We went the drop cam route, installed it in September and love it. It's small, wide angle, good quality, under $150 and you don't need to have it attached to a laptop past the initial set up.
The down side is that its video so it uses a large amount of bandwidth, on dsl that can be an issue, but we only use it when we aren't there so nothing else is competing for the space.
The have a website that you go to to view it, an IPhone app and a public access link. For the small investment, 5 min install, not requiring a computer to run and all of the web access choices, it was a good fit for us. Until the power goes out, then it drives you nuts