FAQ History Links Banners

Other than cats, what am I looking at in the picture?

Camera 1 is set up in our living room pointed at the bay window.  We've provided the cats' a comforter, pillows and of course their favorite kitty sofa from Critter Comforts.  The window faces east and gets plenty of morning sun which the cats take full advantage of.

Kitty-Cam would like to thank Critter Comforts for their generous donation of several Purr Pads as well as the kitty sofa.  Critter Comforts offers their products for sale on eBay.  Inquire to Critter Comforts for custom orders as well.  The cats give the Purr Pads and Kitty Sofa four paws up!

Camera 2 is in our second floor computer room and the set-up is very similar to the previous Cam 1 view at our prior house.  The camera and light fixture are mounted off of a computer desk hutch looking down on the cats' scratching post.  Two of the cats' favorite purr pads have been placed here.  Since the cats like to be where we are in the house, if we are downstairs watching TV, Cam 2 can be vacant for hours at a time.

What hours of the day does Kitty-Can run?

Both cameras continuously upload images in 5 minute increments no matter what the current lighting situation.  If the pictures are dark, go ahead click the button to turn the light on!  You will still have to wait up to 5 minutes for a new pictures to be uploaded. 

Even though Finnegan is virtually 3 time as large as Stormy, it can be difficult to tell them apart if they are not side-by-side.  A few suggestions/tips:

• Finnegan has a red collar, Stormy a hot pink collar.  Generally the cats only have their collars on in summer when there is a greater likelihood of them getting outside.
• Stormy's coat is a more traditional stripped pattern whereas Finnegan displays a rosette pattern in his coat.
• Stormy sleeps tightly curled up whereas Finnegan has to spread out due to his size.
• Because of Finnegan's size, he can easily fill half of the picture frame on Camera 1.

The cats' camera preferences are always changing.  For awhile, one cat may always be present and the other two are never seen.  A short time later, the cat we thought was most reliable rarely makes an appearance on camera!

The cats are more likely to make appearance on the cams during nap time (which is much of the day!) and in winter time.  We have provided a cozy environment on the cams so they can cuddle up during those cold winter months on the house.

During the summer, the cats are in search of cooler places in the house and prefer to keep a bit more distance between each other.

What kind of equipment do you use for Kitty-Cam?

Camera 1 is a Vivitar Vivicam 10.  Camera 2 is a Vivitar 3315.  Each camera runs off of a separate computer and uses its own copy of Webcam32 version 6.0.1 software to upload the pictures.

Each camera uploads a picture every 5 minutes day and night, whether or not the lights are on or off.  Occasionally there is a network conflict causing a camera to miss an upload.  This would delay the next picture 1 to 5 minutes assuming the software and hardware is able to recover properly.  Since each camera is run with separate computers and software, their upload schedules are unrelated to each other.  Occasionally they will happen to "sync-up", but more often, there is a few minutes between them. 

This means that there was a new current image uploaded since you refreshed the page.  The thumbnails are out of date.  Hit refresh or shift-refresh and the thumbnails will correspond with their respective image.

No.  Once the last thumbnail image has been "pushed off" it is deleted for good.