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Cameras from Ubiquiti, Vivotek, Axis, and many others support retrieving the current image jpg through a http request to the camera..

OK, turn your Raspberry Pi into a PLC ...After relay boards, etc., your a hundred or so $USD into it...

You need a PLC configured with the right I/O (relay in/out, analog in/out) with Ethernet and a common, open protocol like ModbusTCP... Automation Direct is a good supplier of these.
Alternatively one could use "dumber" remote I/O devices like these

Try running dpkg as non-root...won't work...

Network Administration Visualized is a good alternative to PRTG

NAV has very similar functionality to prtg, but is completely open source.

NAV is a great network and server monitoring suite...I have it monitoring much stuff connected over VPN.

The number of conductors needed for three phase depend on if you are delta or wye connected...

Most of my 2.4 GHz links have been removed from service since the band is so crowded, that even with -50dBm signals the throughput was crap, but one is almost by themselves on 5.8 GHz (almost no 802.11a, a few TDMA stations, mostly AirMAX, around), and can get great throughput and reliability with weaker signals...If I were starting a WISP now, I would do only 5.8 GHz and 24 GHz links.

Teeth and nails go in the grinder.. :-)

Should point there were THOUSANDS of audio feeds available on each satellite, both as sub-carriers of video channels (could be tuned by most consumer receivers), and SCPC (required a little more than the standard TVRO receiver)...Now that everything is a digital stream, unsure how many of those still exist

The best part of TVRO/FTA systems was finding wild feeds: syndicated programming being delivered to locals (many times a whole season at a time for re-run tv shows), news & sports remotes (loved hearing reporters and PBP announcers when they weren't "on-air"), corporate video distribution, teleconferences, etc... Sadly it has been 20 years since I've been able to play with such...MMDS systems were also fun to hack (the service no longer exists, I believe -or at least all the operators went out of business), my local one was too cheap to scramble everything (didn't want to have to provide a descrambler for each customer if they didn't subscribe to premium programming), so if you had a 2.8 GHz to something your TV could tune (it was transmitted in VSB) downconverter you could get quite a bit, there was also channels in that band used for tele-education, so one could watch some university classes, etc.. Cheap, abundant IP bandwidth has moved many of those off satellite and microwave, so there isn't as much as there used to be...If we could implement IP multicasting effectively internet wide, we would see even less satellite distribution.

Not everything is outsourced at Target, they always have listings of Dice for Technology positions http://www.dice.com/jobsearch/company/DiceId_10111064/Target+Corporation

I usually don't post comments asking people with moderator points to mod a comment up, but mod up this parent....

There are likely IT people within the company that see the problems and know how to fix them but they will be ignored. CxO types hate those annoying IT people that are always complaining about security. They will bring in a solution sold by a slick sales person at a major company.

Is likely the most accurate statement I've seen in a while. In my 20+ years in the tech/IT/OT field, what a salesman is selling to (non-tech) management seems to trump the feedback that is received from tech departments. Case in point, just this week there is a copier/printer vendor that insists on installing a software agent that is suppose to report back meter readings and troubleshooting info to them (and "managing our printing costs"), but looking into it, it has capability of scanning entire network and reporting on every device it sees. As lead network and systems administrator, I say no way will I allowed an externally controlled and reporting network scanner on any of our secure networks - and I'm being framed as being uncooperative, not considering my report that the vendor solution will break many layers of security,...I may have to make sure the agent is disallowed in group policy, in case it can be installed in user space without elevated rights on the machines (wouldn't surprise me that they'll just try installing it on a user's workstation)...