Timelapse of 11/16/08 Renton Sky

Jaanicam 3.0 Works at work and in IE!

So, one of the many things I did this weekend was improve the Jaanicam! So, Jaanicam is now in version 3.0!  with new features like:

• 4 times the original resolution
  I upgraded from a mere 320X240 resolution to an incredible 1280X960 resolution! That's 1.3 Mega pixels!
  
• You can now watch real time videos from any computer with port 80 open!
  Have a nasty corporate firewall blocking port 8081?  No problem!  Jaanicam 3.0 now uses the magic of Java Applets to handle jpeg streams from my live camera server to avoid using port 8081, and allow Internet Explorer users to view the latest images!
• Added Scenery!
  Jaani's world is not just a cage in my apartment, there are also doors, cabinets and a refrigerator that surround his cage.  You can be the first to know when someone walks through my front door!

I know it's exciting to think about all these great new features that can help you relate to Jaani, but please try to contain yourself.

Other than the Jaanicam, Yesterday's daytime time lapse video should be up shortly on youtube... assuming everything goes as planned.  Check back later to see how things went.

Later,

     SteveO

Jaanicam 2.0!

so, for today's webcam, I have Jaanicam 2.0... why 2.0? because I just installed new software that allows me to do a whole bunch of new stuff!  for example:

• Create time-laps videos of what my webcam saw each day
• a 2 frame-per-second refresh rate
• It only saves images when motion is detected
• supports multiple webcams
• and if I ever get a camera that has a motor, it can use the motor to track objects

What wonderful software can do all this?  it's called motion.  a totally awesome open source app that not only adds new functionality to my webcam, but still preserves my old way of doing stuff... and it even does the old stuff better too!

So, that said, now you know why today's web cam is the Jaanicam 2.0

There is just one problem... and it is kind of a stupid thing I did wrong.  you see... when I was configuring the program to copy the video for the previous day to the web server folder... I accidentally named the file .swf... because I thought it was going to use flash video format... however, it turns out it the program makes an mpg...

so if you download this file here ... you have to change the file extension to mpg of windows will freak out! (linux really doesn't care what the file extension is... well, maybe I should say totem/gstreamer doesn't care.

anyway... so, If you download today's time-laps video of yesterday, then you will have to rename the file to something.mpg (instead of TodaysTimelaps.swf)

Download the swf that needs to be renamed to a mpg here.

Anyway, that's my update for today.  remember to check back here... later tonight I'll add a link under the webcam picture to the properly named mpg file...

Later,

     SteveO

Todays Hurricane Ridge Sunset

And as an extra bonus, here is the Seattle Sunset for tonight:

That's all for now...


Later,

     SteveO

Two more webcam sites...

So, in an effort to maximize the number of ways you can look at my web cam (BTW there are 3 so far...) so that makes more way for you to look out the windows of my apartment... or watch Jaani sleep... or if you check out my webcam at around 10pm EST you may even be able to watch me sit around...

However, the two sites I am talking about are my Web Cams Google Sites page and my Commute Cams Google Sites page.

Web Cams page: this page watches the Mountain passes, Seattle, and Hurricane Ridge.  Which has looked beautiful all day!

Commute Cams page: this page shows all the traffic cameras between my house and my work.  So, you can see what kind of traffic I am dealing with any time you want, but mostly so I can see what traffic is looking like before I leave to go either to work or home.

In addition to that, you may have been wondering what my web cam has been looking at... well, I am going to use my twitter feed to document what the camera is looking at and when... which you can read my twitter feed on the sidebar at the right.

So, I guess all that being said, I will call this an entry!  Later tonight I want to try and get a sunset picture of Hurricane Ride.

Later,

     SteveO

The closest web cam of all!

So, I have my own web cam now... I set up an Apache server to host a page, and set up cron to backup the current photo in 1, 5, and 15 minute increments.

The camera updates every minute, and if you click the link for older pictures, then it will reload the most recent photo every 10 seconds.

It took me a bit longer to set up the camera than I expected because if I type in my external IP address, my actiontec router just routes me to the internal setup page... rather than forward me to my web server... in short I had to use a proxy site in order to check that my blog would look right.  However, I took this picture once I saw that the camera worked right... then I moved the picture for the web cam to the top of my page.

It was a bit more work than I expected... and I have yet to see if the javascript that I wrote is only having issues because of the proxy, or Blogger's html/javascript gadget... but I guess I can test it at work tomorrow.

So, that's all for today.

Later,

     SteveO

P.S. have fun watching the cam!

Web cams near me!

So, if you go to This Page I have provided four web cams near me... the link is also over on the sidebar to the right...

So, you can always see what Snoqualmie pass (East), Steven's Pass (North East), Downtown Seattle (North), or Hurricane Ridge (North West) look like today.

ok... I think I am officially calling today Webcam day.

Later, 

     SteveO