Security Cam: Yawcam to Zoneminder

This is not a polished entry, because the project is ongoing.

We needed a security cam.  I'm a technophile.  Google is awesome.
Put them in a pot, and the immediate results are Zoneminder and Yawcam.

With Yawcam, it's straightforward to get a webcam streaming over HTTP -- pretty much turns a webcam into an IP cam.
With Zoneminder, you can take all of your IP cam streams across your LAN, consolidate them into a single management site, and feed just one website over the internet to wherever you are.

No amount of Googling explained how to stream from Yawcam to Zoneminder, so I went about discovering little pieces here and there.

For all you other security-cam needing, technophile google-lovers, here's what I did.

1. Yawcam
   This was done with version 0.4.1.
   Download and install yawcam on a Windows computer with a webcam.  I don't remember doing anything special during the installation.
2. MJPEG streamVery important step.
   There might be other ways to do this, but I haven't figured it out yet.  With Yawcam running:  Settings -->  Edit Settings --> Choose the "Stream" Category --> Set "Stream Type" to "MJPEG"
3. Verify with VLCThis was done with version 2.0.8 Twoflower.
   If you don't have VLC, go install it first.
   Media --> Open Network stream.
   In "Please enter a network URL", type:
   http://x.x.x.x:yyyy/video.mjpg?q=30&fps=33&r=1234567890123&a=.mjpg
   (where x.x.x.x is your local IP address, and yyyy is the port that yawcam is streaming on; "r=...." is supposed to be a random number).
   Note: The final "&a=.mjpg" is not required for yawcam or VLC, but is critical because it helps Zoneminder recognize the stream as an MJPG.
   If you see yourself in VLC, press on!!
4. Linux Live
   I used Linux Live to create a Debian Wheezy ISO on an 8GB USB so that I could just boot an existing computer into Linux, without mucking with the existing Windows implementation.
   Saved me the trouble of quashing a perfectly good machine in case the project failed.  Also allows me to take the USB stick and move my Zoneminder configuration to another computer, if required.
5. Install Zoneminder
   In your linux, run aptitude updateThen run aptitude zoneminder install
   Then run aptitude ffmpeg install
6. Add some fixups
   Once those are done, follow the instructions in this Zoneminder wiki entry (with the exceptions of compiling zoneminder and ffmpeg at the end).  Although it's in Spanish, follow along the commands being executed
7. Let Apache see the videos
   Then, make sure you run add-user www-mpeg video, per step 5 in this Unixmen blog entry 
8. Add a Zoneminder monitor (type = Remote) for the stream, and set the source to be the same source as verified in VLC.

All done!

Did this work for you?  Let me know!

Kijiji Canada iPhone app has a flaw, and they know about it.

I submitted a ticket to Kijiji on behalf of a friend, informing them that she was having trouble responding to post owners via the app.
Their response?  Yeah, we know... go use a computer.

It's a real pain point for users because it explicitly states in the app that delivery was successful... patently false!  My friend sent out about 15-20 responses before suspecting that something was amiss.  A rather disappointing waste of time.

Now, this wouldn't be such a big deal if they did one or more of the following:
(a) Stated in the app that message delivery failed.
(b) Have a popup when loading the app that tells users (in brief) about the flaw.
(c) Present it as a layer on top of each ad.

Why I Almost Never Ordered Pizza 73 Again.

Aug 3, 2012: After a couple of tweets, Pizza 73 tweeted back and (1) empathized with what happened and (2) gave us a much more reasonable $15 credit.  Evidently, they do care... my boycott is over!
Re-titled post accordingly.

Aug 1, 2012: Original post entitled "Why I'm Never Ordering Pizza 73" below


I'm not one to generally hold grudges.  Things anger me, I vent, then I move on.
Not this time.  I hereby vow, on principle, to never order or eat Pizza 73 again.
Here's why:
(Preamble note: we don't eat pork/ham/bacon/pig products.  My wife doesn't eat mushrooms.  She was 7 months pregnant with twins.  All amplifying factors in the following true story.)

On June 30 2012, I ordered a Beef-and-Green-Pepper pizza, a Beef-and-Mushroom pizza and wings.
A reasonable 45 minutes later, the order arrived.  I paid, opened the boxes, and found two wildly wrong pizzas.  They both had some form of ham or pepperoni on it... straight to the garbage. So I promptly called customer service who dispatched replacement pizzas, and even claimed to put a rush on it.  Well done, or so I thought.
At least an hour passed (so much for the rush) before we got the second delivery.  And it was still half wrong.  This time, they sent two beef-and-mush pizzas.
My poor wife, mad with hunger, had to pick the mushrooms off the pizza and force it down.

Seriously, we paid for this sh*t treatment?

At this point I'm livid, and call customer service to look for a nugget, a sliver of a nugget, heck a reflection of a sliver of a nugget of empathy... after all, we paid $30 to get overrun by hunger and, ultimately, eat for sustenance rather than taste.

The customer service rep says "I can give you a $2.50 credit for the wrong topping".
$2.50.  Two dollars and fifty cents.  Two-fifty?!?  What am I gonna do with a $2.50 credit on my next purchase?!?  Call up the delivery guy to swing by just to say hi?  It wouldn't even cover that!!
What a ridiculous statement!

So I try to get corporate head office (someone named Eric Sabarin, spelling could be wrong).  I have now called and left him/her messages three times in an attempt to get a resolution.  Customer service claims that a manager had left me a voice message, but I didn't get it... and I have yet to "lose" a voice message.  Haven't yet heard back from them.

Evidently, Pizza 73 doesn't care that your meal was good, or went well, or that you enjoyed it.  They only care that you buy more.
Not from me, folks.  Not from me.

Hey Pizza Hut, would you do that to me?  Do you care?

My bio

I am applying for an interesting tech startup camp (http://boastcapital.com/Blog/tabid/83/post/calgary-launches-startup-camp-canada-with-big-silicon-valley-partner/Default.aspx) and in the application, they asked for my bio.
Instead of going back and using something I've used before, I decided to see how well I could summarize my life.  The result ensues:

31; raised in Calgary; cycled 1100 km from Calgary to Vancouver; studied Embedded Systems Engineering at UVic; hiked 74km over 7 days on the West Coast Trail; did a bunch of development coops for various Oil and Gas companies and the Department of National Defense; watched the hardware tech crash of the early 2000’s and realized I was screwed; Started the AUVic club and built an AUV and competed in San Diego and won the Team of the Year award; Was President or Officer of a bunch of clubs and societies; Bounced around 5 companies in as many years after graduation, never really feeling satisfied; Figured the MBA is what I needed to round myself out; Realized I was wrong but was still grateful because in studying entrepreneurship via the MBA I discovered my calling; Wrote a (shit load) of papers on the QuickQueue business for MBA credit; Had a kid; Quit my job in Feb 2011 to focus full-time on QQ; Got cold feet and took a few contracts under the mantra of “OMG I’m broke”; Realized that I couldn’t do contracts AND get QQ off the ground at the same time; Got some really good traction starting in Feb 2012; Applying to Plug and Play posthaste.

PogoPlug: Not fantastic...

Edit 1: I was wrong about the number of devices... looks like it just took awhile to recognize my remaining devices!
Edit 2: Okay, so you can rename your devices, at my.pogoplug.com --> Settings or Account Settings --> General Settings.  Not very intuitive...

I bought a PogoPlug, and I'm gonna keep it, but it's not fantastic.


Why I'm keeping it:

1. It gives me access to my personal drives (currently 8TB of data) from anywhere I am.
2. It will stream my media files to other computers and to my XBox360 (to be tested).
3. I can remotely print via the Pogo

Why I'm not a huge fan:

1. Even if I use a USB Hub, the thing limits me to 3 devices.  What's worse, I can't choose which devices (See edit 1 at the top)
2. I can't rename the devices, so I'm left to remember that the Brand A Model B is my Media drive, while my Brand C Model D is my Memories drive.  yuck. (See edit 2 at top)
3. The software installed on my Windows PC is clunky, at best.  
• The only way to access it naturally is through a drive letter, and that only grants me access to the Cloud storage, not my local storage. 
• I can only access my files two ways:  Via the web (i.e. instead of doing a short, high-speed local network hop, I'm forced to do an Internet leap to get my local data rather than a local network hop), or via the locally installed application.  I can't access my drives via network paths (UNC), mapped drives, library folders or any other normal-Windows-way of getting to my files.  In other words, applications that rely on this information are hooped unless I download it from a drive attached to my Pogo onto a local drive in the computer.  Totally defeats the purpose.

Verdict: I may not keep it for very long....
BTW, I use Dropbox for storage of my critical, must-always-be-available data.  Free version limited to 2GB, of course... but still...