Ring Doorbell Security

The Ring Doorbell has been invaluable as we travel the world. The reactions of people are often times pretty funny as the doorbell they just pressed begins talking to them and asking them to do some action in our absence. Even over our very low-bandwidth WiMax link it is usable. The most annoying part of the device, until now, is that our dog Bentley goes crazy when the device rings the multitude of devices. Even when we are abroad if he hears the phone notification he goes ballistic instinctively knowing someone is in his yardfrom a few hundred/thousand miles away. ...

July 24, 2016 · 5 min · Nick

Withings Home Camera Review

I am always in search of products that help me automate and secure my home. I have run a mix of Foscam, D-Link, and Panasonics cameras dumping to a Linux server for the longest time, but it was clunky and not without its horrendous maintenance. Additionally the cameras, as aptly pointed out by Wife, were less than aesthetically pleasing. ...

February 8, 2015 · 3 min · Nick

iPad Mini – an agnostic mobile user review

If you glance around my computer museum (I mean office) you will see the following mobile devices: WebOS Maemo Android PalmOS Blackberry (no 10 devices yet) WinCE (don’t ask) And up until a few years ago many an iOS device scattered around. Part of my job is learning what the latest and greatest is capable of and implementing for my customers. It was after helping one of them recently that I realized my iOS knowledge was becoming a little dated and as such I found myself in the Schiphol Airport paying way too much for a Retina iPad Mini 32GiB. ...

March 24, 2014 · 4 min · Nick

—- Cross Post from the Spec Ops Technology Blog —- Spec Ops Technology prides itself on taking difficult problems and providing practical engineering solutions. Quite often this real world experience is born of a real world problem we personally faced. There is a passion we look for in our engineers that breeds a team that, by nature, develops creative fixes. As the United and Lufthansa ticket counters can attest, I spend a lot of time on the road. In today’s connected world I depend on a secure and platform agnostic internet connection. There a few major hurdles that make this difficult: ...

August 19, 2012 · 5 min · Nick

Verified Accounts or “Don’t let your friends steal your name”

I have a great friend (who may not agree with that “great” part after this) who refused to have a facebook page. I can’t disagree with the idea of being the part of the few left in America without one, but it has become somewhat of a joke with us. Friend: Why didn’t you tell me?! Me: I did tell everyone, via Twitter and Facebook A few nights ago while we were chatting via Jabber I decided to play a little joke and create him a Facebook page. ...

May 22, 2011 · 3 min · Nick