Newly registered, saying hey

Hi,

First I want to say thanks for all the great info here. We've been thinking about putting up some sort of system for quite a while and finally decided to pull the trigger recently. We didn't need a mega-system, just a few cameras in key places to see how our tools and equipment keep managing to walk out the door by themselves.

We ended up buying a system from Costco. I know, low end, but also low cost, especially with the sale they were having, which was a huge factor for us being a small shop. But after reading and rereading, and then more reading, and since I believe in thorough research, even more reading, I think I did ok. I can't seem to post links, but if you go to Costco.com and look at item #846996, you can see what I got. Paid a little over $1000 after sale price and coupon code I found. While we don't really need 9 cameras, I figured it couldn't hurt to have a few spares in case we wanted to add more or some die.

I did hook everything up asap just to test and get a feel for the software and just because it was fun. I don't really trust the pre-made cat5e that came with it, so I'm going to run my own cat6(23AWG solid UTP). Since I don't have to worry about tight spots or acute angles(the shop is mostly wide open), the stiffness shouldn't be an issue.

Anyways, I really want to thank everyone here for sharing their knowledge, it made it so much easier to know what to look for and what to avoid, not to mention all the tips and tricks I've already read that will hopefully make the install go smoothly.