Update: I got it to work. Posted a comment explaining.

I got a DCS-932L.

Have had no success setting this sucker up.

I just want to get it working on wireless, and have it shoot a picture once a minute to a dropbox folder.

I want to start a Reduced User Interface movement. Just give me the mininum of what you must, and make sure a wireless device works with the most popular routers, out of the box, with nothing to do.

And make it totally ridiculously foolproof to enter the wifi username and password. These guys use a very odd combination of Java applets, and Java just isn't well supported these days by Mac and Windows.

I had the best results using Firefox 3 on an Asus netbook. I couldn't connect to the webcam visually with any of my Macs. The iPhone app worked. The Android app didn't.

But the web server built into the device won't under any circumstances let me through the Basic Auth dialog. I have no idea what's on the other side of that barrier, I hope something lets you enter the wifi username and password. That is where I am stuck.

This product is just a come-on to get you hooked into their mydlink website. That's the Java thing. What a mess.

I have generally had good luck with D-LINK devices, but there seems to be a new software regime now. Where they used to have kind of frumpish HTML 4 websites (that worked great) they now have Taiwanese-looking Java applets with bad English, and it doesn't work. So you get the worst of both worlds. A retro look that's a bad parody of All Your Base that's broken.

I'm probably going to return this.

 11/5/2011; 8:38:57 PM.   .

Apple is proposing to implement a requirement for their store that apps must run in a sandbox. So system-level scripting environments can't be distributed through their store. This is a price I am prepared to accept.

However, why didn't they do something to add value to their operating system, instead of adding a restriction on developers? Why not make virtualization part of the Mac OS X release. What an amazing thing that would be. I would then consider making all my web apps run in Mac OS X.

Too many companies lack the creativity to see ways to expand the users' universe. Instead they are trying to shrink it. Since I'm a user in addition to being a developer, I find this depressing. It is depressing.

Why do platform vendors always eventually pick fights with their users?

How could this possibly work out well for them? (Or the rest of us.)

 11/5/2011; 1:01:05 PM.   .

Why, when you're looking for an image of a movie or TV show, or a politician for that matter, should it be so hit or miss.

Back in the day we used to prepare publicity kits for the press. Included reviews of the product, fact sheets, screen shots, pictures of the authors. When you have a product and want publicity, you work hard to make it easy for people to write about you, and for what they write to be eye-catching, and tell the story you want told.

But now it's 2011, and blogging is fully incorporated in the marketing strategies of all entertainment products. But there's a big missing element. The imagery. When I do a Google image search on your movie or TV show name, I should get great white-background art in the first few screens, put there by you!

If I want to drop a 145-pixel wide image of your product in the right margin of an essay, you should make that easy, and it should make you look good. Free advertising. Win-win.

 11/5/2011; 12:04:23 PM.   .

I'm working my way through the first season of The Good Wife. Really good TV. So far it ranks with my favorite series of all time, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Galactica. It's most like LA Law or Hill Street Blues, but updated to 2010. And it's got a little West Wing in it too. The music is great. But the best thing about the show is they go deep into characters, really develop them. The actors blossom under the direction. You see into them, things that are subtle and very un-TV-like.

In one episode they take you into a jury's deliberation and interweave it with the development of the story. Beautiful writing. They really got how jury deliberations work.

I esp like one of the two senior partners of the firm, played by an actress you've seen in many shows, but I never really got to like her. She has kind of an annoying look and manner, that develops into an attractive beauty as they go deeper.

Minor nit/peeve: In one of the early episodes Twitter plays a minor role. They catch a perp by saying they found her IP address through her Twitter postings. I don't think there's any way to do that, unless you have a snitch inside Twitter Corp. So far their contacts seem to be in Chicago exclusively.

I'm just getting started, so I'm sure I'll write more about it.

 11/5/2011; 11:53:49 AM.   .