Here at JMAC, we try our best to inform our customers about not only the best technology to protect their home, but also the best practices that they can take in their every day life to secure their home. To help illustrate the best ways to protect your home from burglars, we have put together a guide on the best ways to deter a burglar. While most people determine that an alarm system is the ideal way to determine theft, by reading the attached infographic, you'll find that there are a few other steps you can take as precautions. Let us know if you think we missed anything!
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
How to Deter a Burglar
Here at JMAC, we try our best to inform our customers about not only the best technology to protect their home, but also the best practices that they can take in their every day life to secure their home. To help illustrate the best ways to protect your home from burglars, we have put together a guide on the best ways to deter a burglar. While most people determine that an alarm system is the ideal way to determine theft, by reading the attached infographic, you'll find that there are a few other steps you can take as precautions. Let us know if you think we missed anything!
Thursday, April 18, 2013
JMAC Supply Goes Back, Back, Wayback!
JMAC Supply’s rich and storied
history dates back a little over four years. From a strong start in the Sealed
Lead Acid Battery industry, we have cemented our place in the retail Security
and Surveillance industry, providing a unique solution to the DIY Security market
as well as Installers, Enterprise Technicians and just about anyone else who
needs the best equipment coupled with industry leading technical support and
customer service. JMAC Supply has always and will always keep our customers at
the focus of what we do and you reward us with your support, positive reviews
and communication.
But to know where you’re going, you have to look at where
you’ve been. Here at JMAC Supply HQ, we decided to take a trip through time,
using the Wayback Machine! This useful utility shows bookmarks of how your site
used to appear over the course of the previous years. We invite you to
reminisce with us, by viewing the previous iterations of JMAC Supply’s site: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jmacsupply.com
As always, we want to thank you for being a continued
customer of JMAC Supply and we hope we can grow together over the coming years
and if the past is any indication, we have a bright future ahead of us!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Honeywell L5100 Lynx Touch: The Alarm System for the Connected Home
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| Honeywell's newest product, the L5100, pictured with the contents of the L5100PK |
Honeywell also couples the robust L5100 with Total Connect 2.0 services, which can control those Z-Wave integrated devices as well as any cameras you may have installed. With Total Connect 2.0, you can control your temperature, locks, lights and any other security system devices from either the L5100 or the MID-7H. Not to mention with the WiFi communicator, VoIP customers no longer have to worry about disruptions in their service or the performance of their alarm panel due to the poor integrity of VoIP lines.
The full Total Connect 2.0 service also pushes pertinent information such as weather, traffic and recent news straight to your dashboard on the L5100, which features a vivid, full color graphic touchscreen display that is not only intuitive but aesthteically pleasing.
For those looking for a complete out the box solution for a brand new alarm system, the L5100PK is the ideal package of choice as it features three door or window transmitters, a remote keyfob and a motion sensor. It goes without saying that the L5100 is Honeywell's newest intended game changer and it looks like they're nailing a home run in the internet connected residential market.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
GE 250-CO Carbon Monoxide Detector
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| The GE 250-CO Carbon Monoxide Detector |
This winter has been an unusually warm one, for sure. A lot of people have taken the opportunity to wear shorts in the middle of January (much to the chagrin of some). However, as unseasonably warm as our weather has been, we at J. Mac Supply want to take the opportunity to nudge all of our readers with a friendly warning.
Even though the temperatures have been balmier than usual this winter, we still have been using gas to heat our homes, cooked our meals with the windows closed and in other ways been exposed to the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning in our homes. That's why J. Mac Supply is offering everyone the industry leading GE-250-CO Carbon Monoxide Detector at an unbeatable price.
The GE-250-CO Carbon Monoxide Detector is definitely one of our favorite life safety devices here at J. Mac Supply. We stand by it's efficiency, versatility and quality. It's definitely bar-none one of the best Hard-wired CO Detectors on the market (meaning it must be used with a wired alarm system – it is not a standalone device).
To ensure that all of our customers have a happy, safe and warm winter (we can't ensure that last part, but we're hoping it stays warm as much as you are!), we're having a blowout sale on the 250-CO Carbon Monoxide Detector.
Until Monday, February 13th, we're offering unbeatable pricing on the GE 250-CO and 250-CO Kit with the adapter plate, which is used for upgrading existing installations of the GE 240-COe to the 250-CO.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
SOPA/PIPA - American Censorship Defined
by: J. Mac Supply
SOPA and PIPA. In the last few months we've heard a lot about these two acts whose bills are currently making their way through both houses of Congress. But what exactly are they? Most people heard "internet censorship" and were immediately up in arms, but SOPA and PIPA go much deeper than that.
SOPA has been designed to become the flaming sword of American censorship, throwing out the window key judicial proceedings such as Due Process. Instead, SOPA gives the US federal government the same freedoms it enjoyed under the "Patriot Act"; that is, shoot first and ask questions later. What's even more dangerous is that SOPA/PIPA allows for the United States government to target parts of a website or the entire website itself, based on criteria that they have self-defined, to remove it if it is deemed that the aforementioned website is infringing upon even one copyright. That means a wide range of websites that millions of people traffic daily can be taken down within a matter of a day or two because of one infringing page.
YouTube, anyone?
And when all things are considered, it's not surprising who are the major backers of this bill; the MPAA, RIAA and U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Not to mention, provisions in the bill would allow for arrests leading to jail time up to six months. We can all understand why piracy is illegal and wrong, but do people really need to go to jail over a copy of Cars 2?
But on a much more practical note, SOPA and PIPA are death threats for small businesses. With the explosive growth of the internet, we've seen tens of thousands of companies take off over the past ten years, thanks to the internet's ease of communication. However, under SOPA and PIPA, if a copyright holder determines that a website is infringing upon a copyright, they can have that website blacklisted from the internet. While this makes some sort of sense for real IP holders, the devil is in the details.
You see, there isn't any official judiciary process to having this done. All that the rights holder needs to establish is that there is a 'good faith belief' that this offending website is distributing copywritten material and within five days Google must remove that website from it's search engines, payment processors must stop accepting payments for any goods or services and your local internet service provider must block their domain. To make it even worse, this extends to any site that your site is linking to. If a company protected under SOPA determines that a site you are linking to is hosting offending content then there is a chance that you can be taken offline too.
So if this blatant censorship and American tyranny scares you as much as it scares us, as well as millions of other small businesses and individuals across the country that support this economy more than the MPAA and RIAA do, then do us all a favor and reach out to your local representative, here (courtesy of Wikipedia). If we keep allowing lobbyists to make decisions in our country, then soon we won't have a country.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Muxlab CAT5 Video Balun – The True Connected Solution
By: Kyle CalhounIt's funny, because a lot of people don't know what baluns are. Even those really geeky "home theater" know-it-alls. I should know, because I consider myself to be one. There used to be many situations you could throw at me and I could give you a quick clean solution, or find one that could do the job, because that's what I did.
Then one day I inadvertedly had the gauntlet laid down on me. I had just bought a fancy new 55" Plasma TV for the basement, went through everything I could to block out all ambient light (a must for Plasma televisions) and hooked up my PS3. Of course, it worked out amazing and for the next few days I video gamed and saw blu-ray movies in a way I had never seen them before. It was crisp, clean and exiting.
The coming weeks were not so exciting at all. Between my fiancee wanting to watch Netflix or movies in the living room, my main computer being upstairs on the second floor in our office and my Apple TV being connected in our bedroom, I was running into a pinch. My devices were spread too thin around the household and I didn't have an effective way to route them, a very common problem in a lot of households. The easy (and very expensive) way out would have been to just buy devices to suit those needs; a secondary laptop for the basement that I could hook up via HDMI, an internet-connected TV for the living room (even though my 50" still works very well, so why replace it?) and a slew of new HDMI cables to connect everything. However, I assumed there was a better way.
I did some research. I tried out a lot of the products available. As a word of warning, Wireless HDMI is not where a lot of people think it's at. It's decent technology, but not ideal if you want the best of the best, like the cinephiles I know. So, after that didn't pan out, I tried working with extending HDMI cable throughout the house, but before I even purchased anything I realized I'd need upwards of 1,000 ft of HDMI for the complex installation I had in mind and I couldn't bear to part with the money.
What I ended up doing, was going the Muxlab CAT5 Balun route. Their products are absolutely incredible and all my customers know why I recommend it. They allow you to take the signal, whether it's composite, HDMI, Coax Cable (great for CCTV installers, by the way), or many other common audio video connections and run that signal across Cat 5 ethernet cable, which is the cable you plug into your computer for internet, for the laypeople out there. When you compare Cat 5 cable to HDMI cable, the cost is unbeatable.
So I started with the Muxlab 500405 HDMI IR and Extender Kit, which comes with two baluns for each end of the Cat 5 cable. This particular balun required two seperate Cat 5 cable, because of the high-bandwidth of 1080p video resolution, but it was well worth it. I moved all of our primary devices to the living room in a little Home Theater rack I got from Target and ran the Cat5 down to the basement, with the other HDMI on the end. It worked flawlessly. I no longer had to worry about moving the PS3 around the house, not to mention it worked well for any HDMI device I had in that rack. Not to mention, HDMI can't extend 300 ft, on it's own. The signal degredation pretty much cancels out all the signal, at that length.
After I installed the 500405 balun, I ended up picking up a Muxlab 500070 USB 4 Port Extender Hub. I ran that from my main computer in the living room down to the basement, allowing me full control over my computer which was over 250 ft away, on my brand new 55" television. Now that I found the solution for wiring HDMI cable over long distances, my next hobby project is going to be setting up cable drops in each room of the house to connect directly to the TV and you better believe I'm going to be using the Muxlab 500302 CATV Balun II for that, too! Coaxial cable is about as expensive as HDMI cable, plus suffers from the same range issues. Now a days, I tell all my friends, family and customers to just wire their house with ethernet cable. Regardless of what signal you want to run, whether it's composite, HDMI, cable television, a few security cameras or even a USB hub or VGA monitor, if you want to run wiring, it's always best to do it over Cat 5 cable!
Then one day I inadvertedly had the gauntlet laid down on me. I had just bought a fancy new 55" Plasma TV for the basement, went through everything I could to block out all ambient light (a must for Plasma televisions) and hooked up my PS3. Of course, it worked out amazing and for the next few days I video gamed and saw blu-ray movies in a way I had never seen them before. It was crisp, clean and exiting.
The coming weeks were not so exciting at all. Between my fiancee wanting to watch Netflix or movies in the living room, my main computer being upstairs on the second floor in our office and my Apple TV being connected in our bedroom, I was running into a pinch. My devices were spread too thin around the household and I didn't have an effective way to route them, a very common problem in a lot of households. The easy (and very expensive) way out would have been to just buy devices to suit those needs; a secondary laptop for the basement that I could hook up via HDMI, an internet-connected TV for the living room (even though my 50" still works very well, so why replace it?) and a slew of new HDMI cables to connect everything. However, I assumed there was a better way.
I did some research. I tried out a lot of the products available. As a word of warning, Wireless HDMI is not where a lot of people think it's at. It's decent technology, but not ideal if you want the best of the best, like the cinephiles I know. So, after that didn't pan out, I tried working with extending HDMI cable throughout the house, but before I even purchased anything I realized I'd need upwards of 1,000 ft of HDMI for the complex installation I had in mind and I couldn't bear to part with the money.
What I ended up doing, was going the Muxlab CAT5 Balun route. Their products are absolutely incredible and all my customers know why I recommend it. They allow you to take the signal, whether it's composite, HDMI, Coax Cable (great for CCTV installers, by the way), or many other common audio video connections and run that signal across Cat 5 ethernet cable, which is the cable you plug into your computer for internet, for the laypeople out there. When you compare Cat 5 cable to HDMI cable, the cost is unbeatable.
So I started with the Muxlab 500405 HDMI IR and Extender Kit, which comes with two baluns for each end of the Cat 5 cable. This particular balun required two seperate Cat 5 cable, because of the high-bandwidth of 1080p video resolution, but it was well worth it. I moved all of our primary devices to the living room in a little Home Theater rack I got from Target and ran the Cat5 down to the basement, with the other HDMI on the end. It worked flawlessly. I no longer had to worry about moving the PS3 around the house, not to mention it worked well for any HDMI device I had in that rack. Not to mention, HDMI can't extend 300 ft, on it's own. The signal degredation pretty much cancels out all the signal, at that length.
After I installed the 500405 balun, I ended up picking up a Muxlab 500070 USB 4 Port Extender Hub. I ran that from my main computer in the living room down to the basement, allowing me full control over my computer which was over 250 ft away, on my brand new 55" television. Now that I found the solution for wiring HDMI cable over long distances, my next hobby project is going to be setting up cable drops in each room of the house to connect directly to the TV and you better believe I'm going to be using the Muxlab 500302 CATV Balun II for that, too! Coaxial cable is about as expensive as HDMI cable, plus suffers from the same range issues. Now a days, I tell all my friends, family and customers to just wire their house with ethernet cable. Regardless of what signal you want to run, whether it's composite, HDMI, cable television, a few security cameras or even a USB hub or VGA monitor, if you want to run wiring, it's always best to do it over Cat 5 cable!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Our Time
Guest Post by Judah Schiff
While this blog has been primarily dedicated to the newest cutting-edge advancements in security and controls technology and the products associated, today’s post will focus on maintaining the security and integrity of our most sacred and valuable of all assets; Our Time.
When you think about it, security systems provide multiple functions. First and foremost is of course life safety. There is also the protection of physical assets as well as the ability to store a record of past activity. However all of these boil down to one factor which is largely the dealmaker when deciding whether or not to implement physical security measures; Peace of Mind.
A security system is very often like an insurance policy. There is a financial premium to be paid in order to be eligible for a particular benefit which we really never want to claim. Whether that is reimbursement for a damage claim, a life insurance payout that is triggered by an unfortunate early death, a timely police response to an emergency at one’s home or business, or the ability to produce video footage of a crime to law enforcement officials – I think all of us would prefer to never be in these situations. Consciously or not, ultimately these types of purchases provide us with peace of mind. Unlike stopping a robbery or collecting a damage claim from an insurance company, peace of mind is something we can enjoy every waking hour of every day.
While peace of mind is a small benefit taken on its own, it is extremely valuable to us because it is something we can enjoy constantly. It makes all other aspects of our lives that much easier and less stressful which allows us to focus our energies on more productive and beneficial activities. It has been said that only two things are certain in life, death and taxes. Unless you are Warren Buffett, this is probably true for you. With our time on this earth only getting shorter, most would agree that the ability to obtain any peace of mind we can is extremely valuable.
In today’s connected world, we are increasingly devoting larger and larger portions of our time to the social and communications platforms that have become wildly popular in this generation. Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Myspace… the outlets for us to connect and share seem to be endless. Especially when you think that this is only the start of the sharing culture, it seems that we are headed for a time when we are so focused on these types of activities that we will run out of things to share and communicate because we will be so focused on sharing itself.
This would be a scary scenario.
The entire social web that has been so brilliantly spun would evaporate instantly if the value of the shared content were to be diluted to such an extent. This is why “actual” news is such a fitting partner for social media because there is always fresh content that is generated and can in turn be shared. But if the sharing and re-sharing of this media were to become so incessant that everyone is constantly seeing the same content, or worse yet, uninteresting content then the perceived value of the underlying news would plummet.
What if we had a way to censor the news that we share? A method to interact with the actual sharer and classify their shared content in a way that ensures that both over-sharing and under-sharing are avoided and that both the integrity and relativity of the news content we receive is preserved- this is Noozify. A new way to do news.
Noozify, to be launched in the coming weeks is one of the most exciting developments for those of us “news-junkies” who spend so much of our time staying current with all that is happening around us.
One of the gravest sins in today’s connected world is a four letter word that starts with an S. SPAM. Ensuring that we are not associated with this horrid activity, is paramount is preserving the value of our cyber-name and all that it endorses.
This preservation of the value of our “digital voice” is a concept being championed by Noozify co-founder Miki Segal and one that the Noozify team is using to build an innovative product which will change the way we share and consume news media in the modern age.
We all want to make the best of the time we’ve got, and in a time where the line between distraction and constructive activity is becoming increasingly blurred, we would be fortunate to have more tools like Noozify that will allow us to optimize our use of time, and ultimately the time we spend sharing and interacting with others.
Wishing all of our friends, partners, customers and vendors a safe and happy holiday season.
Judah Schiff
President – J. Mac Supply
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