Kitchen

Living Room

Name State Description  Control  Teapot ON Illuminated teapot in Kitchen area. You can't see the teapot from the camera but it 'clunks' whenever you change it. It tells us someone is watching. On   Off Livingroom Garland OFF Christmas Special: Lights in the garland over the large window in the livingroom. On   Off Christmas Tree Angel OFF Christmas Special: Christmas tree angel. The lady at the top of our tree who is bearing tidings of the birthday boy. On   Off Dining Accent OFF Accent lights around the dining room. You can see the purple lights on the livingroom cam On   Off Livingroom Light ON The lamp that lights the livingroom at night. If the picture is black, turn this on. On   Off Kitchen sink ON Accent lights over the kitchen sink. Can be seen on the kitchen cam. On   Off Remember that the cameras update every 20 seconds or so therefore you won't see the lights change immediately.

A camera in our living room and kitchen, a capture board, a DSL connection, a little software and what do you get? A family's home on the Web! Welcome to our living room. We are usually around in the evening (Pacific Standard Time). Send us email and enjoy relaxing at our house. A pictorial description of how the hardware is put together is on the How It Is Done page. I've started leaving a light on at night so the people on the other side of the planet have something to look at besides black. I also collect one image an hour for the last 24 hours . Our web-enabled music system (using the AudioTron from TurtleBeach ) shows what's now playing in the livingroom: State: Playing   Length: 64/151 sec Title: No.3: Chor: 'And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed' Artist: Vienna Boys Choir Album: Messiah and what is playing in the master bedroom: State: Inactive Title: Artist: Album: Our living room has been Christmas Cam for a bunch of years. You can check out: ChristmasCam 1995 ChristmasCam 1996 ChristmasCam 1997 ChristmasCam 1998 ChristmasCam 1999 ChristmasCam 2000 ChristmasCam 2001 ChristmasCam 2002 ChristmasCam 2003 ChristmasCam 2004 If you don't believe in Santa Claus, in 1995 we caught Santa Claus putting presents around the tree and drinking the milk left out for him (RealMedia video). We didn't ever catch him again -- we think you can only fool the Santa guy once. Family pics: Halloween party 2001 Paris 2002

December 24, 2005 With everything else to do, it doesn’t look like I’ll get the tree view camera running this year. Sorry about that. Comments(3) December 24, 2005 We’ll be doing the usual Christmas Eve/Day routine. First Wagilia here at sundown then off to grandma’s for extended family Christmas celebrations. Christmas morning, my family and all my children and families will be here for the big present unwrapping. Hope you stop by. Merry Christmas. Comments(0) December 19, 2005 The ornaments were found and put on the tree. Boxes have returned to the garage and present wrapping is in full swing. Lights are up everywhere. The excitement is building — Christmas is almost here. Comments(3) December 18, 2005 The tree is finally here and the lights are on it. I can’t find the ornaments, though. There must be another box in the garage somewhere. Comments(3) December 15, 2005 Looks like we’re going to get the tree Saturday morning. Finally. Decorations will probably go up in the evening PST. Stop by and put on an ornament. Comments(2) December 12, 2005 I know it is a scandal that ChristmasCam does not have a tree yet. The lady of the house has been gone the last two weekends (running a half-marathon and an ultra-marathon) and we need to go to a special place to get a blue spruce tree. That’s so the cats won’t climb it. I’m hoping to get the tree up this week, so don’t give up on us. Comments(1) December 3, 2005 I’m sitting here in front of the fire enjoying Christmas music. It doesn’t get much better than this. Merry Christmas all!!! Comments(2) November 30, 2005 Time to change the site to ChristmasCam! It will take a week or two to get the tree (not really sure when, yet). The “view from the Christmas tree” is from last year — that will get updated when we have a tree. Merry Christmas to all. Comments(2) November 24, 2005 Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. No matter where you are, there are thinks to give thanks for. I hope you can spend the day with friends and/or family and make connections with those you love. Comments(2) November 14, 2005 We don’t normally have Thanksgiving at our house — Grandma prefers all her family around her in my great-granmother’s house — but we’ll be having another dinner with my family here the Friday or Saturday after. Be sure to stop by and celebrate an extra Thanksgiving. Comments(0) Old Notes

NOTE TO THE CRIMINALLY INCLINED: our house has an alarm (door and window sensors and motion detectors) and we live in a small town whose cops actually show up in five minutes. So, save us both a lot of trouble, and don't even bother.

YM: MisterBlue

Pointers to some camera technology:

• Axis Technology -- a great direct to web cam. I have an Axis 2100
• About.Com:Internet Conferencing -- excellent information on how to put up a web cam, the types of hardware that's out there and the software to use.
• WebCam32 -- commercial-ware that makes your own home cam possible
• SpyCam An image capture and upload program for building your own web cam (shareware)

Friends links -- people I've met on the web.

• Songbird's Webcam -- a nice lady who has had a cam possibly longer than I have.
• Tim's website -- making his mark on the web

If you are a Webcam-aholic, here are other Cam pages (list updated February 7, 2003) :

• The Wired Home -- not exactly a cam (although he has several). This fellow also records when the toilet was flushed, when the cat uses the litter box, what was thrown away in the trash bin and many, many more measurements of a home in the Netherlands.
• Drive Me Insane! -- another person with cams and a remote controlled house. The "drive me insane" part is that YOU control the lights in his house.
• Webcams in Freudenstadt, Switzerland -- good city cams from far away, exotic Switzerland.
• World Webcam Monitor -- excellent collection of interesting cams of places, phenomena, space, weird, ...
• 123cam.com -- despite a slightly irritating UI, a gigantic collection of cams
• Franck's Top WebCams - but a lot of annoying ad popups
• AltaVista's Cammunity -- good collection
• CamVille -- more adult and people oriented
• WebCam World
• Tommy's List of Live Cam Worldwide -- with a lot of links to other fun stuff
• Helmut Halfmann's Realtime Camera Paradise (in German but even an American can figure it out)