mynoseknows's comments

It's not like you ever have any choice with a cable provider anyway, the way it works is a cable company gets in bed with the local government and that's who gets to provide you with cable service.

I must be one of the lucky ones because I've had Comcast for over 10 years and the quality of service (customer service and cable/internet) has always been great. Pricing could be better but if you call they're always willing to give me promotional pricing deals, and there's always satellite TV and/or internet, DSL, or cellular.

Sorry to hear that. The stats are from 2005 but are probably similar to what they are today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/homeandga...

Yeah, I think it only protects the glass, but I believe there are other things you can do to protect the window from being opened another way.

If you have a door that's not very strong and you can't afford to replace it with one that is, they do make metal plates that wrap around the deadbolt and optionally the door handle, which apparently makes it much more difficult to break the door itself.

They look something like this: http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TFH/Step-By-Step/FH11JAU_DO...

I've considered putting security film on them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFCbjV7NgQ

But I rent so I hesitate because the film obviously has to be custom cut and I doubt it can be removed in a single piece after being installed anyway. I'm a little less worried about the windows though because only 1/4 of unauthorized entries are through windows, and window entry is (often) louder, more obvious, and takes a little longer to get through vs. quietly picking or bumping a lock or swiftly kicking the door in and entering quickly.

This is why my deadbolt uses an Abloy Protec2 cylinder (custom ordered from Bay Area Locks: http://www.bayarealocks.com). It's drill resistant, and it's disk-based so it's bump and rake proof.

Abloy also claims it's pick proof. Whether that will remain true in the future I'm not sure, but I do know that at the very least it has yet to be successfully picked. If someone did figure out a way it would likely be extremely difficult to do in practice.

After watching some videos that showed just how easy it is to simply kick a door in, another thing I did was replace my strike plate with a heavier duty one, and replace the worthless 3/4" screws that "hold" most strike plates in with 4" screws that actually go into the 2x4's of the house frame.