After a sightless drought of almost 3 years, the Wambooli PorchCam is back up and running. Ta-da!
The PorchCam dwells in a box to one side of my front porch, tucked under the eave so that it’s protected from the weather. The camera’s USB cable threads through a hole through the wall into my office. where it plugs into my test computer. The software (YAWCAM) uploads the image to this web site 24 hours a day.
The old PorchCam wasn’t Windows Vista compatible. When I replaced my test computer with a new Windows Vista system the old camera and software failed to be recognized. I kept trying! I bought a camera on eBay and downloaded new drivers at least once a month to see whether they would work. Nothing ever did.
For a while now I’ve been researching new webcams. Some of them are pretty fancy, some wireless, and some remote-controllable. But I ended up getting a typical, desktop web camera, the Logitech QuickCam. The software is shareware I found. It works really well — much better than the old stuff I was using.
So enjoy the new PorchCam! See a vista similar to what I see every day as I work in my office. Granted, the view doesn’t change much. But someday you might be able to catch a stray cat, college student, alien invasion, or perhaps the mailman. Or maybe even myself out mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow.
Relevant Links. Wambooli PorchCam. Logitech QuickCam Communicator. YAWCAM.
Windows Vista SP1 Review. This guy on CNet makes some good points. I’ll do the update myself, but apparently there are no performance improvements, performance being one of Vista’s weak spots.
Where’s the street between your house and that other house in the background?
Oh yeah, buried in snow just like my street.
It’s been a beautiful winter, but slightly inconvenient for those of us without a dogsled.
Comment by Bjorn — February 8, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
I didn’t shovel my driveway. I normally don’t. I’m good about the walkways, but the driveway has a bare spot where I park my truck. Normally (normally!) the snow melts and so any car can pull in. But now, the snow in the “guest” part of the driveway is about 4 feet deep. The bottom half of that is solid ice. Maybe I’ll get to it. Maybe. 🙂
Comment by admin — February 8, 2008 @ 12:17 pm