Home Sweet HomePlug Page 3

Day 2

0606_homeplug_p3"Honestly, it seemed a little fluky at first," Kevin says of the lukewarm reception the family's Dell computer gave the LukWerks security camera when he tried to get the two to talk HomePlug-style. "It took a couple of tries to get the software to load on the computer in our home office. I think that's mainly the computer's fault - it's Denise's, and I don't know if she's got a bug in it or what. When I plugged in the camera, the computer was supposed to see it right away, but it didn't. Then somehow - I don't know if the program dialed the Internet and got an updated patch or what - all of a sudden, things started happening. The camera actually connected through the network and, boom, it was on. The funny thing is, you have this little round camera and a little red LED looking at you. It looks a lot like the HAL 9000." In fact, the camera started calling Kevin "Dave" and kicked him out of the house.

Actually, the first camera turned out to be the well-behaved one. When Dave - er, Kevin - tried connecting the second, add-on camera, it did not compute. So he was forced to troubleshoot - which led to the ugly conclusion that this add-on LukWerks camera didn't werk. Sorry, Kevin.

Undeterred by this cruel slight, our man in Wyckoff put functional Camera One through its paces, moving it from room to room, plugging in, plugging out. "One time, the computer wasn't picking up the camera automatically," he notes, "so I unplugged the adapter the PC's plugged into, plugged it back in, and it reset itself and found the camera right away." Did we pick the right guy or what?

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