That's $75 off list and the lowest price around by at least $50. Plus: a killer tablet bonus deal!

iSmartAlarm

Home security is a tricky business. Professional systems can be expensive, to say nothing of the monthly monitoring costs, and camera-based systems are a hassle to install (and not really a deterrent unless the thief sees he's being recorded).

Somewhere in the middle lies a new generation of Internet- and app-savvy DIY solutions. Like this one: Today only, and while supplies last, Best Buy has the iSmartAlarm Preferred Package wireless security system for $124.99 shipped (plus tax). It lists for $199 and sells elsewhere for $179.

Intended for smaller homes (but scalable for larger ones), the bundle includes two door/window sensors, two remote tags, a motion sensor, a pair of window stickers (great deterrents themselves) and the CubeOne central hub/siren.

Save for that hub, which requires an Ethernet connection to your router and AC power, all these components are wireless and battery-powered. Installation: fast and painless.

Better still, the system requires no contracts or monthly fees. Everything is controlled via Android or iOS app (and also by the two remotes, which actually allow for quicker, easier arming and disarming). If something triggers an alarm, you get a text message (identifying exactly which sensor was triggered) and an automated phone call.

The system does not, however, call the police -- which in some respects could be a benefit. A few of my relatives have company-monitored alarm systems, and false alarms (always when they're away) have proven to be a costly hassle. (Apparently there are additional charges if the company has to dispatch the police.) Here, you call in the cavalry only when you're certain it's necessary.

CNET had mostly positive things to say about the iSmartAlarm, the exception being the hard-to-configure remote camera (which isn't included in this bundle, so problem solved!). I'd say if you own a small home and want a sophisticated, decidedly affordable security system, this deserves a close look.

Bonus deal: It's not Tablet Tuesday, but I can't let this go by: For a limited time, and while supplies last, A4C has the refurbished Lenovo IdeaTab A2109 9-inch Android tablet for $74.99 shipped. (The listing page calls it the "IdeaPad," but it's definitely an IdeaTab.) I'll let CNET's review fill you in on the key details, noting that it was based on a $300 price tag. I've rarely seen a tablet this big for this little money. Could be ideal for a nightstand, coffee table or minivan backseat!

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Get an iSmartAlarm home-security system for $124.99

Veronica Sanchez, 12 News 12:50 p.m. MST October 19, 2014

Sid and Ilene Reiff spend a lot of time at their Sun Lakes home. She's in hospice care and in bed most of time.

They've been married 25 years. "It feels like 40, but don't put that on the camera," joked Sid when we visited him at his home.

He contacted Call 12 for Action after he was unable ato cancel his contract with Monitronics Security, the alarm company that serviced his property. He reached representatives at the company and told them his wife was in hospice care at home.

Ilene suffers from COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and needs oxygen 24 hours a day. Because she's at home, the couple didn't need a security-alarm system anymore. When Sid Reiff explained that to company representatives this summer, he didn't get much sympathy, he said.

"They weren't interested. They wrote back, you're responsible for the contract," Sid said. "I was a little annoyed, and I told them I'm not paying any more money."

Our volunteers worked with Rob Washington, Monitronics customer service vice president, to get Sid's contract canceled. He no longer is bound to a three-year deal, meaninag he can concentrate on taking care of his wife without the stress of an unnecessary monthly payment.

"Thank you," Sid said.

Call 12 for Aciton saved him $1,900.

"It feels fine. It's in my pocket, not theirs," he said.

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With ill wife at home, man tried to cancel security contract

Home Security System #Lehigh Valley #Allentown #Bethlehem
Home Security System #Lehigh Valley #Allentown #Bethlehem.

By: Altronics Security

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Home Security System #Lehigh Valley #Allentown #Bethlehem - Video

MONTEREY >> Your home may be your castle, but home-improvement vendors from all over the Central Coast lined up Saturday at the Monterey County Fair and Events Center to tell homeowners how they can turn that castle into a palace.

The Inspired Home Expo of Monterey, a free event that continues from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, features guest speakers on home-improvement topics such "Designing Rooms in Your Garden" by author/TV celebrity Steven Katkowsky, scheduled at 2:15 p.m. Sunday. Saturday's attendees heard Katkowsky on "Creating the Illusion of Size in Your 5x8 Bathroom," and Graniterock's Keith Severson, who conducted a "Patio Design" workshop.

"This is a product that is very unique it's called ICF block, and the ICF stands for insolating concrete forms," explained Brooke Lewis of Siesta Spas, a Carmel company that specializes in energy-efficient backyard hot tubs. "They build homes all over the world out of this product, but we use it to build hot tubs."

The idea, he says, is to build the hot tub using Styrofoam blocks separated by metal, then pour concrete between the Styrofoam blocks, creating "totally insulated concrete."

He then covers the insulated concrete with ornate rock and/or tile for a striking aesthetic.

"A rock and tile hot tub doesn't hold the heat, and it costs way too much energy to keep it hot," said Lewis, who sat surrounded by photos of picturesque backyard spas. "With this technology, we can now use the standard equipment that's used for every portable hot tub, and that equipment will keep big hot tubs hot. It's like putting coffee in a really good Thermos: At the end of the day you can open that Thermos and the coffee will still be piping hot."

Rows of vendors filling two indoor buildings and an outdoor corridor pitched water-conservation methods, home security systems, decorative windows, bamboo privacy hedges, landscaping, custom bathrooms and space-saving technology such as a modern-day Murphy bed that electronically lowers from a wall.

"We started our business after we built our own house because we knew we would end up looking after my parents, and also my wife's mom. We knew our little tract home wasn't going to do it," said Richard Muench, who, with his wife, Ann, started an East Bay company called Residential Elevators.

Muench figured out that building a home with vertical space costs far less in California than purchasing enough property for a spacious, one-story house.

"Because of the cost of land in California, it's cheaper to go up than out," Richard Muench said.

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From castle to palace, Inspired Home Expo has answers

Friday October 17, 2014 10:58 AM UPDATED: Saturday October 18, 2014 10:18 PM

Rebecca Berte is a busy mother of two small children, but she says she and her husband occasionally enjoy a weekend getaway and leave the kids at home with the grandparents.

"Whenever we went, we didn't feel like we were getting the full story. Everything's fine, always but that's not always the case, laughed Berte.

The family invested in a small security camera and downloaded a free mobile app called Dropcam. And now big brother, or in this case, mother, can use her smart phone to check in with home.

I'll just take a peek and see what they're doing, how they're behaving, if they're eating dinner.

Chuck Groezinger's home security company, Advanced Wiring Services, is also incorporating an app called Total Connect to help homeowners feel secure.

Groezinger says wherever you are, you can use your smart phone to arm (or disarm) the alarm, change the temperature in the house, or even turn on a light before you get home. Groezinger says he doesn't believe the apps can replace a traditional home security system.

"You need the police to be on their way. Of course, I think everybody should have a security system.

Motion or "glass break" detectors alert an alarm company to call the police, but if in-home security cameras detect motion, the app also alerts the homeowner, who can use their phone to record the images.

Groezinger says clients tell him its a terrible feeling when someone has violated the sanctity of your home.

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Homeowners Can Now Monitor Their Belongings Through A Number Of Apps

San Diego Home Security Alarm Systems | CALL 1-800-299-7279 | Security ONE Alarms
San Diego, CA Home Security Systems - Call 1.800.299.7279 today for Top Rated Home Security Alarm Systems provider in San Diego, California CA and surroundin...

By: Security One

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San Diego Home Security Alarm Systems | CALL 1-800-299-7279 | Security ONE Alarms - Video

Home Security Systems San Francisco CA | CALL 1-800-299-7279 | SecurityOneOnline.com
San Francisco, CA Home Security Systems - Call 1.800.299.7279 today for Top Rated Home Security Alarm Systems provider in San Francisco, California CA and su...

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BEST Home Security in the Lehigh Valley #Allentown #Bethlehem #Easton
Best Home Security in the Lehigh Valley. WHEN SELECTING A SECURITY COMPANY FOR YOUR HOME AND YOUR FAMILY , REPUTATION AND LONGEVITY IS EVERYTHING. DON #39;T TRUS...

By: Art Kardos

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BEST Home Security in the Lehigh Valley #Allentown #Bethlehem #Easton - Video

The term home automation system is a lot like the word groceries. Its a mixed bag that depends on your tastes and what you need to accomplish when you get home.

What most systems have in common is a hub, a small box that contains the systems brain. It works with a smartphone or other device to give you remote control and monitoring. From there, you shop for the system that gives you the features you want a few or many.

These smart home hubs promise to bring a little gravity to your connected universe.

SmartThings

CNET rating: 4 stars out of 5 (Excellent)

The good: With easy-to-install security sensors, wide product compatibility, and no monthly fees, SmartThings gets home automation right. In addition to home security, kits are available for lighting, water detection and energy use. We love that its compatible with IFTTT, the service that enables users to connect different Web applications (Facebook, Evernote, Weather, Dropbox, etc.) together through simple conditional statements known as Recipes.

The bad: The SmartThings Hub is a little limited in terms of range. Also, the newly redesigned SmartThings app feels overcrowded with redundant features.

The cost: Kits starting at $199 at https://shop.smartthings.com.

The bottom line: If youre looking for an easy and (relatively) affordable entry point into home automation, then SmartThings makes a lot of sense.

Lutron Smart Bridge

Read more here:
4 hubs to consider to run your home automation system

The JPMorgan Chase data breach rocked headlines early this month as the latest in a series of breaches hitting nearly a dozen financial companies in 2014 alone. The news also follows similar breach disclosures from Target, Home Depot, Albertsons and others.

The massive security breach compromised 76 million households and seven million small business accounts. As a result, the bank will no doubt spend millions of dollars over the next few months repairing the extensive damage and working to restore its reputation.

As if the sheer reach of the JPMorgan Chase breach itself isnt bad enough, it spotlights an inherent flaw with most modern information security architectures. Specifically, state-of-the-art prevention technologies are not 100 percent foolproof for detecting and blocking persistent attackers.

Several industry analyst firms like Gartner, for example recognize that decades of information security prevention systems have failed to produce an architecture that can stop committed attackers, and in response, theyre making a dramatic shift in their recommendations to security practitioners.

The good news and yes, there is good news is that JPMorgan Chase was able to identify the network breach and remove the offending malware before any highly-compromising confidential data was stolen and before irreparable harm was done to customer accounts.

According to a filing made by JPMorgan Chase with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, only names, addresses and emails were exfiltrated in the breach. There was no theft of money, account information like credit card numbers, passwords or social security numbers stolen.

Considering many of the other recent breaches in which highly confidential customer information was stolen, this is a success. While a network breach is never good, JPMorgan Chase was able to stop the data exfiltration before it reached a scale that would have caused irreparable harm to customer accounts and corporate brand equity.

Organizations have a lot to learn from JPMorgan Chase on how it caught the attackers before they were able to cause significant damage. There are also several noteworthy lessons learned in understanding why the financial institutions experience was so different from Targets disastrous breach, which resulted in the loss of 40 million customer credit cards.

There are a handful of large and highly profitable organizations like JPMorgan Chase that have vast resources dedicated to information security. With billions of dollars of annual IT budgets, these elite organizations can afford to buy the latest and greatest network logging and security analytics products, and hire large groups of security analysts to filter through and triage the hundreds and thousands of false positive alerts that are generated daily by these products. Wading through all of these alerts takes a considerable amount of time and can consume a team of analysts full-time.

Targets much smaller security team, on the other hand, wasnt able to keep up with the high volume of alerts being generated by its security infrastructure, which involved many of the exact same technologies used by JPMorgan Chase. Its well-documented that Target had deployed many state-of-art security products in its network that produced numerous alerts that a breach was occurring very similar to the situation at JPMorgan Chase. The problem is that those alerts were buried within thousands of other simultaneous false positive alerts, making it extremely difficult for Targets much smaller security staff to react and take action. Mainstream security products, including intrusion detection systems (IDS), sandboxing and security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, are all known to create very high ratios of false positives sometimes on the order of thousands per day.

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A Silver Lining in the JP Morgan Breach?