Dial-up security/automation assistance request

Check out Smarthome.com. And there a others, of the same type of equpment distributors.

They've got a catalogs that they'll send you also. There are a number of "stand alone" items that can be utilized over regular telephone lines. Anything that you do with a computer program is going to be somewhat limited by dialup. There are a number of X10 (compatable) devices that can be controled via dialup. It's not too sophisticated and not 100% reliable ( nothing is), but it can get the job done. The key to remote sending and monitoring via X10 compatable products, is to create some kind of "verification" that the events you trigger, actually did occur or didn't fail. Such as ..... if you have a remote controlled heating thermostat ..... you should have a seperate reporting low temperature alert too. Water shut off should be backed up with water sensors ..... and so on. By the way, most of this is done over your existing 110VAC power wiring in the home. Which would mean you'd have to leave the circuits that these devices were operating on, powered up when you weren't there. And of course, you have to have some idea of how reliable the telephone service is going to be too.

Advice: forget using the Internet.

IF you're going to use Windows, put a modem on the box, set it for 'auto- answer', and configure _RAS_. Then, you can, from another modem-equipped Windows box, dial out _directly_ to the box at the cabin, and do whatever needs doing.

I don't know anything about it, but I know the HA software that I use (CQC - charmedquark.com) has an SMS modem driver. Rather than leave a machine hooked up to a phone line (and connected), you could research what it would take to send/receive messages over SMS for control.

FWIW, I'd be concerned about hooking up a security system to an always-kind-of-on connection like dial-up. Too flaky, too exposed.