How it all works... 

On going issues:

The ever needing ability to perform updates to the XP software from Microsoft as well as the Antivirus updates. Although the settings now seem to be working... Automatically.

The Senior Technical Advisors job (running over and pushing the reset button) has been outsourced to the USA. A cheaper workforce market :) What I mean is that I got a device from the folks at X-10 that I can dial up to with the phone and turn an appliance off (the PC) and then back on. Although I'm not in favor of cold reboots, it works pretty well and XP is tolerating it. I usually only need to do this after a storm front moves through and "tickles" the power lines.

On February 29th 2004, I moved the page to http://hostforweb.net. The page was down for several days due to "difference in understanding" and the normal propagation time to move. Also the change of an uppercase S in 'sheridan' changed to s messed up everyone's shortcuts to the page.

The addition of the Hi-Tech Temperature sensors was a gift from various supporters of the site.  A big Thank You from Rob. The sensors and serial interface are from  Midon Design  . I wrote a VB App that reads the data and puts it into an Access database. The app then creates a web page with the latest temp info and uploads it with the picture on the hour. I'm on lake sensor #3... I got 2 years out of the last one. I figure that's pretty good considering the extremes it goes through. I used the transistor like sensor and put it a small glass jar and then packed it with a two part epoxy material. This time I'll overlap the edges more, so that the water has a harder time seeping in. I also found breaks in the wire as it entered the lake. Probably from the rocks and ice moving on it. I'll make a conduit out of a garden hose for it...

The picture is taken with the below camera and lens, the auto Iris is important because of the differing lighting and the varifocal for framing of the picture. It's mounted in an enclosure that is weatherproof (it's survived the Cariboo winters since 2001) and comes with a 24VDC heater for the lens to stay defogged (I'm not sure if it would have ever fogged?). The camera is plugged into a WINNOV VO frame capture card. The software that puts this all together is WEBCAM32 and it was easy to get going. The software also has hours of entertainment in store for me to get all the various functions to work. I run it all with a AMD 500 driven PC running XP. The software 'snaps' the picture and dials http://bcinternet.net , my local ISP and uploads it to my page, which is stored  at http://hostforweb.net in Chicago.

or in some cases, how it doesn't!

The problems I've encountered are the same ones I have every day, except I'm not at the cabin to hit the enter key to confirm the error message or reset it after it hangs. I now have a UPC for it, but I don't have any more serial ports so when the battery dies, so does the PC. So if (when) the power is interrupted, it will start up again as the BIOS is set to start it up. This setup has only failed once this past winter which sent the Senior Technical Analyst through the snow to push the reset! 

It's been helpful to have a hand with Norm being a 'Senior Technical Analyst' and all. Focusing, aiming while watching a monitor and hanging on to a tree was tricky by myself .

Also, I looked at a lot of webcams before I chose this setup and Tom at http://www.eagleshore.com had the look and setup I was looking for. So his trials helped me get on this ladder a few more rungs up from the bottom.

Bear with us as all the challenges are overcome... And in the future.... live weather graphing, wind?

Thank You. Rob                                questions?

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