Discussion on:

Five versatile web camera recorders

Are you using web cameras in interesting ways - we'd like to hear about it? What tools do you use?

I've been using VisionGS from an independent German programmer for nearly a decade. It supports nearly any video source. How I currently use it:
An old XP Pro based notebook with minimal resources running unattended 24X7
3 IP based cameras (each a different brand and I started out with a USB camera)
VisionGS uploads one frame from each camera to a web site every 5 minutes. One of the cameras has an elaborate overlay including a logo and is a prominent public link on the site.
Each camera has its own customized mask and only motion within that masked area of the frame is detected. Motion outside the mask is ignored. (e.g. people on a public sidewalk are ignored, but a person at the door is not)
Detected motion triggers a 30 second (customizable) recorded video stored locally and a single frame sent via email.
and there are many more options which I am not using.

If ArcSoft's support for their WebCam Companion is comparable to their support for their bundled software that comes with Kodak's Zi8 camera, it equals a big "zero." There is no way to reach a live person, either by phone or the USPS. So, consider yourself having been "warned."

Unsure if there are any free ones [I'm sure there are] but some apps you have may already have it built in. In particularly any video editing software from Roxio, Corel, Nero, etc.

This software fails on installation on a Win 7 laptop. Did a quick search on the error message and there seems to be a very high number of complaints on cycle stealing, bad driver(s) and general system problems with this software.

Nobody at techrepublic ever heard of yawcam??
it is free and on sourceforge.
..and and at least as good as the others here..