@ricedg
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From home, dubious. On a public network, like a cafe, essential.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and what it does is create an encrypted tunnel between you and a server on the internet. This means that any “man in the middle” attack cannot see your data.
What do I mean by “man in the middle”? Well it’s not too difficult to spoof a cafe’s WiFi so that instead of going through their access point you are going through the bad guys. That means they can capture everything you’re sending and receiving. The VPN doesn’t stop them capturing the data but as it’s encrypted it’s of no use.
At home it’s extremely unlikely that anyone would even be interested in doing that never mind the practicalities involved.
The other use of a VPN is to set up a secure link between a business laptop and it’s office, or between two offices. This also allows the remote end to access things like printers as if they were onsite.
It’s very rare that I feel the need to use a VPN sat here at home, I can’t remember the last time I did.
Happy Birthday John, you’ve been very quiet lately!
We seem to be getting lost, my fault for rambling on at the start.
The issue is really one of archiving and replicating the likes of Ionos’s archiving service. I think there is a similar service in 365 for Business, but this is a DIY project.
Having a Synology server and therefore a mail server app, Drezha was hoping that could be pressed into use. Makes sense, no need for more hardware and it’s on 24/7. But sadly it can’t bring in third party mail, plus mail servers are a total PITA.
Hence the idea of an email client setup to do only that (never used for email tasks) and keeping IMAP out of it so that any deletions aren’t replicated. Thunderbird seems ideal being cross platform and with plenty of tools but there are others out there.
Going back to the Synology, I’ve had a look at some CLI email clients that could be run in a very basic Linux VM (the models Drezha and I own have enough power to handle low power VMs. My PiHole runs on one).
No way would you want to use them for every day email tasks but a possible solution for archiving, especially as search is a big thing with all of them. I don’t know how (or if) they handle attachments though.
Aoife, very Celtic :good:
I don’t think I’ve ever posted a picture of my (sadly long gone) Goldwing, paint job themed on the legends of ancient Ireland. Artwork panels based on The Book Of Conquests by Jim Fitzpatrick.
This one on the front
and this on the back
OK, looking at this the Mailplus server can’t do it, it’s the role of the mail client, so the Synology is out.
There are posts out there using Fetchmail to feed Mailplus. They look convoluted.
I’d stick with using an email client.
I looked at this myself and I’m still not sure if you can use the mail server to bring in third party mail, however you could forward email to it i.e. me@my-email.co.uk forwards to me@my-synology.co.uk. I don’t think that would deal with replies though. Setting up a mail server is a total PITA anyway, best avoided for any number of reasons.
Ionos do an automatic archiving service for £2.50 a month for 5GB and can cover multiple addresses on the account. Nothing can be deleted inside the retention period you set without jumping through some hoops which makes it GDPR complaint. It automatically expands at £1 per 2GB.
Personally my main business email and data is hosted by Office 365 and I use Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to back it all up. I set up a retention period of 30 days but you can set what you want.
When I’m doing email migrations I just use Thunderbird to archive the source mail account. You could then backup that profile. Ionos would be my preferred solution but Thunderbird should work well. Sounds like a Pi job?
Bob says thanks, it’s a great link.
I’ve done that Ed.
Latest from Bob, the German references came about from me mentioning my Oktoberfest beer tasting box and the new restaurant in Bristol paying homage to the dining scene of grand mittel-European cafes.
I wasn’t completely out during this latest op, just woozy. But as soon as I got back to the ward I crashed for 3 hours. Another on 28th of this month.
I am walking with my stick now and washing myself in the bathroom, but am out of sync with the rest because I have to wait for my feeder to be disconnected and unhooked from the stand.
Tubes are out of my stomach, gullet and nose. I feel more free for all that.
I remember those beers, but can’t eat curry, although I loved bratwurst with lots of ketchup: German Vitakrone (?) which is much nicer than Heinz IMO. Morrisons used to sell it but strangely none of the German outlets have it.
I turned my son on to bratwurst and he still loves it. The soup I liked in Germany was Ochsenschwansuppe mit Champing ons – oxtail soup with button mushrooms. Loved that, never found it again. Last time I went over I bought 6 cans to take back.
Nebuliser time, have to go. Thanks for the contact Dave, all the best
Bob.4 + 4 cores, 3.7Ghz, >4K graphics, 15W TDP.
Amazing. It doesn’t seem that long ago we were looking forward to dual core processors that could boil a kettle.
Looking at the B450 boards I’ve been buying, they all have 128mbit AMI jobs, so 16MB. I can’t see any of them showing any interest in a 5000 though.
LOL
You’ll probably want to upgrade the mobo for other new features too. I’m so glad AMD are back it’s really shaken things up. In the midrange the i5-10th gen are now looking strong on bang per buck.
Wow, I saw a few unusual injuries when I spent the summer in hospital but that’s a new one on me.
The “best” one was an old boy sat in his deckchair when the Mrs tells him to move as she wants to put the washing out. It’s only a foot or two so he doesn’t stand up and move it, he tries to shuffle it along. Chair collapses, minus one finger!
95% were like me, motorbikes, next favourite chainsaws and fingers followed by hover mowers and toes. Very few car accidents but they were all very nasty.
I have CCTV design software that can model the views for each camera. PM me the address so I can get an overhead and street view and I’ll gladly knock something up.
The Blink cameras are 110° so one on a corner will cover the whole aspect. The software allows me to put people, vehicles, trees, shrubs, etc in so it’s quite good at modelling most scenarios. You “aim” the virtual camera at the point you’re most interested in, say 1.5 metres high in front of the door and the software shows you the detail you’d expect to see at that distance from the camera.
As far as the garden is concerned, especially at 1080P, you’re looking for movement rather than detail until they get close. The basic detection algorithms of cameras like Blink will result in lots of false alarms due to things blowing in the wind, rain etc. and the curse of all cameras. the spiders web.
Ignore the battery life on the Blinks, they are determined from ridiculously low usage – 8 seconds of Live View, 60 seconds of motion-activated recording and 6 seconds of two-way audio. At least they are AA though. How they get 8 seconds of Live Viewing when it’s set at 10 seconds I cannot fathom. Perhaps they expect you to only do an average on a couple of live streams per week, not every time someone is at the door. 60 seconds of recording per day? With the extremely basic detection I doubt that. 60 minutes per day is good going.
Only the sync module uses your WiFi, the cameras attach to that, so WiFi coverage doesn’t mean anything, it’s range from the sync module. It’s a low frequency job so better at going through walls but check the comments, there’s plenty of complaints.
Because it’s in the cloud, latency on live views is a real problem. Even with local recording I’m not sure if you can cut the cloud out of the equation. I get the same issues with Hikvision but get over it locally because I can set the HikConnect app to connect to the cameras via their local IP.
I’ve just looked at local USB recording – it’s a local backup so everything is really cloud based. (When) the “Clip Backup” setting is enabled for a system, all files will be copied from the Cloud storage and any new files will be added daily. So it’s more to avoid cloud storage charges.
Amazon let local law enforcement access Ring clips at will, might want to check on Blink – especially any internal shots.
Plenty to think about. I’m afraid the CCTV world is full of compromises. Steve can tell you the difference between a cloud based 1080P and local 4mpx is like night and day, and that’s with quality commercial cameras.
That’s is a good point Ed. If we are upgrading a site we often leave the old cameras in place if they are at different locations to the new ones. Case in point was the Legion car park where the analogue system was on the car park lamp posts and the new IP ones are mounted on the building.
Your second point about IR wash out is why we use Hikvision Colorvu cameras in some locations. Real world comparison of the different techs here. They also use white light rather than IR when they need supplemental light. It tends to be for more up close work.
However we generally prefer AcuSense cameras as they can be set to trigger on human and / or vehicles cutting down the false alarms. They are powered by Dark Fighter tech so stay in colour in low light but not as low as Colorvu. They then use IR.
It’s for this sort of ability that you pay a little bit more, but looking at prices of “consumer” kit at the moment it’s not that much and cheaper than the likes of Nest which are ridiculously expensive. For about the cost of 3 of the top end Nest outdoor cameras (that approximate to Acusense) you could get 5 cameras professionally installed. They are only 1080P as opposed to 4mpx as well.
The Nest Cam Indoor is on sale at £90 (from £130) which is more like it. However only recordings in the last 3 hours are free. You need to factor in that pesky upload bandwidth too.
What I missed was they will take an M2 SSD for extra storage. No-one know the specs yet (probably have to be PCIe 4) but the key and lengths are standard.
W-O-F, that’s kidney stones. Gallstones are made of cholesterol and quite different. They can often be minute but then that makes a sludge that is just as troublesome.
OK, first thing is there isn’t really a non fiddly install for a camera going on the wall. Wireless is a possibility but rarely works outside and in any case you have to get power to the cameras. That’s where PoE comes in.
Normally we would wire external cameras back to a common point, often the loft, where we put a PoE switch. That reduces the need to drill holes through walls although of course you need to get from the loft to the network (usually the router in most homes). That may need a Cat 5e cable coming down and in. Down pipes and gutters are great for hiding cables.
Externally I would use 4mpx turret cameras that can detect humans (and / or vehicles) to cut down on false alarms. They are also extremely light sensitive and stay in colour 24 x 7 unless it’s pitch black (then IR kicks in).
Internally things are different and wireless can work well, you just need to plug the camera into the mains.
Storage, SD card or a suitable NAS (has to do user quotas). You don’t need an NVR, an app should bring it altogether. I only use NVRs on commercial installs of >4 cameras.
Cloud apps tend to cut down on quality. 5 cameras 10fps 1080P H264 needs 5mbps upload. I would usually use 4mpx 10fps H265 and that would need 6mbps. You may have that upload available, but a cloud provider needs massive incoming bandwidth. Hence you’ll see a lot are 720P.
An app and SD card setup would have a second lower quality (and so low bandwidth) feed for remote viewing. All recording and playback would be at full resolution. H265 compression is really a must.
Cameras stocks are still quite dodgy with some models, like the internal ones I use and the popular ones, in short supply.
What you could look at externally is the Reolink Solar at Amazon. I have used one on a house where I just had no other choice. It’s OK and the solar panel can keep the battery topped up, however they are highly nickable as the fixing is a joke. I had to put a wireless extender near to the front door to get enough signal to it. I see there is a new bullet version which may be more secure and even a PTZ.
The app does what it says on the tin but compared to the sort of kit I would use the build quality doesn’t come close and the prices are the same. However they may be the best fit for your needs and they certainly aren’t crap. If you are going wireless do your homework first and check the coverage at the places you want to mount the cameras.
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