Keith's Amusing Musings

The image below is circulating around the Web and landed in my inbox this week. The funny thing is Owen and I have been playing chess and pumping iron for a few weeks now.

When traveling with a small child, parents often make due with sub-optimal accommodations relative to what is typically enjoyed in their homes. One case in point is the inadequate lighting often encountered in hotels and guest rooms that make it difficult for late-night/early-morning child care. What is desired is dim, unobtrusive ambient light. What is often provided are bright bedside lamps and harsh ceiling lights with inconveniently-located switches.

One inconsiderate solution involves turning on the ceiling or lamp lights at 3:27 AM to tend to one’s crying child. Babies and significant others love that. Non-green options include leaving the bathroom lights on overnight with the door slightly ajar. Neither of those options appealed to us.

After a quick trip to Target and $5 from the change jar, our travel kit is now equipped with an LED nightlight. After two states, ten days and a couple dozen late-night admittances to the Owen opera, I wholeheartedly recommend a night light when traveling with small kids. A small flashlight also works but remember where you put it and don’t forget the batteries.

Owen is two months old today. Hooray! To celebrate, he had his 2-month exam which included two vaccination shots, one in each thigh. Fun times.

Of course the pediatrician waited until just before he got the shots to tell us it would be a good idea to give him a dose of Tylenol Infant’s Drops immediately afterward—and every 3-4 hours for the next 24 hours—since he was not going to be a very happy camper while coping with the discomfort.

Learn from our mistake: Bring the Tylenol with you and give it to your child just before the shots, for everyone’s sake.

While I cannot know first-hand how well it works, I have observed the seemingly magical powers of Fenugreek through TB’s milk production over the past five weeks. As the Wikipedia entry will tell you, Fenugreek is a herb with many common uses. One area of particular interest to nursing moms is its properties as a milk producing agent.

Taken orally in capsule form or as one of several ingredients in the popular Mother’s Milk Tea, Fenugreek greatly improves breast milk production quickly. The capsules can be found in many supplement and drug stores. The tea is not as effective as the capsules due to the lower levels of Fenugreek but TB finds sipping the tea relaxing and combines it with a couple capsules each day.

Before getting all excited you should know there are some drawbacks:

1. All that milk has to come out which means either lots of feeding, lots of pumping or sore mammary glands.
2. Storing breast milk safely for long periods requires a deep freezer and expensive containers.

Of course, if things get too abundant, just cut back or stop taking it altogether. Lastly, while Fenugreek is used in many food products, it would be wise to consult your doctor before taking any supplement.

Update: TB loves the bottle labels.

Say you are a new parent whose relatives live far, far away. What if you could easily allow family to see your child doing basic things babies do without jumping on a plane? After all, grandmothers can never see enough of their grandchildren. Imagine how many cool points you would get if your mother-in-law in Chicago could watch your son sleeping (or sleepless) in Seattle. This post is a walkthrough of how I setup a webcam over Owen’s crib that can be viewed using any popular Web browser from anywhere on the Internet.

Let’s begin with the end in mind. Below is an image showing the final result. This is an actual screenshot from the webcam exactly as it was delivered to my browser. I think Owen knows when he is being watched.

Assumptions

The required equipment turns out to be quite simple if we make the following assumptions about your home network.

• You have a high-speed broadband connection (>1 Mbps up). This is true for most cable modem connections. Otherwise, call your ISP and request an upgrade.
• You have a wired or wireless router/modem that allows you to connect several computers to the Internet. Otherwise, get the equipment from your ISP or visit Best Buy and tell them you want a wireless router.

Equipment

With the assumptions out of the way, the complete equipment list is as follows:

• Axis 207W Wireless Network Camera

Yes, that’s it. No fancy computer or other electronics. No crazy HDMI, DVI, SCSI, IEEE-1394 or other expensive cables.

Before celebrating, you should know this is not your average Instant Messaging, MySpace or eHarmony webcam. This is a commercial-grade network camera often used by businesses and municipalities for asset monitoring and security. That means you get turnkey functionality, high quality and unsurpassed flexibility at a higher price point. What’s the damage? The Axis 207W runs $350 on Amazon. I paid $242.25 after shipping using eBay. Both prices are at the extreme of what one would typically pay for a consumer-grade USB webcam. However, you don’t need a computer or any special software to run an Axis network camera or to allow multiple people to access the camera at the same time. A single Axis camera is is also much cheaper than the roundtrip airfare it will save you and your MIL.

NOTE: Be sure to get the 207W model which supports wireless and wired connections.

Setup

Once you follow the included instructions to get the camera connected to your network, configuration is straightforward.

1. Connect to the camera using your browser (e.g., http://192.168.0.123)
   1. Can you see the video? If not, check your equipment and connections.
   2. The Axis IP Utility can help determine your camera’s IP address.
2. Click the Setup link and login as admin.
3. Under Basic Configuration –> Video & Image
   1. Create user accounts
   2. Require passwords for access (optional)
   3. Set the date & time.
   4. Select the video size and quality. I chose 480×360 with a compression level of 15.
   5. Enable the date & timestamp. This step is optional but it lets viewers know what they are seeing is real-time.
4. Under Live View Config –> Layout
   1. Choose ‘Motion JPEG’ for the default video format
   2. Chose ‘Java applet’ for the default viewer for IE and other browsers.
5. Under System Options –> Network –> Basic
   1. Register the camera with the AXIS Internet Dynamic DNS Service. This assigns a friendly address like www.lesia.com your visitors can use to access the webcam.

A couple notes regarding the steps above.

• I found motion JPEG with the Java applet produces the best quality  images. This does mean your visitors will need to first install the free Java runtime to access the webcam. Make sure you have them uncheck the Yahoo/MSN Toolbar installation option.
• Remote webcam access requires changes to your firewall to allow visitors outside your network to access the camera sitting in your home. This is beyond the scope of my walkthrough but Axis provides instructions for configuring your home router for an Axis network camera.

Conclusion

Now you have a multi-user webcam that can be moved around as your child grows and needs (NannyCam?) change. How well does it work? In a word: great. Don’t take my word for it. Check out a public Axis camera running in Kiruna, Sweden. Yes, Sweden. You can also check out a list of public Axis cameras throughout the world.

But wait, there’s more. We eliminated the computer on the webcam side, what about for your visitors?

If they own an iPhone or iPod touch they can purchase Axis Cams by EyeSpyFx from Apple’s App Store for $4.99. With that program any Axis webcam can be viewed whenever their device is connected via 3G (iPhone only) or Wi-Fi (iPhone and iPod touch). You should check out TotalControl for your Windows Mobile, Blackberry or Android device.

Leave a comment if you have questions or encounter problems.