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The Cheapest Personal Security System

Created by Sunny Sun

 

Everyone is looking forward to have a peaceful life. People do not want to be disturbed by anyone else. However, when we are not able to have our eyes on our properties, who can protect them? Hire a guard? It's kind of impossible for an individual. Install a professional security system which is used in the White House? Most people could not offer it. Don't worry. Today, I will introduce a security system that I found by myself. It is cheap and easy-operating. Once you have this system works in your room, anyone else who entered will be captured by the camera. The pictures are saved in the computer, or sent to your email box. Furthermore, you can hold your PDA or cell phone in the park or the classroom, and watching what happened in your room. Is that cool? Do you want to have that? Great! We just start right now.

 

What do you need?

These three stuff are enough for building my security system. If you have a PDA or cell phone which can get on internet, you were like "007". Watching everything happened here at thousands miles away. I will tell you how to achieve this later.

 

Let's start.

1. Have your webcam works well. I won't say too much about this. I think webcam is a very common device now. It is cheaper than a tank of gas. (except that you want to have a close-up on the bad guy.)

2. Install the software. webcamXP PRO. That's the leading actor. I have used this software since 2001, but it was not that good at that moment. Now, it is so powerful that it can do lots of things for you. You can have the trail version from this URL link http://www.webcamxp.com/download.html . Download and install it.

3. Launch the software. It will detect the webcam automatically, so please make sure you connect the webcam on your computer at first.

4. This step is very important. After (1), (2), you will see area (3). In the area (3), there are some events you can choose. It means, when the webcam detect a change, selected actions will be performed.

  • " Save locally(.bmp)" is same as " save for web(.jpg)" They both save pictures. "jpg" has smaller file size, so we check "save for web(.jpg)".
  • " record movie" is to record a movie clip, if you like, you can check this.
  • " send by email" is to send captured pictures to your email box. From my point of view, this one is very useful. That's also what I will talk about more in this article.
  • " add to gallery". If you want to see the pictures via web browser, you need to check this one.
  • " run .exe file". Run some applications. What can we execute here? A file that play alarm sound is a good choice. ^_^
  • The rest choices won't be mentioned here.

In area (4), you can change the "tolerance".

In area (5), click "start detector". Wait a minute, set "email configuration" first.

5. Click "email configuration". I tried many times here. We need a SMTP server which is used to send email. However, many email companies do not offer this service, (like Hotmail). Here I use 163 (www.163.com), and I have a 163 email account. You may find other SMTP servers.

  • Sender email address: The email address you send out
  • Dest email address: The email address you send to
  • Smtp server login: SMTP server account
  • Smtp server address: mine is "smtp.163.com"
  • Smtp server port: 25
  • Smtp server password: account pin
  • check ”save password”
  • check ”send a test email” to have a try

6. That's all. Click "start detector". Wave your hand at the front of the webcam, and it will detect the change. Do you get the email?

 

Now, you can check your email everywhere at anytime in order to "watch" your place. (Of course, nobody wants to get the email.) By the way, if you have pets in your room; be careful, it could destroy your email box. ^_^

 

The above method suits for everyone. If you want to be more advanced, you can set your computer as a web server.

How to setup web server? You can find the answer by searching in google. The easiest way is to install the IIS5.1 which is included in windows XP. The following picture is a simple guide for you.

Now you can sit in the classroom, turn on your laptop or PDA, connect to the internet, and type the URL. (http:// your computer's IP:8080) The default port of this software is 8080.

^_^ What do you see? AHA, your room which is "watched" by the webcam.

Click "online gallery" at the bottom of the screen, you could see all the captured pictures.

All right! Done! Have you got it works? I believe, if you follow these steps, you will have your won security system in 15 minutes.

 

The following 4 pictures show you how to access your server from outside. PORT MAPPING.

1. Setup an internal IP address.

2. Mapping the port to your internal IP address.

3. Find out the External IP address in the router configuration page.

4. Allow the port in Windows Firewall.

 

Any questions or suggestions, please ask me via seesunmoon@hotmail.com

Best wishes!

Thank you all.

Sunny

2005-12-03