Here’s a neat idea. If you are going on holiday, but you want to keep an eye on the cat food level or whatever, you can do so easily from anywhere, and do it for nearly free and securely.

If you don’t know what Skype is, it is a web telephone application, which lets you call and chat to others on Skype via an encrypted channel, anywhere in the world for free, even with video. It also has add-ons like a voice stress lie detector, whiteboard and call recorder. You can also buy credit to let you call real phones, and to let real phones call you. And because it uses the web for the majority of the route, your calls work out remarkably cheap compared to normal channels. But enough about that, go to Skype.com to learn more, and to set up two accounts. If you already use Skype, simply set up a second account.

Now log into your account – lets call it SkypeCamPreston – and play with the settings. Add your main account to this account, and set it to ignore people who aren’t in your address book. Now tell it to answer and start video automatically when a call comes in. This means that only you can get in, which is probably important to you! Log out and in as your main account, and add your other account to your address book.
Set up your camera and microphone where you want them, and log in as your camera account, turn off your monitor, and go on holiday. Then simply log in on another PC from, say, Laos, & your other account will happily transmit live video and audio of what’s happening at home to wherever in the ‘verse you are. Mr. Universe would be proud!