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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Livestream, originally known to some as Mogulus, is a free video streaming host that provides a live stream solution which allows you to create your own internet TV channel for broadcasting on your website through their player or on your channel page with them, 24/7. Livestream provides the “studio”, an elaborate flash app on their website where you can create a team of reporters, cue webcams, manage your library, record shows, control an “autopilot” that manages your channel, and manage a video-on-demand for your viewers.

The Studio of Livestream provides a sophisticated titling engine where you can make TV-like titles for your free video stream, either full screen or a “lower third” for naming people. You can also add a scrolling ticker for your channel that runs at the bottom of the screen and even include live RSS feeds on it to include over your video.

Each channel also includes a library area where you can add videos from files, YouTube videos and more and then arrange them into storyboards and folders for playback on the channel when you’re not live.

Embeddable video players from Livestream can be downloaded to allow you to post your channel’s live feed and/or your channel’s chat feed on your own website, MySpace or even as a Facebook application. Livestream’s Studio also allows for Twitter integration, which will automatically send out tweets on your behalf when you’re live.

You also have the ability to invite other contributors to your channel and then host a web show with multiple people in different places.

Although Livestream is free, they do insert their own video overlay ads on your channel to make money to cover bandwidth fees, but they do offer a somewhat pricey premium account upgrade which lets you remove their branding, broadcast in widescreen HD, add your own ads and more.

Finally, Livestream provides a free software download called Procaster, which enables you to broadcast directly from your desktop, and show your screen or camera. The software also allows for 3D video mix effects, Twitter integration and also chat capability with others on watching your channel.

Procaster also allows you to broadcast feeds of computer games, which makes it perfect for gamers looking to show their skills to all.

Also check out other MakeUseOf articles on how you can stream live to the web from your phone and how you can stream video live through Twitter.

Do you use a similar service to Livestream to share or host a live, streaming video feed? What do you think of Livestream’s service? Let us know in the comments below.

Image Credits : Dryicons

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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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Yes it would not only be freaking cool but it would be awesome as computer mouse control for handicapped people that do not have the ability to use their hands to control the mouse.

One of the MakeUseOf authors hit me with an awesome piece of software yesterday that I quickly downloaded and ran. You do need a web camera for tracking purposes and some time to be amazed.

You download the application from here. We grabbed version 1.1 and it weighed in at a shocking 2.5MB. You do need to make sure your web camera works before beginning. If it does not work with its native application or within another application it will not work with eViaCam. So get that straight first.

Fire up the application and you will see a screen similar to this:

Hit the green check mark (it was already clicked in the above shot as the red x is now available to stop it). If everything is set up with the defaults you will be able to move your cursor with your face. Even the slightest movement is recognized and moves the mouse. You can stare at an object to click on it and set other options as well.

Here is a quick video before we go further…

Now let’s see what we can configure:

Clicking on the configuration menu and then options will give you the following choices. We will start with general options:

That is where we can modify what camera to use, language and profile settings so more than one person can use this application seamlessly.

Using the first motion tab you can play with how smooth and how fast (acceleration) the mouse moves and picks up speed. Feel free to mess around with the options. Hit OK and see what works best for you.

The click tab shows how long you need to stare at a item before it clicks. You can also have it beep on click and allow for multiple click (double or triple click). The Click windows behavior I found worked best on Fast mode. But your mileage may vary.

The Startup tab speaks for itself and simply allows you to set startup options.

The advanced tab allows you to have the application find your face automatically or to make you choose it manually with your mouse. Automatically worked flawlessly for me. The bottom selection lets you choose a different on-screen keyboard than the one bundled with Windows. This allows you to type with your mind as well!

I love this! I don’t know how practical it is for me to use on a daily basis but it is awesome! Do you have suggestions on how to use this? We would love to hear about it in the comments!

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In truth, it is really only intended for basic editing of family videos or short, homemade productions. It isn’t intended for the more complex tasks such as having several audio files overlapping at once, detailed transitions and perfect timing of video and audio insertion into a final draft.

For this I suggest getting HyperEngine – AV movie editing software. It’s 100% free and it’s the best movie editing software I have seen for a Mac at no cost to the user.

Basically, it succeeds where iMovie has failed. I think it is not focused on the home user who may only ever use iMovie once or twice. This is for someone who will use their video editing software on a regular basis, for example producing a regular video podcast or producing an online mini-series.

Once you have completed the download and it is installed, run the program. You will be greeted by the home screen where you can begin editing videos. Obviously this will be blank as you have not yet imported any video.

Firstly, I’d suggest you just look under all the different tabs along the top so you know where all the extensive tools are.

Open up your video folder with the videos you want to edit. Drag them into the HyperEngine window. This will import them into the program ready to be edited. Do the same for any audio files that you want in the video.

There is a capture mode in the program which allows you to use a camera connected to your computer (such as a webcam) to capture a video that can in turn be used in the final edit. Simply click the ‘Record or Playback’ function to open the video capture screen as shown in the screenshot. It will detect any cameras you have connected to the computer for your selection. Once you have selected a camera click record to begin recording the clip. When you have finished, click stop then click ‘OK’. The video will be imported along with the others.

When you have all the media you want in the video, begin to drag them onto the timeline. There are several different levels for video, audio, subtitles, effects and transitions. So if you are dragging in a video file, drag it into the allocated space for video. Edit the length of the video to select what section you want from it by dragging the sides inwards or outwards until it is of the desired length. Do the same for all the other different types of media.

You can edit the media further by clicking on it. So for example, with text (which could be subtitles) by clicking on it you can change the size, font, colour and whether or not the background is transparent. With transitions and video you can change the look and feel such as brightness, colour mode (sepia, black and white etc..) and size.

To add in dozens of different effects such as zoom, exploding shots and wipes and swipes, position where in the production you want to add the effect and then select ‘Effects’ from the menu bar. This will open the window seen here in the screenshot where each of these effects can be altered using the easy slider bars.

When you have finished your video, you can use the ‘text’ function to add a title and credits to the film. Like in most video software programs you literally have dozens of different styles you can choose from including the traditional scrolling credits to exploding pop-ups.

As with other creation software I have wrote about here on MUO such as BlueVoda Website Builder, there are hundreds of little adjustments you can make to your film which you will discover as you go along, all of which are easy to use with slider bars and simple options. I’m still finding new little tricks here and there, but for the majority of the time you’ll be using the methods outlined above.

A piece of advice that I’ll give about this software is to step into it nice and slowly. This can cut films accurately to the millisecond and its tools are astounding for free software. Once you edit a few small productions then you’ll be able to start producing that mini-series. Take your time and concentrate on the more directorial, artsy side of thinking and you’ll have a great film with video, music, a voiceover, good audio quality, great transitions and suitable colour saturation and mode. Enjoy!

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

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Most of the complaints are nonsense, and luckily most people know it. However, there’s one problem that does concern me.

Health. There you have it.

Generation 2.0 doesn’t play outside anymore, suffers from Repetitive Strain Injuries, and more often encounters problems with the back and eyesight. It’s all worth it in my eyes, though that certainly doesn’t make it anything worth cheering about.

So, what do we have to do? Hell, we ain’t going to unplug everything and live under a rock! No, what we need is a different approach.

Mightier

Mightier, developed by Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka, is a finalist in the 11th Annual Independent Games Festival, for the Innovation Award – and innovative it is.

Mightier is one of the first, if not the only computer game that actually gets your computer monitor. It’s an addictive puzzle platformer that gets you to pick up a pencil, as well as your mouse.

Of course, this doesn’t solve the aforementioned problems, but it’s great to see this kind of creative approach. It’s this kind of thinking that gets us to the next degree on the conceptual ladder.

The Engineer and The Actionaut

Here at Mightier we solve problems with a high-powered laser beam fired from space. Seriously.

The problem-solving happens in two major stages; the engineering and the action.

As the Engineer, you print out a puzzle from Mightier with your colour printer, which you solve with a dark pencil or marker. The puzzles start out real easy, but get trickier as you move on.

You then need to scan the solved puzzle. This can be done using your webcam. Mightier automatically searches for, and corrects the image’s dimensions using the red markings on the paper.

A high-powered laser in space then carves out your solution in the planet’s or asteroid’s surface, preparing it for the Actionaut.

The Actionaut can now be released onto the level. If the terrain was carved out properly by the Engineer, he should be able to collect all Dratagons and complete the sector.

Playing Without Printer or Webcam

Mightier can also be played without a colour printer or webcam, save the last level.

The terrains are then carved in game using a mouse. This takes away a lot of the fun, though.

Designing Your Actionaut

Unlocking new characters in game is fun. Designing them even more so.

The process is pretty similar to the level-carving, meaning you’ll have to take your pen at hand again.

You can draw any character that comes to mind, be it Little Piggy from the screenshot above or mightiest Chuck Norris. Your drawing is then transformed into a full 3D model, your own personal Actionaut.

Conclusion

Exceptional thinking begat this wonderful little game. Interesting, fun and seriously addictive, this game will keep you fascinated for a while. Let us know if you agree!

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We’ve discussed the webcam’s gaming aspect before, when we showed you how you could use your webcam for EyeToy-like gaming.

This time we’ll show you how you can use your webcam for Wii-like gaming!

Wait…..what? Using your webcam for Wii-like gaming? A Wii doesn’t even have a webcam!

So How Does It Work?

You’re completely right. However, we’re not at all planning on recording ourselves. It’s more like we’ll be recording objects and will be using the camera’s motion sensing ability to transform these into intuitive ‘controllers’.

That’s right, using the CamSpace software, you can transform nearly any object to an input device! Just check out the video below to see it at work.

You can use cardboard steering wheels for racing games, playing swords for fighting games, and a chicken drumstick for flight simulators!

The implementation also works a lot smoother than would be expected. You’ll need Windows for the software, and about any webcam can be used, though older webcams tend to work less well due to a lower frame-rate and problems with light adjustments.

Installing The CamSpace Software

The software is currently Windows only – though it definately deserves to be ported to both Mac and Linux – and can be downloaded here. Also make sure you’ve properly installed your webcam.

You can test out CamSpace by playing one of the CamSpace games. These are small mini-games that accompanied CamSpace. You ought to be able to find them in a folder on your desktop as well.

Item Recognition

CamSpace recognizes specific items by their shape and colour. In theory, you can use any object you want. However, you might want to avoid objects that have the colour of your skin or clothes and use obvious colours – like bright green or pink – instead.

The program will ask you to specify what item you intend to use by holding it in a specific area of the screen. You can also trigger the lock-function by pressing ‘Shift + ~‘ .CamSpace will now track your object so you can use it for simple interaction. It will monitor the size and rotation and will hereby determine the exact location of the item.

You’ll also be able to find several steering wheel templates on the site, this’ll save you some work and give you a general idea of what’s needed.

Playing Games

You can play any game with CamSpace, but to do so you’ll need a controller.

A controller specifies what in-game action is paired up with which motion. As you might’ve guessed, each controller is game specific.

You can either download one of the controllers that are developed by other people here, or make one yourself and upload it to the CamSpace developer site.

Making a Controller

Making a controller is relatively easy. You can start making one by opening CamSpace and selecting ‘Create New Controller’ under Developer Tools in the right-click menu.

If you then choose to edit your script (also located under Developer Tools), an editing window will pop up.

In this window you’ll be able to specify which action pairs up with which function easily. Scripting shouldn’t be necessary with basic controllers.

So what objects did you use?   Did it work smoothly for you?  Let us know in the comments.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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How Internet Ghost Hunting Works

If you are a fan of the popular television shows Paranormal State or TAPS, then you’ll know how ghost hunting basically works. A team of researchers pack up two or three vans full of electronic recording equipment, haul it all to an allegedly haunted house, they’ll then set up the equipment in every room, and then they’ll sit in the dark all night waiting for something to happen. Half the time, they don’t capture a single piece of evidence.  This is not the way ghost hunting is supposed to work. Instead of going to the ghosts, use the Internet to let the ghosts come to you.

There are hundreds of property owners across the world who have already realized the value of setting up a webcam at a haunted location. By taking advantage of video streaming technology, these home and business owners can allow ghost hunters to watch for ghost and spirit activity around the clock. This new advancement allows you, the Internet ghost hunter, with the unique ability to be at dozens of locations at once in order to monitor for ghost or spirit activity anywhere.

The Best Ghost Hunting Webcams

I’ve been doing paranormal research for almost two years now.  Much of my own research is academic, meaning that I draw data from field investigators all over the country for analysis, and I write articles on the paranormal. The last thing I have time to do is watch a webcam for several hours, waiting for the 15 minute refresh. The most effective application I’ve found that will monitor and record a whole list of webcams for you is Webcam Watcher 2.1.

You’ll need a good list of ghost hunting webcams to start with. Copy any of the link locations provided below. A few of the most popular ghost webcams include:

• Star Chamber, Ordsall Hall ( http://services.salford.gov.uk/ghostcam2/latest/ghostcam2.jpg?&1232108648923 )
• Great Hall, Ordsall Hall ( http://services.salford.gov.uk/ghostcam/latest/ghostcam.jpg?&1232108691644 )
• Willard Library Children’s Cam ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/childrenrm.jpg_CAM1.jpg?&1232109184735 )
• Willard Library Basement Cam ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/ipixghost.jpg.jpg?&1232108749368 )
• Willard Library Research Room ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/researchrm.jpg?&1232109201265 )
• OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam1 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam1.jpg?&1232109120817 )
• OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 2 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam2.jpg?&1232108816907 )
• OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 3 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam3.jpg?&1232109120818 )
• OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 4 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam4.jpg?&1232108864968 )
• OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 5 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam5.jpg?&1232109049483 )
• Knickerbocker Hotel ( http://www.jasonsghost.com/remote/hotel.jpg?&1232108953436 )

Setting Up Your Ghost Hunting Lab

The first step to beginning your virtual ghost hunting career is to configure Webcam Watcher to start logging the video streams from all of your favorite webcams.

First select the “Add” button to connect to a new webcam stream.

Just type the name of the webcam, the URL link, and how often you want to refresh the image.  If you’re not sure how often the stream was set up to update, go to the main page of the webcam and check the posted update time.

If the webcam doesn’t update more often than every 30 seconds, it wouldn’t make sense to update your image every 15 seconds.  Keep the refresh rate at, or greater than, the webcam’s actual update time.  If you can’t find the update time, 60 seconds is a good default refresh rate.

As you add each webcam, they will show up on the left menu bar.  Double clicking each one will add them to the icon display box on the right, as shown here.

Clicking on any of the icons will display the actual webcam in the larger window to the right, with options to zoom, save the image, or make it a screensaver.  However, the real purpose of using this software is to make it automatically collect updates for you.  If you click the box next to “AutoSave New Pictures,” the Webcam Watcher will start logging updates to the “cam” folder after each update.

Managing Your Ghost Hunting Data Collection

Once Webcam Viewer collects a volume of streamed images to your hard drive, the final step is to search through those images for something that jumps out as unique or different than the rest.  This would signify a potential anomaly that you may want to check out.  The best method I’ve found to do that is to view the images in sequence using thumbnail view in Windows Explorer.

As you scroll through the frames, you may spot a shadow, mist or movement from one frame to the next. The next step is to conduct a more thorough analysis of the movement or change.  To do this I use ImageDiff, a free image comparison application that allows you to conduct a complete pixel-by-pixel comparison between two images.

The settings I use are: use overlay, monochrome colors, and set the threshold over 90%.  This will force the difference in pixels to be at least over 90%, and the differences will display on the bottom window as big red dotted areas.

It’s never a good idea to trust only your eyes.  Even though you may spot a difference in the video frames while you’re scrolling through, this pixel comparison will scientifically verify that you aren’t just seeing things.  As you can see in the photos above, the only differences were the time stamp, and some very slight lighting or shadow differences.  If someone (or something) were to walk across the hallway, the lower image would light up like a red Christmas Tree.

How Internet Technology Can Help Ghost Hunting

In time, ghost hunters around the world will recognize that they can’t be everywhere at once.  And while there’s some chance of capturing something interesting on film by sitting for a few hours in a haunted location, those odds are multiplied exponentially when you set up a webcam to monitor many locations over hundreds of hours, around the clock.  Let your computer do the watching, and you can capture that elusive ghost on camera at your leisure.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Snapter is software that lets you use a digital camera as a mobile scanner. With the shots that you have taken, the software automatically crops, stretches, flattens images of documents into portable images and make them seem as though they have been scanned on a flatbed scanner.

Some of you may be wondering: since you already have a digital camera to take snapshots, why do you still need a software to do the conversion? Well, there are several advantages in Snapter. First of all, it comes with a perspective correction that can take a slanted/disoriented image and rotate it to the right orientation.

Secondly, if you are taking snapshots of pages of a book, it can be really difficult to read the text from the raw images. Snapter has the ability to split the pages into two different images and correct the curvature distortion.

Thirdly, Snapter enhances the images and make them easier to read.

Snapter supports images of different forms. You can use it to convert snapshots of documents, notes written on a whiteboard, namecards or pages from a book. The following screenshots show the tests that I have done with different materials and the results are very satisfying.

Here I printed out a copy of one of my articles that I wrote for MakeUseOf. I took a horizontal snapshot of the printout and input it to Snapter. It successfully rotated the image to the correct orientation, cropped the side and sharpen the image for easy reading.

Next, I took a snapshot of two pages of a book and input them to Snapter. It detects the curvature of the book and splits the pages into the left and right page. Similarly, it crops and sharpen the images for easy reading.

There are both free and paid versions of Snapter. You can download the free version and enjoy the full functionality for the first 14 days. After that, the software is still functional, but it will add a tagline and light watermark on your images. If all you need is to convert the images to a portable version so you can read while on the move, the free version is good enough for you.

If you want to use the result for your commercial project and you don’t want to have the watermark, you will have to get the paid version which cost $20 (Lite version) or $49 (Full version).

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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You can easily install any of these apps using the ‘Add/Remove Applications’ from the upper panel.

1. Midori

Midori is a web browser that uses the well-known WebKit rendering engine, providing quite a speed bump from Firefox and standards complying page rendering. Midori is currently packaged into Xubuntu and features include tabs, bookmarks and customizable search engine box. The browser is extensible via Javascript.

2. gDesklets

gDesklets is a platform for widgets, tiny applets sitting on your desktop in a symbiotic relationship of eye candy and usefulness. You can populate your desktop with status meters, icon bars, weather sensors and news tickers.

I managed to configure gDesklets to emulate the OS X Dashboard feature in addition to the standard placement on the desktop.

3. AcidRip

AcidRip is a GTK application for ripping and encoding DVD’s. It neatly wraps MPlayer and MEncoder, which I think is pretty handy, seeing as MPlayer is by far the best bit of video playing kit around for Linux.

As well as creating a simple Graphical Interface for those nervous of the MEncoders command line interface, it also automates the entire process.

4. Cheese Webcam Booth

Cheese is a Photobooth-inspired GNOME application for taking pictures and videos from a webcam. It also includes fancy graphical effects based on the gstreamer-backend.

5. Gmount-iso

Gmount-iso is a small tool written using PyGTK and Glade. It allows you to easily mount your CD images.

6. KGRUBEditor

A tool to view and edit the menu.lst file of the GRUB boot manager. It offers many features and it is the perfect solution for those who want to change the way GRUB works, without messing with the menu.lst file.

7. Flickr Uploader

Postr is a small app that lets you upload photographs to Flickr, with tight integration into the GNOME desktop.

8. DOS Emulator

DOSEMU stands for DOS Emulation, and allows you to run DOS and many DOS programs, including many DPMI applications such as DOOM and Windows 3.1, under Linux.

Features include:

• word size and addressing modes of the iAPX86 processor family’s “real mode,” while still running within the full protected mode environment
• simulate a hardware environment over which DOS programs are accustomed to having control.
• provides DOS services through native Linux services; dosemu can provide a virtual hard disk drive which is actually a Linux directory hierarchy.

9. E-book reader

FBReader is an e-book reader with a lot of great features:

• supports several open e-book formats: fb2, html, chm, plucker, palmdoc, ztxt, tcr (psion text), rtf, oeb, openreader, non-DRM’ed mobipocket, plain text, epub
• reads directly from tar, zip, gzip, bzip2 archives (you can have several books in one archive)
• supports a structured view of your e-book collection
• automatically determines encodings
• automatically generates a table of contents
• keeps the last open book and the last read positions for all open books between runs
• automatic hyphenation (patterns for several languages are included)

10. HomeBank

HomeBank is a fast, simple and easy to use program to manage your bank accounts. It differs from gnucash for the better look and feel, and for the faster start-up speed. It has a lot of features such as easy analysis with graphical charts (statistics, budget, overdrawn, car cost), multi-accounts support, budget management, reminders, import from OFX/QFX-CSV files, visual status of operations. It is based on GTK2.

Let’s hear some other interesting, less-known Linux apps in the comments!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Gawker is a free application which your iSight uses to create time-lapse movies. As with all time-lapse movies, it uses a collection of photos taken within an interval (every 10 seconds, for example) and combines them to form a video.

Gawker’s party piece is: it does it all for you! Upon running Gawker, it searches for your iSight; and using Bonjour, it will also locate other shared iSights on your network! Yup, it allows remote webcam viewing (I’ll come back to that later).

Using Gawker is pretty easy once you figure out what it can do. Within its main application window, it lists the iSights which you can connect to. Shared remote webcams located via Bonjour will also be listed here. Clicking on them will bring up a preview window showing you what is going on through the iSight.

Here’s where the fun begins. If you click on ‘More’, you will find some interesting options. You may set a particular time for Gawker to start and stop recording, so that it won’t need to run the entire day – only at the specified times. You may also choose to share your iSight with someone else running Gawker, set the broadcast interval and a password in order to connect to you (optional). After you’re done setting up, hit ‘Record’ and let the magic work.

Like I said, Gawker’s party piece is it automatically creates a time-lapse movie. It doesn’t just take a picture within the preset interval – leaving you with a folder full of images, having to click through them individually. After Gawker is done recording, all you’re left with is a video file. Quick and hassle-free! Gawker is also powerful enough to record streams from up to four separate webcams and combine them in the final time-lapse video.

Possible usages for Gawker:

Another useful application is EyeSight. It also allows you to take time-lapse pictures between an interval from seconds to days. You can choose the output format of the images (from PNG, JPG, TIFF & BMP) and its size (640 x 480 and below).

Besides that, EyeSight provides you with the option of uploading your pictures to an FTP server, so that you gain access to them from anywhere instantaneously.

Gawker and EyeSight are both available for free to run on Mac OS X.

What else do you do with your Webcam? Have you found other uses for them? Let us know in the comments.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Jing, as an alternative to iShowU ($20)

Jing is a screen-casting program which has come a long way since it first started. Their current version is pretty impressive because it integrates sharing to Screencast.com, Flickr and uploads to any FTP; you’ll automatically get a download link which you can share with your friends (something like Skitch). It does everything iShowU does and it even records from the microphone. The one thing it doesn’t allow me to do is adjust the video output quality. But hey, it’s pretty decent for a free app.

Burn, as an alternative to Roxio’s Toast Titanium ($79.99)

Burn extends Mac’s native burning abilities by adding various options such as creating the regular Data as well as Video and Music disks. It can burn from cue and bin images. It’s not as fully equipped as Toast Titanium with Blu-Ray Disc burning but it does the good ol’ fashion burning job very well.

Cyberduck, as an alternative to Transmit ($29.95)

Both programs are pretty much the same, supporting Quicklook, WebDAV, Secure FTP, Amazon S3, synchronization and Growl notifications. So what’s the difference? Um, the price?

macam, as an alternative to IOExperts Webcam Drivers ($20)

My first Mac was a Mini and like all new Switchers, I was excited about Photo Booth and got myself a USB webcam. Little did I know that Mac has limited drivers for webcams. After extensive research, I was ready to fork out 20 bucks for IOExperts Webcam Drivers just to make my webcam work. Luckily, I managed to find macam in time. macam is basically driver for USB webcams on Mac OS X. The name doesn’t instill a lot of confidence but trust me, it works. And it saved me $20.

Handbrake and MacTheRipper* and VisualHub, as alternatives to Roxio’s Popcorn 3 ($49.99)

Handbrake is a DVD to MPEG4 convertor. Everything is handled with a single-click. It’s a very simple, free program for those without high expectations. For others who require more control, there is MacTheRipper which performs a complete backup of your DVD. With the resulting Video_TS folder, you could use VisualHub to convert it to H.264 which provides high-quality encoding. And since VisualHub is no longer in development, I suspect you could just use it for free.

*MacTheRipper 3.0 is available only to those who donated. Check their forum for more details. You can also find the 3.0 version if you do a Google search.

Switch, as an alternative to EasyWMA ($10)

The thing about Windows Media Audio is it’s a proprietary codec unlike MP3. Hence, converting songs to and from WMA on a Mac isn’t free. For Switchers, this presents as a problem because when using Windows, iTunes recognizes WMA files and plays them without a hiccup. After transferring the iTunes library over to Mac, the songs can’t be played unless they’re converted. If you read my previous article about Migrating iTunes over to Mac, I basically teach you how to avoid this problem. If it’s too late for you and all you want is a WMA to MP3 convertor, there are EasyWMA and Switch. One is free, the other isn’t.

iGTD, as an alternative to Things ($49)

The fast-paced lifestyle most of us lead nowadays has driven notepads and To-Do lists to a whole new level. Getting Things Done (GTD) is now a zen-like teaching. iGTD is apparently the guru of all GTD applications. I’ve covered Things before when I first started writing for MakeUseOf. I would still recommend it but it isn’t free, however there is a free preview available now. So, you might want to get your hands on that while you still can.

My colleague Daniel listed five other GTD applications. Check it out.

WhatSize 10.3.91, as an alternative to WhatSize 4.3.1 ($12.99)

Yes, I realize that they’re both the same application but truthfully, I haven’t found a program which does what WhatSize can do. I’ve tried GrandPerspective but it doesn’t quite tickle my fancy. WhatSize is still easier to use and more pleasant on the eyes. I got pretty upset when it went from freeware to shareware without even a hint of an announcement. So, I did some searching and managed to find the older but more importantly, free version. DiskInventoryX is also worth a try, as an alternative to the alternative.

Dictionary Plugins, as an alternative to TranslateIt! (17€ for a 1-year license)

TranslateIt is a very popular multilingual translator for Mac. Mac’s Dictionary application comes with every Mac OS X. It’s pretty expandable too, because you can add more dictionaries to it if you can find them. Rather than paying close to $25 for a dictionary, you can just spend a little bit of time to download a free dictionary database (which I may have already found for you) and add it to your Mac’s Dictionary.

fruux, as an alternative to Spanning Sync ($65)

Spanning Sync is a very well-known commercial app which allows synchronization of Google Calendar with iCal and Google Contacts with Address Book. It can also sync calendars and contacts between several Macs. Fruux is a very fresh and free preference pane which will also allow you to sync your iCal, Address Book, Bookmarks and Task between Macs. It lacks the Google Calendar and Contact syncing, though. It’s possible to set that up yourself, with a bit of manual labour. I ain’t spendin’ $65 for that.

That concludes the second part of my Free Alternatives to 10 (now 20) Commercial Mac Applications. I hope you enjoyed it and managed to save the money you would’ve spent if you hadn’t read this post.

Are there any other applications you paid for? Share with us in the comments, maybe we’re able to find a free alternative for it!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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“What are you doing?”

I stop and don’t really know what to say. Maybe if I keep silent he’ll forget about it.

It doesn’t work. He keeps standing there in the doorway with that strange look on his face.

“I was er….kinda….rubbing the frost away, you know?” I stutter.

The strange look doesn’t disappear. Then he sees my computer monitor.

“Yeah. It does look a little bit frosty”, he says and starts waving his arms.

Webcam Mania brings the EyeToy concept to your PC. Hook up your webcam, and play one of eight addictive minigames; alone, or with friends. If you think you need a PlayStation for webcam games, or a Wii to play tiring games, think again.

Preparation

Want to get started? Great! Let’s do it properly, though.

First, download Webcam Mania here.

Next, move away all the furniture in your direct environment. Make sure you can wave around your arms without hitting anything valuable. Preserving a high contrast with your surroundings is also advised.

Now plug in your webcam and run the program. To calibrate your camera, point it to your playing area and press enter. Make sure to stay out of the image! When it’s ready, press enter again.

The Games

There are eight different mini games available; seven of them to play by yourself and one you can play with a friend. Below you’ll find a short description of each game mode.

To navigate through the program, wave over the chosen button. You’ll have to wave pretty hard before it selects, which means you’ll probably be worn out before you get started.

Wipe Off

In this first game your screen is covered with frost, and you’ll have to clear it (similar to Wishy Washy for the EyeToy owners). You do so by waving your hands, arms, heads or by shaking hard enough with your ass. As you proceed in the game, the frost gets thicker.

Bubbles

The screen is filled with both red and blue bubbles. Try popping as much blue as possible, but watch out for the red ones! I advise you to move a little further away from the screen than me here, because I was popping them with my shoulders on the narrow parts.

Mirror

A very simple, yet very tricky game. There’s a bubble in each corner, and your goal is to pop the blue ones. Simple, right? Wrong.

Everytime you complete a screen, the image gets flipped. Disorientation guaranteed!

Snowball

My personal favorite. Snowballs are being thrown at you from all directions, and your icy fortress won’t protect you. The only thing you can trust is your kung-fu training. Remember what the wise monks of Hu-Lang-Chi told you: ‘Hit them before they hit you!’

(Tip: use your elbows for the low ones when it gets tough)

Monsoon

The bubbles are back with a different concept.

Red and blue bubbles float downwards. Evade the red, but try not to miss any blue ones. A funny game which gets you in some hilarious positions.

Fireworks

Make sure everything goes well. Tap the firework in mid-air and hit the switch. One of the less entertaining games, as it tends to get tedious.

River Run

Grab a hold of the steering wheel as you maneuver about down the stream. Steer over the green orbs to get extra points, but evade the red ones.

Pong

This one needs no formal introduction. The first video game in history is still around. Grab your paddle and play one on one against your friends.

Who needs to go to a fitness club when you can just use Webcam Mania?!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Mightier – Innovative Puzzle Platformer Fun (5)
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The good news is that if you have a webcam, a fairly fast internet connection and some spare time on your hands, Yahoo gives you the chance to set up a free live video channel on the net and the ability for others to view your channel.

The end results vary a great deal but hey that’s the beauty of the internet. Everyone on Yahoo Live are amateurs and unprofessional so you’re going to see a mixture of both good and bad which also means you get to see real people, not actors. Think of it as American Idol online.

So do you want to be the next Howard Stern or Jerry Springer? OK then, grab your webcam, your wild, screaming and unrestrained audience and follow me…. because Mark O’Neill has donned his suit and gone in search of some panting groupies!

Setting up the channel is dead easy. You just have to go to Yahoo Live, sign in with your Yahoo account, and then click on “My Channel”

You’ll be asked to name your channel. I named mine after my blog and provided no-one else has snagged the name first, it’s all yours. Then the URL is automatically set up and provided your webcam is plugged in, your channel is automatically live and ready to go! You thought it was more difficult didn’t you? Nope, that’s all there is to it.

Most Yahoo Live channels are radio DJ’s but you’ll also find a few live talk show hosts thrown in there. What you’ll find depends on the time of day you check in. Most of the action takes place at night. At times I’ve seen singers taking requests from their viewers, comedians doing stand-up routines, talk show hosts discussing some weird subjects….it really all depends on what time it is, what day it is and how lucky you are. But truth be told, the site is heavily slanted towards radio DJ’s.

There is a chat box to the right of your screen so your viewers can interact with you and underneath that are webcam screens. If someone chats to you, you can decide to put them on a little webcam screen so you can see them (if you want your visitors to be on the webcam screen, they need to have live channels themselves – which is no big deal – they can make one but never use it). So when I started my channel, I decided to cast myself as “the man that did bad jokes”. Soon I got myself a few visitors and I started on the knock knock jokes…..oh look, here comes Jimmy…..

My visitors didn’t appreciate my jokes and they told me “not to give up the day job”. So I gave them a couple of George Michael hits (”Careless Whisper”!) and one girl screwed her face up like she had just swallowed half a lemon.

Oh well, I guess the entertainment business is not for me. I suppose I’d better go back to editing those Make Use Of articles….sigh! I don’t suppose anybody wants my autograph? Yeah I guessed as much. A guy can dream can’t he?

Jimmy didn’t think much of Yahoo Live and a lot of other people have criticised it but I like it for its entertainment value. Plus as I’ve said, you never know who you’re going to see on there. Isn’t that the beauty of the internet?

[rating=3]

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Maybe you want to use your webcam for multiple things at once, maybe you want add graphics, or maybe you want to have the ability to switch between multiple video sources such as a video capture of your desktop. If so, there are applications that can accomplish this.

ManyCam does all of the above. It is a free utility that lets you apply some more advanced features to video capture. If you use a webcam, DV cam, or simply want to capture your desktop, this program can get the job done with minimal fuss. Plug in your devices, make sure they are installed properly, and launch ManyCam. When the program is launched it will populate the notification area/system tray with an icon.

Add Effects

The first thing you are greeted with is the ‘effects’ tab. This tab allows you to add dynamic and static background graphics, cool objects, text, and more which complements your image or video capture. The options are not the most professional and sophisticated but it’s much better than I would expect for a freeware app that requires little setup. ManyCam also allows you to download new effects and graphics from their site.

Selecting Sources

There is also a ’sources’ tab. This tab allows you to switch between connected webcams, DV cameras, and video capture devices. It also allows you to stream images, videos, and your desktop to any devices that accept video capture sources such as online streaming services (Ustream.tv, Stickam, Mogulus, etc.) or video chat programs like Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, and ooVoo.

All in all, this program is really cool for adding effects when you are chatting with your friends or when you want to show someone your desktop. It is not, however, a free solution to expensive video editing/mixing software but should be an alternative for simple needs. I find this program most useful for switching between multiple cameras on a computer to change camera angles without moving a single camera around when video chatting with people online. All you have to do is open ManyCam, go to your programs settings and select ManyCam as the video source, then switch between cameras within ManyCam.

Have you ever used video effects or video mixing software? What programs do you use for this and what do you use them for? We want to know so leave your comments and feedback below. We’d also like to know what you use your webcam for so please let us know about that as well.

(By) Nick Volpe is a freelance blogger and web guru from techNETWORK.US,a provider of tech news, open source software, web development tools, useful tips, as well as podcasts, tech videos, and much more.

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