Wow I'd like to be able to set up a camera that would watch after my appartment when we leave for a couple of days. You need a program called zoneminder and a USB camera I guess ? I want some kind of movement detector for when I leave... with a timer (like I'd tell it to start "watching" 15 minutes when I leave, and could disable the system with internet as well.
ZoneMinder is one of those programs for Linux that you could create a full scale video security system with and sell it (sorta like companies do PBX systems with asterisk); it is really one of the best security CCTV systems out there. You basically need a box that you can install Linux on, plus zoneminder; as part of zoneminder, it will usually have dependencies in the package manager to install mysql and some other pieces that are needed (zoneminder uses mysql as its database). Everything you talk about can be done; you can use video capture cards, usb cameras, and IP cameras for the camera portion (it can even support pan-tilt-zoom cameras if you have one). I would actually recommend using an IP camera that advertises itself as having "streaming output" and no browser dependencies (some IP cams are IE only, for instance - because they require an activex plugin or such, usually); generally if the camera will stream mjpeg, it will work well with zoneminder. USB cameras and video capture cards (hauppage is best) will work, but some USB cameras can be finnicky to get working with Linux - just so you'll be aware.
Once you have things set up, you can define for each camera "zones" - graphical areas to monitor for change, and each zone can trigger different things to happen (you could litterly define things so that a person messing with something in one area sends an email, while in a different area in the camera view, they trigger an alarm or something). Triggers can do anything from send email, to running a script, to whatever else you want to do. You can define thresholds and a whole host of other stuff (you wouldn't believe how complex it is - this isn't a simple application - not by far).
It will do everything you want to do, and more (in fact, for monitoring an apartment, it is probably overkill - but you'll have some geek cred for setting it up).
cr0sh, the whole battery thing is even more epic now haha, did the laptops back then use much less power or is it equivalent ?
Oh - waaay worse power consumption; the battery, once it was built - measured about 6 inches by 6 inches, and about 1 inche thick, and weighed a ton - truely a hideous thing to behold, wrapped in black electrical tape and such. I had to wrap and glue it in various sections, because the AA batteries were in 4 cell packs, and I had to stack and arrange them just right to have both the voltage (12 VDC) and current (a few amp hours) right for enough run time (I could get about an hour or so off a charge!), and then I soldered the tabs on the packs together, and routed wires to connect the whole thing. Ugly, ugly, ugly...
About the repugnant thing, well I understand what you mean... making it possible although "harder/hidden" for beginers would be the way to go. And it's still orange/purple on 10.10
Not sure if that's better or worse than brown. I don't understand why they just didn't keep the orange-ish theme they had prior to 9.x - that was a nice theme (looked pretty professional, too).