Test before you buy - remote control may be difficult to set up - piotrek77

Additional Information:

SecuritySpy Demo link now sports a message that the server is down for maintenance, and that it would be back soon.

I have downloaded Network Device Finder (NDF) from the SecuritySpy web site (http://www.bensoftware.com/ss/installationmanual/networkcamsetup.html). It goes through the motions after I press Start, but it finds no devices - nothing. At least it should detect the router and the SecuritySpy web server. It finds nothing. (There is a confusing picture of NDF in the on-line manual. It shows subnet as 10.0.1, and yet the devices it finds have 192.168.1.xxx addresses.)

I am more and more inclined to believe that my inability to connect remotely to SecuritySpy is a software problem, or at the very list the way it interacts with OS X 10.4.5. Elsewhere I read that Airport Extreme (AX), firmware v5.7 uses a different way of addressing NAT protocol - that is what I have on my AX. I think all these somehow combine to make it hard to set up remote control of SecuritySpy 1.2.

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Wednesday, March 08 2006 @ 11:47 AM PST

Success... but still wondering - piotrek77

Finally, I have been able to remotely connect to SecuritySpy web server I set up on the iMac in my house. I have not done anything different than what I have been doing for the past few days. Suddenly I am able to connect. I kept a log of all the settings changes I made to iMac and Airport Extreme. I will check these again.

I did set up an account with DynDNS and got an alias pointing to my external IP address. I've tried to connect by typing http://nameofmycomputerhere.homeip.net:8000 or just http://nameofmycomputerhere.homeip.net into several browsers on various computers at various locations. Until today neither worked. Interestingly the :8000 option still does not work. Typing http://nameofmycomputerhere.homeip.net/, however, gets me to the SecuritySpy web server on my home computer. I was able to exercise all controls remotely. I am happy it works, but still confused as to why it did not work before. By the way, I connected from a HP laptop on a corporate LAN. HP runs on XP with Internet Explorer 6.

I am cautiously moving into the BUY position. I am supposed to get IK-WB11A later today or early tomorrow. I guess more testing is coming.

I am still wondering why I can't find network devices with Network Device Finder?

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Thursday, March 09 2006 @ 08:54 AM PST

Success (II) - piotrek77

In the previous post I reported that I was suddenly able to remotely connect. After reviewing my log I have to add that a significant change WAS MADE to my iMac on the evening prior to the successful connection the next day. I opened port 8000 in the Mac's own Firewall. I have to close it and see that indeed this was finally the action that did the trick.

I also need to report that Java Applet does not produce images from the camera. I was, however, able to connect and view images via other options available.

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Friday, March 10 2006 @ 08:29 AM PST

Success (II) - benbird

Opening the firewall to connections on port 8000 is essential for SecuritySpy's web server to work at its default port setting.

This then allows access to the system from your local network by typing the following into a web browser:
<IP address>:8000

In this case, it appears that port forwarding was set up on the router to forward messages on port 80 to port 8000 on the computer running SecuritySpy. (A perfectly sensible setup.) This explains why the system is accessible remotely with "myhostname.homeip.net", but not with "myhostname.homeip.net:8000".

Note that it may not be possible to use the dynamic DNS address to access the system from your local network.

The java applet built in to the SecuritySpy web server should be able to display video no matter what camera you are using, but this does depend on the browser and operating system you are using to view the web interface. It should work fine with most modern browsers on most operating systems.

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Tuesday, March 14 2006 @ 03:18 PM PST

Success (III) - piotrek77

This is a third-in-series update to the original post.

I acquired IK-WB11A and made it work wirelessly with my network. I assigned it a static IP address and port 80. (Is the latter a sensible choice? I noticed in the manual for Axis 207W a suggestion to assign the first camera port 8000, the second 8001, etc. It will not happen for a while, but when I get the second camera should I assign it a different port number than the first one?) Setting IK-WB11A was a pain. I used a crossover cable, and from Safari I would get the initial screen for user name and password. I could not progress beyond that with Safari. Is Safari fully compatible with the camera? I tried using Virtual PC, but I could not get anywhere with it and IE 6.0. Finally, I used my work PC running Windows 2000, and I was able to change the settings. I did upgrade the firmware to 3.16 first. Interestingly, after the initial setup IK-WB11A sometimes responds to Safari, but in an erratic way; sometimes it just gets stuck on the initial user name/password screen.

In another development I was able to connect to SecuritySpy web server from my Treo 600 GSM phone. I was able to view images from the cameras; without Java loaded into the phone, I had to use other options. I did find that Java for the Palm's Web browser is available; I will try to get it and load images that way.

I received a rather helpful correspondence from Milo Bird. He also added comments to this post. I have been confused, however, about the necessity of keeping open port 8000 under all circumstances with SecuritySpy. The note I received told me that some of my problems and unusual behavior were caused by my selection of port 8000 the public port and port 80 as the private port. This selection apparently necessitated the opening of port 8000 in the firewall. The comment at this site suggests that port 8000 should always be open for SecuritySpy – even if the selection of public/private ports is reversed?

I did just that; I mapped port 80 public and port 8000 private. (I kept port 8000 open in the firewall.) I tried to connect remotely using "http://myhostname.homeip.net:8000". Instead of getting to my SecuritySpy web server I got the message “If you can see this, it means that the installation of the Apache…” Dropping :8000 from the address timed me out. I assumed that Web Sharing option in the Sharing folder in Preferences was responsible for that. Unchecking this option did not change the responses I was getting to the remote queries. Rebooting, caused timeouts regardless of which http address I used – one with or without :8000. After several hours – I gave it some rest - I got the same behavior as the initial message.

Most distressing is the fact that upon returning all my setting to the original ones – the ones that worked for remote connecting, I am not able to connect remotely to my SecuritySpy web server anymore. Even after several hours of rest – I thought that DynDNS Updater may be slow updating – I still can not connect.

I even tried to use the IP address that I received from “whatismyip.com” – it matched the one in DynDNS Updater. No luck. (By the way, on my iMac I can get to SecuritySpy web server from Safari using the IP address; mapping "myname.homeip.net", however, does not work.)

If it ain’t, broke don’t fix it; so they say. I do not understand what is going on. Milo: if you are reading it, I need help.

Overall I liked the product enough to put my money where my mouth is. Tinkering with the working setup made a feature of the product disappear from my computer. What gives?

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Saturday, March 18 2006 @ 07:11 PM PST

Success (III) - piotrek77

This is a third-in-series update to the original post.

I acquired IK-WB11A and made it work wirelessly with my network. I assigned it a static IP address and port 80. (Is the latter a sensible choice? I noticed in the manual for Axis 207W a suggestion to assign the first camera port 8000, the second 8001, etc. It will not happen for a while, but when I get the second camera should I assign it a different port number than the first one?) Setting IK-WB11A was a pain. I used a crossover cable, and from Safari I would get the initial screen for user name and password. I could not progress beyond that with Safari. Is Safari fully compatible with the camera? I tried using Virtual PC, but I could not get anywhere with it and IE 6.0. Finally, I used my work PC running Windows 2000, and I was able to change the settings. I did upgrade the firmware to 3.16 first. Interestingly, after the initial setup IK-WB11A sometimes responds to Safari, but in an erratic way; sometimes it just gets stuck on the initial user name/password screen.

In another development I was able to connect to SecuritySpy web server from my Treo 600 GSM phone. I was able to view images from the cameras; without Java loaded into the phone, I had to use other options. I did find that Java for the Palm's Web browser is available; I will try to get it and load images that way.

I received a rather helpful correspondence from Milo Bird. He also added comments to this post. I have been confused, however, about the necessity of keeping open port 8000 under all circumstances with SecuritySpy. The note I received told me that some of my problems and unusual behavior were caused by my selection of port 8000 the public port and port 80 as the private port. This selection apparently necessitated the opening of port 8000 in the firewall. The comment at this site suggests that port 8000 should always be open for SecuritySpy – even if the selection of public/private ports is reversed?

I did just that; I mapped port 80 public and port 8000 private. (I kept port 8000 open in the firewall.) I tried to connect remotely using "http://myhostname.homeip.net:8000". Instead of getting to my SecuritySpy web server I got the message “If you can see this, it means that the installation of the Apache…” Dropping :8000 from the address timed me out. I assumed that Web Sharing option in the Sharing folder in Preferences was responsible for that. Unchecking this option did not change the responses I was getting to the remote queries. Rebooting, caused timeouts regardless of which http address I used – one with or without :8000. After several hours – I gave it some rest - I got the same behavior as the initial message.

Most distressing is the fact that upon returning all my setting to the original ones – the ones that worked for remote connecting, I am not able to connect remotely to my SecuritySpy web server anymore. Even after several hours of rest – I thought that DynDNS Updater may be slow updating – I still can not connect.

I even tried to use the IP address that I received from “whatismyip.com” – it matched the one in DynDNS Updater. No luck. (By the way, on my iMac I can get to SecuritySpy web server from Safari using the IP address; mapping "myname.homeip.net", however, does not work.)

If it ain’t, broke don’t fix it; so they say. I do not understand what is going on. Milo: if you are reading it, I need help.

Overall I liked the product enough to put my money where my mouth is. Tinkering with the working setup made a feature of the product disappear from my computer. What gives?

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Saturday, March 18 2006 @ 07:12 PM PST

Success (IV) - piotrek77

Following the post Success (III) I am back yet again to remote control. Perhaps I am a bit impatient. After making changes back to where I used to be able to exercise reomote control I expected everything to work right away. It is working now. What I learned is that Web Sharing opens port 80 in the Mac OS X Firewall (and Apache Web Server). One can open both ports 80 and 8000 in the Firewall and with port mapping: public =80/private=8000 have SecuritySpy work with DynDNS aliasing for static IP addresses. I am not sure why the reverse port mapping did not work for me. I gave hours for DNS servers to refresh. Still no luck.

If you read through all my posts, you should be able to figure out how I made SecuritySpy work for me under OS X 10.4.5.

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Tuesday, March 21 2006 @ 07:53 PM PST

Test before you buy - remote control may be difficult to set up - jandrews2

I am having similar problems with accessing SecuritySpy 1.2 running on my work iMac G5 (OS X 10.4.6). I can see all cameras real-time using SecuritySpy, but I cannot access recordings. Web Server is enabled through port 8000, but it fails when I try to access from home. One thing I did notice is that 8000 is not open on my Axis cameras so I use port 80---does it matter that cameras use a different port than host computer running SecuritySpy?

Also, does anyone have problems of preview window freezing in 10.4.6 ? I get a blank preview screen and Browser window is not functioning properly each morning at work. SecuritySpy is running fine because when I restart I can see recordings that were made. I have contacted Milo and web site for assistance, but have recieved no responses----it has been many weeks.

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Thursday, April 20 2006 @ 10:46 AM PDT

Test before you buy - remote control may be difficult to set up - daviddawes

Common problem with the dynamic IP. Try this:
http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

I haven't used it in a few years (though it looks the same). This allowed me to remotely access my Mac at home from work using Timbuktu Pro with a static IP at work and a dynamic IP at home. I think that as long as the web server with the camera software has the DynamicDNS running, you should see this work as they promised.
Good Luck!

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Tuesday, May 09 2006 @ 01:22 PM PDT