cameras in the cloud

I wanted to give a quick and dirty tutorial on how to create a Joomla 2.5 component. I’m going to show you how to create a very quick Joomla MVC component...hold the M...hold the V. This is not for the MVC purists out there. Hence quick and dirty.

You should really understand the benefits of the MVC and why that exists before you do any Joomla component development. However I want to break the rules a bit. I should also mention before I get started that the Joomla MVC documentation is pretty good. You can stop reading here and get a nice detailed tutorial from start to finish on how to do Joomla component development. If you haven’t looked here already then you are doing yourself a disservice.

This month's giveaway is a good one... the winner will receive a Logitech C270 HD Webcam and 12 month Camcloud subscription (Best Value Plan). 

Enter below and tell your friends. You can earn up to 5 contest entries by following the instructions below!

There are a bunch of considerations when trying to decide on the right kind of video surveillance system for your home or small business. Probably the biggest is whether to use cloud video surveillance or not. Let's walk through 3 big reasons why we believe cloud video surveillance is the way to go.

To Cloud or not to Cloud

When when we get asked: “Why do I need a cloud video surveillance system? My IP camera comes with a web-based viewer thingy, and I think I can FTP videos somewhere or just synch it with DropBox, right...?"

When I learned that a Camcloud customer was using our cloud video monitoring service at his restaurant in nearby Chelsea, Quebec, I knew we had to go for a visit. We were not disappointed. Chelsea’s Smokehouse is nestled in the beautiful Gatineau Hills and serves great fish and chips, with a fantastic selection of Quebec microbrews. It’s a small, intimate restaurant that can get very busy.

“We get customers from all over the National Capital Region,” said owner James Hargreaves. “During our busy times, we’ll have line-ups out the door so I like having the ability to see how busy the restaurant is at anytime.”

James, a former arctic tour guide operator, mountain climber, and all-around interesting guy, runs multiple small businesses in Western Quebec. The former GoToCamera user was looking for a new video monitoring solution and after a few quick web searches came across Camcloud. He was up and running with the service quickly and has been happy with Camcloud’s performance.

Some great news for our Android users. We've released our all-new Android app to Google Play today. The full announcement is below, or you can skip all that and learn more on our Camcloud for Android page or just go and download it from Google Play. 

Camcloud, an innovative provider of cloud video monitoring services for homes and small businesses, today announced that it has released its Android™ app and is available for immediate download on Google Play™.

I love my Axis IP camera. Feature wise it is very rich, but my favorite feature isn't one of the external capabilities such as sound, infrared, or PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom). Although it must be said, I am begging Axis to add infrared to their M-10 series. That would be awesome.

My favorite feature is what Axis calls VAPIX. VAPIX is a open API developed by Axis Communications to automate all sorts of tasks with an HTTP-based API. This is by far my absolute favorite thing about setting up my cameras. Granted that the regular camera user probably will never take full advantage of this but for a service like Camcloud this is invaluable.