Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 23 February 2001, 5:21 PM
Rupert Goodwins' diary
Thursday
22/02/20017
One of the advantages of permanent connectivity is that you get to play with web servers, FTP resources and webcams. There is absolutely nothing worth looking at in my Holloway pied-a-terre, but why should that get in the way of me broadcasting it to the globe? Although in current market conditions, I may perhaps hold off on the IPO for a few weeks, just until the business plan clarifies.
There is, I discover, a rather fine piece of software called Inetcam (www.inetcam.com). It downloads in seconds (yes!) and installs just as swiftly. I just about get everything up and running when it's time to whoosh over to Hampstead and visit a pal who's working on some videoconferencing stuff for Zdnet. Somewhat over-optimistically, I press the big Go button, check that I can see the webcam from my LAN and that the address resolves from outside, and lollop into the night.
Once at my pals, I excitedly bash in the URL. The connection starts... and nothing. Bah.
I slouch back home. There on the screen is a happy message from my firewall saying "Do you want to let icam talk to the Internet?" I do, I tell it, and voila! Friends around the world report that five frames per second of happy smiling Rupert can be clearly seen.
And no, I'm not telling you the URL.
22/02/20017
One of the advantages of permanent connectivity is that you get to play with web servers, FTP resources and webcams. There is absolutely nothing worth looking at in my Holloway pied-a-terre, but why should that get in the way of me broadcasting it to the globe? Although in current market conditions, I may perhaps hold off on the IPO for a few weeks, just until the business plan clarifies.
There is, I discover, a rather fine piece of software called Inetcam (www.inetcam.com). It downloads in seconds (yes!) and installs just as swiftly. I just about get everything up and running when it's time to whoosh over to Hampstead and visit a pal who's working on some videoconferencing stuff for Zdnet. Somewhat over-optimistically, I press the big Go button, check that I can see the webcam from my LAN and that the address resolves from outside, and lollop into the night.
Once at my pals, I excitedly bash in the URL. The connection starts... and nothing. Bah.
I slouch back home. There on the screen is a happy message from my firewall saying "Do you want to let icam talk to the Internet?" I do, I tell it, and voila! Friends around the world report that five frames per second of happy smiling Rupert can be clearly seen.
And no, I'm not telling you the URL.
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