What are thoughts on sharing a usb Camera connected directly to an Airport Extreme, instead of a printer...
Will this work? Why or Why not?
If so, what is the strategy for, if the airport is connected to the internet, accessing the camera from a remote location?
(I'd like to spy on my cats while at work... if I take my laptop, I don't have a computer with a usb port available... well, maybe the thinkpad, but that's ugly)
I can't really answer your question, but I just wanted to say that thinkpads are not ugly.
I find them to be very classy looking, if a bit utilitarian. Then again, think of who they are marketing them to.
--Mark--
Its not that thinkpads are ugly, its that connecting a usb webcam to a windows thinkpad and having it shared across the internet would be ugly...
in fact, anything running any version of a microsoft OS product, is quite ugly.
Anything running any microsoft product, including stuff in the P E W X arena, is uglier than it would be with out it.
Thinkpads rule... they are espescially choice when they run Panther...
http://www.applefritter.com/node/6447
http://www.applefritter.com/node/6448
Now these are sentiments that I can agree with.
Are you running PearPC to use Panther on that thinkpad?
--Mark--
With the fast emulation proc in PearPC, it runs about 15X slower than the actual processor... and no AltiVec... not very useful (but facinating).
This tp is an 800MHz PIII, with 96MB RAM, so even XP runs slow... unless I am running an app that is tiny... which I am... its a vnc client called, uh, vncviewer (and ARD 2.1 client running on the Mac)
This works great... Panther (server unlimited, actually) is running on a G4/450 9600 connected to the Airport, so I set up a managed account for my girlfriend on the 9600, and she connects with vnc using the thinkpad. It works much faster vncing to a G4/450 than running XP on a PIII/800.
Pretty neat, but hardly original...
I really desprately want to replace the 9600 with a Mini, and desperatly want to have the Tungston T5 (with WiFi card) running the vnc client version for that Palm OS... that would be super neat.
Ah, very cool! I will have to check that out.
--Mark--
You'd need software/firmware support, which is entirely lacking (AFAIK) in an APx box. In any case, doesn't the built-in USB-printer function require an active computer driving the thing? Hmm, if that's so, maybe if you write drivers you could get a cam-on-APx working after all?
There's gotta be tons of webcam SW for x86 boxen, alternate OSes included. Eh?
Alternately, I don't suppose you want to spend $100 - $200 for a standalone network (wired or wifi) cam? Maybe they cost less nowadays, haven't looked in awhile.
dan k
The Airport Extreme doesn't have any drivers for a USB camera, however, you can buy 802.11 cameras and put them on any existing wireless network
I've seen a USB ethernet server that shared USB perhiperals over ethernet (which could be connected to an AEBS), one of those could be used with a USB webcam, but an 802.11 camera is probably a better idea.
How about an example of a 802.11 camera...?
I've looked around online... and the ones I see use the 802.11 proticol, but I don't see how to configure them to use an existing network...?
They all have these receivers that you can connect to a vcr, pc, whatever... so it looks like they have their own base station and their own network...
you push a button on it to select the network by channel number. Unfortunately this means you can't use encryption.
here are your examples:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=342
http://www.broadbandutopia.com/panwir80pana.html
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=38&prid=566
thanks, Dr. B!