[tlug] webcam

[Darren Cook <darren@example.com>]

I'd like to connect up a couple of web cams to my computer over the
holiday period. I skimmed some linux web cam pages, but does anyone have
specific recommendations (or avoids) for something I'll find at Bic
Camera (or amazon jp, etc.)? I'm guessing everything is USB? I want
something that is plug-n-play with linux, at least on ubuntu 7.10.

If anyone has experience in this area I'd also love to hear general
advice. Some of the questions I have are: Any issues with 2+ cameras?
How long can a USB cable be? What software is easy to set up to publish
a thumbnail snapshot every 2 seconds on a (local) web site? Is motion
sensing (to avoid 1000 snapshots in a row of nothing happening)
available and practical, or not even worth looking into?

TIA,

Darren

P.S. This is as much nerdy-play as serious security (as if we are broken
into they'll likely take the computer it runs on...), so I cannot
justify much time: "just working first time" is at the top of my desired
features list :-).