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Noon All Year

Ten years ago I made a video titled One Year, which showed the founding of our farm; from the building of the barn, the digging of the well that provides water to the barn, the erecting of the fencing, and the arrival of the llamas and the sheep. However, that film was with the old analog camera pointing out a window, and — while I love it — entirely too long at over 16 minutes.

I have been looking for a similar project since.

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The SecuritySpy That Doesn’t Love Me

Almost immediately after I posted my last entry on the trials and tribulations of an EvoCam on life support, the software crashed again.  Fresh start, minimal other applications running, and poof. I cleaned up the mess, and then instructed my iMac to restart itself every Sunday at 1am.

If all goes as planned (stop laughing!), this will be enough to help keep EvoCam running between restarts.  If not? Then the next step is increase the frequency of the reboots until I can set up the Mac Mini, and start all over on that machine.

Because, I am all out of options as far as out-of-the-box software after giving SecuritySpy a close look this weekend. The results, as always, were mixed.

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Don’t (Kernel) Panic! 🤪

As you may recall there has been a lot of effort (by me) put into trying to make EvoCam as efficient as it can be in regard to its resources usage. I figured if the software has been abandoned I have two choices: learn to program and roll my own EvoCam clone or do what I can to keep it alive, and hope that I find a replacement. Long time readers (LOL) know that I chose the latter, because the former would take too long, and probably drive me mad.Read More »Don’t (Kernel) Panic! 🤪

Do As I Say, Not As I Did

Look, I have never claimed to be an expert on anything.  I hunt and peck my way around the keyboard, and do the same when it comes to figuring shit out.

I like to pretend that what I am creating with the FarmCam Project is like software development; each tweak or improvement a new version. Sometimes it feels that way as I wrestle with EvoCam to get the most out of the abandoned software, that has gone dark without explanation. I can’t just make a support request or post to a support forum. If there are diehard EvoCam enthusiasts, I have no idea where to find them.

These instructional entries are here for two reasons. One, I hope to help others who may have similar interests — or needs — to my own. Secondly, if I don’t write this stuff down somewhere, I am likely to break something and forget WTF I did. These are my own manuals in some sense. Hence, many entries with lots of guess work and promises to report back later. Most of the time I forget to do some things in advance, and I am left wondering if a change will make any difference at all. Other times, I’m not patient enough to test things before I write about them here. [This is another of those times!]Read More »Do As I Say, Not As I Did

Hooked on CronniX

I turned to cron/crontab in order to run an Automator application and Transmit to (sometimes) smoothly synchronise the daily movies on my iMac with those on the remote server.  Then I learned much of the hard work I was scripting could be done from within my beloved EvoCam. However, EvoCam does not appear to be able to handle the archiving part of the operation. At least not to my specifications.

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Ticking Off the To-Dos

This weekend I was able to do a few tasks I always said I wanted to do, but never really could convince myself that I would find the time to do them. These projects involved cutting wires, fishing wires through walls and insulation, moving furniture, de-cluttering wires, and completely wiping my computer’s hard drive and doing a clean macOS install.

I’m impressed at least.

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EvoCam for Simple Timelapse and More

Over the years I have had requests to share the details of how I do the technical things that power the FarmCam. Below are instructions for using EvoCam to share still images as well as timelapse videos on a website to which you have FTP access.

Unfortunately, EvoCam is no longer being developed so everything in this article will likely focus on Version 5.0 (64-bit preview 3) of the software. At the time of this writing one can still download the software from reputable sites; however, if you cannot find it, email me. I can provide the DMG file, but I do not provide support for the software!  EvoCam works only on macOS, and I have tested it  up to: macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6 on my Mac Mini (Mid-2011).

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Options Are Always Nice

A few days ago I wrote about the new features I have added to the FarmCam. While writing the entry I stumbled upon actions settings in EvoCam that allowed me even more flexibility in the ways I share the views. However, I had a few concerns before I could decide if it would be a viable replacement for the current method.

My experiments in the last few days have resulted in mixed — but encouraging — results, and as promised I am sharing them with you.Read More »Options Are Always Nice