4D Security

21/07/2025

Sorry, haven't posted for a little while.

Today I installed a new Hikvision intruder alarm system at a local chemist. Nice and easy to install and use. A bit of an improvement on the old system which was definitely showing signs of age!

14/06/2025

An eventful day!

Well, what a day yesterday became!

Yesterday's work was at Bexley Grammar School. A case of re-programming their speaker system, tracing out faults on non-working speakers and getting them all back online, and a bit of training for the new IT guys.

On the way home I wanted to drop in to Bioteknics to pick up some memory for my server which is running my VMs. Only having 32Gb was just not enough so I purchased 128Gb to give it a bit more to play with. Unfortunately, on my way back the M2 was closed so I ended up stuck in traffic. I spoke to the people at Bioteknics and we managed to work out a way for me to collect the memory as there was no way I'd make it there before they closed. They were great, and so I managed to collect it with no fuss at all.

When I got home I shut down the server and changed the memory. Restarted the server and checked everything was running smoothly and configured each of my VMs to have a bit more memory to work with. Everything was good.

And along came the thunder and lightning! The lighting was amazing and just lit up the sky continually for a good couple of hours. Unfortunately, with it came the rain. I've never seen anything like it, has to be the most torrential downpour I've ever seen. Went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea to find water pouring in through the back door and looking out into our back yard revealed our new swimming pool!!!

After dealing with that we started getting minor power dropouts followed by a complete blackout. That's when I discovered my UPS has packed up... batteries seem fine but the UPS would not change over, just a continual clicking as it tried and so all the computer equipment just powered down. New 2200VA UPS now on order to replace it.

It's now Saturday morning and everything seems to have settled down but it appears that Dover (and probably the rest of Kent) suffered from massive flooding. I have seen videos of rivers of water flowing down almost all areas of Dover and its surrounding areas. I've never seen anything like it before around here. I feel very sorry for all those people out there whose houses have been flooded and everything they own has gone... I just hope everyone is OK.

11/06/2025

Yesterday's work involved setting up a new computer, installing software and configuring. Moved across Hik-Central software for Access Control from old machine to new, set up new software VPN, and completed various other little tasks. Spent some time ensuring that all software was fully up-to-date. The old server was slow and tedious to work with making any task a real chore. The new server is now instantly responsive and works like a dream.

Yesterday's work involved setting up a new computer, installing software and configuring. Moved across Hik-Central software for Access Control from old machine

09/06/2025

Been fairly quiet lately. Did a small job last Friday installing a new dome camera into a meeting room and extending the monitor output to display cameras onto a new monitor. All this at Jenkins & Pain. Thanks Dave, Chris, and all your team - always a pleasure working there.

30/05/2025

Visited Hayes college and programmed 5 speakers ready for use. Also rewired the web relay and audio gateway.

29/05/2025

Finished installing all the new speakers at Harrow on the Hill college today and re-sited another. Off to Hayes College tomorrow to program up their speakers and get them ready for use.

28/05/2025

Back to Harrow on the Hill college today and started installing speakers!

27/05/2025

Visited Harrow Weald college today and re-sited a Netgenium speaker. Then I visited Harrow on the Hill college to survey for an additional 8 speakers.
A trip followed to Uxbridge college where I picked up the 8 speakers ready for installation. Brought them back with me, picked up some additional equipment, and then programmed all speakers ready for installation.

23/05/2025

Back to Jackson’s Fencing today to replace the faulty bullet camera on the workshop building. Turned out a little harder than expected, found 2 screws with rounded off heads and the other 2 had corroded into the housing. Managed to free them and drilled out the other 2. Replaced the whole plate and fitted a new 4MP ColorVu camera and set up.

Went on to cable in for the new camera in the new maintenance building and then installed and set up a nice new 4K turret camera.

Both added to the NVR.

Quite a good days work!

22/05/2025

Today I worked at Farnham Heath End School. I programmed and replaced a Netgenium speaker.
I then wired up a Web Relay to the Netgenium Gateway and carried out the programming to allow the firing of the digital inputs.
Once that was completed I installed the server software and carried out all the configuration required to get the system fully running.
And to finish, carried out a full training session on how to use the system with the client.

21/05/2025

A day of driving today! Visited HRUC colleges in Uxbridge, Hayes, Harrow Weald, and Richmond where I replaced faulty speakers with those that I programmed last Friday. Just under 250 miles travelled!

20/05/2025

Installed a nice new 4K camera today. Set up and tested with strobe light and siren.