I had my husband write down all the info for me, here it is!

The camera is a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000, around $100.00 at Best Buy. Takes still images @ 2 megapixels, video 1600x1200 @ up to 30 frames per second. Super easy set-up and lots of controls including pan, zoom & follow. It's not wireless, though

We're using Verizon FIOS (fiber optic), rated at 15 megabits up & down, at $70.00 per month. It took the Verizon guy a couple of hours to get everything set up.

We use Stickam.com as the camera venue, they have a good picture and easy to manage chat options. YahooLive is also good, picture was not as nice and the chat is clunky. Both are free.

With the FIOS we've found that the cam crashes less often, and when it does, it's Stickam's fault, not ours. Also we can use our computers for other things while the cam is running, and even play games on the Xbox with no discernable lag.

Hope this helps! :)

Velvet ~:>

Thank you for all that information. Your pictures are amazingly clear for a webcam. I have never seen one take video that clear before. Did you use it before FIOS? Was it still clear?

FIOS I am not understanding. did you ask Verizon for some kind of DSL and you got FIOS or it is specifically for something else? does the $70 include your internet service? if so that is not bad I think I paid $55 from Bellsouth for plaino DSL and looks like they (Verizon) got them beat hands down.

Thanks so much for the info!!!

One last question. are you (as the administrator) able to go back on your video? for instance if you got home at 5PM and wanted to see what happened earlier at 7AM can you do that?
Thanks velvet!!
Jay

FIOS...is fiber optic cable....it's the telephones competition to cable. Depending on where you're located, you may not have. It enables them to have high speed internet so they can give you digital TV, high speed internet access and voice over IP. It's nice but I think they want too much for all that considering once you go that way, they pull your copper wiring outside so that you can't go back. (at least they've been doing that in D/FW area)

well it must not be here because I checked the site today and could not find it. thats the bad part of living in the country. we are the forgotten folks.

Wow, they are taking the copper wire? They must be getting good money for copper these days... *L* I'd say the install guy is making a little extra cash at the recycling plant.

As shebear said, FIOS handles the Internet & phone for us. My husband was able to crawl under the house before the install guy got here and get things ready, so the guy didn't have to do too much. We were paying $50.00 a month for Earthlink and that was just for Internet, so the Fios wasn't a terribly big jump for us--and well worth it considering the load from our computers.

We can't 'go back' on the cam, it's strictly a camera and not a recording device. But you could sure hook up a VCR or DVD to it, or even save it on your hard drive I suppose, depending...

The Logitech camera WAS that good before the FIOS, but only for us--the broadcast quality went to Hell for anyone else trying to watch Chickam, and was painful to try and watch, way pixelated.

Hope this helps! :)

Velvet ~:>

I finally got me a wireless ip camera to keep a watch on things but no good program to see what the heck is going on. Anyone have an idea how I can watch my camera from work?

Copper theft has always been a problem, India and China's expansion of their electrical grids, culminating in China's preparations for the Olympics (and we can all agree that they did a fantastic job) drove up the price of all construction commodities, Copper prices shot up almost 400%.

I am suprised that no one told me what software they use. I know people out there have cameras set up on their property, I have heard people mentioning them. Can anyone help? PM or on the thread works for me

I have used both yawcam and dorgem, free software to turn a webcam into a motion activated/sensitive security camera, with this software my pc will email me a stillshot of the thing-in-motion that turned it on as well as recording video (for a predetermined duration) to my hard disk. By setting up gotomypc or some such program (I have a secure tunnel to my home pc from work) you can view the camera live too.

Thanks! I will check it out. The camera I have was pretty expensive to be sitting on my coffee table (watching the seeds that I did not plant) and I really would like to put it to use.

I will check out the programs and post questions if I can't get it to do what I want it to do.

Thanks again.

I went to both sites you suggested. dorgem is no longer.
I downloaded yawcam and can not get it to work. I think it is looking for a webcam because it keeps saying can not connect. uggggh I am so frustrated

Just a note. I finally got that yawcam program to work. In the set up it asked me for my ftp site and also my user id and password on my website. I put it in. A couple of days later my website got hijscked!!

It was horrible with lime green flashing background, orange writing, and a message in English and Arabic proudly stating they took over my site. It took a few days to get rid of it. It only got through one of my websites even though all 3 share the same space. they all have different passwords and I had just made up that ftp site for the webcam and you guess it the changes came through the ftp site.

DO NOT USE YAWCAM if you are uploading to your own server!!!