Marcusl

which model of kodicom card do you have? I haven't tried this on a dual monitor system, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I tried it on a single monitor system and it worked fine. Instead of using the client software use the web client. I had the site software and the webdvr software in IE running at the same time and I could watch both and it seemed to work okay. Do you have a dual head video card hooked up to run the extended desktop? 1. Make sure the webdvr apache server is installed with your kodicom software. 2. On your dvr, push Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F4 all at the same time to exit the software back to windows desktop. 3. Open your internet explorer and type in the dvr's ip address in the address bar and it should bring up the login page to your dvr and have slots for the site code and password. 4. Reopen your Kodicom site software and let that load back up. If your IE window goes under your kodicom window, you should at least now be able to use Alt-Tab to get back to it... Move the IE window over to the secondary monitor and type in the site code and pass to connect up. Then turn off the cameras you don't want other people to see and leave it up and running. Should be as simple as that. Now like I said I tried this on a single monitor system, as I don't have a dual head card in my DVR, but it worked fine there and I don't see why it wouldn't work on a dual monitor system.

What kind of cisco router are you using? I would setup an access list and do all my port forwarding that way, seems a little more self explanatory... Does your network have a firewall or just a router? -Marcus

What's your install like? 2 - 32CH dvrs that you are trying to view through 1 IP? You can split the DVR's through separate connections, or leave them on the same network and get a burstable T-1 possibly. Depends on how deep your pockets are and what it's worth to you. Usually you can get a burstable T-1 at about half the cost of a traditional T-1. You could also get 2 cable modems and use a bandwidth balancing router like a Xincom 600 series... I am not sure if it will help in your situation though, but maybe, it kind of depends on how the camera system(s) handles uploads and if the problem you are having is about multiple streams to multiple sites... The Xincom routers have load balancing for inbound and outbound traffic. There are other brands too, I believe linksys has some as well, but I have never really liked their stuff for business class applications... http://www.xincom.com/twr602.html -Marcus

You probably gotta stop making random posts all over the place begging to be let in. Do you really think that showing that you are missing your dose of Ritalin is going to help your case to get what you want??

To exit from kodicom software without shutting down the pc, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F4. That will let you out of the software and still keep your pc going however, you will not be recording. There is no way to minimize the software, you can only shut it off. Then once you are done on your desktop you can restart the software to continue recording again. -Marcus

You may want to check for your area, but the wire that goes into an elevator shaft should be plenum wire if memory serves. I have heard some horror stories of elevator guys (who were jerks) taking any wiring they see that wasn't plenum and just cutting it out when they were servicing/inspecting the elevator. This happened to the company I work for when we did some access control installations for an elevator a few years before I worked here. So I would definitely check into that. Also, to get your best answer about how to wire the cam in, you may want to check with another elevator service/inspection company to see what they would say on how to do it properly or how much they would charge to do it. -Marcus

Bob, We offer plenty of culinary delights, I believe the most often dished out is a big can of whoopass... or did your British memory make you forget the American Revolution? LOL j/k BTW, I like fish and chips and that is British I do think, deeeeeepfried.... mmmmm

resizing is really easy, it can be done with any pc that has paint... open the image in paint (you can right click and select edit also on most machines) press ctrl-w (or the long way is select Image at the top, then select Stretch/Skew) set the horizontal and verticle image numbers to the percent of size you want the new picture to be, for these i selected 25% in both fields then resave the new picture with a different name in case you end up not liking the size, that way you still have your original pic to try again -Marcus

http://www.bioscrypt.com/products/vprox.shtml We just installed a half dozen of these at a credit union corporate facility and I have to say they are pretty good. I also like the idea of the combination of prox reader and fingerprint reader. It makes sure the person using the prox card is who it belongs to. Before the reader sends the data to the access control panel it verifys both pieces. The only thing I didn't like about them was the built in network was RS485 and not ethernet. You have to use an adapter to make it work on the network for management. Aside from that the units seem to perform very well.

On some tower work I have done, I used linerless high voltage splice tape. The rolls we used were made by 3m and it was called 130C high voltage splice as I recall. Relatively cheap too like less than 10 dollars a roll. I have some connections that are on towers (talk about heat and cold and weather) that have been going for over 4 years... plus a good feature is if you have to unwrap the connection you can do it without making a mess. Now as far as the coax-seal product, it is a good product you can even lay a connection covered in that in a puddle, but it is a mess to get back off if you have to work on it. The real trick with the linerless splice is covering both sides of the connection, and doing 2 passes stretching the tape tight as you go. Now the connection you are trying to cover is it on the side of some housing, like one side of the connection sticking out of a housing or is it like 2 wire pieces you are splicing, as that can affect also what product you can use. It would be really hard to use linerless splice tape if you are trying to seal against some kind of a housing... in that scenario you would want the coax-seal putty. -Marcus

There is double sided velcro tape that comes in rolls and that is pretty good for cable management in situations like that (with velcro you can add or remove wires without cutting everything apart). While I get it all combined with velcro, I use a one hole ziptie with a selftapping metal screw to make a place to hang the wires off the back to take stress off of any connectors or wires on the back of the pc. You can pass the velcro through the one hole tie on the last wrap around the wires and then when you need to work on it, you can just undo the last wrap of velcro, pull the wires off do your work and then put it all back. Another good product I have used for my audio/video wiring at home is that spiral cut plastic tubing material that you just spiral wrap around all your wires. That stuff isn't bad, but I find that the velcro tape works better if you have to get those wires back open to work on them. -Marcus

You could try this flavor of VNC, it has encryption plugins and you can download it's source code if you want to play with it.... http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/index.html -Marcus

must be their custom DVR: Lime Edition maybe they can create one with your favorite NFL or Nascar logo!

I knew I would get a rise out of the Mac guys by pokin a little fun at them... always so sensative.... anyway I know macs are good for what they are designed for... photoshop and graphic design What i did't like about mac was the high price parts and high cost of purchasing new, otherwise they are good machines... I found this little movie a while ago, I don't know if any of you have seen it, but it is really funny... http://www.roosterteeth.com/archive/ it is the RvB_Switch.mov Enjoy!

Yah, but that's only because, no one wants to take the time to write a virus for a dedicated Photoshop machine...

The client software uses port 8080 and 8081, the apache server on it will use port 80. If you can forward all those ports to the dvr, you should be in business... Just for fun here is all the ports that a Kodicom system uses... 80 8080 8081 8083 8084 8085 8090 3001 3005 6911 Other than the first 3 I don't remember what all their uses are for, just that some are for audio and some for other functions that I don't use. -Marcus

That means "should I write some gibberish? for attention?" That means "Why shouldn't you?"

I thought it was some korean teenager locked in a basement with 60 cases of red bull or something...

Anybody want any pirated boards.... ARRRRRRRR!! j/k I will be in Hong Kong though and I will keep an eye out, as we plan to go to the electronics and open markets. I wanted to see if there is any really nice watch knock offs. I got a Rolex in Thailand a few years ago that wasn't too bad. I also wanted to check and see if there was any good prices on PSPs. -Marcus

Trust me, Chinese women are not all they are cracked up to be... my girlfriend is Chinese and she gets on my nerves all the time... it may have nothing to do with origin though... I think almost any woman would get on my nerves after a while. "You don't talk enough." If you have a Korean one, does she speak the language? If so, maybe she can get everyone some good deals straight from manufacturer on cards/software in Korea. Won't have to worry about the Chinese knockoffs and software infringement.

For your computer to connect, it can be done one of 2 ways. A. They can give you a copy of the Cisco VPN client software and make sure you are setup to access it. That would make your computer think it is tied direct to their network. The vpn client basically logs in and can take an internal ip of their network in itself. So then your desktop acts as if it were sitting right next to the dvr on the same lan. You have full access to all ports on it, effectively you would be bypassing their outside firewall all together. Unless they are very good at cisco, you probably would have access to all of their internal network as well such as file servers and the like. Not to say you would do anything with it, but ya know... B. They can setup access for you to VPN in with a router or some sort of device on your side. A lot of the linksys routers and such will do vpn, but may or may not work very well. I always make sure if I have cisco on one end to have it on the other... I know linksys is owned by cisco, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing or will work togther properly. This is probably a more concrete way to have a connection and then you don't have to put any software on a pc and deal with that. Now being a person who keeps a network secure as well as central station databases protected and off the internet. I would not give anyone who is not part of my company either of these options. I would just do the port forwarding in the firewall/router. From a security standpoint, it is the safest option in the current scenario. An even safer option would be to statically map a separate external ip to the unit and port forward only the dvr ports. Then you could cut off communication by putting the dvr in it's own separate internal network(this can all be done on one cisco pix btw) by itself and with a separate dmz you can stop it from talking to the rest of the network, so in the unlikely event that someone could gain control over the dvr, they still would not have access into the network. A firewall within a firewall, so to speak. So for you, I would tell them just to port forward what you need and to keep their vpns confined to their own employees. That way also, you can sort of limit your liability of being in their network, cause say what if one of your systems got hacked(not to say that it would) it could spread to their network through the vpn and then they are infected with whatever you have too. -Marcus

I have never programmed a cisco router or firewall with a GUI, even though some models have them. They don't spend a whole lot of time on their GUI's so I just use their CLI (Command Line Interface). The CLI can be accessed through several different ways, local at the router with a cisco cable(light blue wire with serial port on one end and RJ45 on the other), remote with telnet, or remote with ssh. I would say that if they give you some sort of VPN access, it won't exactly be a PCAnywhere type connection(although you can use PCAnywhere on a vpn), it would actually be more like making the computer you are on, think it is part of their network. So with a vpn access on, you would type in the internal ip of the dvr on whatever program (like the dvr client or admin prog) you are trying to access it with instead of a public. A vpn basically just makes 2 separate networks think they are on the same network. VPN can be installed on a cisco router or a firewall depending on models. Some of the products do both (kinda). Like their Pix 501, it's a cheap firewall (around 600USD, that's cheap for cisco) can act as a very basic router for doing NAT and it's a VPN device. It can do most everything a Linksys, or Dlink can do, and everything they can't. Plus, cisco products are a ton more reliable. Sorry I keep rambling, but when you ask a quesiton, I want to answer it fully and give the reasoning why I am answering the way I am. -Marcus

I think you may be kinda screwed on this for getting a fix for free if you can't get that floppy trick to work with a usb floppy unit. I think on a newer model, the reset key is just the same as the power key except you just hold it down to do a cold boot. I did find a place that you can buy a USB security key for that model to bypass the power-on password, but it's over 100 with shipping. That is cheaper than 300 from tech support, it just depends on how much it is worth to you. http://www.pwcrack.com/security_chips_toshiba.shtml

The speed of the VPN depends on the speed of the connections between sites. There are a lot of different applications that VPNs can be used for. So it doesn't necessarily mean that a VPN will be slow. I have 3 VPNs setup for remote offices that we do toll bypass of phone lines over(even for alarm traffic), as well as it being the link for our IP office telephones. We have a 1.1mbit conneciton at each remote office that is synchronus and tied to our NOC. At our main site we have 2 T-1's combined on our main router then a pix behind that for the local network. The T-1's are not typical either they are a full duplex type. We can send and recieve up to 3mbit each direction simultaneously. Now with that being said, we have a pix at each site that does the vpns and firewalls the remote sides. So our VPNs are constantly active, they are not the kind where people login with some sort of client software, the pix handles all of the vpn login and such for them. When everything is finished, I can sit at my desk and connect to a shared folder at a remote site hundreds of miles away as if it were part of my local network. Transferring that file will take a while, but for our 1.1mbit connections, I end up taking about 850kbits of it, but I set voice data to have the highest priority, so I am just taking the remainging bandwidth all over the vpn. Our VPN isn't slow, but it will depend on how they want to do their vpn configs. If they want to do it like setup a vpn server at the main site and then people from their various broadband connections login with client software, there is no way to say that it will perform well because you will only be as fast as your slowest link. Like if I were to setup a vpn with a remote office that was on a cable modem, then if I have to go through 15+ hops to get to that network, it isn't going to be very fast more than likely. So it may be fast or it may be slow, but if they do the port forwarding they can connect from anywhere not just within their own VPN'd network. And since they are only forwarding the ports required, they should be very secure if that is their main concern. -Marcus

I have seen one broken into before we did the filtering. We usually buy our dvrs premade and the company that makes them puts Win 2K on them and their default image used to only have SP2, even when SP4 was available. Now this wouldn't be such a big deal if everyone used a proper firewall, but no one wants to shell out for such things... They pop for a $40 dollar dlink or something, which still wouldn't be the worst thing if they configured it properly. These people asked what ports needed to be forwarded so I gave them a list, and they claimed not to get it to work so instead of trying something else, they just put the dvr outside the dmz. The dvr was infected with some sort of trojan in less than 24 hours and it ended up that I had to go and find out why it had some strange error saying something about "ftp". So I get onsite and look at it and it has become somebody's IRC bot and serving warez in some channel on Undernet. So I immediately take it off the network and reformat it, apply all updates, install drivers, install dvr program and then lock down the filtering options and then do the port forwarding in the router properly. Then end of problem. But I have used just the port filtering on 2K and XP systems and that locks it down pretty good cause it only allows the ports you want. I don't think of MS as the most secure OS either. I prefer hardware firewalls, give me Cisco Pix any day of the week, but if it is my only option, this is the only effective way that I have seen to lock it down and I don't have to install some crappy software firewall. -Marcus