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Isn't technology a wonderful thing? I thought this as I received the text to my mobile phone telling me that my home security camera had detected movement. Someone or something was where they shouldn't be at the rear of my house and I was 2000 miles away on vacation ' yet I still knew they were there. Fortunately the text wasn't followed up by another from one of the sensors on my windows telling me that someone was breaking in and it was urgent I did something about it.

A quick call to my neighbour and the drama was over, must have been that big old moggy over the back on his nightly prowl.

Just imagine the peace of mind knowing that my castle was safe and was being looked over by technology and that my worldly possessions weren't strewn all over the back yard as some bad people made their hurried get-away and it was all down to technology.

Just a month earlier I had installed an add-on to my home security system that allowed me to monitor the state of various things around my home from anywhere in the world, either over the world wide web or by alert to my mobile phone. Even better still, I can logon to the internet in some friendly internet caf', wherever I am, and set things up. I can setup lights to come on and off at will, I can turn the central heating on for a snug and warm return, I can even make a cup of tea (should any burglar want one whilst the police arrive) by controlling my trusty tea maker and all from anywhere in the world!

I am sure I am not breaking new ground here, this is not technology to revolutionise space travel or to solve the African drought problem but it certainly answers a need for me, the peace and mind of knowing my possessions are safe.

I got the idea to monitor my home remotely when, in the course of my work, I came across a little device that monitors anything from anywhere.

That's probably a sweeping statement and needs to be qualified slightly, it might struggle to monitor wind speed on Mars and send the results to Venus but you know what I mean.

When I came across it first, it was monitoring a whole host of things in remote water pumping stations, interesting things like bearing vibration and motor temperature, water leaks and intruder alarm. It was sending information back to a central location in collaboration with dozens of it's brothers and sisters in their remote pumping stations, all sending back information to the one central location ' fantastic!

Of course it was the intruder alarm bit that sparked my imagination (I don't have many vibrating bearings in my home). As I researched into it further I found that this remarkable little device (or one of its kinfolk) really could monitor ANYTHING and send the information ANYWHERE. I found that this technology was in use in areas that I had never imagined could benefit from remote monitoring or control, and for a variety of reasons. Reasons ranging from holding down costs to just plain peace of mind. It is used in healthcare to monitor vaccine temperatures in doctors surgeries, environmental monitoring in computer rooms, monitoring experiments in laboratories, in fact it's uses are limited only by your imagination, if you've ever wanted to keep and eye on whats going on with ANYTHING from ANYWHERE in the world, you can.

So you see, in my case, in my humble 'home security' application of this wonderful technology, Big Brother IS watching and I AM Big Brother, watching over my home wherever I am, give it a try, I can recommend the peace of mind.