#zoneminder

I didn't know Andy can help build homes. That's impressive

so asker: what new features are the most important for zm from your perspective?

For that I need to speak like a bitchy user, not a person familiar with its code. Should I put on that hat and answer?

sure.

a) ZM's UI looks like its from the 1990s. Interfaces are all about UI these days - ZM needs an overhaul. b) Even after all the ppas/rpm/whatnot, its not easy to install and have running - it _needs_ to be a one step install - no webserver config crap/db setup crap - needs to happen on its own

those are my top two. Surprisingly, I don't really give a damn about JPEG vs. video - especially if you move to cloud. Its not my storage and I don't care what happens inside

Now which skin are you referring to? I agree the old classic skin is pretty bad... but the stuff I run in storageareas is much better I think...

if I were a local install user, I'd want H264, of course

thats it. My top 3

I frankly think the new modified UI is worse

I think the only way to get the install simpler is to not use apache, or bundle our own, which means we can't use port 80....

really? can you be more specific?

you gave me the license to speak as a "bitchyuser" so there goes :-)

yes, UI should be done by folks who understand aesthetics.

hey I've heard all those before... I'm hoping you can be more specific and help me come up with ideas.

color combinations/ flat colors/ placements / consideration for different modes of UI - how will it look on tablets

there are excellent templates which are MIT licensed

oh? templates for an advanced video surveillance app?

They are 'admin' templates

other than bootstrap which we are using?

can be applied to anything

so UI templates come with 'components' - for messaging/ for notifications, for alerts etc

you use them to present instead of crafting your own code on top of bootstrap

I think to address your UI question, if you want to migrate to the cloud, you need to take a look at the admin interfaces from other providers and compare. While those interfaces are more basic, you'll see the difference in appraoch

My take when I looked at this market was that folks who use ZM are mostly tech folks, working for IT departments

(ie folks who can pay, excluding DIY users)

There are admin interfaces that cater to such folks - that are very pretty

and you'll always come across folks who will tell you 'I don't care - I want functionality over form'

but that is just not true.

for most people.

in your case, I'd suggest you sign up for angelcam - and see how their UI is - I haven't seen it - but that seems to be what you want to migrate to

yeah I expect I'll steal heavily from them.

do you have a pricing model in mind?

Not at this time. That's for working out the week after.

most of my costs at this time will be my labor setting it up. I intend to base the costs around retention/fps. Make up a formula.

it also needs to be less than your established competitors unless you can show a significant value add

jpg streams will have to be more expensive than h264 I think...

since you plan to do this in your existing data center, and I assume over an existing data pipe that is already being paid for, I suppose you can be creative with pricing to test the waters

exactly. Just a POC

yup sure - glad its moving ahead

well... i've been meaning to do it for a while... so it may not happen next week.

but I do need to develop some new projects/revenue streams. Can't keep going on like this.

I need some people though.

thats always the biggest challenge I suppose :-)

I think you might want to scope out what you can do on your own first and launch small

but do launch correctly - no point launching something that goes bust because it wasn't thought out - you might want to call up your customers who've been asking and get inputs of pricepoints /features directly from them?

I'm likely not that user profile (SMB IT folks) so I won't have the perspective

sup ic0n

I agree with asker on the install process... I tried installing on archlinux, got a compile, then tried centos and it took me a bit to get it up and running, apparently it didn't like my database password so I made it simpler and that finally got it going.

now it can't see my foscam cameras for some reason