This Ordinary Life

Well, over the last year or so a number of my friends have moved overseas. To keep in touch and up with the times (I used to be a total gadget-a-holic), I bought a webcam and wanted to "get connected" - for free - via Skype.

Amazon.co.uk had a great deal on the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 (wow, that sounds very professional, doesn't it?) for £39.95 down from £58 something. Now everyone that knows me, knows that I love a bargain, particularly when it is a top of the line webcam complete with Carl Zeiss optics! I did check the system requirements (very demanding) but thought my Toshiba P30 Laptop with it's Pentium 4 at 4.7 Ghz would make mince-meat of it.

Well, I was mistaken and it didn't even really work for a moment. Turns out that the 2.0 Megapixel webcam was so resource intensive that it caused my computer to overheat and shutdown (well, not really as the P30 has this inherent flaw when running at full speed - and not even top speed was fast enough for the webcam). Spats of frustrations were intersperced with bouts of disappointment. As I'd bought it from Amazon, I'd have to pay the postage to send it back, what was I going to do?!?

There were a number of options open to me including throwing it out the window, not connecting it to my computer and pretending it works, etc... etc... However, in the end, I knew there was only one option... give it to my parents.

I had already done this once with a very old Logitech Quickcam Express (7 years old by now) and thought the least I could do was give them an upgrade... and take my old one back.

I was suprised to see how ancient it was when I got it home. Resolution of 640 x 480 and no built-in microphone. At least it runs like a dream on my computer (it was designed for the Pentium 2, me thinks). However, it was annoying to have a separate microphone and camera.

So I decided to rip apart an earpiece/microphone that I had and glue the microphone to the camera. I also screwed a long screw into the bottom so that I could perch it on my laptop. The results were a meisterwerk of man over machine.

Sadly, I haven't found anyone on Skype yet to test it out on. I am confident that I managed to rescue a number of technologically out of date pieces of kit and combine them into something that Logitech wouldn't even sell in Eastern Europe (not offense to Estonia as it is one of the most technologically advance countries there are!), but the proof is in the pudding. Someone please Skype me!