While you might already be familiar with the many apps that are available for your personal webcam that you use at home, there are also many very cool applications that are especially valuable if you travel a lot with a portable USB webcam, or if you use many different computers that have their own built-in webcams. These days, most laptops or desktops have them.

I’ve shared my own obsession with webcam software here at MakeUseOf with my own articles, such as adding VZOChat to your blog to interact with your visitors. I’m not the only one! Simon also wrote about how to use your webcam to control games, and Mark mentioned a couple of useful motion sensor webcam applications as well. To add to the MakeUseOf library of useful webcam resources, I’d like to turn now to three free applications that let you use your webcam live and online to take and share photos, broadcast or “tweet” video updates, and even speed date however, whenever and wherever you like.

Take Hilarious Snapshots From Your Browser With Cameroid

MakeUseOf covered Cameroid briefly before, and for good reason. If you like the ability to quickly take a snapshot and modify it in a way that will make people really laugh – you have to check this out. This isn’t an application you have to install on your PC. If you’re on any computer that has a webcam, or you have a portable USB webcam with you, just visit the Cameroid website and you can start taking and playing around with your snapshots.

Obviously, you can take perfectly normal snapshots of yourself if you like, but the real exciting thing about this browser-based software is how quickly and easily you can insert various special effects. On the right, you’ll find the various types of special photo effects that are available, including adding a filter, distorting the photo (this can be really funny), inserting yourself into scenes, or framing the snapshot. My personal favorite is the hilarious “scenes” section where you can insert your face into any of a number of scenes.

Here, I decided to go on my first scuba-diving expedition with the rest of the MUO crew, and they thought it would be funny if they unplugged my air supply. Thanks a lot guys. Wait – my even more favorite section is the “filter” section where you can select from a whole list of filters that add a very cool sense of drama or intrigue to your photo.

As you can see here, the aliens were coming to get me and I had no way out. Luckily, I survived the ordeal and lived to tell about it, but the rest of the MUO crew got massacred during the battle – such a shame.  As you can see at the bottom of each snapshot you take, if you have the nerve, you can add the photo to the public Cameroid Gallery for all of the world to see. Otherwise, you can either save it to your hard drive or print it out on paper. No registration and no fees required – all from the convenience of your web browser and any webcam.

Speed Date From the Comfort of Your Home With Randomate

So you’re single, alone, and on a business trip. You’ve just suffered through a full day of conferences and you’re back in your hotel room with nothing to do – and you start lamenting the fact that you have no one in your life who even cares about you. So go down to the lobby where there’s a computer with a webcam, and log into Randomate to set up a free webcam speed dating session. You never know, you just might find the person you’ve always dreamed of.

How does it work? Basically, you sign up for a session, and when it begins you get to chat with the other people in the session who are also looking for someone. The catch is that it follows the rules of speed-dating, which is you get to talk to the person for only five minutes. Then you move on to the next person, who you talk to for five minutes. Honestly – don’t you know within the first five minutes whether there might be a spark there?

Sessions are ongoing constantly, but slots are limited – so if you know you want to take part in online speed dating, sign up for a session early and remember to be there when it starts!

Seesmic TV is Twitter with Video

Another very cool online tool that you can use from anywhere and with any webcam is Seesmic TV.  David reviewed Seesmic Desktop not very long ago, so did Jason, and made mention of Seesmic Web as well – both tools that you can use to better interface directly with Twitter.

However, Seesmic TV, the app which Mark briefly mentioned being integrated with Twhirl, is an interesting community where you can issue video Twitter-like messages in video format, and reply to other folks video updates just like you do on Twitter. On Seesmic TV, this amounts to an interesting collection of actual discussions with actual faces and actual voices…just like actual live. It really makes you feel like you’re right there having a conversation with the person face-to-face.

The interface where you record your message is just as simple as in Twitter. You simply title your video clip, add a description and post to the community or send it privately to the inbox of another Seesmic user. You can do this from any computer anywhere in the world as long as it has an internet connection and a webcam (or you bring your own USB webcam with you).

The beauty of all three of these applications is that they let you interface with Internet communities in ways that simply aren’t possible in a purely text or even an audio medium. Using facial expressions and tone of voice, you can convey your messages to the world much more clearly and effectively.

Have you taken part in any webcam-based community? Would you ever consider it, and if not, what holds you back? Share your opinions and insight in the comment section below.

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It was actually writing that article that made me start thinking about other uses for my webcam. Then, as I sat there staring at the cellphone – an old HTC 8125 with just a 1.3 mega pixel camera – I started to wonder if there was a way I could convert this little phone into a portable webcam that could stream video from anywhere in the world where there’s a cellphone data network.

That curiosity and a little bit of Internet research led me to VZOchat, an interesting free online service where you can configure your own video chat account and whenever you’re online you can receive direct video calls from anyone.

So, what does this have to do with turning a Windows Mobile smartphone into a remote webcam? Well, the VZOchat service also offers a mobile version. This means that people can trigger a video conferencing call to your mobile phone, but it also means that you can set up your cellphone anywhere you like, and then fire off a call to the phone from your computer which will enable the streaming video feature of the VZOchat software on your phone!

Want to spy on the room where you accidently “left” your phone? Maybe you want to stream a really cool rock concert to your friends with your cellphone. The potential uses for streaming live video from your cellphone are unlimited. As if that’s not cool enough – there’s one more little feature that VZOchat offers – the ability to embed the video call feature directly into your blog or website so anyone can video chat with you straight from your blog.

I’ll cover each of these features in this article. Let’s get started.

Setting Up Your Own Private Videochat

When you first sign up for your free VZOchat account, you’ll instantly have access to a special web page where you can find your embedded videochat room. You don’t even have to install any software on your PC, only a plugin for your browser so that the videochat room works properly.

Yes, I know I look tired. I’ve been staying up all night writing this article!

Now, VZOchat is actually a video chat community, so if you want to you can set your status as public and let everyone on the social network see your profile and call you. I’m not exactly that much of a social butterfly, so I left that feature disabled – I’m only here for the cool Internet video chat software.

All you have to do to call another user on VZOchat is click “start videochat” and type their name. For my purposes – I want to initiate a video chat with my cellphone, and I want the cellphone to pick up automatically. So step two is setting up the mobile version of VZOchat on your Windows Mobile device (Windows Mobile only).

Setting Up VZOchat As a Cameraphone Webcam

Once you download and install the CAB file to your mobile and you log in using the credentials that you signed up with, you’ll see the following screen on your phone.

At this point, the green bar means that you’re online and ready to send or receive video calls. This means that you can remotely call your phone with your computer, but first you have to tell your phone to automatically pick up the call. Do this by clicking on “Options.”

Most of the settings within options are pretty self-explanatory. Most of the calling features you want to configure are in the “Integration” menu item. When you click on that icon you’ll see the following screen.

As you can see here, you can integrate the software to work with Outlook Mobile and the Today Screen – but what you really want to make sure to click here is the option to “Automatically accept incoming calls.” Once you do this, you’re ready to remotely fire up your cellphone as a remote cameraphone webcam!

To test this, I placed my old Windows Mobile 5 PDA on my kitchen countertop facing a Halloween art project my wife and kids created – a small tree with ghosts hanging on the branches. Running back across the house to my laptop (I seriously ran, I was that excited), I clicked on the green call button and watched as the software initiated the call. Suddenly, the video window changed to a view of what my cellphone was pointed to at that moment.

Now, I should mention a few things about this image. My particular camera is ancient, and a 1.3 mega pixel camera is hardly comparable to the sort of resolution available on most modern smartphones. Secondly, I noticed my image updated about once every 5 seconds or so, which I believe was related to my data upload speed over the cellular data line – and I hardly had a signal in my house. Again, a newer model will most likely perform much better.

Finally, if you do decide to use this technique to convert your cellphone into a cameraphone webcam, make sure you either have an unlimited Internet data plan or your phone is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi.

Embedding the Video Chat Feature Into Your Blog

Now that we’ve accomplished the first task. I want to show you one more amazingly cool feature with VZOchat that had me smiling from ear to ear – the ability to embed a calling box into your blog or web page so visitors can initiate a video chat with you. Here’s how it works.

When you’re logged into your VZOchat account, click on the “widgets” tab at the top.

Here, you’ll see two options. The first is a neat little VZOchat widget using the iframe tag that lets you embed your profile call gateway into your blog, which I’ve done here on my blog FreeWritingCenter.

Now, the value of just offering such a feature on your blog or website is tremendous. Allow visitors to interact with you directly to discuss a topic you’ve blogged about. Or, maybe you have a tech support website and you could use this feature to let your clients contact you directly video chat right from your web page.

The one drawback with the widget is that when they click on it, it opens a whole different window on VZOchat for your visitor to talk to you. If you want them to stay right at your site, you can use the VZOchat Webclient code instead – and visitors can have a video chat with you right on your own web page.

Here’s me having a chat with myself right on my blog.

After about 10 minutes, I found myself pretty darn boring, so I just hung up on myself. The embedded video chat is still there, as is the sidebar call feature (for now). I’m going to leave it there to chat with MUO readers and others unless I find a better service at some point. If it’s still there and I’m online, go ahead and give me a call and let’s chat!

Can you think of any cool uses for turning your mobile phone into a cameraphone webcam? What about using the service in your blog, or combining the two features so visitors can call you on your mobile? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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This has been a dream of mine for years, but I’ve always avoided the project because of the costs I assumed were involved. However, writing for MakeUseOf often forces me to think a bit outside the box. How would I accomplish a home security system inexpensively or free?

As an automation engineer, I often have to work with machinery or equipment where a central processor needs to read data from a number of distributed sensors. So, for starters I would distribute “sensors” – both wired and wireless web cams – in and around my property. The question still remains, what central processing software could handle all of those webcams and accomplish the “alert” scenario I want? After doing a lot of digging, I finally found a very cool software application called Active Webcam that lets you do just that.

How to Build a WiFi Home Security System

In this article, I’m going to describe how you can set up a system of security webcams that will alert you to even the slightest intrusion into the space the camera is monitoring. Before we get going, I do need to make it clear that the download link above for Active Webcam is to a free trial version of the software. However, the trial version offers all of the features of the full version, except there’s a small “nag window” in the upper left part of each webcam. If you can tolerate the window (I know I can), then the software is the top free choice for what we need to accomplish.

Recently, MakeUseOf covered similar applications for your webcam, such as Mark’s article on two cool motion sensor applications, and a while back I also outlined how you could use webcams from all around the world to go ghost hunting with your browser. However, what I’m going to describe today is a combination of all of those things. We’re going to create a remote surveillance system that could monitor your home, your camp, your apartment – or all of the above, all at the same time. In essence you can create a giant personal surveillance network without limitations. Sound cool? Let’s roll.

When you first install Active Webcam you’re offered an easy wizard that steps you through setting up your first device.

As you can see even from this first screen – the software has a lot of capabilities. Not only can you capture input from cameras connected directly to your computer, on your home network, or over the Internet – but you can even generate a web page that you could access from anywhere to watch all of your configured cameras.

The next screen of the startup wizard helps you select which type of camera you want to connect to. Keep in mind that if you’ve set up a remote Wi-Fi webcam that has its own IP on your network, you can connect to it directly by selecting “Network IP Camera.”

The next screen in the wizard lets you choose from the three standard methods of broadcasting your captured video. You can stream it all to an external web server, you can turn your PC itself into a web server, or you can upload via FTP. In my case, I’m hoping to receive an email with a nice snapshot of the intruders that I can take over to the police station, so on this step I’ll select “None.” Once you’re past the startup wizard and you’ve set up your first device, go to settings and select “Motion Detection.”

This is the place where we can accomplish the magic. A few things to keep in mind here. First, set the sensitivity to what you want to accomplish. For example, in my case my cameras are sitting in an empty house where nothing should be moving. Setting it to 95% will fire off an email at the slightest movement. However, if you have a small cat or dog in the house, you may want to set it for 75% to 80% so that it ignores smaller movements. The last thing you want is a flurry of hundreds of emails because your cat decided to start playing with the webcam!

You’ll also notice that there’s an impressive array of actions you can take when the camera senses motion. Playing a sound or FTP’ing captured images are standard with most of these motion detection applications – but the one feature that is very cool here is that if you want, the application will not only send you an email, but it can also send an SMS message to your cellphone. Now that’s slick. Of course, in my case I want an email with snapshots of the intruder, so I select “Send Email” and then go into the email settings.

The email settings are very easy. Just configure your SMTP settings and remember to add which email address to send the alert to. You can add multiple ones by using a comma between them. The interval setting will wait before firing off another email when there’s more motion, and you can choose how many snapshots you want the camera to take. During a test run with my single laptop webcam watching for motion, I received the following email.

Okay, so it works – but what about really putting it to good use?

Build a WiFi Internet Surveillance Network

My first thought is a distributed surveillance system where you wire up a webcam at every remote location you want to monitor. This could be your elderly mother’s house, your camp way up north or maybe even your office because you suspect someone’s stealing your favorite multi-colored sticky notes. Whatever the reason, all you need to do is install your webcams with either their own Internet IP, or plugged into an Internet-connected PC running Active Webcam. For my global distributed network test, I visited Opentopia and selected three random webcams from several Universities around the United States.

Now, two of these cameras were obviously monitoring very quiet locations. However, the third webcam on the lower left was a college workshop where students kept walking in and out of the room. So I quickly configured the motion settings as described above, and then waited for one of the three cameras to trigger my alert. Sure enough, within about five minutes, I received my email alert.

I captured three snapshots of this student who had just walked into the room and stood at the table. Just imagine if this was your home or business security system. No need to rewind and review security tape – your wifi surveillance system will automatically capture and store the mugshots, and you’ll know about it instantly over email or your phone!

Can you think of other creative ways to use Active Webcam? Do you know of any other applications that would accomplish the same thing? Share your insight in the comments section below.

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All you need is a decent webcam which will take good clear shots – a concealed webcam (like the ones embedded in a laptop monitor) would be better, rather than one which is perched on top of your computer, all exposed as if to say “cheese!“. Or use Skype which I discussed in a previous article (that isn’t motion sensor but still another good option though for checking up on your house).

Setting up a motion sensor on your computer would be useful for things like :

• finding out who is on your computer when you are away. Maybe your roommate is secretly reading your emails while you’re in the shower?
• have it covertly installed on your laptop in case someone steals it and you want to get a snap of your thief.
• use it to check on your home while you are away. In the case of Secure Cam, you will need to have remote access to your computer and therefore able to check the hard drive folder from another computer or your internet-enabled mobile device.

Let’s now take a look at both Secure Cam and YawCam and see which one is best.

Secure Cam

Secure Cam is the most basic package of the two. This will snap pictures of anyone and anything that walks in front of your webcam and sends the pics to a folder on your computer.

After setting it up, you first need to choose which webcam you are going to use.   So go to Device in the top menus. Clicking on that will take you to a screen where you can choose your webcam in a drop down menu. Once you have chosen your webcam, click initialize and that will start the whole motion sensor process. You can also choose how large you want your captured images to be.

Once all that is done, click on the image and that will bring up your options :

The options you need to look out for are :

• Tick all the boxes for saving images
• Decide at what intervals images should be snapped, under “save every ***** second(s)“
• Choose the folder paths to the captured images folders.  You may want to bury these folders deep so no-one else can find them.
• Decide how long you want the images to be archived for
• The most important one – set the minimum “Motion Trigger Level” for it to kick into action and start snapping images.   Zero means every movement gets snapped and 255 means they would have to be headbanging to Bohemian Rhapsody before the motion sensor detects them.   To get everything (otherwise, what’s the point of using it?), set the sensor to zero to make it ultra-sensitive.
• Choose how many images you want captured and saved at the one time.   The default is 5.   If you’re hoping to catch someone “in the act”, for the purposes of a criminal prosecution, then you may want to raise this level to perhaps 10 so you don’t miss anything.

Once the options are saved, you can close the open Secure Cam windows so there is only a small icon left in the taskbar. But behind that icon, here’s what’s going on in the background.

When someone walks in front of the camera, whether a snap will be taken will depend on how sensitive you made the motion trigger level. When the webcam detects a movement, small red squares will start appearing around the image area where the movement was detected. When the detection meter reaches the sensitivity level you specified in the options, the software starts snapping shots and then saves them to the folder path you specified.

That’s basically all there is to this software. When someone walks in front of the webcam, pictures are taken and saved. End of story. A pity that there is no ability to send the images to a FTP server or email address but the next one I tried DOES offer these extras if this is what you really need.

YawCam

Now this is MUCH better if you want all the bells and whistles attached to your motion sensor. This is surprisingly good for a freeware product and it is very easy to set up.

When installing, if you don’t already have Java Runtime, then it will tell you that you need to install this first.   Then go straight ahead and install YawCam.

When you start it up for the first time, this is the first thing you will see :

The first things you need to set up are :

Settings–>Camera–>Select Camera – select your webcam.

Settings–>Startup–>Enable Motion Detection – to start the motion detector

Window–>Motion Detection – to go to the set-up window for the motion detector

The set-up window is this here :

Everything is more or less pretty straight-forward. On the left, that big blue blob is my head (but the X-Files poster and Star Wars poster on the wall behind me comes out pretty sharp). Underneath, you have the bars showing that movement is happening and being picked up by Yawcam. Just like Secure Cam, when it reaches the sensitivity level that you specified in the settings, pictures will start being taken and sent to you via a variety of ways.

On the right, choose how you would like to be notified. You can save the images to your hard drive, have them sent to a FTP server, have the images emailed to you, run an exe program or play a sound.  Choose either one or them all. It doesn’t matter. Maybe you would like them emailed to you, with a backup going to your FTP server and a loud siren blaring “INTRUDER ALERT!” scaring the hell out of your snooper. Go on, let it rip.

With the last two, you can set up a really loud scary sounding alarm to go off to scare the hell out of those pesky kids who won’t stop playing with your laptop. Remember to disable it though before Grandpa goes on the computer or you’re likely to give him a heart attack.

If you want the images emailed, you will need to specify your SMTP mail settings. Just look for the POP / SMTP settings in your email program. Gmail’s is here if you happen to use Gmail.

And of course, remember to click that “enable” button there to start the motion detection.

All in all, I much prefer Yawcam for its wide variety of notification features. On the other hand, if you just want something simple and basic, then you may be drawn to Secure Cam instead.

Which one gets your vote? Or do you prefer another? Can you think of other uses for motion sensor software?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Cool Webcam Avatars lets you create animated gif avatars directly from your webcam using their website and you do not have to sign up for an account or install any software.

There are 4 easy steps to create animated avatar and it takes about 2 to 3 minutes from start to finish.

There are lots of things you can record, not just your face, so be creative. You need to take into account that the finished avatar will show up larger on the screen than the smaller size some sites normally require. That means you need to record a clear picture so it is easy to see if a site you use it on resizes it.

Step 1: Go to Cool Webcam Avatars and click the Record Your Avatar! button at the top of the screen.

Step 2: A screen will appear which asks if this site can use your webcam. Click Allow.

Step 3: Click Start. You only have about 2 seconds to record but you can try again if you don’t like the results.

Step 4: When you like your results click Download Avatar! On the next page you can right-click on the avatar to save it to your computer. You do not have to signup for an account but make sure you save your avatar before you leave the page because it will not be saved unless you create an account.

Here is the avatar I created. I actually used the picture of my “evil” cat that is on my cell phone. Pretty cool, huh?

Here are some other avatars from their site that people have recorded to give you some more ideas.

If you decide to create an account, your avatar will be visible to the public. It will appear on the Cool Webcam Avatars site and you can show it to the world. Creating an account is easy and free. After logging in, the avatars will be assigned to your account.

If you decide to make an animated avatar, why not upload it and show it here on the MakeUseOf website next to a comment? All you need to do is make a free account on Gravatar, upload your animated avatar there and then use the same email account that you used for your Gravatar account here for your MUO comment. Your animated avatar will then appear next to your MUO comment.

Are you avare of any other animated avatar maker sites? Let us know in comments!

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1001

1001 is a desktop client for Flickr. It’s been around for quite some time. Basically, it allows you to browse through your own Flickr photostream, as well as view the most recent photos from any user. You can create any number of ’streams’ — by groups, tags or interestingness. When you create a stream according to a tag and new photos are found, you will notified by a little unobtrusive pop-up displaying the images. That feature is pretty neat when you’re anticipating new photos to be added to your friend’s photostream, you won’t need to spam the ‘Refresh’ button endlessly now.

Besides that, 1001 is a batch uploader for Flickr, giving you the regular options such as adding to sets, tagging and setting privacy levels to your photos. 1001 also works very well with ecto, a blogging application for Mac, and it makes it even easier to add photos to your blog with a click of a button.

You will notice that 1001 also has the option of setting images as your desktop background. I found this feature to be quite half-hearted. It does the job but it doesn’t set the image properly as “Stretch to fit” or centered. There is no option to control this, so be advised.

DeskLickr

Tina once wrote an article about a Windows application which changes the background to Flickr images. I found a Mac application which does about the same thing. DeskLickr is a pretty small program that sits quietly on the menu bar. Depending on the interval (which you set yourself), it switches your desktop background to any Flickr image. You have the option to choose from your own photostream, the DeskLickr flickr group, by interestingness, groups, by tags, or your favourites. But these images appear at random, so you can’t really select the photos you want. However, if you come across a photo which you don’t like, you can choose not to have it set as your background again by clicking on “Never show this desktop again” in the DeskLickr menu bar icon.

DeskLickr is a “fun” application to show off to your friends, if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s nothing more than a fancy background switcher. But somehow, we’re still attracted to these sorta things, aren’t we?

ShuffleSaver

As DeskLickr is for desktop backgrounds, ShuffleSaver is for, you guessed it — your screen saver.

Just like all the aforementioned applications, ShuffleSaver provides you with the option of selecting the source of your Flickr images: be it your own photostream, by interestingness or just the newest images added to Flickr…..you know the drill by now. When activated, photos from the criteria you chose will appear as your screen saver. During this time, you may press the right and left arrows to navigate through the photos and press ’s’ to save the ones you like, hence the name of this application.

FlickrBooth

Another “fun” application, or plugin actually. This is definitely for those of you who frequently use Mac’s built-in camera application Photo Booth to take random images. FlickrBooth integrates itself into Photo Booth and now you can just as easily add the photos to your photostream as you snapped them.

FlickrBooth lets you choose whether you want the photo to be uploaded automatically or prompted to add extra info, tags and titles. Plus since Photo Booth allows you to record videos, FlickrBooth can also automatically upload those videos to YouTube!

Photo Grabbr

Have you ever browsed through a friend’s photostream and wanted almost every photo he/she had in a set? I have. It’s a misery to click each photo, then choosing the size I want and saving the image, repeated EVERY time for a different photo. This is where Photo Grabbr steps in. This nifty application searches photos by user name and group ID and displays the results in sets for your to download. If no sets are found, then you are given the option of downloading all the images from that user/group.

You can even select the resolution of the photos you want, and “Original” is one of them. Of course, this resolution is only available if it is allowed by the owner.

Mark wrote about FlickrDown, a Windows program that does about the same thing, except it’s for Windows.

Honorable mention

At this point, it is worth mentioning two more applications that does Flickr proud. Flickr Uploadr, which is a stand-alone uploader client for Flickr and is available for both Mac and Windows. And Visigami, a pretty interesting application, a desktop browser for Flickr, Picasa and Google Images; and it’s also a screen saver program akin to ShuffleSaver.

So there you go. Five simple little applications that could just bring a smile to your face the next time you use Flickr. It’s not just photo-sharing if it is this much fun.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time med student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future. He also manages a Mac news site, Macnifying.

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Home security systems are extremely expensive these days but a fairly rudimentary cheap but effective system can be set up using Skype and a webcam. It involves keeping your computer on so this may not work if you are away from home for an extended period of time (imagine the electricity bill!) but if you are just going to work for example, this would be a good solution to “do an E.T and call home”. You can also use this to check up on the kids while you are out (”those pesky kids are stealing my beer!”) or covertly check on the babysitter while you’re out to see if she’s necking her boyfriend on the couch or if she’s sleeping.

First, make a second Skype account as you will be using the second one to call the first one. But in this new account, make sure that some important features are enabled. First tell the Skype account to automatically answer the calls as soon as they come in and also make sure that the webcam features are enabled as soon as the call starts. You might also want to mute the ringtones for this account otherwise your covert snooping isn’t going to be so covert anymore! Then on the first Skype account (the one you’re going to phone), approve the new account on your contact list (while setting this up, you might want to take advantage of running two Skype accounts on your PC at the same time using this method).

Before going out, make sure the monitor is on, the webcam is switched on and Skype is switched on. I know, basic stuff but you never know with some computer users out there! (”Dear Mark, why is the monitor screen completely blank?”).

Then when you are out, go to another computer, log into Skype using the second account and call the first account. When the call goes through, it will be answered immediately (because you enabled that in the options) and the webcam will immediately kick in (again because you previously enabled it). Assuming the ringtones have been switched off, you can now covertly look at the webcam picture coming through to see what’s happening in the room (”hey, the wife’s having a secret lingerie party!”)

Obviously the view in the webcam window is going to be pretty limited so it might be a good idea (before leaving the house) to move the webcam around a bit to find the best possible angle. Plus you might want to slightly re-position the monitor so it isn’t so blatantly obvious that you’re calling. Another possible problem is that if the computer is being used by the person you’re trying to monitor, then it’s game over!

The author of the original eBay article that proposed this idea said he used this method to check on his dog while he was at work. He left the speakers on and when the call went through, he could see his dog on the webcam. Plus since the speakers were on, he could call out to the dog and the dog would come running up to the computer. So he apparently felt better leaving the dog alone at home because he felt he was now keeping the dog company over Skype.

Obviously the potential is there to abuse this idea by snooping on people whom you have no right to snoop on (which of course I don’t condone). But if you’re looking for a simple way to check your home while you’re away, then Skype and a webcam will suffice. No need for expensive alarm systems and security guards.

Also, as Lifehacker points out, you can also turn your webcam into a motion sensor using Yawcam. So you can use Skype and a webcam to watch to catch thieves in the act for example (”those pesky kids are raiding my Playboy collection!”). All that is needed now is a way to record the webcam images as video files. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Does anyone else have any unique uses for Skype? Or can you think of other uses for this method?

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Here’s a selection of webcams to help you along on your virtual travels.

** Please note that the speed of the webcams will depend on your internet speed. For some of them, the latest update of Java may be required. If the webcam page is slow in loading, try shutting down some non-essential programs or try another internet browser.

Camvista.com – I regularly visit this site to see the various Scotland webcams that are in place. They show cameras from all round the world and they use a Google map to show you the camera locations.

Earthcam – what I like about this one is that, apart from all the international webcams you can view, there is also an aquarium webcam in Boston, with some very sociable fish that come right up to the camera as if to kiss you!

Paris-Live – Are you a Francophile? Do you love all things Francais? Paris-Live hosts a variety of webcams showing scenes such as the Eiffel Tower, the Notre-Dame Cathedral or just a simple Paris cafe sidewalk with lots of pretty mademoiselles. Oui! Oui!

WorldLive – this website is run in the Czech Republic and despite some dodgy English on their pages, the webcams are very interesting (I’m tempted to proofread their pages for them). But what makes this site slightly different is that they don’t host the webcams on their site – they just link to other webcam sites instead. But they seem to be building quite a good list.

Loch Ness webcam : if you fancy making yourself famous, head on over to the Nessie Cam to see if you can spot the Loch Ness Monster creeping up on some unsuspecting tourist. This cam is a classic tourist trap but still amusing.

What webcam websites do you like to visit? Recommend some to us in the comments!

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