The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to dramatically change our customers’ security and video surveillance system needs. Where past concerns were primarily focused on intrusion detection, shoplifting and/or vandalism, and life safety, now added to these issues are concerns about the spreading of the coronavirus from proximity to an infected person. 

The last two months have been interesting, to say the least. What’s the report from the Universal Headquarters of Slayton Solutions at the bunker in Bucktown Chicago? Well, the reality of the COVID-19 attack has changed a whole lot of things for us, and created some interesting opportunities to do things differently.

Hopefully, by the time this column is published, we will be over the hump of the COVID-19 outbreak. But while I hope for the best, I strongly suspect that viral infection fears may change the game for many industries, as small and large public meetings (such as my ADI Expo presentations and training classes) may be curtailed or delayed.

In the continuing chronicle of assisting my 92-year old mother and smoothing out her stay-in-place lifestyle, I try to visit her at least once every 10 days or so.

It’s an obvious fact that almost all modern communications and connectivity use the internet and Wi-Fi devices. Whether it’s a streaming media stick in the back of your video monitor or a wireless IP camera, just about everything has some wireless connection to the internet.

Growing older certainly has its advantages — I am but four months from Medicare and can’t wait to dramatically reduce my healthcare insurance costs. But there are other things that make life more complicated as I get older. 

The explosive growth in the installation of IP-enabled devices for both residential and commercial customers continues with no end in sight. From smart thermostats to “connected” exercise bikes, just about everything in a home or business is getting hooked up for monitoring and control

Regardless what type of connectors (LC, SC or ST) and what size fiber (50, 62.5 or 9 micron) there are three ways to test the functionality of a new or existing fiber link.

One of the many beautiful things about fiber optic technology is that most cable types and sizes have been standardized since the late 1980s