Q:  What kind of camera is that?

A:  The YardCam is a Connectix B/W Quickcam.  I purchased it refurbished from Surplus Direct for about $60.  It's hooked to my home-built Windows 95 workstation through the parallel port.  Pictures are saved directly to my server via my LAN.
 

Q:  What program do you use to capture the pictures?

A:  Connectix QuickPict.  It came with the camera.
 

Q: Why isn't it hooked to the server?

A:  Because my printer is.  Linux makes a better print server than Windows 95.
 

Q:  What web server software do you use?

A:  Apache.  My server runs Red Hat Linux 5.0, and this is the best web server available for that platform.  (And most other platforms.)
 

Q:  Why is it black and white?

A:  Because the camera was cheap at the time.  Prices have gone down, there are color cameras nearly that cheap now.
 

Q:  Why are you using Windows 95?  It sucks!

A:  It does indeed.  I have programs I need to run currently that require it.  When that changes, I'll switch back to Linux on my workstation.
 

Q:  What hardware do you run the camera and server on?

A:  Home-built boxes.  Both are 486 motherboards with AMD 5x86/133 processors.  Theoretical performance is around Pentium 75 level, BogoMIPS reports around 66 to 67.  The workstation has 32Mb of RAM, the server has 64Mb.  The hard drives change sort of often, but presently there are two 2.1Gb drives in the server and one 680Mb drive in the workstation.  That will change pretty soon.
 

Q:  Will you teach me how to build a webcam?

A:  No.  There's enough information on this page to let you do it.
 

Q:  Do you want to join my webring?

A:  No.  I had a slot in the Webcam ring at one point in the past, and when my situation stabilizes I may rejoin, but in the meantime don't bother me.
 

Q:  Can I link to your page?

A:  Yes.
 

Q:  Will you put up a link to my page?

A:  No.
 

Q:  Can you help me set up Linux?

A:  Yes.  For $35 an hour.  I do this for a living.
 

Q:  Can you build me a webcam?

A:  Yes.  For $35 an hour.
 

Q:  Where is the camera?

A:  On a windowsill in my office, inside my home in Ada, Oklahoma.  Directly below your point of view is my front porch.  The fence goes all the way around the house.  The black object to your right, sticking above the fence, is my mailbox.  The driveway is to the left.  The farthest left vehicle (usually) is my Ford Aspire.  The closer one (usually) is my wife's Honda CR-V.  The large black dog is Winnie.  She just looks mean.  Since she lives on the porch, you'll see her fairly frequently, unless it's very hot outside in which case she hides under the back porch.  Maybe I'll put a camera out there someday.
 

Q:  Why isn't the picture changing?  And why is it daylight, when it's after dark in Ada?

A:  Because I don't always run the software to update it.  Windows 95 sucks, so if I'm using the computer I don't update the picture.  It's too dark out there at night, so if I update it you'll see a lot of dots, maybe somebody's porch light, and occasionally some taillights from passing cars.  When I get a chance to switch to Linux on the workstation, I'll probably update the camera a lot more frequently, but then I'll probably have brightness problems.