I just got this message when I tried to comment on my own post about ScreenCam:

In an effort to curb malicious comment posting by abusive users, I’ve enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience.

But nobody has commented in the last 40 minutes! What is it talking about? The blog is obviously malfunctioning. Webmaster error, says I! HEADS MUST ROLL!!!

:)

UPDATE: I have now posted my comment in the post itself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’m aware that this flood-control issue is an ongoing problem, and not just for me. The feature is part of the new version of MovableType, which I recently installed, but it seems to be going haywire. Anyway, I’m working on it.

Butter’s endorsement of Joe Lieberman — and the accompanying, very funny photo of Howard Dean strangling a cat — have gotten some attention in the blogosphere (though not too much, which is good; it’ll keep Butter’s ego in check :), thanks in part to my link-whorishly posting it on the Command Post’s Op-Ed page.

In addition to inspiring several CP comments, Butter’s announcement has gotten linked by BoiFromTroy and on 419eater.com, and has even showed up on an aggregated news service called News Is Free (scroll down till you see the picture of Butter).

And there are probably some other links that I haven’t found, judging from the fact that the Butter-Lieberman post has been the “entry page” 141 times, and that yesterday’s hit spike exceeded Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary traffic level (though neither came close to my somewhat mysterious Iowa Caucus spike earlier in the month; I’m not sure who was linking to me then, but I sure got a lot of hits!)

Anyway, the point is, Butter is a mini-celebrity now. :)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you… the Brendan Loy ScreenCam.

I suppose I should say “the return of the Brendan Loy ScreenCam,” since I did have something like this during my freshman year at USC, when I also had a webcam in my dorm room. :)

Anyway, as its name implies, the ScreenCam allows you to see what’s on my screen right now, updated every 30 seconds — provided my computer is turned on, “awake,” and connected to the Internet, and also provided I want you see what’s on my screen right now. :) I can turn it off any time I like, of course…

You can also see what, if anything, I’m listening to on iTunes, using a cool little text uploader thingy that I downloaded.

Dunno whether or not I’ll keep using the ScreenCam (and the, uh, iTunesCam), but I figure it’s worth a test run, at least. The main appeal — aside from the obvious, general voyeurism — would be that my wallpaper image changes automatically every 5 minutes, and this way, everybody can watch the slideshow!

As for security, the image of the screen is so small that it’d be pretty hard to read anything (like e-mails, etc.). To enhance this effect, I may try making the image a little more fuzzy (i.e., a lower-quality JPEG) as well. And on top of that, like I said, I can shut the screen-capture thingy down any time I want to. So if you were hoping to sneak a peek at the Paris Hilton video, fugghedaboutit, you won’t be seeing it on my screen. :)

UPDATE: I think there might have been some porn on here for like 30 seconds. Apologies to anyone who stumbled across it. Gotta be more careful about those pop-up ads if I want to keep this a family website! :)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Since I couldn’t comment, I’ll have to respond to Dane’s comment in the post itself. Here’s what I was going to say

Well, yes, I do occasionally do stuff on my computer. :) But when I’m at work, 8 to 5 Monday to Friday, I typically leave my computer on (and connected to the Internet via the office wireless network), and just let the desktop slideshow run. It’s like having a photo taped to the wall of your cubicle, except the photo keeps changing! So I figure the ScreenCam has the potential to be relatively interesting during working hours… which is when people do most of their Web surfing anyway.