Sadly, all things must come to an end. And so it is that I have to wave a fond farewell to my evil server and it's web spycam of doom.
On 21/06/12 I moved this site to an external host and powered down my local webserver. This means I no longer have a USB port to physically plug the roof camera into. Of course, there are ways I can capture an image and send it to my host, but that involves some effort and a computer permanently powered on. As the point of moving to external hosting was to save electricity and reclaim some rack space, it doesn't seem worth bothering with at this time.
Maybe if I'm bored in the future...??
One final note on the external webcam project: it was a success. The enclosure and camera survived the British weather from July 2008 until June 2012 and were still operable at the point the plug was pulled. Not bad for an off-the-shelf USB webcam and a five quid halogen light enclosure, and certainly cheap enough to replicate for anyone wanting to knock up a D.I.Y. outdoor security/nature camera.
As for the evil server itself, it's looking forward to a WEEE compliant retirement while the rack it was in is reused to house my reels of cable and collection of toolboxes.
Related links:
Webcam project homepage
Using a Video4Linux (V4L) compliant webcam with camE
Using a Video4Linux2 (V4L2) compliant webcam with fswebcam
Refreshing a webcam image with Java and using a webcam with Joomla 1.5
Making a weatherproof webcam for outdoors
The electro-mechanical USB reset circuit
One year on...
The aquarium webcam