The Boring Lab

10 Things You’ll Finally Have Time to Do After You Get the Boring Toolbox

The Boring Toolbox saves you countless hours on Milestone VMS monitoring and reporting. Now your biggest problem is just deciding what you're going to do with all that free time.
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The Milestone Driver framework unleashes even more functionality and possibilities for your XProtect VMS by allowing third-party device manufacturers to develop their own XProtect drivers.

In this blog, I’m going over how I integrated a non-supported device into XProtect using a third-party Milestone driver on my home VMS. Follow along with me so you can reap the benefits of the MIP Driver Framework in your own system!

What is the Milestone Driver Framework?

Prior to the Milestone driver framework, the only way to integrate a non-supported device into Milestone XProtect was to use the generic/universal driver, which had limited functionality and was a pain to use.

In 2019, Milestone released the Milestone Driver Framework. The driver framework allows third-party device manufacturers to integrate their devices into Milestone XProtect by developing their own XProtect drivers.

While not widely used, the benefits of the custom driver are many:

  • Extend Milestone to support non-security device types
  • Quicker turnaround to integrate third-party devices into Milestone
  • Ability to utilize all the features of a Milestone-built driver

I haven’t seen many third-party driver integrations yet. Still, I did have the opportunity to install a GJD IP IR illuminator on my home and wanted to share the experience.

Being a Milestone VMS admin is hard enough. Monitoring your system’s health, creating countless reports in Excel, and keeping everything in compliance… all the time! It’s exhausting.

Hours of your life seem to pass in the blink of an eye.

What happened to those hobbies you used to have? Thursday night trivia? Binging the Lord of The Rings trilogy in one sitting just because?

Remember when your to-do lists used to be overflowing with check marks?

With The Boring Toolbox, you can reclaim the life you loved; the life you’ve been daydreaming about while renaming camera device after camera device.

We estimate it would take three to five people in full-time roles to accurately generate the data needed to properly monitor XProtect. The Boring Toolbox does it for you.

The Boring Toolbox streamlines cybersecurity and compliance, bulk renaming hardware and updating passwords, automated device group management, meaningful report generation, and more.

With all of that busy work off your plate, you’ve suddenly got a lot more free time to dedicate to the things that bring you joy.

Not sure where to start? We’ve got some ideas.

Here’s a list of all the things you should add to your calendar after you sign up for a 30-day free trial of The Boring Toolbox:

10 Things You'll Finally Have Time to Do After You Get the Boring Toolbox

  1. Daily 3 pm naps 
    Because science says siestas make you smarter and science never lies.
  2. Reorganize your junk drawer. 
    Be honest with yourself, you don’t need 15 packets of soy sauce. 2 max.
  3. Work on your tan.
    Step out from behind your computer and into the light, my friends! #HotDadSummer is here. It’s a thing. We’re starting it.
  4. Mission: Inbox Zero.
    I’m going to hit you with some real talk here: if it came in more than 90 days ago, any reply you could send would be far too awkward anyway. Move on and hit delete.
  5. Watch all 20 hours and 39 minutes of Episode I-IX of the Star Wars movies.
    Or even if you wanted to indulge, add on Rogue One and Solo for a total of 25 hours and 7 minutes. Still doable.
  6. Fall down the NFT rabbit hole (again).
    Is it worth your investment? Are they really growing in value? What’s happening now that crypto is crashing? In any case, here’s a good resource I found.
  7. Clean out your closet.
    I don’t know who needs to hear this but, you don’t need that many graphic tees.
  8. Stalk your weird cousin on Facebook.  
    Does he really still think frosted tips are in? Another pyramid scheme?
  9. Read a stinking book.
    The one that’s been collecting dust on your nightstand for the past six months.
  10. Take your kids to the beach, at lunch.
    Because life is short and an empty beach is more fun.

We hope we’ve inspired you to take the plunge but if you need one more reason to try The Boring Toolbox for Milestone XProtect, here it goes: IT’S FREE!!

Sign Up For a 30-Day Free Trial

If we missed something on your list, let us know! We want to hear about how much time our customers save using The Boring Toolbox and what they use that time to do instead!

Team Boring

Your go-to XProtect eXPerts. We learn the technical stuff that will save you time and make it less boring.

Team Boring

Your go-to XProtect eXPerts. We learn the technical stuff that will save you time and make it less boring.

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