Discover Seattle!

Haven't checked why they call it "catfood" but their webcam server alternates between over 400 cameras scattered throughout the world: [A href="vny!://www.catfood.net/products/webcamsaver/"]vny!://www.catfood.net/products/webcamsaver/[/A]

  Sometimes I put it on the side and view the images roll by as I'm listening to a conference call.



Perhaps not as captivating as the Africa cam (which I can't even access anyway) but nonetheless it's interesting to see all the different cities, and how people living there set up their cams - ie. what they thought was important about their cities to showcase to the outside world, etc.



One word of caution: When you access the server it might be rotating through cities where it's night time, so you may not get to see much. Don't despair, or dismiss it as another crappy cam server. Try another time.



I've taken a few snapshots of some of the cams that impressed me the most and put them together on a public album.



So that might be your alternative strategy in case all you end up seeing are cities in the dark...



[A href="vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/"][FONT color=#00bf60]vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/[/FONT][/A]

[FONT color=#00bf60][/FONT]

[FONT color=#00bf60](click on "Best of Catfood WebCam Server" to access the album)[/FONT]

[FONT color=#00bf60][/FONT]

[FONT color=#00bf60][/FONT]

  You might want to take advantage of the "slideshow" feature for easier viewing.



Post comments here, vote on the poll... If you want to comment on individual snapshots, the album gives you that option as well.



Have fun. [img onclick=smile(this.src) src="vny!://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/outfitted/beret.gif"]      

Cool, lots of interesting stuff flashing by. Makes me want to put up a webcam.

[A href="vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/"][FONT color=#00bf60]vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/[/FONT][/A]

  Cool pictures, Raging Poodle. Thanks. (//vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/midi/froehlich/a049.gif)

The "Catfood" server is very interesting.  I'm considering downloading it.  Thank you very much, Raging Poodle, for pointing it out.

Lise wrote:
 Cool pictures, Raging Poodle. Thanks. (//vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/midi/froehlich/a049.gif)

  LOL. Thanks. Didn't think anyone would be up at this hour. I'm still updating the album. Probably next time you look at it, there'll be 20 new pics.



The sun is rising on the east coast right now and sometimes you get spectacular views from Florida.



In all honesty though the best ones I've seen so far were from Japan. Seems as if you can keep the whole country under surveillance through webcams there. They're everywhere!  

Am up feeding Lise Jr, not to mention typing with one hand. Thanks for the pics, always look forward to seeing them. (//vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/more/schilder/s026.gif)

    Are you located in Florida?

kitten wrote:
 The "Catfood" server is very interesting.  I'm considering downloading it.  Thank you very much, Raging Poodle, for pointing it out.[/DIV]
 You're welcome.



You might want to check out the hardware and software requirements for the catfood software itself before downloading it. I was going to be the first to install it, until I saw what the program needed to function.



(Also keep in mind I think they'll let you use it for 7 days for free before some shareware protection kicks in.)



Man, how come everyone is up at this hour? Are you all getting ready to go to church? [img onclick=smile(this.src) src="vny!://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/happy/cheerful.gif"]  

Perhaps I'll reconsider if it's too complicated and go to your albums instead.  I don't want to get anything that demands too much fiddling around.

  I'm up because I couldn't sleep.  Hate when that happens!  Are you a night owl, Raging Poodle?

Ah there's the promised sunrise in Florida...

  (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/126fs4960525.jpg)

  I won't be putting this in the album as a snapshot of traffic doesn't merit a place in Raging Poodle's album, but the pic showed up in good time so might as well dispay it here.



I have a bit of a dilemna right now actually...

Raging Poodle, I went to look at your albums, and all I'm getting is a black screen.  I don't know if it is being blocked by my computer or not.

kitten wrote:
   I'm up because I couldn't sleep.  Hate when that happens!  Are you a night owl, Raging Poodle?

  Yes I'm very much of a night owl. I find more peace at night than during the day.



Here's the dilemna:



I have 2 snapshots from the same cam in Virginia. One of them is already in the album:

[A href="vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer/photo#5016918584181029058"]vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer/photo#5016918584181029058[/A]

  The pic doesn't say much about Virginia, but it has artistic/photographic quality with the lone boat in the middle of the lake.



Recently however, I captured this one through the same webcam:

  (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/126fs4962371.jpg)

  This one isn't too shabby either, and it shows more about the environment. But there is no lone boat which was my favorite part of the previous picture.



Which one is better?



I'm placing only the best of the best in the album.  

I should amend my last post.  The screen says loading, but no matter how long I wait, nothing happens.  When I click on slideshow the screen goes black.

  That Virginia photo looks beautiful.  Is there no way to have both photos in your album, perhaps side by side for comparison?

kitten wrote:
 Raging Poodle, I went to look at your albums, and all I'm getting is a black screen.  I don't know if it is being blocked by my computer or not.[/DIV]
 That's VERY odd. Is the whole screen black, or just the pictures?



As far as I know, unlike Geocities Picasa doesn't have any bandwidth limits on how many people can view the pictures. Besides, there're only 3-4 of us accessing the album right  now.



How many pictures are you seeing?

If you're seeing only 1 pic, then you're looking at the catfood server, and it's probably showing a city at night time.



 Is your monitor on? ;)



Anyone else having the same problem?

 

It's just the pictures.  What I initially get is the two albums.  When I click on either of them it indicates that it is loading, but nothing happens.  So I tried clicking on the slideshow, and it shows a black screen.

  I also double-checked to see if the monitor was working.(//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif)

Look at how the rain in Bellevue turned a mundane snapshot of a taxicab at a street corner into a work of art:



(//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/126fs4964532.jpg)



Well, let's say "almost" art... I'm torn about placing this in the album as well.

That photo does look surreal.  I think it would be a good one to include, but since I can't see the album I don't really know.

kitten wrote:
 It's just the pictures.  What I initially get is the two albums.  When I click on either of them it indicates that it is loading, but nothing happens.  So I tried clicking on the slideshow, and it shows a black screen.

  I also double-checked to see if the monitor was working.(//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif)

    Ok, I just went through the slide show. Didn't have any problems.



Several possibilities:



- jvascript execution problems?



- Or... because of me uploading new pics, your browser hasn't refreshed its cache yet, so Picasa is having difficulty displaying all the pictures in the slideshow?



Just my speculations...

You might want to try entering the catfood album directly @ [A href="vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer"]vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer[/A]



Then hit F5 to refresh all the pictures. Then see how the slideshow will work.

Okay, I tried that, but still no change.    I'll see what happens later.  Must get ready for work now.  What did you decide about including the taxi in Bellevue?

kitten wrote:
 Okay, I tried that, but still no change.    I'll see what happens later.  Must get ready for work now.  What did you decide about including the taxi in Bellevue?[/DIV]
 Yes, perhaps trying later will solve your problems. I deleted a few, I added a few... even as we were writing on here. That might be behind some of the display issues you and Lise were referring to.



I'll add the Bellevue taxi, as well as the 2 Virginias.



The fact that I was questioning what to add and what to exclude indicated to me that I didn't have a clear mission statement for this album.



Now I'm clearer on what I want to keep there. :)

 Raging Poodle! wrote:
Look at how the rain in Bellevue turned a mundane snapshot of a taxicab at a street corner into a work of art:
 
It's raining like *&$% hell here right now....

Same here.  It's hard to love the sound of rain when you know you have to go out in it with a leaky car!

Lise wrote:
 Are you located in Florida? Does this look like a Florida license plate to you? (//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif)

 (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/126fs4971529.jpg)

Nice collection, Raging Poodle.  You have some beautiful choices there.

P.C. wrote:
 Nice collection, Raging Poodle.  You have some beautiful choices there.[/DIV]
 Thank you. Did the slideshow work all right?



There're 49 in total and I'm done with uploading for now.

(There were 26 when I first made the announcement.)



Hope you got the see the latest pics from Hawaii, Atlanta, Boston, and Narbonne (France).



Didn't know there was snow in Georgia, but there it is:

[A href="vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer/photo#5017325966124022626"]vny!://picasaweb.google.com/Raging PoodleTalks/BestOfCatfoodWebCamServer/photo#5017325966124022626[/A]



In terms clarity, color combination and contrast I think some of these are postcard quality.

  I'm also aware that there's an "artsy bend" to some of my selections. Just take that as a reflection of my own bias as a former painter/photographer. [img onclick=smile(this.src) src="vny!://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/innocent0002.gif"]        

The slide show worked perfectly.  You did a good job selecting some of the artsier pics.  Good call on including the taxi/rain picture.  It's kinda backwards.  People who don't like abstract would be hard pressed to deny that there is abstract in reality.

I tried again, but still no go.  Just a thought, do I need to register with them in order to see anything?  

Hey for some of us reality is born out of the abstract. (//vny!://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon/icon_smile_cool.gif)  

kitten wrote:
 I tried again, but still no go.  Just a thought, do I need to register with them in order to see anything?  [/DIV]
 No registration required. It's a public album.

Hey aren't you supposed to be working? (//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Other/14.gif)

I've finished my first shift, and in another 1 1/2 hours I go back for my next one.  I work a four-hour day on a split shift.

My album is inaccessable today. [A onclick="addImg('icon/icon_smile_sad.gif')" href="jvascript:void(0)"](//vny!://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon_smile_sad.gif)[/A]



Would've expected better from Google...



I wrote to them. I don't know when they'll fix it.

It worked fine this morning as I was updating it.



My thoughts turned to alternatives...

I don't like Yahoo's or MSN's albums. Their thumbnails are too small, they don't have the features I want and use all the time.



I don't like creating new accounts all over the Net anyway. I'll give Google a few days to fix it.



However I happen to have an inbox.com account and just remembered that they also offered some sort of an album feature.



So I went to check them out. Created an album with my existing account and uploaded 4 pics.



Here's the intro I wrote but I don't think that it's showing up when you access it as a public album:

 [P id=ph_ai_desc]Here you'll find a small collection of webcams that made little sense to me. I think some of them are funny, some are abstract (ie. hard to make out what the heck it is), and some are plain dumb. Let me know if you happen to know a good reason why any of these cams were set up to be displayed to the whole world.

 It's @ [A href="vny!://my.inbox.com/photos/Raging Poodle/index.aspx"]vny!://my.inbox.com/photos/Raging Poodle/index.aspx[/A]

 You'll need to click on individual pics to see my comments on them. It doesn't have a feature like Picasa does where you can add your own comments.

 I consider this more of a collection of 4 silly snapshots than anything else. Main place is still Google.

 Let me know if you find them to be as dumb and silly as I thought they were.

Raging Poodle! wrote:
  Does this look like a Florida license plate to you? (//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif)

 (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/126fs4971529.jpg)

 

 Brilliant!! Good one, Raging Poodle. (//vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/midi/froehlich/d025.gif)


 

Still can't access the album... [img onclick=smile(this.src) src="vny!://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/silly/warped.gif[/img]



I was watching the cam for a while and captured a few screenshots.



Look at the difference a bit of light makes... Which one of these would you put in the main album?



The first one has more activity (with the trucks and bulldozer) but has less light and detail.



The second one has more light, shows more detail and the heap in the middle looks as if it's aglow...

[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #000000"]

  (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/127fs359881.jpg)

      (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/127fs360145.jpg)

    [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff"]Or maybe they should both be discarded?[/FONT][/FONT]  

No comments on the Tallahassee pics yet eh... Are they that bad?



If anyone is still having difficulty accessing the album, I found a solution:



Delete all your Google cookies.



Everything should start working nicely after that.



 

the contrast in the first one is more interesting to the eye imho

[FONT color=#0000ff]I solved the dilemna of what to do with a small collection of snapshots that looked more like abstract paintings due ice and water formations on the cameras: I created a separate album for them![/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]

[A href="vny!://my.inbox.com/photos/Raging Poodle"][FONT color=#bf00bf]vny!://my.inbox.com/photos/Raging Poodle[/FONT][/A][FONT color=#bf00bf]  [/FONT][A onclick="addImg('icon/061.gif')" href="jvascript:void(0)"][FONT color=#bf00bf](//vny!://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon/061.gif)[/FONT][/A]

[FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff]Click on "Wet Cams" on the left to view them. [/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff]Best enjoyed in Large Cards format.[/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]    

outstanding !!

I don't know why, but I really like the tire shop pic. You've got some good stuff in there.[font color="#0000ff"][/font]
 
 
 

mr pomegranate wrote:
 outstanding !!

  LOL. Thank you.



The experimental album is back up BTW. So now you can access my latest addition "Playground cam" - Click on the album bearing the same name, on the left side.



It might turn into plural "Playground cams" soon if I can find other cams overlooking other playgrounds.



Here's a teaser: You won't see this one in the album because it's a generic (and boring) snapshot with no particular focus:

  (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/129fs1599418.jpg)

  Check out the 7 pics in the album and see what I did with the above.  [A onclick="addImg('icon/icon_smile.gif')" href="jvascript:void(0)"](//vny!://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon_smile.gif)[/A]

TehBorken wrote:
I don't know why, but I really like the tire shop pic. You've got some good stuff in there. [FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]

  Not everyone can see this, but you're probably picking up what I saw when I first accessed that cam. It's unique in many ways:



For one thing who would've thought about installing a webcam in a tireshop and broadcasting 24/7 on the Net?



For another, the colors and layout set the place apart from your run of the mill tire shop. The place is arranged almost like an art gallery.



And the colors: Would you ever think about painting your walls light purple? Yet in the end it makes a very pleasant contrast with the shiny hubcabs.



It's an odd combination of various elements. And surprisingly, it works. [A onclick="addImg('icon/icon_smile_cool.gif')" href="jvascript:void(0)"](//vny!://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon_smile_cool.gif)[/A]





 

I like the one of Koloa.....beautiful !

P.C. wrote:
 I like the one of Koloa.....beautiful ![/DIV]
 Kokkola, Finland one - in the Skipped album?



There're some very interesting light effects there. I believe it's a pre-dawn shot of the docks before workers arrive for the workday.



I never accessed that cam directly but captured it when it showed up at the Catfood Server.

   

No no......this one.

  [img height=336 src="vny!://wm27.inbox.com/thumbs/33_8cb28_8a1d7eb4_oJ.jpg.thumb" width=399]

It must've been stormy in Hawaii last night... You might enjoy taking a peek at [A href="vny!://webcams.gajda.cz/america/hawaii/the-royal-hawaiian.html"]vny!://webcams.gajda.cz/america/hawaii/the-royal-hawaiian.html[/A] for shots like these:



  (//vny!://m1.freeshare.us/129fs1737149.jpg)

  Captured a few snapshots, but won't have the time to update the album till later tonight if not tomorrow.



Check it out if you're around in the meantime...