Quick visit on the corner of Powers Bldg by ???

Dessert

Good news! I found a permanent link to the YouTube live streams. I have updated our streaming video page to reflect this.

I will look into switching our video chat to disqus. That should solve the history problem.

Now we just need everyone to subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can get qualified to embed all 4 channels into our page.

Once again we must say goodbye to a valued member of our Rfalconcam community. It's never easy, and that goes doubly so for Donna.

Donna had been following the Rochester falcons for many years and was an active participant in social media going all the way back to the Birdcam days when Mariah and Kaver nested on the Kodak Tower. She was a prolific poster to the Rfalconcam Forum with over 25,000 posts and starting more then 4,000 discussion topics ranging from informative nature stories to custom created birthday cards. In addition, each year during the holiday season she encouraged members to share online greeting cards and collected them in a gallery.

Although she resided in New Jersey, she made numerous trips to Rochester to see our falcons and take part in the annual fledge watch much to the delight of the locals.

Donna also worked behind the scenes at Rfalconcam. She was one of the administrators of Rfalconcam's Facebook page, posting photos several times a day and replying to comments from thousands of followers. She also tweeted on occasion as Rfalconcam on Twitter. And her "behind the scenes" contribution did not stop there. For many years, Donna took part in Banding Day as a moderator who posted banding information and answered questions in real time on the Forum and Facebook. Sadly, this year she was not able to participate due to passing of her beloved husband Ed just a few days earlier.

And if that weren't enough uncredited work, Donna also doubled as a part-time camera operator of Camera 1 to help us keep an eye on the falcons throughout the year. For her outstanding service to the Rfalconcam community, Donna was given the honor of naming an eyas Charlotte in 2017.

After Ed's death, Donna became more focused on family and planned to move to Spokane to be closer to her young granddaughter. Despite the rigors of moving, she still remained active on Rfalconcam.

If I had to summarize Donna's presence in Rfalconcam, I'd put it this way:

   If our falcon watchers are the heart of Rfalconcam,
   and if that weirdo in the bathrobe with his crayons is the brains of Rfalconcam,
   then Donna was the voice of Rfalconcam (or at least a huge part of it).

Now that voice is greatly diminished.

And the silence is deafening.
 
Miss you, Donna. Fly free.

As I thought, they are using their own custom javascript to embed the live stream instead of using a hard-coded link. That's not going to be any help until I get a chance to reverse engineer their javascript code. Yippee.

So they are not embedding YouTube chat on their streaming page. That's where I think we should go too. Disqus is one option and our Forum chat is another. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages. Disqus is easy for new visitors because they can log in using FaceBook, Twitter, or Gmail accounts, but it's harder to moderate (keep trolls out). Forum chat is easy to moderate because it requires an account with a registration process that prevents spammers and trolls from getting in, but it requires new visitors to register for an account before they can post. It's also not a very modern interface.

Either one is better than YouTube chat.

What's the link to the great dane stream on YouTube? I'll look into it.

It works on Chrome on my Macs and Windows 7&10. It works on Safari on Macs and iOS. It works on Firefox on Macs, Windows 7&10, and Linux. It does not work on IE 11.

If you get the "create a channel" message, close the window, log out/in gmail, and come back. That should work.

I'm thinking of replacing YouTube chat with our Forum chat. Requires a forum account. Most people here already have one, but a few don't. New visitors won't either.

​Also looking into non-YouTube stream providers. Most are either junk or want to charge an arm and a leg.

I have 3 main complaints about YouTube:

1. Chat history is pretty much non-existent.

2. When a live stream is interrupted for more than a few seconds, the stream stops and a new one starts. The new one gets a new link. The old link points to the old stream, which is now a recorded video. Our streaming video page then needs to be updated to include the new links AND everyone needs to refresh the page in their browser. Otherwise they'll be watching a recorded video instead of a live stream.

3. YouTube won't let us embed Channels 2-4 into our streaming page until we get 1000 subscribers on Channel 1. We currently have 89.

about $1000 per channel

Due to Ustream dropping free streaming, we are no longer using Ustream chat. We are in the process of switching to YouTube Live streaming. That is until we can find something better (if there is such a thing). You will need a google account to chat on YouTube. If you use gmail, log in with your gmail address.

If you refresh the Rfalconcam streaming video page, you will see that the pop out links are gone. Fortunately YouTube chat has a built-in link to pop out its own window. The embedded video windows, however,  do not pop out at this time. Actually, only Channel 1 is embedded. The other 3 YouTube channels cannot be embedded until we get 1000 subscribers. They will need to be viewed on their respective YouTube pages until then.

As mentioned above, we are transitioning to YouTube. During this process, there will be a mix of YouTube and Ustream channels. Everything should be switched to YouTube by the end of the week.

Watch out, Glowz!

Praying Mantis

Drone

Done.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Hope you're feeling all better real soon.

[WanderingFalcon (Carol P.):]

WanderingFalcon (Carol P.): Happy Veterans Day Weekend! Keep cool everyone!

Link:
http://twitter.com/WanderingFalcon/statuses/1035873140113436672

Is it November already? It seems like just yesterday it was August.

Sorry for your loss, Linda. I had the pleasure of talking with Craig during various watcher events over the years. He will be missed.

Thanks, Carol!