Webcam advice required
Discussion
I'll be visiting back home in the summer and the plan is to install a webcam on my old Dad's PC (and do similar on mine) so the folks can wave at their grandchildren over the internet 
There's no problem at my end since I can deal with whatever issues may arise, but for the folks it has to be simple, reliable and foolproof. So can anybody recommend a good camera/software combination for this sort of thing? We'll use the same on both ends.
He will upgrade his modem connection to ADSL in time for my visit. He's currently running Windows 98
which I would like to upgrade, but if I go down that road bang goes my holiday... at least I'll get a firewall, updated antivirus and patching in place.
There's no problem at my end since I can deal with whatever issues may arise, but for the folks it has to be simple, reliable and foolproof. So can anybody recommend a good camera/software combination for this sort of thing? We'll use the same on both ends. He will upgrade his modem connection to ADSL in time for my visit. He's currently running Windows 98
which I would like to upgrade, but if I go down that road bang goes my holiday... at least I'll get a firewall, updated antivirus and patching in place.To be honest, webcams are much of a muchness with regards to their technology. One thing you will need to be aware of though, is that Windows 98 SE (not plain 98) is often the oldest supported OS. Before 98 SE there was little or no support for USB devices. For the most part with XP you can just take the camera out of the box, plug it in and it "just works"
Having said that, it is *usually* advised that you install the driver software before plugging in the camera. That should simply be a matter of inserting the CD that came with the camera and following some pretty basic instructions. Minor gotchas are that it might try to add all sorts of rubbish like toolbars, "customise" Internet Explorer and do all the stuff that is common to pretty much every driver CD.
If they use Yahoo or Microsoft Messenger to text-chat with already, then that will detect the camera, clicking on the appropriate icon will activate it.
The only problems are all those vague random things that affect all computers, stuff that we can't really predict from here. Things like; it clashing with that nice screen saver auntie Mildred put on last year, or scanner software that clashes with the driver somehow.
Having said that, it is *usually* advised that you install the driver software before plugging in the camera. That should simply be a matter of inserting the CD that came with the camera and following some pretty basic instructions. Minor gotchas are that it might try to add all sorts of rubbish like toolbars, "customise" Internet Explorer and do all the stuff that is common to pretty much every driver CD.
If they use Yahoo or Microsoft Messenger to text-chat with already, then that will detect the camera, clicking on the appropriate icon will activate it.
The only problems are all those vague random things that affect all computers, stuff that we can't really predict from here. Things like; it clashing with that nice screen saver auntie Mildred put on last year, or scanner software that clashes with the driver somehow.
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