[mdlug] Try to avoid annoying geeks

[Ingles, Raymond]

 There's been a rash of petty thefts in our office. Loose change in
unlocked drawers or, in my case, a little ceramic jar, has gone missing
over the last couple of weeks. Petty... but annoying. So I dug out my
old crappy webcam, and I've rigged up a motion-triggered security system
in my cube.

 I had to do some juggling with the drivers, first off. My "OmniVision
Technologies, Inc. OV511+ WebCam" (according to lsusb) needed the
ov51x-jpeg driver instead of the ov511 driver. Easy enough:

apt-get update
apt-get install ov51x-jpeg-source module-assistant
module-assistant a-i ov51x-jpeg

 Next I blacklisted the ov511 driver, and added the "force_palette=4"
module option after some experimentation. That got the camera working
with v4l. Then, mostly following the directions here:
http://infectedproject.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/set-up-a-webcam-security
-system/ I got things working. I found that the only video output that
seems to work is mpeg4 - mpeg1 and msmpeg, though listed in the config
file, don't seem to agree with ffmpeg, the encoder it uses.

 I don't have any strong hope that I'll actually catch someone... but
it's been fun to play with, and easy enough that I'll look into setting
one up at my wife's bakery.

 Normally I let my script pick a random .sig, but the following was too
appropriate:

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                   (313) 227-2317

 "Meddle not in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are quick
   to violence, and have no need for subtlety." - Anonymous

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