Use Your Android Phone’s Camera as a Webcam for Your PC

They used to say “a picture is worth a thousand words”, but a video? We may say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video it’s worth more than a million. Honestly speaking, there is a huge difference between a simple call and a video call. A smile, or even a raised eyebrow in a certain context, can change the whole tone and the direction of a discussion, each gesture elucidating the “real” message. No wonder, because our communication is a non-verbal one in the proportion of 93%, and only 7% of it is represented just by words.
Sometimes it happens that we urgently need a webcam. Even if the old webcam is broken, even if we’re far from our home and we really need to video-communicate with someone, we need obviously a webcam. What should we do now? The fastest and safest solution is more obvious than we think and it’s called: the mobile phone. Yeah, you heard it well! Why should we pay a new webcam when we can use our own phone? Due to the fact that the newest mobile phones have a camera with a lot of megapixels, it’s exactly what we need. So, in the next, I will present my new step-by-step tutorial, made it in a very simple way.
What we need:

• Android mobile phone
• USB data cable
• A computer with an internet connection
• Some software (two for the PC and one for the mobile phone)

The operating principle of this process is based on a video stream, conducted by our phone. The stream is sent to a port (4747 port) of the PC and, using software installed in our PC, the videos are taken and forwarded to chat applications (i.e. Skype, Yahoo Messenger, MSN etc.).
The steps are very simple and if you follow exactly, in less than 5 minutes you will enjoy time using your new personal webcam. So, let’s start!
To use the phone as a webcam, we need an application called ADB. So, first, download this app. It’s free and it can be found on a simple search on google, but about this application and its configuration, we will talk in the following. The other PC application it’s called Dev47Apps. The last application, the one for your mobile phone, it’s called DroidCam (you may download it from Play Store).
Here is the step-by-step tutorial that will help you to use your phone as a webcam:
Step1. Install the ADB (Android Debug Bridge) on your PC.
Step2. Set your phone in debugging mode (this could be possible by opening the next: Settings >> Development >> USB Debugging OR in other cases Settings >> Advanced Settings >> USB Debugging).
Step3. Turn on your phone. Make sure that you have connected the USB cable to both mobile phone and PC.*
*(!Pay attention to the following: when you connect the cable to the PC, if the phone will ask, do not connect it in Storage mode.)
Step4. Download the Application DroidCam (Wireless Webcam) from Play Store (Android Market). Install it on the mobile phone and then start the application. After you start it, you can see a window and the next message “Starting server” on the mobile screen, as you can see on the picture below.
(click on the picture if you want to see it better)

Step5. Download the application Dev47Apps (you may google it, it’s a free application) and then install it on your own PC.
Step6. Open the Dev42Apps (after you install it you will discover that it has the same name – DroidCam – as the app downloaded from Play Store for your mobile phone) Client Application on your PC and then choose “Connect to Phone(USB)” option. In the field of Device IP (or Phone IP), enter the IP of your phone.
(click on the picture if you want to see it better)
At this moment you can say that your phone works properly like a webcam for any chat application and, even more, you may use it as a security camera for your own safety if you want. In the same application, you can also configure your webcam from the Settings button. Enjoy your new personal webcam!
Don’t be a simple and regular buyer. Every time use your imagination in everything you do and try to turn the impossible into possible.

Bootable usb drive using command prompt .iso version

This is an updated version of the previous command prompt post.
This version only requires the iso image file of the windows, a program to mount the image, and Windows 7 or Vista as the operating system.

1. The first step is to obtain a .iso image file of Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 is not supported in this method.
2. Now you need to mount the .iso image file with a magic disk, daemon tools or any other mounting program.
3. The next step is to open the command prompt with administrator rights. Go to start, in the search bar type cmd, and right click the cmd file and select run as administrator.
4. In the cmd program you need to type the following commands: diskpart→list disk→select disk 1(disk 1 is my USB drive, you need to select your USB drive, you will recognize the USB drive by its size)→clean→create partition primary→select partition 1(or 2,3,4 depending on what number is your USB drive)→active→format fs=ntfs→(the formatting process will take about 10-15 minutes).
5. After the formatting process is done you will continue writing commands:→assign(this will usually change the USB drive letter to H or G)→exit(this will exit the disk part but not the cmd)→xcopy i:\*.* /s/e/f h:\→(i is the letter of the mounted .iso and h is the letter of the USB drive where you want to copy the files from i)→
6. This process will take another 10-15 minute.
7. When the copping process is done just type:→exit(this command will exit the cmd)
8. That was all, your USB drive is now bootable.

Install Windows 7 from a USB drive the very easy way

The fastest way to install windows 7 is from a bootable USB drive. You can cut the install time down to around 15 minutes compared with 30-40 via DVD if you use a fast drive.
People still asking me to explain what is the best way to do this as many of the guides online are too complex, or require third party software which doesn’t always work as they supposed to.
With this bootable USB guide, all you need to ensure is that your motherboard supports USB booting, and this is a common feature now for most of the computers.
Today I am going to publish a step by step guide which works perfectly and doesn’t require any additional tools – I have been doing it for some time now to create bootable Windows install drives.
You need to get hold of a fast USB 2.0 flash drive. It doesn’t need to be 32GB or bigger,however, all you need is a 4GB unit. The faster it is, the better.
What you need:
– Windows 7 DVD install disc or ISO image
– USB Drive (4GB+ and as fast as you can get)
– Running Windows Operating system
– Working set of hands and eyes
– A few minutes of your life
Plug in your USB drive in the USB port:

Before going any further, make sure you have removed any important files on your drive to a safe location, what we are about to do next is to erase the entire contents of the drive.
Insert your DVD of Windows 7 into the computer, but don’t start the normal install process.
Open your ‘My Computer’ and make a note of the drive numbers of both the USB drive and the DVD drive with Windows 7 files on it.


As you can see from the image above, the DVD drive is drive has letter D assigned and the USB drive is E.
Open the command prompt with admin rights. Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Shift+Ctrl+Enter.
To keep things really easy, if you see text in upper case, it means this is what you type into the command prompt (you don’t need to type in upper case).


Next type
DISKPART
this loads the diskpart application we need to proceed
Then type
LIST DISK
the image above shows our 32 GB USB drive is listed as DISK 2
so you have to type
SELECT DISK 2 (your USB Drive may have a different number, don’t follow exactly this text it depends on your usb drive)

You will get a successful response “Disk 2 is now the selected disk”

Next we want to clean the USB drive
Type:
CLEAN
you will get a successful response ‘DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk”.

After the drive is cleaned follow the list in the image above (detailed below in list order) – you can also note the successful text responses from the OS as you enter each command.
SELECT DISK 2 (or what number your USB drive has)
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS
Formatting can take a little time depending on the size of the drive, our 32GB unit took about 10 minutes to format - you will see a percentage readout until it is finished.

Next type:
ASSIGN
EXIT (DISK PART will exit)

Type D: CD BOOT (substitute the “D” if necessary with the letter of your Windows 7 DVD drive)
then key
CD BOOT
then
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 E: (substitute the “E” if necessary with the letter of your now ready USB drive) – we are telling the system to create a boot sector file on the USB drive.

Now you can exit the command prompt and copy all the files on the Windows 7 DVD to the USB drive.

Once this step is finished you’ll be ready to boot from this drive, all you need to do is configure your motherboard bios setup to boot first from USB rather than hard drive or optical drive. If you don’t know how to do this, refer to your specific motherboard manual or search the internet.
Now, Windows 7 installation should take between 40% and 60% of the time it does from the DVD disc.