Eggman Technologies Inc. | Monthly Archives: December 2009

App Store and Product Names – What happened to the concept of copyright?

Posted on December 29, 2009 by admin Posted in Miscellaneous

I’m outraged. Being at the top of the charts brings out the competitors like you wouldn’t believe, but some have now crossed the line, the legal one!

My product is named Live Cams. It was first released as i-c-LiveCams in January but changed later that spring to be simply “Live Cams”. After becoming a top 10 app in the US and Canada in June there was a deluge of app submissions that mysteriously contained the “Live Cams” keywords. The most notable was Mobiscope changing their app to “Mobiscope: Spy Live Cams”.

I didn’t have a problem with this because it was commonplace for people to use keywords to boost app sales at the time. I was flattered by the attempts to duplicate me so no biggie.

Things are different now. A quick search on Live Cams in the app store turns up a much more bold and nasty approach by some large organizations.

Several times between September and December 2009 I attempted to contact EarthCam to see if I could get permission to include some of their content in my application. I was willing to discuss profit sharing if necessary and shared my thoughts via email. No answers whatsoever, not even a polite “no thanks”.

On December 23rd an application was released by EarthCam and it was named “Live Cams Free”. To add to the attack, their product logo prominently contains the words “Live Cams” and a graphic image.

I ask you to boycott their free application or to at least write reviews that state their shameful use of my product name in their own. To think I was willing to work together with them!

I’d love to get your thoughts on this. It’s really too bad because they have some of the best cameras in famous places and yet they take this approach to marketing themselves. Dispicable!

Wow – Christmas sales figures have just arrived!

Posted on December 28, 2009 by admin Posted in Miscellaneous

I’m shaking.

The iTunes Connect website just became accessible again after being turned off for the holidays on Dec 23rd and I’ve just now received my sales figures for the last 5 days.

Wow!

I’m not sure what to do or say right now. I’ve thought about it and decided that I would publish the numbers since the #1 app last year (iFart by Joel Comm) did the same.

The numbers?

Dec 25 – 40,336 people bought the app
Dec 26 – 28,703 did the same

That’s $48,327 profit in 2 days!

I think I need a drink. Happy Holidays everyone, and thanks for giving me a heart condition for 2010 🙂

Holiday Challenge – Want your picture on iTunes?

Posted on December 24, 2009 by admin Posted in Miscellaneous

I’ve seen enough reviews now about the app being fake that I’ve decided we should all show how these cameras are in fact real.

I’d like to ask everyone who knows the location of one of these cameras to make up a simple sign that reads “Live Cams for iPhone!” and hold it up so that you can get a screenshot of yourself with the sign. Try to get your face on camera if you want to be seen 🙂

You may have to ask a friend to take snapshots with the iPhone while you hold up the sign, or perhaps other customers will see you doing this and send in snapshots for you….

I’ll take some of the best ones and post them as my screenshots on the App Store and will post all of them on my website/blog for others to see.

Remember, these cameras are not owned or operated by me. They are publicly available cameras that are hosted on various internet sites. As cameras go offline or are protected by the owners they become unavailable in the application. Due to the HUGE number of people currently purchasing and using the application its quite possible that by the summer there will be very few cameras left to view. The owners must pay for equipment and bandwidth costs so there will likely be a shock when they find the new audience that is now watching…. These cameras have been available online for years but never concentrated into one easily accessible collection like my app has. Because of this the usage has been much lighter and the traffic negligible in the past.

Take your photos now and get your image on iTunes for your friends to see! Please keep it clean, no obscene gestures or poses. I look forward to seeing the submissions.

To submit, go to the user forums, sign up and post the photo here:
http://livecams-iphone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=68

More fun with App Reviews

Posted on December 23, 2009 by admin Posted in Reviews

I’m starting to finally take a mental break from iPhone development but can’t quite tear myself away from reading reviews and checking support emails. I’m so worried that taking a few days off will result in the loss of my #1 spot in the US! Realistically it’s out of my hands anyway but I feel that my attention to customer requests is keeping me on top.

That being said, I read some very funny app reviews a few moments ago and thought I’d share 🙂

“Umm yeah it’s about 300-500 cameras in all different places that you can vie for control over. Low quality and mildly laggy but exactly what I thought I was gonna get. Also the screen shots are deceiving in quality.”

First of all, the current database contains 4820 cameras to be exact, and I have disabled 1291 of them (leaving 3529 active cameras). If you just use the predefined categories to find cameras then maybe there are only a thousand or so but that’s because I haven’t managed to completely categorize all of them yet! Use the custom search feature to find cameras.

Also, the screen shots deceiving? I captured 100% of my screen shots by pressing the home and sleep buttons on my iPhone to save them to my album. Shots are transferred directly to my Mac via iPhoto and not retouched in any way. Obviously I pick some of my favorites to promote the app, but nothing is altered from the original in any way.

“Stupid app! do not buy! first of all it’s sooo slow it’s ridiculous you can’t even tell what’s going on and second there aren’t even any animals in the animal cateragory.”

Wha? No animals? Are they sleeping? Haha…dunno what to say about this review, I just have to laugh.

“Plus only for streaming live cams. Static cams that update their image every few minutes only are nowhere to be found. World View is much better.”

Wait a minute, so you are suggesting that instead of streaming video you’d like to load the app full of images that take several minutes to change? I have a feeling I’d drop out of the charts pretty fast if I did that 🙂 I’ve been adding a few as people request them but I already feel like there are too many! Plus with the heavy bias towards World View I suspect this is the author trying to trick people or perhaps a friend of the author. Either way, this amused me. I apologize if you are seriously addicted to World View, I’ve never tried it.

“Junk. 1 star. Don’t waste your money. Slow.”

After working for more than 1 year on this app and supporting a few hundred models of IP cameras I would appreciate a bit more depth in a review than this 🙂

Well, that was fun. There are more every night and I’ll post a few on the blog from time to time since it’s my only venue for “challenging” the reviewers. I don’t think all of the reviewers realize that they are 100% anonymous and there’s no way for the app developers to respond to them. As a Canadian citizen I cannot even post a comment on the US App Store so it’s impossible for me to help people or respond if they ask questions in reviews.

The holiday season is here! I’m off for some mental health days and I shall return to the world of Live Cams on the 27th!
Have a great week everyone,

Barry

Namibia Wild Cam is back online!

Posted on December 22, 2009 by admin Posted in iOS

I’ve just found that the Namibia Wild Cam (animals section) is back online! It has been down for a few weeks (unknown reasons) but is now active again. I’ve re-enabled the camera and everyone should get it in their list when they connect via Wifi.

It’s a great camera with streaming video and IR night vision from Africa. You’ll see lots of animals both during the day and at night. It supports PTZ but as you’ll find if you attempt to control it, the admin has locked us out 🙂

Happy Holidays!

Barry

Using Live Cams to view a webcam on a Mac

Posted on December 21, 2009 by admin Posted in Tutorials

Many people are asking how to configure Live Cams for viewing their personal webcams attached to either a PC or Mac. This post will discuss the particulars for getting a webcam working with a Mac.

Before we begin, let’s make it clear that the webcam will be viewable in Live Cams but there will not be any audio and it is not a two-way video chat of any sort. The app is designed to be a viewer only and is supposed to provide home-security on your iPhone.

Let’s begin!

Step 1 – Download and install EvoCam
Go to http://www.evological.com and download the trial version of EvoCam. Run the installer and diagnose any problems by checking the Evological website for details. Launch EvoCam. Unfortunately this software costs $30 and comes with a 30 day trial.

Step 2 – Configure your video sources in EvoCam
Choose File, New Window from the EvoCam application menus. If the video window does not automatically connect your camera (iSight or otherwise) then you will need to use the Video Settings button to configure your device.

Step 3 – Enable the built-in webserver
EvoCam does not automatically broadcast the video that it captures. To enable this feature you will need to go to the “Server” tab in the video window and then enable the built-in webserver. You may assign a username and password to the server if you press the “Advanced” button.

Step 4 – Find out the host and port that is being used by EvoCam
When you enable the built-in webserver the application will show a URL that contains your host and port. The host is the set of numbers after the http:// and before the colon. The port is the number after the colon.

Step 5 – Test the URL in Safari on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Launch Safari on your mobile device and enter the full URL that you see in the step above. If there aren’t any firewalls active and the port is opened on your router you should see the EvoCam html page load. If the connection fails then you will need to open your firewall or turn it off so that traffic can go from the internet to your PC. Repeat this process until you can get Safari to connect to EvoCam. If Safari can’t connect then Live Cams will also fail. This is by far the most common area for people to struggle with because of various software and hardware firewalls and router issues.

Step 6 – Launch Live Cams and add your camera
After Live Cams launches, click “Add Camera” and scroll down until you find the EvoCam option. Select it by touching the word EvoCam. On the next screen that loads you will enter:

1. The name that you want to assign to the camera.
2. The host (your router IP or DNS name). This is the number shown in EvoCam which is in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and does NOT include the http:// or the “:”
3. The port shown in EvoCam. This is the number after the colon (8080 in my example screenshots)
4. Leave the username and password blank unless you assigned a password in EvoCam.
5. If you have multiple cameras configured you will need to adjust the camera number accordingly, otherwise leave it to the default value of 1.

Save the camera and check your private cameras in Live Cams to see if the video appears in the thumbnail. Touch the thumbnail to go to the video screen. If there are any error messages you can adjust the settings and try again by touching the “gears” icon in the application to edit the settings.

This should give you video from your home webcam, but most people will have problems with step #4. I will update this blog with some additional pointers as I see what issues people are commonly running into. If you wish to view your camera while on cellular networks or remote wifi connections you will need a dynamic DNS account instead of the IP address you entered above.
Free accounts are available at www.dyndns.org and you would simply enter the name (like mywebcam.dyndns.info) instead of the IP address in Live Cams.

Barry

Using Live Cams to view a webcam on a PC

Posted on December 20, 2009 by admin Posted in Tutorials

Many people are asking how to configure Live Cams for viewing their personal webcams attached to either a PC or Mac. This post will discuss the particulars for getting a webcam working with a PC.

Let’s begin!

Step 1 – Download and install webcamXP
Go to http://www.webcamxp.com and download the free version of webcamXP for personal use. Run the installer and diagnose any problems by checking the webcamXP website for details. Launch webcamXP.

Step 2 – Configure your video sources in webcamXP
Right click on the video source windows and follow the prompts to attach your webcam, IP camera or video file as a source in webcamXP. Note that whatever number you choose will later have to be entered into Live Cams (source #1 through 6). If your device is not supported by webcamXP it will also be unsupported in Live Cams.

Step 3 – Find out the host and port that is being used by webcamXP
When your camera is configured and images are appearing in the video window you are ready to go.
Open a command prompt and type “ipconfig” to find the IP address of your computer on the local network. This will be the number you need to enter into Live Cams to access the camera on your local wifi network. If you want to access the camera from the internet you’ll need Dynamic DNS to be configured or use your router IP address instead of the PC’s address.

Step 4 – Test the video in Safari on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Launch Safari on your mobile device and enter the IP address and port from the step above.

Example:
http://192.168.1.100:8080

If there aren’t any firewalls active and the port is opened on your router you should see the webcamXP html page load. If the connection fails then you will need to open your firewall or turn it off so that traffic can go from the internet to your PC. Repeat this process until you can get Safari to connect to webcamXP. If Safari can’t connect then Live Cams will also fail. This is by far the most common area for people to struggle with because of various software and hardware firewalls and router issues.

Step 5 – Launch Live Cams and add your camera
After Live Cams launches, click “Add Camera” and scroll down until you find the webcamXP option. Select it by touching the word webcamXP. On the next screen that loads you will enter:

1. The name that you want to assign to the camera.
2. The host (your router IP or DNS name). This is the number shown in webcamXP which is in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and does NOT include the http:// or the “:”
3. The port shown in webcamXP. This is the number after the colon (8081 in my example screenshots)
4. Enter a username and password if you protected them in webcamXP.
5. If you have multiple cameras configured you will need to adjust the camera number accordingly, otherwise leave it to the default value of 1.

A similar description of EvoCam for Mac will be posted shortly!

Barry

You’re joking right?

Posted on December 20, 2009 by admin Posted in iOS

I’ve had a lot of fun reading product reviews lately. I used to get angry when people accused my app of being fake or “lying” to my customers. Now I’m just laughing back because I’m absolutely astounded at what some people think.

Forgive me for picking on a few people but reviews like this make me laugh:

“This app isn’t worth a buck! Most of the feeds are dark and you can’t see anything. The images are too dark and the app is a waste of money”.

My suggestion? Try viewing a part of the world that has the sun shining. Yes it tends to get dark when night time comes around! This phenomenon occurs every 24 hours for each location in the world.

Another one:

“The videos are just clips. Nothing exciting ever happens and the app just plays clips”.

I’m not sure what you are watching but if you picked a tree swaying in the breeze then perhaps it looks like a clip. Perhaps you are right and rather than write an app that can view live video feeds with a small amount of source code I chose to create 4800 video clips that simulate the entire world for varying times of day. Of course that’s it!

“The government has lots of cameras in DC. How do I connect to those?”

I’m guessing the government cameras are actually password protected and not even available over the internet. That would probably be in the nations best interests. If my app could crack the government network and video CCTV feeds from high-security areas I would likely be in prison now instead of writing software.

That’s all for now. I figured I’d share a few of my favorite themes with everyone and hopefully dispel some myths at the same time. The app isn’t magic, it just connects to publicly accessible cameras found across the internet by google searches.
If that’s not worth your $1 US then I’m ok with that, but for me it certainly seems like a great way to showcase my iDevices.

Barry