Help -- Problems with new TrackerPod

I just received my TrackerPod+Camera last week, and have a problem with the TrackerPod ceasing function intermittantly. The QuickCam Pro 3000 works great. (Odd that the standard Logitech base/stand was not included?)

I followed the directions to install the TrackerCam 3.01 software from CD and all the drivers to a Windows 2000 machine, start up the software, and it works, for about two minutes. Then the TrackerPod stops Tracking or moving at all, and every click on the movement buttons brings up a new IE window showing the flash demo -- VERY annoying, pops up several windows at once!

So I exit and re-run TrackerCam, and this time it reports an error at startup,a popup stating "TrackerPod not found!".

Reboot, and the cycle repeats, everything works for the first two minutes, then the 'pod stops functioning but the camera keeps going fine. Reboot again, and the pod doesn't work at all this time. Or sometimes it will work for a second (move slightly) then stop.

This is on a Toshiba Tecra laptop with two built-in USB ports, the TrackerPod and camera are the only devices connected to the two ports, using the supplied cable for the TrackerPod. When the 'pod stops working, both the built-in info page in the TrackerCam software and the system settings page show the second USB port as unused, nothing connected, 500ma used by the camera and 500ma available for additional USB hardware.

Lastly, I tried using a powered hub, thinking that the TrackerPod was drawing more than the rated 500ma. This works just a bit better, with the Trackerpod being able to pan/tilt a few degrees, then stop. But it does not resolve the problem.

Strange video noise with "Quickcam Pro USB" and TrackerCam 3.01?

We have a QuickCam Pro (older model), attached to an IBM Netfinity server
with built-in S3 video card.

The camera works in all modes including 640x480, with the software from
Logitech, and with third-party software from other vendors, with no "noise".
Under TrackerCam 3.0 or 3.01, the display always has "noise". The noise does
not appear in saved frames, only on the display.

If set to size "2" (176x144), there is a small white horizontal stripe on
right side of one of the first scan lines. At size 3 and above, there is
continuous video noise throughout the displayed image, primarily seen as two
fast-moving vertical stripes of video "noise", in the center and far-right
side of the displayed video window.

The PC is an IBM Netfinity with only the on-board S3 (Trio3D) video card.
Is this "noise" an expected effect of using the on-board video card in this
PC?

Network Monitoring Tools

Realtime monitoring is a particularly difficult application to implement, many monitoring products themselves can have a detrimental effect on the systems being monitored. This is one reason that WAN monitoring instrumentation needs to be implemented by our team, to avoid disruption to the WAN/routers.

Our team currently uses a combination of HP Openview, VitalNet, and other software for our network "health" information and alerting. In other enterprises (Ameritech) I have previously used Concord (http://www.concord.com/) products to the same effect. All of these solutions provide useful statistics (but not mapping) and are limited their ability to detect and deal with dependencies.


There are applications which provide a map display such as Don envisions, some in real-time, these are generally among the more expensive products. I have been working on a limited open-source application (http://sourceforge.net/projects/netmap/) providing some of this functionality, and the graphing and display issues involved are just the tip of the iceberg.

There are several map-capable products that could be considered, I've heard good things about these three:

• http://www.ipswitch.com/Products/WhatsUp/monitoring.html
• http://www.lanware.net/NetworkManagment.asp
• http://www.intermapper.com/

The most recent NWFusion buyers guide for Network Monitoring I can find (http://www.nwfusion.com/bg/netmon/netmon.jsp) was published in 1999, and is sorely out of date. They still list NetMetrix and other non-existent products, and there are probably many new products in this arena which are not included. Perhaps there are other, better, resources for locating vendors?