getting an ip address ??

[(RIP) Kaister]

At the company i'm working at, they have just bought, but before my time, a dedicated Video conferencing system, for god knows how much.

However, the guy i replaced knew all about it and no-one here does.....

I've been appointed 'the new guru' and have some things to check.

For one - you have to give the ip address of cameras to 'call'.

If i wanted to find a internet webcam and display that, for whatever reason, how do i find its fixed IP address ??

I presume theres an xp prog or setting to look at

thanks

 

[Jezza]

Check out www.whatismyipaddress.com you should find the answer.

 

[Iain Hogg]

On a Windows machine, open up a command prompt (DOS promt, eg C:>) and type

ipconfig

All should be revealed.

 

[trotsky]

Phil

Quick qualifier, haven't done this for some time, things might have moved on.

I guess what you are asking is how do you get IP info to let two videoconferencing setups connect.

The answer is you have to ask the person you want to connect to what their IP address is, and tell them yours. In a single company you might have all the info you need in the company DNS but then you need to know the names of the machines to which the cameras are connected. This assumes point-to-point connectivity, there are more complex multi-user stuff out there which needs more fiddly software.

If you really are coming at this fairly cold I'd recommend this site which is the UK academic networks take on videoconferencing - a nice balance of intro and techie stuff there. Let me know if you have problems getting at it as I can probably do something to help that at least.

 

[Mike Werner]

There's quite a lot of sites out there that will allow you to videoconf without fixed or known IP address. The easiest ones are the large ISPs such as Yahoo or M$N with their messenger products. It's free and reasonable quality. Instead of using fixed Ip addresses, they use your login as reference.

The alternative are all the sites that host NetMeeting. You register (some free, some not), and you're in business.

 

[Deleted account W]

MSN Messenger a warning.

MSN messenger has resulted in both my kids PC's being infected by viruses.

My company, who have a good IT security policy sent the mail below to everyone.

Dear All

The use of MSN Messenger for instant messaging has been identified as a high IS security risk, it is a potential distribution route for viruses and intrusion into the **** Network.

In order to protect the **** Network, a decision has been taken at Group level to block the usage of MSN Messenger in the UK and other Countries.

In order to effect this, changes to the Firewall software will be made on 1st June 2004 . In order to fully understand any potential business impact that this may cause would you please inform me if you make regular use of MSN Messenger for business purposes and what impact blocking this will have.

Thank you.

Regards,
************
IS Manager - UK

I would be very wary about using this software.

 

[Mike Werner]

Totally agree. Anything Micro$oft does is money releated, even if it stinks. MSN, Hotmail are two areas where they sell your email address to spammers. There's an article in the Washington Post published more than 1 year ago from me with proof. You can try it yourself, signup for Hotmail, set the checkboxes to NOT GIVE YOUR DETAILS TO THIRD PARTIES, don't give anyone your email address, and come back 1 week later. You'll see your inbox full of spam....

Dito of MSN Messenger. And technically, it's wide open. Yahoo is better, they have some attacks on their Messenger, but have closed that down for the last few months.

 

[trotsky]

Much as it pains me to disagree with Mr W above, as it suggests I am on the side of the men in the black hats, you can have a hotmail account and keep it spam free by clicking all the right boxes.

I have a hotmail account with default settings and a hotmail account with every "no don't tell anyone" box, including anything about listing in the directory, ticked. The first of those is regularly spammed but the second is still completely free after a year.

Admittedly I haven't told ANYONE about the second one, but you can be fairly sure that Microsoft will keep shtum if you tick the right boxes

Given the number of people who have started giving out their hotmail addresses in convoluted ways I'd be confident that anything which appears near the text "hotmail" on a website is parsed as an email address by those who gather these things in.

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

thanks for the replies - but perhaps i didn't make myself clear enough.

The dedicated system already has the IP addresses of the office locations around the world - no worries there then.

What i would like to do is add a webcam IP address from the internet.

So greg masters has posted a webcam of big ben - here

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23286

Question is - how do i find the IP address of this particular webcam ??

i 've figured out how to input new ip addresses - but how do i get them - from this camera and any other I find on the 'net ?

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

Anyone help on this ??

 

[trotsky]

Aha!

I unnerstand, i fink...

You won't probably be able to get the IP address of any of these cameras.

Like the one Greg posted, what you actually get on the web is normally the images created by the WebCam, grabbed by a Java (or similar) applet running on the webserver, and included in the web page dynamically.

If you chop through the source you find that the page he included is picked up from

"http://www.camvista.net/products/cams/biz_bigb.htm"

Going there and looking at the source gives this as the actual picture source:

"http://liveimages.camvista.net/content/applet/" using "{param name =imageDetails value="/bigben.jpg"}"

The Bigben.jpg is the latest camera image - still, not video...

I don't think these are always, or even usually, IP addressable cameras. They are also normally still cameras rather than video.

If your predecessor did this he/she must have had a list of actual videoconferencing kit set up to multicast their images, rather than the normal point-to-point connections.

You might try a search on Google for something like "video multicast access" though I haven't tried it so I don't know what you might get.

Apologies for the delay in replying, didn't switch on a computer all weekend...

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

Thanks Trotsky - I 've been doing some searching as well - you're right - there is no defined IP address that i can use.

My predecessor didn't do this, but apparently thought you could when he purchased the kit - that's why the idea has been kicking around.

I'll break the news to them that they've bought this kit for x amount and could probably have acheived the same through XP and a few camera's ??

I'm not up on it enough -as you might have gathered - and i'm on a steep learning curve.

cheers

 

[trotsky]

Interesting job where everyone gets to sit and look at webcams

I have enough problems with one of our guys who keeps a couple of webcams windows open on his desk to watch the animals on the veldt in South Africa:

"Could you just..."

"Hang on! Look, an okapi!"

"That's fine, but I need..."

"Wait, let's see if a lion gets it!"

I suggest you put the inability to view webcams forward as a definite advantage in terms of productivity. Anyway, if someone else bought the kit it is Somebody Else's Problem if it doesn't do what it was never able to...