I'm revving up the new server, and while it's not quite ready to go yet I need to do some connection tests. That means I need to take the main site offline; sorry guys.
Everything should be working by Monday, although likely still on the old system as I'm bound to be ironing out kinks in the new one.

Today, I made the first successful outside-world connection to the new server, running Red5. I promptly shut it down after that because while the test was successful, it wasn't very functional. And it spat a few unhappy errors at me. Ah well.

Now, as it is right now, the server's sitting on a metal table in my living room, which is freezing because of the server - don't want to overheat it in addition to all the boneheaded things I'm doing on the command prompt. Probably due to the portable roll-up keyboard I'm trying to use.

Yeah, I can't wait to get it into the colo.

Before that happens, though, I'm going to need some extra funding. I'm getting one last month of service out of the old system while I program and install the new one; anything I can suck back out of it in the end will just go back into the treasury, but for now it's earmarked. I have barely enough for that, leaving nothing to pay for the colo. (I have had juuuust about enough of dealing with large amounts of nonexistent money.)

But back to the positive side of things! I'm making remarkable progress on the server, getting firewalls and automatic startup scripts and error logs and all manner of technical jibber-jabber running smoothly; and mind you, entirely from the command prompt on a screen that's so old it has a greenish cast to it. I AM DOING SCIENCE SO HARD RIGHT NOW.

And then I had a bowl of ice cream in celebration and wrote this journal

Exactly 365 days ago, at this hour, Watchtail.com went live with its first server.

I was going to do something more exciting, perhaps...throw confetti or whatever, but I'm still plugging away at coding stuff. Who knows, I just might have it ready for the one-year anniversary of the first live transmission, which is still a couple days off.

So yeah, it's been a crazy year. And to think, this all started rather by accident! I was just sitting around watching a channel on another video streaming website, having a conversation about how furry artists were getting banned whether they'd shown inappropriate content or not. I sat back for a moment and thought, "What would a furry [streaming website] look like?"

By 11:00 AM the next day, I had my answer. That was in mid-February. By March 1, I'd figured out pretty much everything involved, and from that point on it was all just putting it into practice. On March 15, the Ides of March, watchtail.com became a reality.

A year later and I'm still trying to get it to work the way I envisioned it that first day... and at the same time, it's nothing like that first glimmer. For one thing, it's way more popular than I ever thought it would be - all without a single ad, and funded entirely by user support! So thank you. I cannot stress that enough.

Of course, there was also the trolling. I knew there would be trolling, and I must admit I thank them too. Otherwise, I would've considered the site "good enough" and you'd be stuck with that dull interface I came up with the first morning, with a busted login system and no options page at all.

Break out the cake!

I've been unbelievably busy with other things, but I found time today to add a couple things to the new interface. Take a look! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5264898

Try adding a ton of messages until you have a decent amount to scroll through. Then scroll up a little and add a few more. Watch what happens!

So guess what: Because I didn't move fast enough getting the new server, we're into the next month of usage on the "old" setup. That put us into the red just a little bit, but I'm hoping to move fast enough that I can get some of that money back.

But of course "moving fast enough" means purchasing a new server, or at the very least a used server and a memory upgrade; and since we're in the red now that means I'm working with borrowed time, and money.

I need your donations and support! To outline the costs, the server itself is anywhere from $250 to $600 depending on where I get it (obviously I'm aiming for the lower of those two figures), and if I have to replace the memory it's another $200. And $250 from here on in to run the thing in the new colo.

Those are the kind of figures that, each on their own, I could probably handle, and they're one-time things. The transition would pay for itself in 3 months going by the current server costs. But I can't do it without your support, or going broke!

Please note me if you wish to make a sizable contribution.

After doing some comparisons, I'm going to fall back to plan B on getting a new server. It's not that plan A won't work, it's just that plan B turned out to be easier (and a bit cheaper), with the added benifit of I could bicycle to the colo if I needed to.

So here's what that means now. First of all, I'm not going to have this up and running in 5 days without a miracle, so we'll need at least $100 more in the site budget to temporarily extend the current setup.

Second, I will need to purchase a server. Spec-wise, I'm looking at quad-core, 8-12G of ram, and a reasonably fast (if not large) hard drive. Having an ethernet card that can run at a full Mbps instead of .9 would also be great. I think someone contacted me about this before; feel free to get back in touch.

I'm still expecting to have the server transition complete by the end of the month. Keep up the support, guys!

A companion guide to the audio tutorial ( http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1842971/ ), this will help you set up a video stream in case you've never tried before.

For traditional artists
If you've got a webcam, you're already set. Just plug it in, make sure you have the drivers for it, and it'll be automatically detected by Flash when you first try to broadcast. If not, then you probably need to refresh or restart your browser.

For digital artists
You'll need a piece of desktop capture software. There are many free programs available, such as ManyCam for Windows and CamTwist for Mac. There are others, such as XSplit or WebCamMax that others have used, but I don't know enough about to recommend. Download one, start it up, and it'll be detected just like a webcam. Again, if it doesn't, restart your browser.

If you have a built-in webcam, or Flash automatically detects your webcam instead of your desktop, etc. there is a way to change the input. It's the icon in the broadcaster which looks like a hammer and wrench. This opens the video options pane...your source should be in the dropdown box. Just pick another and hit OK.

Remember, just because you see yourself doesn't mean you're live! Always check the status bar. If it says "Ready to go live!" it means you're not currently broadcasting. Use this time to set up anything you need to, then click the play button to start streaming to your audience.

One thing to remember is that the compressor on Watchtail is highly motion-sensitive. Try to avoid scrolling or flashing banners and don't put unnecessary videos onscreen if you can help it. These things can cut your video quality in half, if not more!

A few extra tips: Pause your stream if you need to go take a break, or if you get done but want to keep chatting with your audience for a minute. This saves bandwidth. Hitting the mute button if you're not talking saves bandwidth as well - actually it doesn't, but it lets your video take up that extra bandwidth, so the quality might improve a little.

Thank you guys so much - the site budget broke even. At the same time, the donation system maxed itself out, so any further donations will be pending.

That doesn't mean the problem's solved. We're still probably going to go offline sometime between Christmas and New Year's, if not for bandwidth then because of the new server. Also, we literally broke even - the budget is at exactly $0. So I can't buy a little extra bandwidth to cover the rest of the month and the new server's coming out of pocket unless another couple hundred comes in.

Okay, so as I'm sure no one is surprised to hear, Watchtail's going to run out of bandwidth before the month is out. That's not the problem. Ordinarily, I'd just go buy more.

The problem is, there isn't the budget to "just buy more." Somehow, for the first time since the site was launched, Watchtail is in the red. The ledger stands at -$232.28 and we're running out of time.

Somehow, I'd completely failed to notice that only $2.00 came in this month. Yes. Two dollars. No one bought an ad, no one donated.

So what does this mean? It means that when the bandwidth runs out, streaming won't be possible. Watchtail will be offline. It's going to stay that way until the funding is back and the new server is up.

Yes, Watchtail is getting a new server, or rather, is getting a different server. The rent on our current setup is just too high. (Feel free to link to men with epic beards.) The new location has been found, and will solve the bandwidth problem for good, but it's not ready yet - and with the site in debt, I can't afford it!

So please, donate. Help out. Tell people. And hang tight, it's gonna be a rough December.

Many have asked how it can be done. Here, I will breifly describe the process.
It could either be super-easy or completely impossible for you to do.

The simple answer is you want to select "Stereo Mix" or "Wave Out Mix" as your record source in Windows. If you've got XP or earlier, it's a breeze. Just right-click on your volume control, go to Options > Properties, and select Record from the radio buttons.

If you've got Vista or 7, it's even more buried. You have to go to Control Panel in classic view, open Sound, go to the Microphone or Recording tab, right-click somewhere and select "Show Disabled Devices," and if the stars align, you should see one of the two things I named show up on the list.

If you've got a mac, try looking for a program called Soundflower. I have no experience with it personally, but 40,000 Google results can't be wrong.