point to where the ISO image file is and then click 'create live USB'. It takes some time.
• Once that is completed, your USB is NOT yet ready! with this USB when we reboot our system we can go up to partitions and then it throws an error. This just did not work for me.
• So, open the USB drive and from the folder 'packages' delete everything, this folder contains all rpms.
• Now, copy your Fedora-12-i386-DVD.ISO image file into your USB drive, not into any folders with in the usb drive but directly under the drive.
• You now may reboot your machine with your usb still plugged and it will take you to fedora installation.
• Just follow the onscreen wizard until partition, choose 'custom layout'

Partitions in Fedora 12:

• After selecting custom layout you'll see two hard disk's: /dev/sda - system harddrive and /dev/sdb - usb drive.
• /dev/sda already has three primary paritions -
• /dev/sda1 30GB,
• /dev/sda2 100MB,
• /dev/sda3 109GB(data).
• We now need to create the 4th partition /dev/sda4 and this is going to be our extended partition by default from fedora installation wizard. And we'll slice /dev/sda4 according to our preferences.
• /boot is a required partition, so select /dev/sda and click 'new', mount this on /boot, give a 200MB for size. This is our /dev/sda5 within our /dev/sda4 extended partition.
• Now, with in our /dev/sda4 we still have unallocated space which we can slice. I'd suggest like this:
•  Swap partition - 1GB atleast
• /home - 3GB or 2.5 GB and the rest to /

With the above settings we have these partitions in summary:
/dev/sda1 - 30GB windows C drive
/dev/sda2 - 100MB system drive
/dev/sda3 - 109GB and
/dev/sda4 - 13GB, this is further divided into
                  /dev/sda5 - 100MB for /boot
                 /dev/sda6 - 1GB for swap
                 /dev/sda7 - 3GB for /home
                /dev/sda8 -  Rest of the drive for /

After the partitions make sure to choose to install the bootloader to /dev/sda, by default it'll be /dev/sdb. Do not forget to change that.
And then continue with the rest of the installation.

Fedora 11 was very bad on my HP DV2500 laptop, heat was way too much. After googling and going through forums I came to know that the culprit was firefox, for some reason. Then I tried opera in fedora 11 and the heat was definitely very low.
Well, Fedora 12 improved on that, laptop stays absolutely cool. Like in windows 7, fan stays on most of the time but it does't bother and is very very low. And its the same when I used firefox but I got used opera and its a pretty good browser.

If you want to try something new or if you do not already own microsoft office or even more if you like charity then this is for you.
What it has to offer:

1.TextMaker - equivalent to word, take a look at screen shot below.

2. PlanMaker - equivalent to Excel
3. Softmaker Presentations - equivalent to Power point ( screenshot below )


Whats nice: you can work on all your Microsoft docs, excel, ppts without any converter in between. ex: when we try to open docx(MS 2007) in MS 2003 word it needs a converter to open the doc. 
This is what it says on their website:

Christmas is coming early this year...
Between today and December 31, SoftMaker gives away full versions of SoftMaker Office 2008 for Windows – permanently usable and upgradable to future versions.

But there is more: For every download on www.loadandhelp.com, SoftMaker donates € 0.10 (ten Euro Cents) to charity and development projects worldwide on www.betterplace.org.

credits:
Thanks to Kaushik(www.instantfundas.com).

Grab it before the deal expires. Excellent software, installed like a breeze on vista, made a photo slideshow within minutes, cool templates. check it out... Thanks to www.giveawayoftheday.com. To Download go HERE


Here is the story from the site - 
iPixSoft Flash Slideshow Creator is a unique flash slideshow software to help you turn digital photos into flash slideshow, thumbnail gallery, flash album and flash presentation with professional designed templates, transition effects, text captions, background music, etc. It enables you to output SWF movie, Executable File, HTML file and screen saver or even send by email directly. Enjoy it on this holiday season!

Features:

• Drag-n-drop to create flash slideshow/photo gallery
• Add up to 500 photos
• Add your background music
• 35+ Free Pre Designed Template
• 70+ transition effects include swift and push effects
• Enable and set Intro & Credit Movie
• Decorate with 130+ cliparts and 100+ sounds
• Share your flash movie with your family and friends on Internet

There are many mp3 players out there for your blog/website like xspf player, flourish player, mixpod etc etc. Some work in firefox only, some work in both firefox and internet explorer but don't playlist. Anyway, with this post you'll be able to setup a working mp3 player for your website/blog.

1.First, you'll need a file hosting service, where you can store files(mp3 files in this case).
There are many free file hosting services out there. I will go with  www.skydrive.live.com
Capacity: 25GB
Max upload size: 50MB
Sign in to www.skydrive.live.com with your msn, hotmail or any live ID and upload your mp3 files into your public folder.

2.Right click on this link and save link as/save target as and save it to your PC...  PLAYER_MP3_MULTI.SWF and then upload it to your skydrive public folder.

3.We need permanent links for your files in skydrive so they're accessible over the internet all the time through the same links.

4.Now, as with the most of the file hosting services skydrive doesn't give out a permanent link for a file, so a file which is accesible through a link today may not be accessible tomorrow through the same link.
But don't worry! Thanks to Tim Acheson, he found a solution for us. Go ahead and get your permanent links to your files HERE



NOTE: You have to encode your link to use with Tim Acheson's API. From your skydrive copy the "web address." as shown in the figure and go to this SITE TO ENCODE .







5. You now have the permanent links for your mp3 player and your mp3 files.

• Sign into your blog and click on customize at top right corner 
• Click on "Add a gadget", that opens a window, in that look for HTML/JavaScript and click on it.
• Title: mp3 player, in "Content" copy and paste the following code:  
• 
  
  
  

  <object data="http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" 
  width="200" height="100" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
      <param value="http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" 
                       name="movie"/>
      <param value="#ffffff" name="bgcolor"/>
      <param value="mp3=http://yoursite.com/song1.mp3 | 
  http://yoursite.com/song2.mp3&amp;title=song1 | song2 
  &amp;autoplay=0&amp;showvolume=1" name="FlashVars"/>
  </object>
  

  
  
  
  
• In the above code, replace the  "http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" and "http://yoursite.com/song1.mp3" with your actual permanent links of your mp3 player and your mp3 files.
  
• Click on save button and you're done
  

This mp3 player both in firefox and internet explorer, unlike xspf player or any others I tried and  it is tiny and simple. I have this working mp3 player in my blog-footer, you should be able to have one too.

Of all the features of gns3 the one i like is to be able to include my real PC in the topology I created. Lets see how we can do this:

Prereq: You have to run gns3 as Administrator for this. How? type 'gns3' in the windows start menu bar, right click on the 'gns3' program, and then 'Run as administrator.'

• Now drag your router in the main window, right click on it start it, then right click choose console. keep it like that.
• In the gns3 main window, click edit, symbol manager, from 'availabe symbols' select computer and click on the '>' the right arrow button. Now on the top right of the symbol manager type name as 'computer' and SELECT TYPE AS 'CLOUD' from the drop down list, then click OK. you should see this computer symbol in the left panel of gns3 main window.
• Drag that computer into the work space, right click on it, choose configure, select 'c0'( this may be c1 or c2 .... ) under the clouds section.
• OK now you should see bunch of tabs, first one is 'NIO ethernet'. In this tab, under "Generic ethernet NIO.. bla bla" choose your network adapter and then click on ADD, Apply, OK.
  

Note: If you have only one network adapter you're fine. But if you have more than one like on my laptop( wireless and lan) you wanna make sure you chose the one that is active.

OK now your router and your real PC is in the picture, lets connect them and test communication:

• In the router console lets configure any of the fastethernet ports first.

1. router>enable
2. router#configure terminal
3. router(config)#interface fastethernet 0/0
4. router(config-if)#no shutdown
5. router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.222 255.255.255.0
   
6. NOTE:choose an ip address that would be in the same network as your pc. ex: my pc has 192.168.1.105

Alright, the ethernet is interface is ready on the router and the active network adapter on your pc is ready, now we need a ethernet cable to connect these two.

• click on 'add a link' button on the top front panel, choose manual.
• Now click on the router, it displays a list availabe interfaces, we've configured fastethernet 0/0 so lets choose f0/0.
• Click on the computer, it will show the only availabe interface which is your network adaptor. so, choose that and we are done with connecting the router to your real pc.

Lets check if the connection is working:

• In the command prompt
  
• C:\>ping 192.168.1.222
  
  Pinging 192.168.1.222 with 32 bytes of data:
  Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=255
  Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=255
  Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
  Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
  
  Ping statistics for 192.168.1.222:
  Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
  Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
  Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 63ms, Average = 22ms
  
  
• In the telnet console of your router do the same
  
• Router#ping 192.168.1.105
  
  Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.105, timeout is 2 seconds:
  !!!!!
  Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/21/40 ms
  Router#

OK... so that shows we achieved what we wanted! Have fun.

Hello people,

why look around for a pirated packet tracer. download the gns3 all in one, it is very beautiful and works like a charm in Vista. All your CCNA lab practice, building complex topologies and experiments can be done in GNS3 with drag and drop features. GNS3 works with a real cisco IOS image, so you get to practice each and every possible command.

Prereqs:

• ->First get a Cisco IOS image file from any of your friends who own a cisco router.

Install Telnet client:

• ->Open control panel/Programs/programs and feature OR just type "appwiz.cpl" in the RUN window and hit enter, that will open the 'programs and features' window
• ->In this window, on the left panel click on 'Turn windows features on or off'
• ->That will open 'windows features' window, in that tick mark the 'telnet client' and then click OK. It'll take some time to install the telnet client. Done with telnet client.

Now lets make sure if your telnet client is working: (courtesy: www.thundernews.com)

• ->open command prompt.
• ->type "telnet news.thundernews.com 119", hit enter, if you see 'welcome or connected' your telnet client is working.
• -> If that didn't work you can try with these different port no.'s instead of 119, they are 119, 7000, 8000, 9000, 23, 25, 80, or 3128.

Now the stage is set, lets move on to installing GNS3:

1. Download the gns3 all in one here
2. Click on the downloaded file and run it (installation)
   
3. I'd suggest to choose 4 options in the "components to install"
4. After installation, type 'gns3' in windows start menu bar, click on it, opens gns3
5. You get two options, click on 1
6. In the window provide a working directory path, then click on 'test' button, you should see 'dynamips successfully started', then click apply and then ok.
   
7. Now click on button 2, you'll get "IOS images and Hypervisors" window, in 'image file' section provide the path to Cisco IOS image on your computer. Then click OK and then apply. Depending on the IOS version, the platform and model fields gets automatically populated. Take note of the model. we're done.

Now we're at the GNS3 main window, lets make use of it.

• Now, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open 'windows task manager' and minimise it.
• In the left panel you can see all kinds of network devices. Drag a router model which your IOS supports, right click on it, click start.
• From the 'windows task manager' you'll notice that your CPU usage goes upto 60% or even more. To fix this, right click on your router, click 'idle pc', let it calculate a value, choose any one from the list with '*' mark, see if your CPU usage drops down to somewhere around 10%, if not repeat this until it drops and dont forget to be patient for it is possible!
• After that, right click on your router, choose 'console', that opens a telnet session to your router. This is as good as telnetting any real router so now you can use what you learned or do whatever.

I was in need of getting a couple of passport style photographs. Crazy prices out there exclusively for passport style photos. Here is the list:

Walgreens : $7.99+tax
CVS pharmacy : $7.99+tax
FedEx: : $15.00+tax
PostOffice : $14.??+tax
Walmart : $14.??+tax
Costco : $5.00+tax

Obviously costco is better compared to the rest. If you don't have enough time you can go for costco. If you do not want to spend that much for a couple of pics ( size is 2 * 2") then you wanna do this:
First, requirements for the photo:

• width: 2 inches, height: 2 inches
  
• Front view of the face.
  
• Gotta be bright, plain white background or off-white with no shadows
• For exact requirements go here

Well you can take that picture yourself at home, even with a compact camera or if you have a soft copy already and just need a photo print out, well and good. If you're not a professional it might take a few shots to get the right one. Once when you are done you wanna go to this site: http://www.epassportphoto.com/.
What they basically do is take your picture and prepare a 4 inces by 6 inches photo sheet filled with about 5 of your pictures plus their ad. And they do this for "FREE!"
Now they'll give you the link to download your photosheet after you have gone through the 3 steps on their site. And thats it! ( you can replace their ad with another copy of your picture, you can do this in microsoft paint, so you have total 6 photos ). Example:


I think thats too much of a smile! According to state gov natural expression is preferred :)
Go to a walmart/walgreen/costco/CVS/FedEx - which ever is near by, It will cost you anywhere between 13-29 cents!!! to get a 4*6" photo printout. Take a paper cutter and cut your 6 passport photos from the sheet.

For 6 passport pictures you could've paid - $24+tax
With a little bit of your time you can get that for - $0.20 i.e. 20 cents.

wow!! thats a huge deal for anybody.