Viejas Live
This is looking out my back window.
That is the famous Viejas Mountain. Legend has it that at the solstice there
would be dancing on the step peaks that lead up the the top. Each step would
have a night of dancing and on the night of the solstice there would be dancing
on the peak. This mountain still has a religious significance to the tribe. For
many years the Tribe has talked about doing it again but they haven't done so
yet. Since it is public land it probably could be returned to the Tribe if we
asked for it.
How to do live video
Setting up the router
Here is what I forgot. The router must
have a Static IP Address. That address must be the real address I use to get to
the Internet. For some reason the IP Address I give my router must be one
greater than the real IP address. This has something to do with the fact that I
have to use satellite internet, the only game in town on the rez. I knew all
this several years ago but I forgot but I did remember about the one greater
than thing and that help me recall how the whole thing worked. I put this
technical stuff here so I won't forget again.
I had a heck of a time
figuring out how to do live video. I got a lot of advice but the solutions were expensive
and complicated. Finally I got some solid advice and then figured out things for
myself. So I bought a router ($10
after rebate) and a Internet Camera ($40 after rebate.) I had to go to the
Internet to find the right instructions, but it was not too hard and I got it to
work. An
Internet camera is not connected to a PC. In a sense it is its own PC. It has a
built in Web page so it does not need a PC.
The magic is the IP address. If you
connect to the Internet you have an IP address. Every web you access has an IP
address. If you know the IP address you do not need a web name but it is easier
to remember a web name rather than an IP address. For instance, rather than
typing in www.google.com you can type in http://216.239.37.99/.
They both point to the same place. Typing in the number is slightly faster
because when you type in the letters www.google.com
it gets translated into numbers by a thing called DNS.
Usually the address will change
unless you have a static IP address then it will always be the same. Sometimes a
static IP address is called a business account, it is what I have. Webs all have
static addresses. The changing
IP address is known as a Dynamic IP address.
If you have a home, or small office,
network you probably have one real IP address and each computer that accesses
the Internet has a pretend IP address. The thing called a router gives out the
pretend IP addresses and then allows the pretend IP addresses to access the
Internet using the real IP address.
The first problem is that no one, in the big Internet,
can access the camera because it does not have real IP address, it only has a
pretend one. This is usually good because you don't want anyone on the big
Internet accessing your computers. You can get around this this by using something called
a Port.
The IP address is like a zip code. There
are thousands of addresses in one zip code. There are thousands of ports in one
IP address. The trick is to assign the camera to a port and then connect that
port to the real IP address. So when someone in the big Internet looks at your real
IP address they also ask for a specific port number and that specific port
number is connected to the camera so they can access the camera.
To do this you have to go to the camera
and tell it to use a specific port number and then go to the router and tell the
router to open up that port number and connect it to the camera. You also
have to tell the router the pretend IP address of the camera. You tell the
people who access the camera to use the IP address and the port number and there
you go.
One problem is that the people who have
changing IP addresses will have to keep finding the new IP address and then
telling everyone the new IP address. Actually it is not that bad as there are
services that can connect a Web name to your IP address and then have your
computer automatically send the new IP address and they will automatically make
the adjustments. (One such service is www.dyndns.org) People will just type in whatever Web name you
have like cameraatmyhouse.com and they will get your camera even if
your IP address changes.
This is all generic but I wish I knew
this when I first tried to get live video.