home owner needs advice

By the way, do you know of any other groups that are similar to ASA?

Non that I have seen. To some degree it is why I am here.

I have dug through the BS and found a gem or two over the years.

Have a good weekend.

Les

Well, .... they'er always gonna be out there. We'll meet him again, no doubt about it.

LOL I actually have a few as customers. Not the real off the wall types but those that could be if the wind would change direction. :-) I help them until they don't want me to any more. :-) Oh, and they do pay me for my services.

Les

They tend to waste your time, pick your brain, and you know damn well he's going to screw it up somewhere.

do certain things and .... they like to do them too. So .... they take on the challange to learn about what ever it is that piques their interest. And ....that's ok ... if your fixing a lawnmower or your washing machine or whatever. But .... the security or your home and the welfare of your loved ones? You're reeally willing to risk the chance that you've forgotten or didn't learn about something that's vital and it doesn't work when and how it's supposed to and and someone gets hurt or dies???? Or you lose all your stuff when all it would have taken was a fraction of the value of what you've lost to have it done right. Amazing.

in their home or home invasions and they want to know how to send the signal to the IPHONE!!! JEEEEEZZZ.

Take my diy car maintenance.

I have no idea what goes on under a hood but by looking at what I need to change and how it's connected. I'll change out an alternator or stuff like that but I have never had the balls to tackle brakes - I try to stay away from stuff that may prove fatal if I screw it up.

The service supervisor at a previous company used to use a phrase he learned from a car mechanic - "I love guys to try to fix it themselves, I make a lot more money off of them."

On Friday, May 31, 2013 11:07:03 AM UTC-4, JoeRaisin wrote: Well, .... they'er always gonna be out there. We'll meet him again, no dou bt about it. >

Take my diy car maintenance. I have no idea what goes on under a hood but b y looking at what I need to change and how it's connected. I'll change out an alternator or stuff like that but I have never had the balls to tackle b rakes - I try to stay away from stuff that may prove fatal if I screw it up . The service supervisor at a previous company used to use a phrase he lear ned from a car mechanic - "I love guys to try to fix it themselves, I make a lot more money off of them."

I'll never forget the feeling of awe I had one time that I went out to help someone who called me because he couldn't find what was causing his system to false alarm.

He did the prewire himself for his new home. Apparantly when he got the pan el, he looked at the hookup diagram and literally wired all the zones in hi s system the way it looks in the diagram ... with one wire. That is .... on e wire was attached to terminal #1 and daisy chained in series to all the c ontacts. When he got to the last contact .... he ran the wire directly back to terminal #2 in the panel. And all the wiring was behind the walls. He used twisted wire and actually untwisted it so it wouldn't be "wasted" He was so proud that he had "saved" all that wire. I don't remember exactly ho w it wound up but he didn't call me back to fix his system. I'm guessing th at I must have told him that it could take an hour or a day to find out wha t the problem was.

He did the prewire himself for his new home. Apparantly when he got the panel, he looked at the hookup diagram and literally wired all the zones in his system the way it looks in the diagram ... with one wire. That is .... one wire was attached to terminal #1 and daisy chained in series to all the contacts. When he got to the last contact .... he ran the wire directly back to terminal #2 in the panel. And all the wiring was behind the walls. He used twisted wire and actually untwisted it so it wouldn't be "wasted" He was so proud that he had "saved" all that wire. I don't remember exactly how it wound up but he didn't call me back to fix his system. I'm guessing that I must have told him that it could take an hour or a day to find out what the problem was.

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Please let me be the first to say that there is a lesson in the above for "all of them guys" that may read the above in the future.

I an not going to point it out. If YOU are not sure what the lesson is PLEASE do not ask anyone here.

LOL

Thanks,

Les

If you don't already have a LinkedIn account, get one. There are lots of security related forums there. Some you need to apply to, but if you get on there look me up and ask to be my contact (along with other colleagues of yours).

I'm already a member on many of the invite-only forums and your association with others in the industry will get you "in". They are no-nonsense, no flaming, no personalia conflict forums.

Graham,

Thanks but no thanks. I had a Linkedin account but dropped it about a year ago. Never could get into it. Then there were those that wanted to be a contact that were not even closely related to the alarm industry??? They just wanted add to there list of contacts so they could include in there resume'. With respect to this social media stuff (facebook, etc.) some would say that I am more of a lone wolf that a social bunny. I kinda like it that way.

Have a good weekend.

Les

Yeah, I get invites all the time from people outside the industry - I always deny them. I have about 60 contacts that are power players, VP's and CEO's of manufacturers and distributors, plus alarmco owners. I always screen them before clicking "accept".

I never even considered adding my contacts to my resume, that would be a violation of their trust.

I mostly lurk in the forums. There is good stuff to be found, especially if you need to contact a high-level executive for a particular company.

Thanks, you too.

~G

On Saturday, June 1, 2013 2:25:54 AM UTC-4, G. Morgan wrote: If you don't already have a LinkedIn account, get one. There are lots of se curity related forums there. Some you need to apply to, but if you get on t here look me up and ask to be my contact (along with other colleagues of yo urs). I'm already a member on many of the invite-only forums and your assoc iation with others in the industry will get you "in". They are no-nonsense, no flaming, no personalia conflict forums. --

I'm On LinkedIn but it's related to my school reunion committee. Has all my personal stuff. But I'm always getting "updates" of who my classmates are linking up with. People I don't even know...... or care to know. I get invi tations to link with people I don't know ...... and don't want to know. I w ouldn't want any of my personal info getting out on a business group or vic e versa. I guess I could open up another profile but there are so few other people from my class on Linkedin that it's hardly worth the annoyance of g etting these profile updates and who's linked with who. I'm imagining that being part of a larger group that the influx of useless information would b e intolerable.

I'd be looking for a group that's somewhat similar to this but more active ...... I guess. I've thought of trying some of the trade magazine groups bu t the ones I've looked at so far are not too populated and posts seem to be weeks apart.

BTW... I'm not going to post my connections because that would be a violation of their trust. Some people pride themselves on creating a large network of people they don't know or heard of. I keep mine short and focused. If someone here (and some of you are) is a connection of mine, you'll see my connections too. So you have to be selective.

You know what's funny as hell? When I logged in this morning I had a request from a Subway "Sandwich Artist"!

And for those issues is mainly why I dropped it all. Graham you must have too much time on your hands or running on Metric Time or something. I have better things to do with mine than to investigate people that want to be my "friend".

As for the possible need to reach out and touch the right person in some issue of great concern................ I just pick up the phone and needle my way to the person that needs my input. Once had an issue with a major mfg. Went to their web page and pulled down every email address I could find and sent out a huge mailing on a Sunday night. I had a phone call on Monday morning and the problem was fixed. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Good luck with your investigations.

Les

LOL My point exactly.