I add another WebCam to wickenburg-az.com

One of the most popular features of my local-interest Web site, wickenburg-az.com, is its WebCam. It’s not just popular. It’s popular enough that people actually donate money to keep it up and running.

The WebCam on the site has a long and varied history that you can read about there. About six months ago, I bought a new camera that was compatible with my system and set it up. Although I wasn’t completely satisfied with the quality of the image, it seemed good enough. It’s hard to spend a lot of money on a camera that just sits on the windowsill, taking photos of the trees and mountains and sky all day and night long for months on end. The camera I wound up with was a Logitech, which cost less than $100.

I guess you get what you pay for because within six months, the image the camera was sending to the computer had seriously degraded. It didn’t seem focused and had a yellowish tinge. When I repositioned it, I realized that the saguaro cactus that gives the WebCam its name had “burned in” to the camera. The situation came to a head when I attempted to show some work being done in the park that’s visible from that window and the resulting image was so poor I was embarrassed to share it.

Time for a new camera.

I wound up buying a D-Link wireless Internet camera for $119. This is an interesting device. It has its own built-in Web server, so once you get it plugged into power, accessible to a wireless network, and configured, it can serve its own live moving images over the Web. All you need to do is punch in the correct IP address.

I had some trouble configuring it, primarily because my network is a bit non-standard. (Apple AirPort wireless base station, Ethernet hub connecting one Mac with the laser printer and the Windows PC, etc.) I thought I’d have to install the wireless card I’d bought for my PC months ago to get it on the network and use it to install the software, so I did. I’d been putting it off, expecting the process to be a nightmare, but it actually went quite smoothly, with true plug-and-play connectivity. (There is hope for PCs.) But the PC wouldn’t talk to the camera and the only software available was PC based. So I wound up having to call D-Link for help. It was a toll-free number and I only waited about 10 minutes on hold. The guy that answered knew most of what I had to do to get my Mac to talk to the camera. I knew the rest so, between the two of us, we had it working within about five minutes. I came away from the experience with a lot of respect for D-Link and feel very comfortable about recommending their products.

I also had to tweak my AirPort base station settings so a certain port would be mapped to the camera’s IP address. My single static IP address is shared by multiple computers. The base station acts as a router to route incoming requests to the correct computer or, in this case, other device. It sounds complex, but it really isn’t. After all, I can do it and I’m not much of a network geek.

The camera’s live image can be viewed from any Java-capable browser by visiting http://66.218.237.73:81/Jview.htm and entering a user ID of visitor (leave the password field empty). Because the camera is wireless, I was able to put it in any room of my office, so I put it on the other side of the building, looking out over North Tegner Street toward the center of town. The image, during the day, is nice and clear. The moving video is a bit jerky — I don’t have a T1 connection here, after all — but it’s cool.

Today, if I find time, I’m going to rig up the WebCam software that runs on my Web server so it accesses this image and puts it on the site’s home page. I’m also going to build some kind of protective box for the camera so I can mount it outside. This will prevent glare that appears at certain times of the day due to the double-pane glass window the camera has to “look” through.

In the meantime, I’ve gotten nearly enough recent donations to pay for the new camera. So I’m probably going to buy another one and mount that in the front room to replace the current image from the Logitech camera. Hopefully, donations will pay for that one, too.

Then I’ll adjust the Logitech camera’s image to look down into the parking lot. Sadly, my next door neighbor’s 20-year-old son, who was murdered, was last seen in this parking lot getting into a car. If my camera had been looking down, it may have caught information about the car in the camera’s archives (it creates a time-lapse movie every day). So even a bad image is better than no image when it comes to gathering information about what goes on in the parking lot.

I’m also actively looking for people who want to host WebCams on their computers for use on wickenburg-az.com. One of the complaints I’ve gotten is that the camera doesn’t show anything “interesting.” Well, my office isn’t in the middle of town, so there’s not much I can do about that. But other people with more interesting views might want to share them with site visitors. I’m hoping a few hobbyists step forward so I can help set them up.

When I find lots of time, I’ll probably write an article about my work with the D-Link, just in case any other Mac user wants to try one out. It’s proof that a Mac can even deal with a PC-only peripheral.