Monitoring Home Security with Twitter

Are you worried about your home security? Do you need to keep eyes on who enters your room? Have you left your children alone at home and are worried about their security? If these questions often come in your mind while you are out of your home, then there is no need to worry.

Now, you can easily monitor your home security with twitter. All you require is a webcam, a Linux operating system installed on your PC and a twitter account. You can also receive a message on your mobile phone about the activity going on in your home. Follow the simple guide given below.

Step 1: First of all, you need to download software called “Motion” that monitors the area with the help of one or more cameras and alerts the user if the picture changes, i.e. motion.

Linux users can check the detailed tutorial present on the software’s website about how to install and run the software.

http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/MotionGuideInstallation

Step 2: Now, you have to setup the configuration file of the software. You can either choose to set up the default configuration or create an advanced configuration. For now, you can choose the default configuration, usually located at “/etc/motion/motion.conf”.

Step 3: In the configuration file, edit the “target_dir” path to point to the directory where you want the images to be saved, whenever a change is detected.

Step 4: Another good feature present in motion is that the software also points the moving object. In the configuration file, set the “locate” to “on” and a square box will be drawn around the moving object. Isn’t it great?

Step 5: To view the images on a browser, set the “webcam_port” property to “8000”. The software includes a mini http server that allows you to view the images on a browser.

Step 6: This is an important step where you have to set the twitter account so that you can receive updates. In the motion software, set the "on_motion_detected" option to one of the following:

If you have curl installed on your system, you can use the following line of code:

curl -u username:password -d status=”Alert! Motion detect…” https://detected…"com/statuses/update.xml

You can also use wget. Type the following line of code:

wget -O - --user=USERNAME --password=PASSWORD --post-data=”status= Alert! Motion detect…” https://detected…"com/statuses/update.xml

Step 7: Finally, connect your webcam and start the motion software. Move in front of the webcam and notice the fun. To receive messages on your mobile phone, you need to configure the same in your twitter account.