how do you view a webcams from on iPhone?

[ipod]

Does anybody know? I'd really appreciate it. I'd like to see family and friends while I'm away, so this would be truly great if somebody knows how to. My family is willing to download yahoo or MSN or whatever it takes in order for me to see them on webcams from my iphone. Thanks

[x999x]

Well, in a nutshell, you'd be able to watch a webpage which refreshes itself with a new jpg every few seconds. You'd have to talk over chat, which could also be handled on that same page with some ajax or even javascript since the page is going to be reloading itself anyway.

A quick google search brought up exactly what I was thinking would work, provided the image is not perpetually cached by the iphone, and in that case, never updated. But anyway, you'll want to look for a setup on your desktop computer that has these features:


FTP Client - Upload images to an FTP server (a Web server) to allow images to be obtained directly from the page. Now includes previous image cycling and time to next upload.
HTTP Server - An HTTP image server (Web server) serving video images from a capture device (camera) without the need to configure any CGI programs or have any other Web server.

[ipod]

thanks! Do you know a link I can click For this? Yahoo or MSN support this? Where should I go basically if you can tell me.

[x999x]

Sorry, I don't know if Yahoo or MSN support uploading to a site like whats mentioned above. You'll want to look for software that does.

The method which uploads to a server like that is nearly deprecated by today's standards, as MSN and Yahoo's webcam playback is much more robust. What I've recommended is more likely to work on the iphone because Safari supports Javascript, like refreshing the page to load an updated image.

[ipod]

what should I search for on google so my family can download it?

[velvetropeparty]

I use a Mac and a program called Security Spy. I use it to monitor my house when I am away. It displays images via a web address I set up on a Mac mini. The voice part would be by phone while you look at the web page via WiFi.

[x999x]

This is probably a little late, but I just stumbled on to CamSpinner, a pretty robust little program for my needs. It will basically use your Mac's hardware to record movies, sound clips, or still images and then serves them up to an FTP, or your own Mac Web Sharing folder. I really like the Web Sharing feature because now I don't have to fiddle with uploading anything to my FTP, I just tell my Mac to turn on Web Sharing and I'm done :)

I've tested this on the iPhone, and it works great. The page would refresh the image just as I suspected, and since you can define the imagesize in Camspinner, the reloads over EDGE are very quick.

You can download the free version of Camspinner here:

http://www.optima-system.com/camspinner/

The program is only $9.99 if you decide it meets your requirements. I went ahead and took the plunge, the app is very well written and the wizard to configure what your webcam webpage looks like was a real bonus in my books.