Archive for June, 2009

Security Camera Systems – Let a professional do it!

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Security Camera Installation CT

Your office contains critical assets and information, and you should be able to see and control who has access to it. DTG can implement a wide range of technology-driven security solutions such as remote DVR and digital security camera systems or fingerprint scanners and access control systems. No matter how large or small your organization, we can recommend and install the security system to best fit your needs and keep your office safe and secure.

The biggest drawback stopping many people from buying CCTV cameras is concerns about the actual security camera installation. Installing CCTV cameras can have its problems, but these can be avoided with some good planning.

What to do before buying a Security Camera System

The most important factor is that you make sure you are buying the right system for your situation. A professional survey from DTG can help you identify both your needs and potential problems.

Ensuring there is adequate power outlets

A common problem with security cameras is the lack of a nearby power source, especially for outdoor CCTV installations. It’s not very wise to step outside with your security camera system in hand only to discover that there’s no power source.

Know where your outlets are before you buy. If you know potential power problems up front, you can get good advice from sales representatives or even CCTV installers before you buy. Their expert suggestions may take you in an entirely different direction than you might have gone without it.

If power connectivity is a challenge before your security camera system installation, you have several options to resolve it. You can have new power connections installed at the different location of your business or home. Alternatively, you can go for a system that draws power from a battery. There are even solar security cameras available for locations with lots of light.

Security Lighting

With any outdoor security camera system installation lighting is another important consideration. If you want to monitor an area at night, you must ensure the area has enough lighting for the camera to display images clearly. You can either do this by installing some outdoor floodlights, or you can choose a camera with low light ratings (known as lux), or even a camera with infrared capability.

Weather and Climate factors

With any outdoor security camera installation, a strong and durable camera dome is essential to weather the elements.

Depending on the climate in your location, you may need to consider the temperature ranges your system will need to endure. Not many CCTV cameras can work in extreme temperatures in hot climates, or very low temperatures in cold climates. Make sure the system you choose to install will work all year round in your climate. Most include a heater and a fan to maintain the temperature inside the dome.

Cabled or Wireless Cameras?

The final factor to preplan in any security camera installation is cables. Running cables from your camera to your control point can be the most time-consuming task for CCTV installers.

With the reliability of wireless systems, extensive cabling may be unnecessary. If you are installing wireless security cameras, though, you still need to preplan your installation to ensure success.

The signal range of wireless cameras is normally adequate for most installations. Ranges do vary though and can be reduced by walls and obstacles between the receiver and the camera. Don’t be put off by the presence of walls or objects, just bear in mind the more objects there are, the shorter the distance can be between the receiver and the camera. You therefore need to plan beforehand what distances and what obstacles are in the path of the signal. If you are worried, go for wireless security systems with stronger signal strengths.

Ultimately, installing security cameras is well within the ability of a competent do-it-yourselfer. Complications arise mainly when a buyer brings home a system that doesn’t fit their situation and then struggles to make it fit. If you determine your needs ahead of time and get competent advice, your CCTV installation should be manageable, whether you do it yourself, or use professional CCTV installers.

Headquartered in Connecticut, Diversified Technologies Group, Inc., is committed to providing quality IT and video solutions that enable our clients to build and maintain their infrastructure more cost effectively. We can provide everything from a fully managed IT solution, to a project based service, to an extra set of hands for your next network upgrade.

It might be raining outside, but the staff at DTG are cooking up new program applications.

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Custom website programming and design

It’s amazing how quickly June has come and gone. Still waiting for the sunny 100 degrees days without the rain. Seems like a good time to evaluate your current website and look at its track record. If your website has never been changed, maybe you should think about the future and where technology can help you gain a much bigger customer base.

Since 1993, DTG has provided custom programming, custom software solutions and software integration services for a wide variety of industries. We deliver value by designing and building custom business software solutions designed to improve the operating performance of your company. Our experienced software developers can help you evaluate your business software needs and build a custom software product tailored to the specific needs of your business. In addition to custom programming, DTG also offers software consulting services and assistance in software design, custom software development and implementation of proven, cost effective business software solutions. At DTG we are professional web developers that care about custom programming and client success which is our number one priority. We currently provide custom software programming services for a wide variety software applications and languages.

Does your organization need an eCommerce web site? Can’t find an “web based” solution that suits your requirements? DTG can help with your web database development needs. We combine superior web database design and high performance web database programming to create an optimum professional database driven website for your business. DTG’s web database programmers use the latest .NET application development methodologies and web database design tools for web database development. Our custom database development team supports current Microsoft web development technologies including all .NET versions and, if you have other business processes that need to communicate with your corporate website, our database integration team can help you tie it all together. Contact DTG today for custom database programming, custom web programming, and custom web site database development.

DTG works with companies that range in size from small family owned businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Our custom business software will help you streamline business processes, reduce errors, and raise employee productivity. We can put your company on the Internet. If you need it, we can build it for you, using your own specifications..

Proposed custom software is defined and a software requirements document is created. If existing software is to be replaced, the existing software is evaluated to identify software and processing deficiencies. The results of the existing software evaluation are then added to the new software application requirements. In particular, the new software design must address the functional requirements and any deficiencies in the existing software application, with specific proposals for improvement of the software functionality. The software design document is completed and plans are laid out concerning the physical construction, hardware, operating systems, programming, communications, and security issues.
The custom software is developed in accordance with the software development plan. The new components and custom programs are tested and installed. Business software users must be trained in its use, and all aspects of specific and performance must be tested and verified. If necessary, software modifications, adjustments or enhancements should be made at this stage. The custom business software application is put into use. This can be done in various ways. The new system can be phased in, according to application or location, and the old software gradually replaced. In some cases, it may be more cost-effective to shut down the old system and implement the new software all at once. This decision can also be influenced by any special interface or software integration requirements. Users of the custom software should be kept up-to-date concerning the latest software modifications and procedural changes.
Do you need custom database software development to power your business? Our database consulting team and experienced database development professionals can design and build a custom database solution that addresses your unique business requirements and innovative software strategies. Our custom database software process includes documentation of your project objectives, a comprehensive study of your business processing rules, a detailed system design including user interface requirements, processing rules and requirements, database design and database model, as well as detailed testing and implementation plans. Our database programmers use the latest Microsoft tools and methods to create a quality custom database solution for your business.

Call DTG today to find out how our custom software solutions can improve the performance of your business.

SEO and the Basics

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

SEO CT

Most large companies have their own website. Their (IT) organization has or hires employees like, a web developer (back end), web designer (front end), graphic designer (look & feel), Webmaster, site manager, content managers, text-editors, marketing managers, web hosting providers and site promoters, or they hire professional web design- and SEO companies. In any way, such companies have better (financial) opportunities to create and promote a website then most individuals or small business companies have. This means that you need to have a lot of different skills to reach the ultimate goal; ‘get a prominent position/ranking in the major Search Engines (SE’s)’. Search engines including Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Sounds hopeless? No, it isn’t, because if I can do it, you can do it too. I also started once with a personal website and got interested in organic SEO. So I started reading, subscribed to some good SEO newsletters, visit specific SEO forums and read some books about SEO, design, marketing and writing and one of the most important things, I visit and analyze the websites of my competitors. The only problem is (for me it is a challenge) that the development in the ‘SEO-world’ never stops, you have to keep yourself up with the developments of the major search engines and directories and stay up-to-date by reading prominent articles and regular visit SEO forums. I do that by subscribing to some interesting RSS feeds, which I read with my (free) Google RSS reader.

Just remember that all information you need to learn about SEO is free on the web. You only need to know where to find it. And you need some talent to distinguish all this information from what is true and what is not (or what is something in between).

Simple rules to follow are:

Make a good plan what you want to do with your website

Know exactly who your audience (customer) is

Learn about your direct competitors (just have a critical look at their websites and learn from the good things (their success) and avoid the bad things.

Make ‘your’ website unique, comparing to your competitors. Do something different that others don’t do to attract visitors. Distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Build a simple sitemap to help the search engines . On this page you show (only normal text, no graphics etc.) a complete overview of all your pages, sub pages or topics. A sitemap is easy to access for robots to find and index all your website pages.

Do not use too many graphics, graphics can’t be seen by robots, but if you do, then always use the alt-tag with keyword rich text, to describe the specific graphic. Keep the alt-text ‘natural’ otherwise it will include to much spam for the SE’s.

Use an easy-to-access navigation bar at the top or left top of all your pages, but also at the bottom of all your pages. Make it for the visitor easy to navigate through your website. If a visitor gets lost after page 2, it will immediately leave your site!

Just remember, don’t overdo it. It’s not easy to find the balance between copy written for search engines and copy written for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult to achieve without professional help. Don’t worry, though. If you’ve already performed your keyword analysis, a professional website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword phrases into your copy at no extra charge.

When in doubt, call the professionals at DTG. They will show you the various ways to get your website in the top listings of most search engines and show you how to keep your website in the rankings.