Currently, Chris Cam is pointing through my kitchen window and down onto the street below. But, if you’re reading this in a week or two, there’s a good chance that I may have pointed it somewhere else, turned it off, dropped it in the kitchen sink and broken it, got bored of it, or whatever. But for now, it’s up and running and broadcasting live.
If you’re using most modern browsers (which sadly doesn’t include any version of Internet Explorer), you can control Chris Cam with the buttons provided below.
Web Cam Presets
1. Top left
2. Top right
3. Bottom left
4. Bottom right
5. Car park
6. Front
7. Driveway (the camera will default here automatically after 5 minutes)
8. Side
Anyway, enjoy. Oh, and let me know if you spot anything interesting happening!
Use the buttons below to control the camera.
If you’re interested, here’s the science bit!
I’m using a Panasonic BL-C131 wireless IP camera, connected to the internet using dynamic DNS. I’ve created a little Flash control panel app to integrate the camera into the blog a bit better. There’s a few seconds delay as it’s going over the interwires. Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome users should just be able to view the live feed from the camera just fine, simply by looking at this page. Internet Explorer users however will just see a static image, as IE (shock horror) doesn’t support Motion JPEG as standard, so IE users will just see a static image taken from the feed instead. Refresh the page to see updates (just pretend it’s 1996 again) or just use a different browser.
Oh, and because my wireless coverage is a little flaky at times, occasionally the web camera will drop off the network, until I re-connect it manually. I’m sure I’ll spot it eventually, but it wouldn’t hurt to let me know if something seems amiss.
Cool, so which house was it that has the hot neighbour again?
I will admit I was a little worried about what I might find on Chris Cam. I thought that maybe you had found a way to make a little extra money on the internet, if you know what I mean.
Now you have a webcam you should do some Vlogging.
Oooo a car just went past, exciting.
Here’s an idea, can you set it up to take pictures at certain times? I always thought it would be cool to get a webcam to take a pciture of the same area at the same time every day and then put all the pictures together in a video showing the progress through the year.
Yes I know, I need to get out more.
Heh, the hot neighbour lives in a building out of shot I’m afraid. Probably for the best that though!!
It does currently take a snapshot every hour, but I don’t save them (currently), so it just deletes them automatically every 16 hours or so. Whenever I get a wireless NAS box, I’ll probably do something like that then (don’t really fancy clogging my webspace up with hundreds of dull pictures!)
I don’t think vlogging is really my bag by the way.
Love the pink car – is it yours?
That pink car doesn’t make for the most attractive view out of the window, does it!!
SNOW!!!
Car being nicked from parking space to the right….as seen using view no2. Either that or they’re trying to fix it?? The bonnet is up!!
(see screen grab!!)
Heh, now that’s neighbourhood watch!
It’s back now. It came back sounding very unhealthy. The van parked next to it says “Mobile Mechanic” on it, so I think it’s fair to say it’s all legit.
Would’ve been a bit of a scoop if it were being half-inched though!!