Randy,

> Also, stay away from parallel port/usb port cameras. They stink. 

Could you qualify that statement? There are some really cheap usb cameras
out there, and I had thought about picking one up just to play with, to see
if I want to get serious about having a camera on my PC. Are they easy to
use? Do they capture usable quality pictures? I thought it might be a good
way to capture some faces on my PC, maybe the cat, etc. Especially since I
can't use my parallel port scanner in Linux (what a bummer, got a nice
scanner and can't even use unless I want to use Winblows).

> Use a vidcap board and real camera. The quality is much better.

No doubt about that, obviously they take a big load off the cpu and ram.

Thanks,
Brian