Creating a Security Camera Page for the iPad

I may have posted before about the Foscam cameras I have around my house. I have one inside the house and three outside, covering all the doors. There are a myriad of apps out there that allow you to view live streams from Foscam cameras, however, most of them are either designed for iPhone (thus for iPad you have to use pixel doubling, which sucks) and/or they have a bunch of chrome that I'd rather not waste screen real estate showing.

A couple years ago I bought one of the first generation iPads. It was great, but given the OS upgrades that it's missing out on and the low resources that most modern apps blow right past, it's become less and less used. I decided to get some more use out of it by building a small web page with custom controls to stream each of my cameras' feeds to the iPad. The thought was to mount the iPad near the front door so that I could do a quick check of all the cameras while walking to the front door to answer a caller (since one of the cameras looks at the front door, I'd also get a quick look at the caller without looking through the peephole). After looking around at some of the DIY options, I decided to go with a Luxone iPad Wall Mount since they had one specifically built for the 1st generation iPad. It was more expensive than some of the DIY options, but the finished product looks cleaner (IMO). The place where I had decided to mount the iPad had a light switch right below it. A quick test with the multimeter showed that power is run to the switch instead of the light, so I could wire in an iPad charger which would draw power regardless of the state of the light switch. Fast forward a couple of hours and I had made some room in the circuit box for the iPad charger, soldered on some leads which were wired into the switch's hot wires and ran the iPad cable up and out of the switch to the wall mount. The end result is that the iPad sits in a landscape position and always has power. A quick change of the config so that it never auto-locks and the iPad stays on 24/7.

As for the page, I had several web servers around were I could host the page. It didn't take much to design the page, but I wanted some extra fun. I decided that tapping on a camera feed should blow the feed up to the full size of the screen. Tapping again would shrink it down to its original size. This was easily accomplished with a bit of CSS. Essentially, there are three things in the CSS:

1. The standard classes that setup the body
2. An option that sets the initial size of each stream and specifies the timing function for CSS animations.
3. 4 classes that determine where the streams sit
4. 2 classes that are tied to the animation (one to grow one to shrink)
5. 2 animations (one to grow one to shrink)

After that, there's a simple javascript that does two main things depending on whether the image is its original size or has been blown up to full screen:

1. Switch to the other class so that the animation happens
2. Set the final style parameters of the stream so it stays the way it is at the end of the animation

Then there are the streams themselves. I added username and password parameters to the URLs so they don't have to be typed in every time. There were some other parameters that I added so that when I saved a bookmark to the home screen it would open up and look like an app. The details are here. I really only added <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"> and <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black-translucent">. Then I pulled up the page in Safari, added a shortcut from there to my home screen and closed Safari. Now when I open using the shortcut, it opens up as if it were a separate app from Safari and none of the Chrome is there.

AirPrinting with an HP printer

If you have an iOS device and an HP printer, you might have been disappointed to find out that even though the HP printer uses AppleTalk (the protocol behind AirPrint), you can't actually print to the printer from you iOS device.  This has been one of the main reasons my wife hasn't completely abandoned her desktop PC.

Here's how I fixed it:
Use a little utility called AirPrint installer.  It installs a windows service that reshares the printers from your Windows PC using AppleTalk (the version that is compatible with iOS 6).  I tried doing it without the reg fix, but the printers wouldn't work.  After the reg fix, sure enough, I saw the two printers I have connected to my PC but they both had padlocks.  I used the recommended fix (enabling the guest account on my pc) and they started working.

Here's the utility: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1293865

iOS App Review: Remote

Apple
Summary - This app gets a ton of usage at our house.  In the last few years, Apple has been improving on their AirPlay feature and Remote reaps the benefits.  This app on my iPhone can connect to any of the iTunes libraries and AppleTVs on my network and control them.  We use this mainly as an additional remote control for our AppleTV.  I can swipe and tap to navigate around the AppleTV UI as well as browse through shared content from my desktop without interrupting the current content on the AppleTV.  When I find a movie, TV show, or music playlist I want to play, the Remote app starts it streaming to the AppleTV.  I can also use this to control music playing on my desktop.  So, if I walk into the other room, I can easily stop the music from playing without going back to my office.  We also use it from time to time to control the iTunes music playing in the nursery (since that PC is a headless PC; e.g. no monitor attached).

Pros - This one is definitely easy to setup.  Just enable the home sharing option by signing in with your Apple ID and you get full control of all the iTunes libraries and devices joined to the home share.  Apple's recent update also added a 'stay-connected' feature that keeps me connected for a few minutes after using the remote.  This means faster resume time if I was just using it a few minutes ago.  The app also supports AirPlay.  I discovered that from the app I can start music playing in my office, then also extend it to the speakers connected to my AppleTV.

Cons - I haven't really found any downsides to the app.  It's well designed and does exactly what I want it to do.

iOS App Review: Latitude

Google Latitude - Google, Inc.
Summary - This handy little app scares people who are paranoid about Google being their big brother.  I look at Google in this way: "If Google wanted any of my information, they'd get it.  So why go to the effort of hiding it?"  Latitude tracks my current GPS position and uploads it regularly to the Google cloud.  Within the app, I have a few defined friends that also use Latitude.  I choose to share my current location with them.  This means I can always check where my wife, my Dad, my brother, and my best friend are.  Hopefully the service won't be turned off without the functionality being moved into Google+.

Pros - Easy to setup, easy to add friends, quick to launch, and I always know if my parents are on their way over for a surprise visit to see the grandkids.  I can also set an option (that's disabled by default) to keep a log of my locations (instead of just my current location).  This could be useful for parents trying to keep an eye on their kids or for catching the crooks that steal your phone.

Cons - Google knows where you've been.  Not many people use it.  It's not yet integrated with Google+ (maybe someday).

iOS App Review: Grabatron

Grabatron - Future Games of London

Summary - This game has kept itself on my first page of apps for several months now.  It's a simple game where you fly a UFO by tilting the iPhone.  Tap the screen and a giant claw descends.  The goal is to grab stuff with the claw and destroy it.  Simple gamification techniques make the game easy to put down and resume later while still feeling like I've made progress.  The whole thing has a fun 1950s Aliens Attack! feel to the graphics and theme.

Pros

• Easy to learn the mechanics of the game
• In app upgrades can be bought with real money or crystals earned in the game
• Crystals can also be earned by watching neatly tucked away ads
• The object of the game is destruction!

Cons

• Loads slowly on my iPhone4.  Once loaded, performance is fine
• Music and sound effects were annoying at first.  Easy to disable though

iOS App Review: Tower Madness

TowerMadness - Limbic Software

Summary - One of the most fun games I've played.  It's not that much different than other tower defense games, but consistent new maps and tower upgrades keep me coming back and playing the same parts of the game over and over.

Pros

• New maps released somehow right after I get tired of the existing maps
• New weapon upgrades released somehow right after I get tired of the existing weapon upgrades
• Good graphics
• Easy to learn
• Endless mode allows for longer play with more money and more aliens to kill
• Pinch/spread zoom in/out seamlessly integrates with 3D environment
• 1x/2x/4x play modes so you can play faster

Cons

• No 'upgrade all the way' or 'upgrade as much as I can afford' option (instead you have to go through each upgrade manually
• No option in endless mode to send 10/50/100 waves at once (instead you have to tap the single button 10/50/100 times)
• More maps can be bought as in app purchases - that's how they make money
• More weapons can be bought as in app purchases
• 8x play mode would be nice
• My iPhone 4 slows down when more than 40 waves are present on the playing field and in 4x mode.  Doesn't seem to affect score
• One tower has an upgrade that turns it into a Tesla Coil.  While it's a great weapon, it doesn't work against airborne enemies.  Since it's all science fiction anyway, I would prefer that this upgrade gave the tower the ability to engage airborne enemies, much like the famed Tesla Death Ray

iOS App Review: Flashlight by Rik

I've been asked before what apps I have installed on my iPhone.  I figured I could detail which ones I use and why through my blog.  This will give me room to put my reasons for/against a certain app.  I'll try to include my overview, pros, and cons.  Here goes nothing...

Flashlight by Rik - Henri Asseily
Summary - This turns the iPhone's camera's flash into a flashlight.  Instead of flashing on when taking a picture, this app turns on the flash continuously.
Pros - Tons of options including an option to darken the screen while in use.  When in darkened mode it shows your battery usage so you can keep an eye on things.  It includes standard flashlight functions like auto SOS message through Morse code, manual Morse code, and strobe (more just for fun).  There's also an option to control the intensity, so it can be turned down to make your battery last longer.  It's also free.
Cons - Like any other flashlight app, it will consume battery while it's on.  You can't use other apps and keep the flashlight on.  This is not unique to this flashlight app and has to do more with iOS' so called 'multitasking'.