The Daily Parker

First, from the Strange Editorial Priorities department: these were the headlines on MSNBC's top headlines today:

WP: CIA program withstands furor

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10644533/

West Coast gets more rain

The West Coast was expected to end 2005 with a bang of winter weather: two storm fronts that could bring as much as 10 inches of rain in Northern California and snowfall of up to six feet in some mountain areas. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10632481/

N. Korea cuts off U.N. food aid

As Pyongyang's Stalinist government moves to reassert control over the food supply, some experts fear that it could lead the isolated country into another famine. By Kari Huus. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10631108/

Now, I like weather, but come on. Maybe these stories could have been re-ordered?

Second, for those of you who missed me, SBC, which has now apparently merged with AT&T (didn't they break up in 1984?), dropped my DSL from 4:09 CT/22:09 UTC until a few minutes ago. Gotta love 'em.

Correction, 25 January 2006 12:00 CST/18:00 UTC: The problem described below turned out to be a bad individual camera. Logitech was great, replacing the bad camera with a new one, no questions asked. The new camera has been running without interruption for several weeks now.

The original blog entry follows:

I can't believe how much time is being sucked away from me by this broken Webcam problem. I am now on hold with Logitech, and though my call is very important to them, they are experiencing higher-than-normal call volumes, so they'll take my call in the order it was received.

I got a Logitech Orbit MP that should have been a tremendous improvement over the Intel Cam III I've been using for two years. The poor Intel camera is unstable, half-burned-out, slow, and basically showing its age. The new Logitech camera should be none of these things, and should have the added benefit of being able to tilt and pan so that it's never looking directly at the sun, as my poor Intel camera has on occasion done.

The Logitech camera worked beautifully on my laptop. Then it worked really well right away when I connected it to the old server. Then I logged into the server remotely, and the image froze. Then I couldn't get the server to recognize the camera. After six reboots, I thought the problem was the Belkin USB extension cord. So I moved the camera to another computer, closer to the window, for the time being.

Now the camera doesn't work at all. Nothing I can do will get the computer to recognize it. In fact, it's acting dead. Thus my call to Tech Support, which is a prerequisite to sending it back for replacement.

Let's count the damage so far: Three hours of time that I should have spent installing a server for a client (they're out of the office until Tuesday so there's at least no rush there), a parking ticket (my fault, I know), and probably an aneurism.

Final update before heading to client, 18:56 UTC: After 21 minutes of holding and a 6-minute conversation, Logitech is replacing the camera. So look in about two weeks for the second attempt.

I posted too soon about the new Webcam. It worked great until I logged off and back on again. Then it stopped working. The problem appears to be with the drivers on the host computer.

I'll write more later. I've given up an hour of my life because of this stupid thing. I sincerely hope I'll have the cam working in the next few minutes.

Update, 17:26 UTC: It wasn't the camera. It was (a) a Belkin USB extension cord or (b) Windows 2000 Server. One of the two did not play well with the Webcam. I can't believe how long this simple thing has taken me.

Update, 17:44 UTC: OK. Got the camera working (temporarily) on an old Windows XP box. Also got the Lab Cam (below) running, but I haven't given it a home on the Website yet. That will have to come later. Right now, I have a server to build for a client.

And, apparently, a parking ticket. Dang.

The Lab Cam (live image, updated every 5 minutes):

After much searching, and more than one total Webcam collapse, I've finally found the perfect Webcam. It has numerous features, like its own stand, that will make the Inner Drive Technology Webcam even more fun and enjoyable.

The old cam will go into the Inner Drive Technology Comprehensive Testing Facility tomorrow or Monday. The image will look nothing like this one, which I include for Anne's benefit:

More when I get back from my client visit.

No real entry today and no entry at all yesterday because I was helping my mom move. However, all of the pieces of the Inner Drive Technology Comprehensive Testing Facility are in, so we should complete construction tomorrow morning or, possibly, on Saturday. Photos will follow.

The Inner Drive Technology Testing Lab at IDT World Headquarters is nearly complete. Today we have a fully-functional, multi-computer testing lab. We'll be moving some computers around probably next week, and we expect to add a chair or two. We may also put some maps up on the wall, because we love maps.

Here's the nascent facility:

The saga of the Webcam continues. At least it's back on its perch.

Here's what I found when I got to my office a few minutes ago:

And here is what the Inner Drive Webcam saw as it teetered, tottered, and tumbled to the floor of the office. At 5:53pm Central time, all was fine:

Then, suddenly, the mounting began to give way. The first shock came at 5:54; the second, at 5:57:

The mounting held for a while; here are shots at 6:15 and 6:30:

The end, when it came at 6:33, came swiftly. A jolt at 6:31, another at 6:32, then at 6:33, blackness:

Until, bleary eyed and stunned, it woke to a changed world at 7:30 the next morning. The final shot is 9:00am, about the time I discovered the horror of the fallen Webcam:

But, gentle readers, the Webcam is back up. At this writing, here is the image, in all its properly-mounted glory:

(Your guess is as good as mine what it sees tomorrow morning.)

Sigh.

Astute readers will gather from the preceding post that I am out of the office for a couple of days. And pessimists will agree that, if something were going to go wrong in the office, it would go wrong the day I left. Pessimists: rejoice! The Inner Drive Webcam has decided to add a new page to its history:

Now, as nearly as I can figure it, you're looking there at the back end of the computer that hosts the camera (highlighted below), upside-down. I'll have to review the archives on Saturday to figure out exactly when this happened. And I'll have to review the method I'm using to secure it to the window.

For a couple of years, Inner Drive has had a webcam pointing out the window. We've moved twice since the webcam first went online. From time to time, we've adjusted the webcam slightly. And, every so often, the webcam adjusts itself.

For example, the first cam image is from when we left the office last night, and the second from when I woke up this morning:

(The images are displayed at half-size, but you can view them at full-size by saving them from your browser. You'll notice that they have timestamps, which are in Universal time.)

The poor webcam was lying on the floor of the office covered by the box upon which it had previously sat. See how it sits precariously in this photo? Imagine it now in a heap under the chair by the window.

So, since we had to move it anyway, we decided to rotate it south 90 degrees, to this angle:

For those interested in history, here is what the image looked like yesterday during the day, and at 6, 12, and 18 months ago, respectively:

And finally, here is what the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters looked like in October 2004 and October 2003:

(Yes, the image on the right is of my living room.)

Note: I didn't realize when I started this post that today is the second anniversary of the Webcam. As a special bonus, here is the very first Inner Drive Cam picture ever, from 17 December 2003 at 1:28 pm CST (19:28 UTC):

I've finally added an explanation of Evolutionary Delivery to my corporate site. I wrote this as part of a proposal to a client in September, and for reasons that passeth understanding, I neglected to publish it online.

By the way, I write software for a living, so if you're reading this and realize you need a small, agile development team for a .NET project, send us a message.