As nctrnl states, there are other less expensive ways to determine if someone has been in your residence. And they are very low-tech. I would not invest in a high-tech solution unless I had evidence using the low-tech solution. Some things you can do from a low-tech stance are to place a small denomination of money (like $1) in a place where it will look like it must have fallen out of a pocket and then wait to see if it disappears. Putting the money out where it is obvious might tip the person off. Also, leave drawers and doors ajar just a tiny bit. Enough that if someone were snooping around they probably would not know enough to put them back in exactly the same place. Place a tiny piece of paper between a cabinet door and molding and watch to see if it is still where you left it - I'm talking very tiny, like no bigger than 1/4 inch. Anyway, you probably get my drift. Do tiny things that only you would know about. If those pan out, then it might be time to get into a high tech situation.

You better double-check on using a Tivo without active service. As I remember, without it, its a doorstop -- no recording at all. A great place to get started with Tivo is ebay. I bought 2 for $40 each. When I activated service, one of them had a lifetime subscription! A extra nice bonus was since I now own an activated Tivo, the second Tivo only costs me $7/month. Tivo's do not have built in Ethernet. They have 2 USB ports. You need to get either a wireless USB network adapter or a wired Ethernet network adapter. Tivo's web site will tell you which ones are supported. Others may work, but Tivo will help you if you have trouble getting a supported adapter to work. A Tivo without a netowrk adapter is just not as much fun. I now have 3 Tivo's (2 wireless, 1 wired) on my home network. This means I can record 3 shows at the same time, transfer shows between them and my computers, schedule recordings on all Tivo's from work or the road, play games with other Tivo users over the Internet, subscribe to Internet only shows (like Rocketboom), and yes, more :) (Curiously, Tivo 3 sits in a closet -- connected to basic cable but with no TV attached. All scheduling is done over the Internet and shows are transfered to Tivo 1 or Tivo 2 for viewing.) You CAN transfer video from your computer to your Tivo. You need to download the free Tivo Desktop software. (I think you also need to enable TivoToGo, but this is also a freebie.) This software announces your computer to your Tivo's and you can "pull" video to a Tivo using your Tivo remote. If the video is not in the correct formnat, you can download a free converter from videora.com. I used this recently when I missed the second half of ABC's "The Path to 9/11." I downloaded it off the Internet using utorrent.com's free BitTorrent client, converted it using Videora's Videora Tivo Converter and copied it to a Tivo for viewing. The recording was from England, which broadcasts PAL instead of NTSC which means different resolution and frame rate, but Videora handled it with minimal audio "slip." Be aware that just because it's available on the Internet doesn't mean you aren't violating copyright. I figure that since it was broadcast and I would have recorded it, no harm, no foul. And finally, yes you can take the disk drive out of a Tivo or other DVR and put it into a computer. They are just plain old IDE drives. The only difference is that they are supposed to be quieter and do seamless spiral reading better, but I've replaced all of the drives in my Tivo's with 300gb drives from Costco or Fry's. 300gb means about 280 hours of TV so it's rare that something "disappears" before I get around to watching it. Since you can get a 300gb drive for $70, I wouldn't bother taking the time to put a used 40 or 80 gb drive from a DVR into a computer.

At the $200.00 range, the camecorders will be in the "okay range. There are a lot of them out there and the technology changes so fast that it is hard to reccomend a camera. At the consumer level, I tend prefer panasonic and canon. cnet.com and pcworld.com have good reviews on electronic devices. Good Day! Joe

Dear lovehadley, I've never posted to this board before but I felt compelled to send a message to you. I'm an experienced stepmom of three. My stepkids have two different mothers. One BM is reasonable and helpful. The other is unstable and narcissistic. We have had to work very hard to keep this brood together - and I've learned a lot. I can tell you from experience that unless you set some boundaries and take control of your life, you are in for rocky ride that will definitely include an unwanted divorce. You are correct that most courts now favour 50/50. It's fashionable and it doesn't require anyone to make a real decision. However, it doesn't work for all children or all families. It won't work in your case. The BM is set on making trouble and the child is out of control. The current situation is bad. Moving to 50/50 would be better, but you'd still have an obsessive BM harassing you and a child in your house that you can't manage. Just imagine this child in 5 years, when he's almost as big as you are. Furthermore, your quality of life is just not good enough. You are very young, obviously articulate and you clearly have a compassionate nature. Yet your day to day life is all about your stepson and this crisis. You are going to wake up very soon and find that you're 40 years old and have wasted your young years fighting a battle that you can't win. You need to take control of your situation. It's not working and your fiance's proposed solutions aren't going to make life any better for you. He can fight for sole custody of this child, but he most likely will lose. Even if by some miracle he wins, the child will be opposed to it and he'll be unmanageable. Furthermore, the BM will get very liberal access which will be just the ticket she needs to harass you every minute of your life. It won't be much of a victory and it won't last long. I can pretty much guarantee that this child will end up living fulltime with the BM. Either he will demand it, or you will demand it, or you will leave and your fiance will have no choice but to relinquish custody. How you get to this place is up to you. You can continue to live in this nightmare until you walk out, or you and your fiance can figure out a reasonable schedule whereby this child can live with his mother, and spend ENJOYABLE, nonthreatening visits with you. Believe me, once the BM has this kid on her hands fulltime, she'll be VERY EXCITED about these access visits and she'll make sure that the child is as good as gold every minute. And, best of all, once she's dependant on you for the occasional break, her behaviour will improve dramatically. It's too bad that this child has a lousy mother and behavioural problems. But you can't solve this problem and ruining your life won't make it any better. All you can do is set boundaries for you own life, and then enforce them. It's tough, I know. But, trust me, it works and you will be much happier. The child will be happier too. It's bad to have an unstable mother. But it's much worse to be caught in the middle of a war and be swatted back and forth between two different worlds twice a week. Let your fiance read this email. Good luck.