First of all Happy Birthday (e:jenks). Hope everyone has a good weekend and 5th of may. If that means going to Cozumel or watching the sabres. Time to go shower change and go to Cozumel to watch the game celebrate and celebrate Alex's 30th birthday.

Update I must remember the camara and take some pics of the peeps if I can find them I heard they have a new building. Hopefully they will come out good and will get posted well time for fun hopefully i'll see some of you there.

Went to John's Italian (however it is spelled) Village on grant with my sis's roomate and some people she knows and had a good time here are a few pictures of the sournings. i'm used to eating by myself but eating as a group is cool and is fun also.







on a side note hopefull I will see some of you peeps out on friday. I have no Idea what (e:Jenks) is doing in terms of time and place. A buddy of mine left his card with his # in my mail box so I had better call him in a few minutes and find out what is going on.

As of the News I have been toying around with the custom themes and mine is kinda funky but I like it I need more purple. I wonder if there is a way to see what others themes look like. Oh in case I don't see ya this weekend Happy Birthday Jenks.

I love this weather we are having. But it creates a great war within ones self. Do I go check my (e:mail) and Post and go to a few websites or do I go find something to do on elmwood like take a walk. Iknow if I go out in that weather then I will fall behind on other stuff I do on line. Right now it looks like there are at least 3 concerts I want to go to. Edge Fest was just announced it is on a Monday June 26 or is that 27 I know it is a monday. They got wise and are going to trash LaSalle Park, Lots of Bands that I don't know but 30 seconds to mars will be there from what I understand. Seether is going to the Erie County fair with Shinedown and another band. Alexisonfire I saw once and they where verry good I belive they play the same night as the bandits in the championship. There are going to be lots of great concerts this spring and summer and I'm sure there will be more annouced. I belive chevelle is opening up for Nickle Back that might be interesting. But often with so much stuff going on diuring the summer you sometimes get conflicts and I'm allready conflicted by the weather. I gotta bail and hope the sabres can win as I tape House (part 1 part 2 is on wendsday). Hope everyone gets to enjoy the weather it sure can change quickly here.

Not sure why they didn't give any of the pornograffic sites that use webcams for sex but this has a lot of web cam sites it was in todays link section of the buffalo news i know some one was looking for web cam site. I know i have been to one of these sites but a lot of them I have never heard off.

COVER STORY
Computer with a view

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Web cams offer a window on our world

By KELLY BOQUARD
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
5/1/2006


Photo illustration by BILL WIPPERT/Buffalo News
Carrie Bracco checks out views of Niagara Falls on local Web cams.



Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News
"At first we were worried about what someone might do on camera," muses Grant Hamilton, publisher of the East Aurora Advertiser, as he adjusts the Web cam in the second-story window of his newspaper office on Main Street om East Aurora.

We look for them on the TV news and we listen to them on the radio: Local weather updates, traffic reports, skiing conditions, etc. But with advances in today's Internet technology, access to this information doesn't have to be limited to the airwaves.
Local Web cams make it easy to monitor what's going on - down the street or across the world - live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the comfort of your computer.

For those who don't know what a Web cam is, it's a digital camera attached to a computer and connected to the Internet. The device allows Web site visitors to view images that are streaming on the camera live, at any time.

Have you ever wondered how congested traffic is on the Peace Bridge, or on the commute downtown?

By visiting www.peacebridge.com/webcam.php, viewers can see a live video shot of cars crossing the bridge westbound into Canada. At www.surfbuffalo.com/webcams.html, Web surfers can get up-to-date traffic images of the Skyway and the 190.

The site also allows visitors to check out ski conditions at Holiday Valley and Peek 'n' Peak. Not to mention a live visual images of Lafayette Square and even a local bird feeder.

Want to see what's happening on Elmwood Avenue?


Visit www.buffalowebcam.com/live_webcams and take a look at Pano's Restaurant, Saigon Cafe or Cole's Restaurant and Bar. There's even a live camera inside Half and Half Clothing Co., located at 1088 Elmwood Ave., which shows an overview of the store . . . shoppers included.

To see Buffalo's first and longest running < Web cam go to www.buffalocam.com/index.html. Depending on which direction the Web cam is pointed, it shows an overview of City Hall, Niagara Square or the McKinley Monument.

Web cams have come a long way since their roots in 1991. The first Web cam ever used was at Cambridge University. A camera was directed at a coffee pot in the computer science room to monitor activity 24 hours a day.

They have been used not only in public places, but in private locations as well. New cams have been added to instant messaging servers such as America Online (AOL) or Yahoo to allow users to look at the person they are sending messages to.

These cams can also be helpful for video conferencing. In this era of corporate penny-pinching, Web-cam technology allows meetings to be held with more ease and convenience and no travel expenses.

Andy Parker, a meteorologist with WGRZ-TV Channel 2, says that looking at Web cams allows him to go beyond the numbers and get a feel for weather conditions at remote locations.

"In the '90s, the ability to see a live picture from a location with just a mouse click was fascinating. It was a challenge to develop the technology needed to create a network of weather cameras, both locally and throughout the country, that would allow anyone in the world to experience that place from their PC," Parker said.

"Going forward, I look for Web-cam content to expand into people-oriented mobile devices like cell phones and Wi-Fi cameras," he added.

Grant Hamilton, owner of the East Aurora Advertiser, has had a live Web cam running for almost seven years in the window of his weekly newspaper office on Main Street in East Aurora. It updates every minute. He uses it to check the weather and to bring people to the Web site, www.eastaurorany.com. "Former residents love it," Hamilton said. "Local residents have been known to line up in front of the camera and hold up a happy birthday sign so a friend abroad could see their friends back home."

"We've seen a number of folks standing by the Web cam and being photographed in front of our building."

For Hamilton, having a Web cam isn't just a business tool. It can also be used for fun, but it brings with it some concerns.

"At first, we were worried about what someone might do on camera," he said, "Otherwise, the only other negative is the "big brother factor' of people on camera without knowing it."

For Western New Yorkers, worldwide Web cams can be just as fun and helpful as local ones. For those trying to get a New York City feel, live cams of Times Square can be seen at
www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare, or watch the flow of water over Niagara Falls at www.niagarafallslive.com or travel through cyberspace to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower live at www.abcparislive.com.

If sight-seeing isn't your cup of tea, other sites offer live animal coverage. Look at cheetahs, flamingos, elephants, ferrets and more at nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams.

Or look at live fish tanks at wp.netscape.com/fishcam/fishcam.html and the Piranha tank from Nashville, Tenn., at www.piranhapictures.com/livepiranhacam.html.

For a different spin, some sites offer a you-control-it cam. Www.clickiton.com/webcam takes one step further by giving users access to interact with a Web cam instead of just watching it. This cam is a view of a home with various lights in it. By using X10 Home Automation modules and a broadband connection, the creator allows visitors to turn the different lights in the room on or off or switch on a Coors beer sign.

Under the FAQ's section of his Web page, the creator of the "clickiton" site says that the reason he created an interactive site is because "most of the Web cams you see are of a tree at night, someone watching television or working on their computer. Not a lot of fun. I thought there must be something more you can do. I thought it would be fun to put together a site with a Web cam that would be fun to look at as well as be interactive."

For another great "you-control-it" site, go to www.engr.cornell.edu/explore/quad-cam.cfm. The live cam is set up at the Cornell University engineering quad in Ithaca. Users can move the camera around, zoom in or out, and change the lighting. A visitor can also take a snapshot of whatever they have chosen to look at. The camera also has "presets" which allow users to choose from a menu to view different buildings on campus or take in the scenic seasonal panorama of Cayuga Lake.

To get a look at some popular worldwide Web cams, www.Earthcam.com, a Web cam server, has listed their top 25 most popular cameras for 2005. These cams are the ones that get the most hits from Internet users.

Check out www.earthcam.com/top25/2005/index.php to get a view of Honolulu, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Egypt and more. The world awaits at the click of a mouse.