Guard your home with your PC

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta

As you always do, before your left your house this morning you made sure that you had securely locked all doors and windows. However, when you came home after a long day at work, you got a really nasty surprise. The front door was not damaged, there was no sign of forced entry. But, inside, it was a mess. Obviously, someone had been there while you were away.

There are several ways to prevent this kind of scenario from happening. A non-technology-based solution is to keep a vicious dog at home. However, burglars sometimes have the heart to poison your pet in order to get access to your bedroom, where you keep your cash and jewelry.

Another common type of protection is to install an alarm system. When a wired door or window is opened while the system is on, a loud noise is emitted. You can add to your alarm system what is called a "screamer" to get the burglar running away at top speed. Unfortunately, the high-decibel noise will continue until the system is turned off, often long after the burglars have disappeared. Who will turn it off if you are not there? Besides, sophisticated burglars of today may use a radio- frequency jammer to disable your system.

Other home security systems, such as the Night and Day home alarm system offered by Indonesian company Afiscom, will automatically send an alert message to your cell phone or fixed phone. You have to enter the same numbers you used to configure the system, and it will dial them in turn until the alert is delivered. At least it makes you aware that something has happened at home.

A better option is to sign a contract with a home security company. They will install a monitoring system in your home, which is linked 24 hours a day to their command center. This system will alert them if something suspicious is taking place at home. The company can then alert the police or quickly dispatch their own security personnel to your home to check it out. This is quite an effective protection for your property, although it will cost you a premium.

If you have a home computer with a broadband connection to the Internet, you actually have a low-cost home security system. It is not as effective as a contract with a security company, of course, but it costs a lot less.

What you need to do is place one or more covert cameras in strategic places inside your house. There is plenty of choice when it comes to hidden cameras. They can be disguised in a clock, in a boombox or in a decoration strategically placed in your living room. Go to spytown.com/covertcameras.html if you want to see the cameras that SpyTown sells. Wireless cameras are preferable. All you need to do is connect these covert cameras to your home computer, which must be turned on all the time.

There are various software programs that can capture the image and detect motions. One of them is Gotcha! (www.gotchanow.com). When the software detects something suspicious, it will notify you. It can even e-mail you the image that it captured when someone rang your doorbell. A similar product is i-Catcher Sentry (www.icode.co.uk/icatcher/). Both can record images for investigation purposes.

Some sophisticated remote monitoring systems allow you to tilt and pan the camera from a remote computer. Go to //208.255.86.12/ViewerFrame?Mode=Motion if you want to see this in action. To enter, use the word "guest" (without the quotation marks) as the name, and "demo" as the password.

Complete home security systems are also available on the market. Visual Security (www.visualsecurity.com), for example, offers a complete package that it calls Visual Sentry. These packages are not available here in Jakarta, unfortunately, but if you want to have some fun, then you can build your own PC-based home security system. Just remember that no single security method can offer the ultimate protection. If you live in Jakarta, a lot of prayer and careful judgment must also be added to your daily home security menu.