We do this in C++ and Python for all our projects now. All in the repo commit hooks.

Is to achieve this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html -- make things that are wrong be more obviously wrong. Using discipline and coding standards is just one part of the appropriately paranoid developer's defensive programming toolkit.

You seem to be confused. I did not imply that there is anything wrong (inherently or otherwise) with non-profit work, as a manager or in any other capacity. What I did imply is that in this particular case, "non-profit" is a euphemism for "unemployed".

Why do I feel an overwhelming desire to read "non-profit executive" as "unemployed douche bag with too much access to a thesaurus"?

A great deal of the version wrangling you are facing is best done with a tool like Git.

The bigger problem (development discipline) is much harder to fix.

Until someone offers your boss a compelling case demonstrating the educational value of access to Facebook, you block all of it. The purpose of the computers is to be an aid to the school's educational mission.

I do a lot of work with the Axis cameras, although almost always running my own algorithms on their video. They're nice hardware to work with, but I don't think their algorithms perform all that well (and if I'm not mistaken, they're another example of "ObjectVideo Inside", so it's not really their algorithms). Of course, designing better algorithms for the motion detection and what not is part of how I pay my bills, so YMMV.

"... then you're not doing it right" pretty much summarizes (to the best of my knowledge) state-of-the-art when handling exterior conditions with purely visual sensors, particularly when you're relying on crappy source video with no algorithm-in-the-loop auto-iris control (or worse: analog auto-iris) and god only knows how many layers of crappy A2D, D2A, quantization, etc. steps in between. You need other motion sensors that give you more reliable cues, but even with clever placement, you are always going to face a fundamental trade-off between probability of detect and probability of false alarm.

As for motion sensors + dogs, what is stopping them from aiming the detectors to have a deadzone that ends ~3-4ft off the ground?

Depends on lighting conditions but generally, yes. Which is least partially why I ended with the question that I did.

You'll discover very quickly that using motion cues to trigger anything other than a light outside is either going to generate a bazillion false alarms or basically be so insensitive as to miss everything. In my opinion, your best bet is to setup two zones: the exterior zone and the interior zone. For the exterior zone, several fake cameras (really just camera-shaped pieces of plastic with a blinking light) plus a few otherwise indistinguishable real ones plus DVR can be had for pretty cheap (Costco, for instance, has kits as low as $250ish). You can use either the built-in motion detection or cue from an external unit (haven't done this myself but I expect it to be pretty straightforward based on how I've triggered similar systems in the past). Key piece: make sure that the storage ends up being put somewhere reasonably secure, away from the DVR and things that look like they're worth stealing.

For the interior zone, I'd use same trick(s) except this time you want to trigger off window opening / door opening sensors as well as motion sensors. The hard part will be to make sure you match up to consistently. I'd want a hysteresis threshold (after x seconds of consistent motion, send a snapshot, after an additional y seconds turn on the sirens).

All in all, it's pretty straight-forward but it's likely to be time consuming, which leads me to: are you sure that what you need is a security system to re-establish your sense of security?

SSH != crypto algorithm.

I got bored this afternoon and did the proof a few different ways. Unfortunately, the details won't fit in this comment box.

they are surprisingly inexpensive ($500 plus some labor w/ analog video downlink). they are also likely to have been repaired quite frequently (that is if you're lucky and didn't leave a pile of kindle your last encounter with gravity).

on an unrelated note, it's fun to watch confirmation bias in the wild.