I'm getting ready to leave for a weekend vacation this Friday, and I'm going to be hiring someone to come over and take care of the pets, get the mail, etc. One thing I was thinking about was doing a temporary security system of sorts. I have a netbook and a webcam ready at the moment, and I'm wondering if there is a way to use these two together and if there is a fairly easy to use/free software that can capture video (not high quality video, just standard or every 4th frame like some do). I have a fair amount of IT hardware/software and I just want to make sure my babies are safe. If there is any other ways you guys know about feel free to recommend them! thanks!
both netbook webcam & external webcam software can probably be used for that. checking webcam software settings for video capture in motion detection mode.
1AVMonitor is a great webcam monitoring program. You can view live video from anywhere, and it takes pictures when it detects motion, all time-stamped.