The response that we have gotten from this blog in only a few short weeks has been absolutely incredible. I have received great feedback from clients as well as other people who have either been forwarded a link or just found us on Google or MSN from all over North America (literally all over!) as well as England, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore and Russia. Thank you to each of you who has forwarded it to others.

We are in the process of building our client email database. Each day, we are adding more people…my apologies to those clients who’ve called us to say, “Why didn’t I get sent a link to your blog?”. We’re trying to reach everyone as soon as possible. We hope to have sent the introduction e-mail to each of our clients by the middle of April. In the meantime, If you know of anyone that may be interested in this blog, please feel free to send them the link.

If you want to be kept up to date and advised of new postings you have two options… one a little high tech and the other very low tech… here they are:

1. low tech option: send me a quick email asking to be added to our notification list and we will send you a reminder link every time the blog is updated (send it to solutions@providentsecurity.bc.ca); or

2. high tech option: subscribe to our RSS feed and get this content automatically incorporated into whatever blog or news reader you prefer… here is a link to a Squidoo lens that tells you everything you need to know about RSS… for what it is worth, I use Bloglines myself and it is very easy to setup.

So far, given the topic, most people with specific questions have either called us (our customer service team is available 24 hours a day) or sent a direct email…. Please feel free to do either. Alternatively, you can simply post a question or comment (with our without your name) by clicking on the comment icon at the bottom of every post. The advantage of using the comment icon is that other people will be able to see both what you wrote as well as our response.

Your suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Last night several thousand homes were affected by a power failure… including our own building in Kerrisdale. After many months of power and emergency back-up testing, this was actually the first time that the power has gone out (other than during a test where we physically turn the power off) while we have been actively monitoring alarms. We’re proud to report that the tens of thousands of dollars we spent on back-up batteries, and even more on a diesel generator, all worked perfectly. When the power went out, all of our non-critical systems (such as PC’s not related to monitoring) automatically backed-up and shut down while all essential systems like our phones, lighting, servers, alarm receivers, internet modems, access control systems, security and radio systems automatically switched to battery power while the generator powered up and carried the load until the neighbourhood was re-connected by Hydro.

During this period, we received hundreds of signals from alarm systems relating to the power loss as well as many calls from clients checking to see if we were still operational. Our automated monitoring software was able to distinguish between signals related to the power and ensure that real alarms were given priority treatment and responded to first… again, something we spent a lot of extra money on up front that we were pleased to see worked exactly as it was supposed to.

As we relayed to many of you last night, we are fully set-up to monitor throughout a long term power failure as we keep enough fuel on site to last for more than two days. In addition, our fuel tank can be filled while the generator is running in the event we needed to stretch that time out. In a worst case scenario, we maintain a full-time connection to remotely located servers that allow us to instantly re-direct all client signals to another location within seconds.

For the third consecutive year, Provident has been nominated for a SAMMY award from Security Sales & Integration magazine. The winner will be announced on April 4th in Las Vegas at the ISC West Security show.

Provident is one of only two Canadian companies to be finalists.