Jackson Myers's Software

SlothCam 1.72 is out with a new bandwidth saving feature

user@domain.com — 2012-04-05T14:21:13-05:00

SlothCam 1.72 is out on the App Store with a new bandwidth saving feature. If you regularly use the app on 3G and find that loading all cam images on startup is too slow, you can enable a new option in "Settings" (the Settings app) which allows you to only load all cams on startup when you are on Wifi. You can download this update on the App Store now!

Flash Webcam Tutorial

user@domain.com — 2012-03-26T00:00:13-05:00

I made a tutorial video which explains how to find the JPEG image URL of a Flash based webcam which can be used with SlothCam. Unfortunately not all Flash webcams use jpeg images, but some do, and I thought this might be helpful to SlothCam users. Let me know what you think of the video, and I’ll try to make more like it soon.

SlothCam and Airplay / Apple TV support

user@domain.com — 2012-03-24T10:50:19-05:00

I realize that some people have been having trouble figuring out how to enable the AirPlay / Apple TV feature in SlothCam. It’s easy, just turn on AirPlay mirroring and the app will do the rest. Normally when you mirror your iPad to an Apple TV you’ll see an exact image of the iPad screen on your TV. However, SlothCam will detect that mirroring is turned on and instead show a full sized image of the current webcam on your TV. You can also plug your iPad into a TV or display using an HDMI or VGA cable for the same effect.

I’ll try to post an FAQ on all of SlothCam’s features soon. I realize I haven’t done the best job in terms of documentation.

SlothCam 1.70 coming soon with new image series feature

user@domain.com — 2012-03-20T01:00:15-05:00

Any day now, the SlothCam 1.70 update should go live in the App Store. This update features many improvements for the international versions of SlothCam (better translations etc) as well as a new feature - image series. Now you can save a series of any number of images to your film roll rather than just one single image. This feature will only work if you keep the currently selected webcam active after starting the image sequence. It also will not save images when SlothCam is in the background due to Apple’s multitasking limitations. If you use this feature to make a time lapse movie, please consider sharing it with me and I’ll post it in this blog.

Also, once 1.70 is approved, I can submit the next update, 1.71 to Apple. 1.71 is almost ready and includes iPad retina display support, and background task completion. With background task completion, the currently loading webcam(s) will finish loading when SlothCam is in the background. Stay tuned for this update in the next week or so after 1.70 goes live.

SlothCam 1.68 bug

user@domain.com — 2012-03-03T10:24:19-06:00

I just discovered a bug in SlothCam 1.68. Basically if you try to add webcams manually in any language other than English it will fail. The bug has been fixed and the new version has been submitted to Apple. It should be online within 5 days or so. I am sorry for the inconvenience. If you’re using any language other than English, you might want to wait to upgrade until 1.69 is out.

Houston Skyline Webcam

user@domain.com — 2012-02-07T09:59:50-06:00

I now have my own webcam here in Houston Texas. It’s a live view of the Houston skyline which is great for watching the weather in Houston. It also has a great view of the sunrise. You can check it out here. If you want to add it to SlothCam for iOS, click the link below on your iOS device (it only works in the paid version of SlothCam and you have to click it on a device with SlothCam installed).

Click here to install the Houston Skyline webcam in SlothCam.

Here’s a time lapse video I created using images from this cam. This video was

More on the Giglio Italy and the Costa Concordia Webcam

user@domain.com — 2012-02-07T09:05:18-06:00

I noticed today that I’ve been getting a bit more traffic here than usual from people searching for the Costa Concordia webcam due to my previous post about it. I wanted to add that the webcam I posted earlier is owned and operated by Giglio News. If you like the cam, please pay them a visit and spend some time on their site as a thank you for making such an interesting webcam available to the public.

The URL of the Giglio webcam image is http://www.giglionews.com/isoladelgiglio_porto.jpg .

If you are using the paid ($0.99) version of SlothCam you can click the link in my previous post to install the webcam as long as you are viewing this page from a device with SlothCam installed. If you’re using the free version of SlothCam or the Dashboard Widget, you have to do it manually. You need to click on the white “i” on the lower left corner of the app to go into the settings screen, then click the + sign to add a new webcam, and enter the webcam URL above manually. Set the refresh rate to 30 seconds. I hope this helps!

SlothCam localization in Spanish and German

user@domain.com — 2012-02-07T00:33:56-06:00

I just submitted an update to SlothCam to the app store yesterday. It has some minor bug fixes but also includes Spanish and German localizations! If anybody wants to help me write a localization for their native language, please let me know. It’s hard to translate my app into a language I don’t know.

SlothCam 1.66 released

user@domain.com — 2012-02-01T23:19:19-06:00

SlothCam 1.66 is now live in the App Store. The latest update adds support for gifs and png images. Animated gifs are not supported at this time, however you can use an animated gif and it will show the first frame of the animation. The main reason I wanted to add support for these formats was that charts and graphs are often in these formats. For example, you could add this NOAA wave chart chart to SlothCam and always see an updated image which shows the swell height off of Galveston. Or you could add this Weather Underground weather graph to see what the current conditions are at a particular location (this one is near where I live).

Costa Concordia on SlothCam

user@domain.com — 2012-01-18T09:00:56-06:00

I just found an interesting webcam which shows the wreck of the Costa Concordia in Giglio, Italy. My condolences to all of the families affected by this tragedy. If you are reading this on your iPhone or iPad, and you have SlothCam installed, then click the link below to install the webcam in SlothCam. This webcam is hosted by www.GiglioNews.it.

Click here to install this webcam

If you don’t already have SlothCam, you can download it on the App Store here and then come back to this page and click the link above.

Keep the time difference in mind. If you look at this cam when its dark in Italy, you won’t see much.

If you have any trouble setting up SlothCam with the Costa Concordia webcam, let me know.

SlothCam 1.65 is live

user@domain.com — 2012-01-17T00:23:03-06:00

Slothcam 1.65 was released today, which fixes a slideshow bug when viewing slideshows of webcams on your Apple TV, and fixes a bug which prevented some webcams images from showing if the MIME type of the jpeg image was abnormal. Download it in the app store!

SlothCam 1.64

user@domain.com — 2012-01-10T20:08:20-06:00

SlothCam 1.64 is out on the app store now! This version has external display and Apple TV support! If you enable apple TV mirroring on your iOS device and then launch SlothCam, you’ll see your webcam images full screen on your TV. Here’s an article on how to enable AirPlay mirroring.

Here’s a video of SlothCam and an Apple TV. I’ll try to post a better demo video and tutorial later.

SlothCam 1.62 is live in the App Store with iCloud Support

user@domain.com — 2011-12-22T13:04:40-06:00

SlothCam 1.62 is live in the App Store with support for iCloud. You can back up your webcams to the cloud by clicking on the button in the lower right of your webcam list and restore them onto any device in the same way. For this to work you need to have iOS 5 and you need to be logged into iCloud. Let me know if anybody has any comments or questions about it.

SlothCam with iCloud syncing, coming soon!

user@domain.com — 2011-12-19T10:12:38-06:00

I will soon be releasing a version of SlothCam with iCloud syncing. So if you add a webcam to your iPad it will appear on your iPhone automatically and vice versa. Of course this requires iOS 5 which is necessary to use iCloud. Thanks to Mugunth Kumar for his iCloud code which I would definitely recommend to any other developers looking for quick and easy iCloud syncing.

SlothCam 1.61 update

user@domain.com — 2011-08-03T08:32:06-05:00

SlothCam Webcam Browser has been updated to version 1.61 today. The new version fixes several memory leaks (no more memory leaks, thanks to Lion’s new compiler which helped me a lot with that). Also I made the placeholder text in the name, url, and rate fields more clear to help people who are entering their own webcams for the first time. Get the update from the app store!

SlothCam FaceBook Page

user@domain.com — 2011-07-29T23:48:01-05:00

I decided to launch a FaceBook page today where people can go to share their favorite webcam links, or images taken on SlothCam. You can also go there for support or just to talk about all things sloth related! Please check it out and “like” SlothCam on Facebook while you’re at it.

Apps for Japan Continued

user@domain.com — 2011-04-05T09:46:27-05:00

I have decided to continue donating all profits from sales of SlothCam to the Japanese Red Cross Society until the end of the day Wednesday. Thanks everyone for your donations so far!

Donation to Japan

user@domain.com — 2011-04-01T23:45:37-05:00

This weekend I am going to donate the profits from SlothCam WebCam Browser to the Japanese Red Cross Society as part of the “Apps for Japan” charity effort. If you haven’t already purchased SlothCam, now is the time.

Also, here is a webcam in Tokyo that you can add to SlothCam by clicking this link on your iOS device, and then choosing “Add” when SlothCam launches and the import menu shows up. This cam is on top of a tall building in downtown Tokyo and offers a great view of the city. Here is a picture from this webcam in the SlothCam dashboard widget.

SlothCam Free 1.4 Update and SlothCam WebCam Browser 1.58 Submited

user@domain.com — 2011-03-28T23:45:43-05:00

An update to SlothCam free has been submitted which adds the new error handling method from the recently released SlothCam 1.57. This means that when a webcam fails to load, you will soon continue to see the previous webcam image until a new image can be requested. You should expect to see it within the next few days, as soon as it is approved by Apple.

Also SlothCam WebCam Browser will shortly be updated to 1.58. This new version adds new loading and error screens which I think looks much nicer, and the error messages are also more useful. It should hit the app store some time this week.

SlothCam Dashboard Widget 3.3 released

user@domain.com — 2011-03-20T20:56:41-05:00

I just uploaded a new version of the SlothCam dashboard widget. This update is fairly minor. It adds a new mode which disables the error screen when a webcam doesn’t load properly due to connection problems and will instead keep showing the previous image until a new image can be downloaded. Right now this new feature isn’t accessibly on the widget preferences screen, but it can be enabled via the terminal.

To enable this new feature, just close SlothCam, then go into your Applications/Utilities folder and find Terminal.

Open Terminal and paste the following line:
defaults write widget-net.webhop.glorioussloth.widget.SlothCam noErrorScreen true

Then re-launch SlothCam and from now on you'll never seen the error screen again. Let me know if you need any more help with that.

To re-enable the error screen, just type the following line into the terminal:
widget-net.webhop.glorioussloth.widget.SlothCam noErrorScreen false

SlothCam 1.57 Submitted

user@domain.com — 2011-03-18T12:39:51-05:00

I submitted an update of SlothCam Webcam Browser to the App store today, and it should be available for download shortly. This update contains a fix for a bug in the previous version that would cause images that failed to download properly to display as a black box. It also fixes the swipe gestures in iOS 4.3 (did you know you can swipe right or left across the screen to skip to the first or last webcam in SlothCam?).

Tsunami Watch Webcam

user@domain.com — 2011-03-11T09:37:03-06:00

If anybody is interested in keeping an eye on the Pacific coast due to the Tsunami warnings, here are some webcams in California (Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz) that you can monitor with SlothCam. Just click here and then choose the “Add Webcams” option on your iPhone or iPad to install the cam. It might be loading slowly today due to all of the activity on the site. If you have any other good pacific coast webcams, please let me know and I can post them here.

If you are using SlothCam Free, you’ll need to copy and paste these URLs into the app to install the cams.
http://samcam.samschowderhouse.com:8334/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?resolution=640x480&clock=1
http://www.walknet.net/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?&sia=walknet-copyrighted-picture&fltr[]=wmi|/watermark.gif|BL|50|5|5&src=/working/scpier01.jpg&aoe=1

Mardi Gras in galveston

user@domain.com — 2011-02-27T00:29:04-06:00

This weekend is Mardi Gras in Galveston. You should check out these Galveston webcams this weekend to catch the festivities. The image below was taken from the “Strand” cam, one of the default webcams in SlothCam Webcam Browser.

SlothCam 1.56

user@domain.com — 2011-02-24T09:14:49-06:00

The latest update just hit the app store yesterday. This version fixes a problem with importing webcams that had international characters in the titles. Apparently there are a lot of international users of SlothCam, so I’m glad I was able to fix this issue. Also, it prevents a possible crash that could occur while importing webcams. I recommend that all users of SlothCam download this update. Please continue to let me know if you find any bugs in SlothCam so I can keep fixing them.

WebCam Database

user@domain.com — 2011-02-21T23:45:50-06:00

Here’s a big webcam database that I had previously listed on the webpage for SlothCam back in 2005 but I had forgotten about it. It’s got some good stuff in it and is definitely worth checking out even though not all of the links are still working. Any of the webcams ending in JPG or JPEG should work in any version of SlothCam.

iPhone Blogr Review / Giveaway

user@domain.com — 2011-02-20T23:41:56-06:00

iPhoneBlogr.com has just posted a review of SlothCam on their site today. You can check it out here. iPhone Blogr is a great site for iOS news and I highly recommend you subscribe to their RSS feed if you want to keep up to date with what is going on in the iPhone community.

SlothCam WebCam Browser 1.55 Update

user@domain.com — 2011-02-17T10:36:04-06:00

The latest update to SlothCam modifies the import function so that now when importing cams from a URL (either using the export function or using SlothCam Helper) SlothCam now asks you whether you want to add the webcams you are importing, or replace your entire webcam list. I hope this makes it easier for people to import webcams to SlothCam. Let me know if you have any questions.

SlothCam Webcam Browser 1.54 Update Adds "append" Ability to Import Function

user@domain.com — 2011-02-10T11:50:17-06:00

With the latest SlothCam Webcam Browser update for iOS, users can now import a list of webcams into the app via email which will be added to the user’s current webcam list (rather than replacing their current webcams). This will allow users to share webcam lists with their friends, etc. I am going to try to make a more elegant implementation of this feature in the next update, but for now you can go to this page to create a custom URL which when clicked on your iPhone or iPad will add a custom list of webcams into SlothCam by appending them. You can also create a custom SlothCam import URL here which will completely replace your current webcam list with the new cams.

In the future I will make it so that SlothCam will ask you when importing whether you want to replace or add the webcams from the link rather than requiring two different types of links. Stay tuned for an update next week.

SlothCam Dashboard Widget 3.1 Update

user@domain.com — 2011-02-10T11:48:30-06:00

I updated the SlothCam widget to version 3.1 last night. This update fixes a few bugs with version 3.0 including problems with the “auto cycle” mode, and manually refreshing webcams using the space bar. I recommend all SlothCam users download this update.

SlothCam Dashboard Widget Reaches Version 3.0!

user@domain.com — 2011-02-08T09:19:19-06:00

The SlothCam Dashboard Widget has finally reached version 3.0 today! This new version squashes a bunch of bugs that were in the 2.x version since back in 2005, and it now transitions smoothly between the front side and back side when entering/exiting the preferences. This might be the last update I make to the Dashboard Widget for a while since Dashboard’s popularity seems to be waning, but if there are people out there who are still using the Dashboard widget who would like to see future updates, please let me know.

Click here to download SlothCam Dashboard Widget 3.0

SlothCam Webcam Browser 1.53 with Multitouch Gestures

user@domain.com — 2011-02-05T22:43:13-06:00

The latest version of SlothCam Webcam Browser introduces some new multi-touch controls. You can now skip back to the first webcam with a two finger swipe gesture to the right, and you can skip to the last webcam with a two finger swipe to the left. Also, you can now reload any webcam with a double tap anywhere on the image. If anybody can think of any gestures that would be useful for navigating SlothCam, please let me know!

SlothCam Tutorial

user@domain.com — 2011-01-31T23:06:46-06:00

I’ve gotten a lot of emails in the last few weeks from people asking me how to install a custom webcam in SlothCam, so I decided to make a tutorial video explaining how to do it. This tutorial shows how to add a webcam from Safari on an iOS device. I’ll make another tutorial soon on how to add a webcam from your computer to SlothCam via email. Let me know if you have any comments.

SlothCam Free 1.2

user@domain.com — 2011-01-31T22:47:53-06:00

On Saturday, SlothCam Free was updated to version 1.2. This version fixes a crash that was occurring for people who didn’t have the latest version of iOS. It also made some minor changes to the way banner ads are displayed. You can download the update for free on the App Store!

SlothCam Free Released

user@domain.com — 2011-01-22T16:50:03-06:00

Last night, my free version of SlothCam called “SlothCam Free” was released on the App Store. It’s basically a trial version which allows you to add up to 10 WebCams rather than an unlimited number like the pay version. It also does not have import export support, or slide show support, and it displays an Apple iAd. You can upgrade to the full version with no limitations for $0.99.

Here’s the App Store link if you want to check it out.

YouTube Demo Video

user@domain.com — 2011-01-20T10:33:25-06:00

I uploaded a demo video of SlothCam to YouTube, so people can get an idea of what SlothCam can do. Check it out!

SlothCam 1.5 Released

user@domain.com — 2011-01-17T23:43:57-06:00

Apple approved of the version 1.5 update of SlothCam tonight and it should be live on the App Store now. The biggest change in this version is the addition of a new slideshow mode which can be accessed via the action menu in the lower left corner. Slideshow mode will show each cam for a few seconds before automatically switching to the next cam. During the time the cam is showed, it will be updated normally, however you are not able to manually change cams in slideshow mode. Check it out on the app store and let me know what you think!

Contact Form

user@domain.com — 2011-01-14T17:32:14-06:00

I realized today that a lot of the mail originating from the contact form on this webpage had been going to my spam box, and I might have deleted some of it by mistake. If you contacted me and did not receive a reply, please email me again using the contact form (now fixed) or the link at the bottom of this page. Thanks.

SlothCam Webcam Browser for iOS Poll

user@domain.com — 2011-01-12T09:19:21-06:00

I have created a poll in order to help me decide which features I should add to SlothCam next. Please vote and tell me what you think!

Click Here for Poll Online Survey
Conjoint Analysis
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| Email Marketing

| Feedback Tab
View MicroPoll

SlothCam WebCam Browser Udpated to Version 1.3

user@domain.com — 2011-01-07T21:00:00-06:00

SlothCam WebCam Browser for IOS was updated to version 1.3 tonight. The major feature of this update is the ability to change the order of your WebCam list. The user interface now looks a bit different. Instead of a delete button, there is now an edit button below the webcam list. When you click edit, you will have the option of re-ordering or deleting webcams. If you have already purchased SlothCam from the App Store, this update is free! If not, you can buy SlothCam by clicking here, or click here for more information.

SlothCam Widget Updated

user@domain.com — 2011-01-01T12:00:00-06:00

I updated the SlothCam Dashboard Widget to version 2.98 today. I made some minor changes including the addition of info about the new iOS app. I also fixed some broken URL links and made some other minor adjustments. Download it here!

SlothCam Webcam Browser Released

user@domain.com — 2010-12-30T12:00:00-06:00

SlothCam for iOS has finally been released, and it has officially been named “SlothCam WebCam Browser”! SlothCam is now a universal iOS app which means you can run it on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. You can check it out on the App Store here, or read more about SlothCam here.

SlothCam Migration Assistant Released

user@domain.com — 2011-01-09T20:17:04-06:00

I just uploaded a new app called SlothCam Migration Assistant. This app allows you to send your SlothCam Dashboard Widget settings to the iOS app on your iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch. To use SlothCam Migration Assistant, just copy the text “click here to install” into an email message and send it to yourself, then click the link on your iOS device and your Widget’s webcams will be installed. Just a warning, this migration will replace all of the data currently in your iOS SlothCam app.

Click here to go to the SlothCam Migration Assistant page.