Bought a webcam
Nov. 10th, 2020 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharktldr; I now have a USB webcam, so next time we have a virtual meeting where people insist on using the video channel instead of the nice friendly text chat, I can participate. I still prefer text though, unless my grandchildren are involved.
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Should have done this a long time ago. Webcams aren't very expensive or hard to install. Unless, of course, you are trying to get them to work with Skype (spawn of Hell. At least since Microsoft acquired them. So maybe adopted spawn of Hell)
Our iPad died. The only thing we really used it for was Skyping with Amber or for Richard to look at pictures on Google Photos, either of which could be done more easily on a Windows laptop anyway. So I fired up my 6-year-old Lenovo laptop, which is still running Windows 7 and has a too-small hard disk, and one slightly wonky USB port, but otherwise works pretty well. Only to discover that the built-in camera is totally non-functional. I spent half the day updating drivers and so on, and finally gave up.
Borrowed Thorin's webcam briefly to see if it would even work with Windows 7, and after some fiddling about it did. Some of the "check your webcam online" sites did not work with Windows 7, but this one did. So I ordered the exact same webcam from Amazon. It arrived the next day.
Then I set about getting it to work with Skype. Lord in heaven, what a mess! In theory, you just select a new camera from a dropdown list, but doing that caused absolute mayhem. I ended up reinstalling Skype three times and suffering through a hard hang on my Windows 10 computer that could only be resolved by a complete power cycle (Restart didn't even work). After the reboot Skype had disappeared from my computer. But I downloaded and installed it again, and this time it came right up with the webcam. So now we have two choices for Skype (or presumably Zoom or Discord or whatever other conferencing platform): dinky little laptop with the advantage of mobility or my main computer setup with two glorious monitors. AND... I have finally got the backup laptop in condition to use: sensitive files removed, new account for Richard, fingerprint sensor finally working reliably. Yay!
Okay, that wasn't a very interesting entry, was it? But somehow I spent all day on that project, so it's front and center in my mind. That's why we have tldr.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Should have done this a long time ago. Webcams aren't very expensive or hard to install. Unless, of course, you are trying to get them to work with Skype (spawn of Hell. At least since Microsoft acquired them. So maybe adopted spawn of Hell)
Our iPad died. The only thing we really used it for was Skyping with Amber or for Richard to look at pictures on Google Photos, either of which could be done more easily on a Windows laptop anyway. So I fired up my 6-year-old Lenovo laptop, which is still running Windows 7 and has a too-small hard disk, and one slightly wonky USB port, but otherwise works pretty well. Only to discover that the built-in camera is totally non-functional. I spent half the day updating drivers and so on, and finally gave up.
Borrowed Thorin's webcam briefly to see if it would even work with Windows 7, and after some fiddling about it did. Some of the "check your webcam online" sites did not work with Windows 7, but this one did. So I ordered the exact same webcam from Amazon. It arrived the next day.
Then I set about getting it to work with Skype. Lord in heaven, what a mess! In theory, you just select a new camera from a dropdown list, but doing that caused absolute mayhem. I ended up reinstalling Skype three times and suffering through a hard hang on my Windows 10 computer that could only be resolved by a complete power cycle (Restart didn't even work). After the reboot Skype had disappeared from my computer. But I downloaded and installed it again, and this time it came right up with the webcam. So now we have two choices for Skype (or presumably Zoom or Discord or whatever other conferencing platform): dinky little laptop with the advantage of mobility or my main computer setup with two glorious monitors. AND... I have finally got the backup laptop in condition to use: sensitive files removed, new account for Richard, fingerprint sensor finally working reliably. Yay!
Okay, that wasn't a very interesting entry, was it? But somehow I spent all day on that project, so it's front and center in my mind. That's why we have tldr.
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Date: 2020-11-10 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-11 01:31 am (UTC)