One: don’t be disappointed in the people who wrote negative comments about this story. You, as a PN employee, should take this issue up with the higher ups because the “Comment” sections of this site and the forums are CHRONICALLY littered with negativity. If there are ten items posted in a day, you can bet your bottom dollar that nine of them will have diatribes from armchair quarterbacks who know all of the answers but have no other outlet than an unmoderated and anonymity-encouraging site to express themselves on.

This has been a MAJOR issue with the Advance Media sites for some time now. So, essentially, if you’re going to take the comments about Mayor Twelve Percent’s son to heart, you must view all of the other comments equally the same.

If you’ve ever been to PennLive, you know that any given story — no matter how innocuous — will generate an avalanch of trolling.

For those not familiar with the term (which I’m assuming is a fairly high number, given how effective it is in this area), “trolling” refers to posting content that is deliberately false, defamatory, offensive, or otherwise defective in the hopes of invoking an emotional or spirited response from others.

It’s an epidemic on the Advance sites (Advance is the for-profit corporation that oversees PennLive and a slew of other identical newspaper sites).  Read through any given story with more than a dozen comments, and you’ll see it.

Someone blaming Obama for a traffic accident?  That’s trolling.

Someone posting a false dichotomy of either ignoring the homeless or handing tax dollars to crackheads?  That’s trolling.

Someone using barely-veiled racism like “that’s what you get for electing one of THEM”?  That’s trolling.

In no case does a troll actually believe what s/he’s saying.  Nor do they care about your well-crafted response in which you dismantle their position point-by-point.  They just want you to post, and ideally, to post furiously.

Why?  Who knows.  Trolls have been around since long before the days of the web, when Usenet dominated online social circles.  Most of us learn to ignore them.  And most websites maintain active moderators to shut them down.

Sites like Digg, Fark, Slashdot, and The Awful Forums — all of which see more posts in 60 seconds than PennLive sees in a day — all maintain fleets of unpaid, volunteer moderators.  For the sake of making the community better, they patrol the threads, deleting comments with no redeeming value.  The important distinction here is that posters can disagree with each other all they like, but the moment the comments become uncivil, unintelligent, or blatantly trolltastic, the post gets axed and the user gets a probation (posting privileges suspended for xx hours).

To negate the users who create accounts just to argue with themselves (yes, trolls really do this), some sites ban new accounts from posting for the first 24-48 hours after signing up.

So why doesn’t Advance media do any of this on their sites?  I have a few theories.

• It’s profitable not to.  When you come back to the site to argue with that guy who just called Bush the antichrist with indisputable theological evidence that this is not the case, PennLive’s traffic goes up a notch, which in turn allows them to charge higher advertising rates.  Arguing with trolls is just good for business.
• They can’t afford to.  Even though most moderators are unpaid volunteers, Advance might be in such dire financial straits that losing the spike described above may kill them.
• They (Advance employees) are doing it.  It wouldn’t be the first time that a content provider shilled itself for the sake of traffic.  And, see the above two points.
• They don’t want to.  Really, why should they care?  As long as they’re under contract with the Patriot-News (and other newspapers), what motivation do they have to care about the quality of their content?
• They’re misinformed.  There’s a long-standing misconception that editing a poster’s comment makes the hosting party (in this case, Advance and/or the Patriot) responsible for the content of that comment.  Over the last few years, numerous court cases have established solid precedent that this is not the case.  Editing or deleting comments falls under “fair use” and does not alter the protections afforded under Section 230 of the CDA.

Nothing infuriates a troll like a lack of responses.  And nothing’s funnier than a troll having a meltdown because nobody’s listening to him.  Oh sure, there will be a few posts where the troll smugly believes that he’s “won” agreement because nobody bothered to argue his post that Linda Thompson’s son is secretly responsible for the sinking of the Titanic.  But after a few ignored posts, he will cry.  And he will leave.

I’m all for heated debate and spirited conversations.  Conflicting viewpoints mixed with passionate discourse can make fascinated reading.  And from time to time, they can even inspire a reader to see things in a different light by exposing him or her to ideas they haven’t seen before.

But when a user responds to a story about a kidnapping with “how’s that hope & change working out for u liberals” and gets five dozen responses, that’s just mighty successful trolling.

And you know what?  I was right.

In 2007, Clear Channel was voluntarily delisted from the NYSE.  They are traded over-the-counter and have fallen from their opening high of $20 to their current $3.10.  Cumulus shares have plummeted from $14.81 to $2.52 over the last five years.  Citadel is currently bankrupt, probably because they’ve spent the last nine months trading mostly under ten cents per share (although to be fair, they have gained in value by two cents — approximately 50%).

There are a lot of reasons why this is happening.  Rampant consolidation in the late 90s and early 2000s, for starters.  Eliminating local on-air personalities in favor of (much cheaper) national syndication didn’t help.  Neither did skyrocketing advertising rates.  And as if greedily selling advertising for every available on-air element wasn’t a direct contributor, speeding up songs by 3% – 6% in order to fit in more commercials certainly was.

While their industry was collapsing around them, what did station owners do?  They launched an all-out war against satellite radio, burning uncountable millions in lobbying and attack ads.  While making fun of satellite radio for lacking local content (which it doesn’t), they were furiously lobbying the federal government to prevent Sirius or XM from broadcasting any local content whatsoever.  And with their own ad revenue slipping (or due to burning greediness, I can’t tell which), they cut back even more content and jammed in even more commercials.

About the only thing they didn’t do was compete.

While Sirius XM (then two separate companies) offered bigger playlists, better station variety, better sound quality, reduced or eliminated commercial breaks, and near-constant signal from coast to coast, terrestrial radio stagnated.  A few stations tried charging for online listening, but that didn’t work at all.  More national syndication was brought in, advertising standards were relaxed, more music was cut … and more listeners departed.

And just when terrestrial broadcasters had satellite radio in a choke hold — Sirius XM barely staved off bankruptcy last year — along came the iPhone.  Say what you will about the product itself, but the iPhone helped usher in a new era of consumer awareness of what cellular data networks can do.  Apps like iTunes and WunderRadio enabled users to listen to music on their own terms, either by way of transferring them to the device or streaming customized playlists ala last.fm.  Soon, users of other PDAs realized that they, too, could manage their media from their devices.  And of course, none of this even begins to account for people who have turned off radio entirely in favor of their favorite MP3 player.

Radio’s response?

More commercials, less music, more syndication, less variety.

The same issues that have plagued radio over the last twenty years — the same issues that are right now causing the industry’s demise — are seen by radio stations as salvation.  Instead of cutting back on the obnoxious ads that drive away listeners, they increase them.  Instead of dropping the corporate-sanitized playlists and vanilla no-frills nationally syndicated DJs, they replace another shift.  Instead of giving listeners any reason to come back, they flush tens of millions into lobbying and accuse satellite radio of not playing fair.

And in the meantime, cellular carriers have quietly snuck in and stolen the show.

It takes me 20 minutes to drive to work.  If I’m willing to constantly flip through the local stations, I might get a traffic update somewhere halfway through my drive — when it’s too late to change.  I get my weather from my phone and my news from the Internet.  And despite what the morning show thinks, I don’t give two craps what Lady Gaga said on that interview last night.

While radio figures out how to fight off the wireless carriers (who have far deeper pockets), satellite radio has gotten back on its feet.  Sirius XM came through the last few years leaner, meaner, and with a score to settle.  Their stock is up a whopping 567.5% from this time a year ago, with 24% of that happening just this year alone.  They’ve shredded their debt and wound up with a $100 million free cash flow for 2009 — the first in their history.  And even after a rate hike, subscriber growth remains positive and continues to grow.  Those of us who bought shares this past March are swimming in triple-digit gains and loving every second of radio’s demise.

I don’t see this kind of investor frenzy happening over Clear Channel.  Or Cumulus.  Or Citadel.

Traditional radio’s response has always been “nobody will pay for radio when they can have it for free”.

It seems that the public begs to differ.

In case you somehow missed the news, Sprint has rocked the wireless world by being the first carrier to subsidize a netbook all the way down to (almost) free.  Sign up for a two-year agreement on Sprint’s 3G EVDO Rev. A network at $59 / month, and you’ll get the netbook for 99 cents.  It’s not a bad deal; consider it a two-year interest-free finance offer for the netbook, roll in a corporate discount, and you’re effectively getting wireless broadband for around $34 a month.  You can also choose Verizon Wireless or AT&T, at which point the netbook costs $199.

The specs are nothing to brag about.  Anyone familiar with netbooks knows the standard single-core Atom drill by now, so I’ll spare you the specifics.  I will point out that the keyboard is the best netbook keyboard I’ve found so far.  While slightly smaller than a desktop, I don’t have to cramp my fingers inward to type.  My only complaint is that it’s not backlit.  One quirk is that the trackpad has its buttons on the side — an ergonomic choice that can become annoying.

The broadband component is totally integrated with the unit.  There’s no USB dongle or PC card to plug in.  Surprisingly, this does not cause the unit to get any warmer than any other netbook I’ve used, nor does it appear to kill the battery.

I’ve spent the better part of today driving around the region testing network connectivity.  Part of my test was streaming 128k net radio stations in my car — like getting Sirius for free, only with more channels.  I’m particularly fond of soma.fm and M2 Radio.  I also did some speed tests while being chauffeured around Central PA.  Driving from Bethlehem to Mechanicsburg my audio stream was broken twice, for only a few seconds each time.  I had no problems between Mechanicsburg and York.  At no point did I completely lose signal.

I’ve also done some surfing and Tweeting (while stopped, of course) and the experience was, surprisingly, better than my DSL connection at home.  In fact, right this second I’m sitting in front of the Dauphin County Courthouse typing this with my car in Refresh Mode and M2 Chillout playing over my car stereo while waiting for friends.  One of the nice tricks about EVDO Rev.A — the 3G wireless broadband technology used by Sprint and Verizon Wireless — is that it has astoundingly low latency.  I use a regular, older EVDO card frequently at work, and the difference is staggering.

I’ll post some more specifics next weekend, but for having this thing two days thus far, I’m in love.  If the Internet was the “killer app” that brought PCs to everyone’s home, and WiFi was the “killer app” that made everyone move to a laptop, then wireless broadband will hands-down be the killer app that brings netbooks into the mainstream limelight.  The only drawback is the monthly expense — I can think of a lot of other ways to spend $60 / month.

So the question I’m trying to answer now is, “is this thing worth it?”  If I could disconnect my home Internet service, and if every wireless carrier didn’t interpret “unlimited” to mean “up to 5GB per month”, I’d say “hell yes”.  But being that I can’t (I need a home connection for my security system) and they do, I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

I’ll post a one-week followup next Sunday.  For the impatient among you, this deal is only available at Best Buy.  Nobody at my store knew how to activate it, and it took me an hour to check out.  But if you ever wondered what having statewide WiFi feels like, go pick one up.  There’s always the 14-day return period.

Just watch out for that 15% restocking fee.

http://nearbytweets.com/

It’s an automatic Tweep aggregator (that’s right; it’s a Tweep aggregator, not a Tweet aggregator).  It locates Twitter users near you.  It uses a combination of Twitter and Google APIs to geographically assess your IP, translate it to a physical location, and correlate that with the location of other users nearby.  It’s pretty slick, and what with all the talk about maintaining a list of Central PA Tweeps (often coupled with talk about how we’re all too lazy to do it ourselves), pretty convenient.

Enjoy.

Mr. Waterman is wrong.

Take a look at Verizon’s own legal notice, found here:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/globalText?contentType=Legal%20Notice&textId=181

The article is “sorta kinda” correct in that Verizon Wireless is not selling your cell phone number.  However, what they’re actually doing is far worse.  They’re selling what they call your “customer proprietary network information”, or “CPNI”.  This is the “marketing-friendly” term for:

• …the type services you purchase
• …the “destination” (number called) of said services
• …the “amount of use” of said services
• …the “location” of said services
• …and the “technical configuration” of said services

In order to guard your information, Verizon Wireless will “…share this information among our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.”  That’s right; they’re guarding your information by sharing it with their “affiliates” and “agents”.

I can’t fault the Patriot News for missing an opportunity to report on this further.  The question, presumably “Is Verizon Wireless going to sell my cell phone number unless I call a special 800 number?”, was very narrow, and the Verizon Wireless spokesman technically did provide a correct answer.  However, had the Patriot reporter asked “Is Verizon Wireless going to sell my information unless I call a special 800 number?”, the answer would have been completely different.

What bothers me is that the Verizon Wireless spokesman doesn’t address this issue, and even goes so far as to call the whole thing a hoax.

And that’s why I no longer use Verizon Wireless.

Or, to be a little more menacing, it means that your employer — or your housemates, or anyone on your network segment – can read your personal emails.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t necessarily want everyone viewing my mail.  It’s mine.  It’s private.  Not yours.

Until now, the only way around this problem was to log in via https://mail.google.com.  This forces SSL encryption for your entire session, meaning that everything — not just your login information — gets encrypted.  A few days ago, Google added an option to always force whole-session encryption, no matter how you log in.  There’s really no reason not to enable this (there is a tiny performance hit that will be unnoticable for just about everyone on anything faster than dialup), so here’s how you do it:

1. Log into your Gmail account
2. Click “Settings”
3. Set “Browser Connection” to “Always use https”

Done.  Your Gmail is now slightly more secure, and you no longer have to worry about the person across from you at the coffee shop intercepting that email from Aunt Edna.

Activity log from Nextalarm

When something happens, your system makes a report to the central station.  Traditionally, this happens over your home phone line.  Since I don’t have a home phone (all wireless, baby), I use an ABN Broadband Adapter to send alarm signals over my broadband connection.  Later this year I’m installing a GSM backup in case my broadband service gets cut.  Once the central station gets wind of an event, they spring into action.  Each alarm company is a little different, but the general flow of things is pretty common:

1. Call the premises, ask for the designated person, and ask for the password.  If the password is given, the alarm can be canceled.  If the password is not given, or if nobody answers:
2. Contact the appropriate authorities.  The alarm company will give them your address as well as what the alarm was caused by.
3. Alarm company resumes trying to contact people on your list.  In my case, they’ll try calling me at work.  Then they’ll try calling my girlfriend.  Then they’ll try my neighbor.  Then they’ll try a family member.
4. If the responders need additional information, or have additional information to report, they’ll contact the alarm company.

In addition, your alarm system will typically call the central station to report non-alarm events such as arming / disarming, trouble conditions, power failures, tamper alarms, and the like.  For these events, the authorities aren’t notified — but knowing when something happened comes in really handy.  For example, when I came home after work today, I found all my clocks blinking.  I logged into NextAlarm to review my log and found that the power was only out for about an hour and a half — my veal (and the rest of my fridge) was safe!

There are a few other helpful tricks that alarms can pull off.  The Abbra / Powermax series features a “latchkey” mode, which will notify the central station when the system isn’t armed / disarmed by a certain time.  Pretty useless to me, but I can imagine it would be pretty handy to make sure you kid came home from school on time.  We’ve also used this feature (albeit with a different name) at my previous employers to make sure our stores opened / closed on time.  There’s also a “no activity” mode:  If the system doesn’t detect movement for a set period of time (usually several hours), it will contact the central station.  This requires a handful of motion detectors but can be very helpful in safeguarding someone with a medical or mobility condition.

In addition to arming in either “home” (only doors / windows) or “away” (doors / windows plus motion detectors), most systems support a wide range of additional features:

• Smoke and/or heat detectors can alert the fire department long before a passerby (or your family) notices the smoke
• Glass break sensors listen for the unique sound of breaking glass (I personally don’t recommend these, especially if you have pets or parties)
• Temperature sensors can protect against a malfunctioning HVAC system and will pay for themselves (around $20 – $100) the first time your furnace fails in the dead of winter
• Flood sensors can detect leaking pipes and/or flooding
• Natural gas detectors and carbon monoxide detectors can summon help even if you can’t
• Wireless repeaters can extend the range of your system by several hundred feet indoors
• X10 / automation interfaces can control lights based on system events, such as turning on your living room lights as soon as you open the door or turning on outdoor floodlights during an alarm
• Cellular backups allow your system to communicate with the central station even if your phone line is cut
• Recessed flush-mount door contacts can provide discreet protection of a closet or room

Once you’ve got everything picked out and installed, your alarm system becomes a digital sentry watching over your property 24×7.  And best of all, actually using an alarm doesn’t really require you to change your lifestyle.  My system uses a remote keyfob — just like keyless entry on a car — to control system operation.  When I leave for the day, I just lock my front door and click the Arm Away button on my remote.  When I get home, I click the “unlock” button before opening the door.  No entry / exit delays to worry about and no codes to remember.  Cakewalk.

Hopefully this series has caused at least a few people to consider a system.  If you’d like help or advice on designing or installing a system, or just have questions, feel free to either post a comment below or contact me privately.  Rest assured that I don’t work for or get paid by any alarm company, so my advice is purely my own opinion.  I wanted to make these posts because a security system is, at its absolute least, a tiny amount of cash to buy a large degree of safety.  And if you want to shell out a few more bucks, a decent system can monitor just about every inch of your home from top to bottom.

I made a point to complete all of my offers in one day.  On May 10th, I had purchased some diet pills, signed up for web hosting, and enrolled in GameFly.  All stuff I don’t need, but still cheaper than actually buying an XBox 360.  Not surprisingly, as of July 6th, none of my offers were showing “completed”.  This happens, and is why you print copies of EVERYTHING.

I contacted the company and told them that it had been over eight weeks and nothing was reported.  They immediately apologized and bumped three of my offers to “Approved”, and said it may take up to 48 hours for the fourth offer to update.  I printed off my certificates, added them to my growing list of paperwork, and began patiently waiting out the final 24 hours.  If it’s not updated by tomorrow afternoon, they’re getting another email.

I suspect the problem is that the company I signed up for (ServerPronto) is no longer listed as an offer.  But since I have printouts of my landing screen, order screen, specific “to qualify” instructions, and order confirmation, I don’t expect I’ll have any trouble.  Even if they put up a fight — which I doubt, given their surprisingly amiable conduct so far — nothing in their TOS states that when an offer is removed, its completion no longer qualifies.  I’d have a pretty strong case in small claims court.

This minor hiccup is why, if you’re going to try for one of these offers, you print a copy of EVERYTHING.  Print the terms of service, print the list of offers at every stage of the way, print the popup that says “To qualify with this partner, you must _____”, print the landing page at the partner’s site, print the page that shows you ordering, print the page that shows your order confirmation, print the order confirmation email you get, and print the status page every time it updates.  In the end you should have at least a dozen printouts for each partner.  Keep them in a safe place, because if things get shady, they are your only protection.  If needed, they can be called upon to prove — along with your credit card statement — that you made a good-faith effort to complete the terms of the offer.  They can also be used to paint a very negative picture of the promotional company, which in small claims court often carries more weight than the letter of the law.

I’ll update again once the final offer goes “Approved” and my paperwork gets mailed.  Once I have my XBox 360 in hand, I’ll post the URL of the site.

Most of the wireless systems on the market today are designed to be simple enough that an average end-user with no experience can install one on their own.  This post is going to cover designing and placing your system.  For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume that you’re protecting a multi-story home and that money is a concern (we’re not securing Ft. Knox here).  Also, some of the ideas below don’t apply to complex installations such as protecting a large retail store or office building.

Most systems work in pretty much the same way.  Everything you want to protect is broken up into zones.  For most residential applications, you can safely assume that “zone” = “sensor”.  A very basic system might have three zones:  “Front door”, “Back door”, and “Living room”.  Zone #1 (“Front door”) would have a magnetic door sensor.  Zone #2 (“Back door”) would also have a magnetic door sensor.  Zone #3 (“Living room”) would consist of a motion detector.  Simple enough?  When you’re dealing with a basic residential system, for all practical purposes, there’s only one sensor per zone, and only one zone per sensor.  1:1.  Easy.

The first step in planning a system is to tally up what you need to protect.  This determines how many sensors you need to buy, and thus affects your purchase price:

• How many doors / windows do you have?  Doors and windows generally use the same type of sensor, so they get tallied together.  Don’t skip the upper levels — this is a common practice, and burglars know it.
• How many motion detectors will you need?  Consider placing a motion detector in any room that contains a large number of valuables (such as a home theater room).  Also consider placing a motion detector in any room that serves as a central passageway to the rest of the home.
• How many smoke detectors will you need?  You should have at least one per level.  Some local codes require one in every bedroom.  While optional, monitored smoke detectors can summon the fire department long before your neighbors notice the smoke.
• Do you have any other special needs?  Flood detectors and gas detectors can provide additional peace of mind.  Glass break sensors can help protect against a shattered window, although for my money, I recommend relying on the motion detectors.

Accessories like sirens, keypads, keyfobs, and cellular adapters don’t usually take up a zone.

Very few people need more than 30 zones, and most people will have at least 10.  If you get more than 20-something, you’ll need to make sure the panel you’re looking at buying supports enough zones.  If you find yourself going over 30, consider going with a hardwired or hybrid system, as you’ll be able to expand some of these (the GE Concord is an excellent choice) to well over 100 zones.

Play around on sites like SafeMart and Home Technology Store.  Home Technology Store actually has a pretty decent system builder.  You may find that after pricing out your system, you need to remove or add a few options.  To give you an idea of price, I just built a system with 16 door / window sensors, one motion detector, one keyfob, and two smoke detectors for $805.  This includes one year of monitoring, which will only be $11.95 / month afterwards.  An identical system with only two door / window sensors, one motion detector, and one keyfob would cost about $300, including monitoring.

Doing the physical installation is probably the worst part.  It’s not difficult, but it requires a lot of time and patience.  Your installation instructions will vary slightly depending on the brand of system you buy and type of sensors your purchase, but here are some placement guidelines:

• Your door / window sensors have two parts:  the switch and the magnet.  Always install the magnet on the moving part (ie, the window or the door) and put the switch on the frame.
• Door / window sensors should be mounted high on the fixture.  Not only does this help improve signal strength in wireless systems, but it will help reduce the likelihood of damage through bumps and brushes (especially from pets).
• Standard motion detectors work best at 45-degree angles.  They also have a very difficult time seeing someone walking directly at them in a straight line.  Ideal placement is usually at a 45-degree angle in the corner of a room.
• Most motion detectors will ignore most pets most of the time.  However, pointing your motion detector at your cat tree is just begging for false alarms.  If your dog has a favorite couch or your cat likes to walk on the countertop, take this into consideration when placing your detector.
• Infrared motion detectors (the most common type) can not see through walls, bookcases, or anything else.  Walk around the room and look at your potential mounting point.  If you can’t see it, it won’t see you.
• Carefully read the instructions to see how your particular device’s tamper mechanism is applied. 

Once you have all of your sensors installed, it’s time to install the panel.  In my experience, the best way to do this is to program all the zones BEFORE physically securing the panel to the wall.  This way, if the signal from a sensor is too weak, you can easily relocate the panel for better reception.

When considering placement of your panel, try to place the panel in a location that is not immediately obvious or that is awkward to reach.  The wall right next to your front door is probably the worst possible location.  As long as the panel can survive for 20-30 seconds following an event, it should have enough time to report the event to the monitoring station.  To be truly secure, consider adding a remote keypad and remote siren, then hiding the panel far away from prying eyes.

Each panel has different programming instructions.  The Visonic / Abbra system is, in my opinion, the easiest of the wireless bunch.  The basic process is similar across the board:  Put the panel into listen mode, trigger the zone (open the window), assign a zone number, repeat.  Programming can be tedious, but is rarely difficult.  If you can program your Tivo, you can do this.  When you read through the instructions for the first time, the process will likely seem overwhelming — it really isn’t.  Consult your alarm’s Installer Manual and/or call the store’s tech support for assistance.

in a few days I’ll have a final post going over the basics of using the system.  If you’ve been reading along thus far and all of this seems completely overwhelming to you and you’d just rather have someone else do the job for you, I’ve had excellent experiences with both Select Security and SSA.  Both of them do quality work at lower-than-average prices, and both of them maintain their own monitoring centers.  Since SSA’s nearest local office is State College, I’m not sure if they’ll come out this far for a residential system, but they’re worth a shot.

I’m a big advocate of home security systems.  Not only can they summon help when trouble strikes, but they can also generate a 3% – 10% discount on your homeowners’ / renters’ insurance.  With UL-listed monitoring as low as $8.95 / month and UL-listed systems starting around $200, they’re surprisingly affordable.  And even if your technical knowledge is generously described as “limited”, the fact that you’re reading this demonstrates that you have enough skills to install one yourself.  Before you shell out big bucks for that $34.95-a-month ADT system, consider these points:

• UL-listed monitoring services typically cost $8.95 (Alarm Relay) to $14.95 (NextAlarm) per month.  Both of these services have multiple redundant UL-listed central stations that are staffed 24×7.
• Equipment is generally pretty inexpensive.  The Abbra 2 is what I usually recommend, and can be had for just under $300 — including a year of prepaid monitoring AND lifetime tech support.
• Even if you’re not a customer, most alarm companies will happily send you window stickers and/or yard signs to use (some may charge a shipping fee).  These are non-adhesive vinyl decals that read “Protected by NextAlarm / 24×7 Security Monitoring”.  These can help deter someone looking for a quick score, as it will encourage them to move on to a less troublesome target.
• Having a home security system does more than let you know when someone breaks in.  It can also summon help in an occupied home invasion or thwart an ambush attempt.  It can summon the fire department upon detecting smoke, even if you’re away.  Most systems (including the Abbra, above) can even turn on your lights when you come home.

If you’d like to get a system, I highly recommend buying from Home Technology Store or Safe-Mart (no, those aren’t referral links; I’m not getting any commission here).  I’ve ordered from both without any problems, and both offer systems bundled with a year of monitoring.

Quality brands to consider are Abbra / Visonic, Ademco, and GE.  Abbra and Visonic are my personal favorites because they’re less expensive and, from first-hand experience, very reliable.  Visonic (who also makes the Abbra) is an Israeli company (all of their equipment is stamped “Made in Israel”, a first for me) that has little brand recognition in the US private sector, hence the price.  Ademco is much more well-known and makes slightly more polished-looking equipment, but at a notably higher price.  GE is probably the most popular of the bunch in the commercial / industrial market, and has a wider range of sensors than the others.  They are also slightly more difficult to program.

You can make your system as simple or as complex as you like.  At an absolute minimum, you should have one sensor for every door into your home and one motion detector.  This will probably provide adequate coverage while you’re away, but minimal coverage while you’re home.  For ideal coverage, you should have one sensor for every door and window in your home and at least one motion detector.  I used to recommend motion detectors in every room — and feel free if you have the budget — but doing so is highly redundant.  Your door / window sensors are your first line of defense and are extremely difficult to bypass (the old “stick a knife in the windowframe” does not work, ever).

You can also pimp out your system with smoke detectors, flood / water detectors, freeze sensors, extra keypads, gas detectors, remote sirens, cellular backups, and keyfobs.  I recommend hiding the main panel somewhere that would take at least 60 seconds to find (such as inside a closet on the second floor), replacing the built-in siren with a remote siren, and adding a keypad at each door.  While not necessary, this gives an added layer of security by “defending” the panel against physical attack (the 60-second rule comes into play because it takes your panel about 20 – 30 seconds to dial in and report an event).  Keyfobs are great because they allow you to arm / disarm your system as easily as you operate your car’s keyless entry.

These days, you have a choice between wired or wireless systems.  Wired systems will require you to — obviously — do a little wiring, which will in turn require you to start drilling through walls and pulling down trim.  Wireless systems are extremely reliable and much easier to install.  Most wireless systems, including the Abbra 2 above, will detect trouble like weak batteries (none of the batteries in my system have been replaced in 4 years), tampering, or even a loss of signal.  They all operate in the 433mHz range, making them pretty much immune to everyday sources of interference like cell phones and microwaves.  And with a typical indoor range of several hundred feet and built-in signal meters at the base station, you really don’t have to worry about the signal being too weak.

A decent home security system can give you peace of mind both while you’re at home and while you’re away.  The assortment of quality systems on the market right now means you have a pretty good selection among features, brands, and price points.  In my next post I’ll talk about designing, purchasing, and installing a system in your home.