Author Topic: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates  (Read 4516 times)

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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« on: August 21, 2017, 11:30:37 AM »
Hey everyone!

In an effort to keep the site up to date and the transfer of its information secure I have added SSL encryption (Secure Sockets Layer) to the usaweatherfinder.com website. This change ensures that data sent to and from the web site, including the ranking button, is now encrypted and secure.

If you want to take advantage of this change you should edit your ranking button code to use https rather than http. It is the code that looks like this:

<a href="http://usaweatherfinder.com/"><img src="http://usaweatherfinder.com/button.php?u=YOURNAME"
alt="USA Weather Finder" border="0" /></a>


Change both instances of http to https and you are updated to use the new encrypted protocol. If you don't make the change everything will still work perfectly well without any errors, however your site may not pass current standards certification testing if you are into that sort of thing.

For those not familiar with USA Weather Finder, it is a personal weather station aggregation site that now has almost 200 active members in the USA. It contains no advertising, makes no money and exists solely for the benefit of its members.  Why not join for free today?

Let me know if you have any questions.

Rick

ps - If you connect to USA Weather Finder using your browser you may notice that it does not display the green lock and say 'Secure" (in Chrome), or displays the lock with an exclamation point (in Firefox). This is simply because many pages of the site display banner images that are pulled directly from members sites. Most members do not make use of encryption and therefore the banner images are flagged as not secure.  If you click on any of the pages other than Rankings, such as More Info, Join or Control Panel you sill see a solid green secure lock.  :-)
« Last Edit: February 14, 2019, 10:27:03 AM by up10ad »
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Offline ocala

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com adds HTTPS encryption using SSL
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2017, 07:43:22 PM »
Nice to see you checking in Rick. :-)
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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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USAweatherFinder.com Information
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2019, 10:26:31 AM »
Hi everyone!  Just stopping in today to give a brief update on usaweatherfinder.com.

For those not familiar with USA Weather Finder, it is a personal weather station aggregation site for operators in the USA. It contains no advertising, makes no money and exists solely for the benefit of its members.  Why not join for free today?

During the last few weeks I made some code modifications that allow the site to update from php v5 to v7.2. This is important because it addresses a few security issues.

I have also compiled some stats about the site. There are now 157 Members across all 50 states. Over 176 million total page views have been tracked to all sites! Of these, about 28 million were unique visitors.

For each site I have stats on:
  • Total page views since join
  • Unique page views (visitors) for each of the past 9 weeks
  • Unique max weekly since joining
  • Total page views for each of the past 9 weeks
  • Total max weekly since joining
  • Unique page views (visitors) for each of the past 9 months
  • Unique max monthly since joining
  • Total page views for each of the past 9 months
  • Total max monthly since joining
I'd like to make this data available to all members easily, and the best option is to post an excel file link here for download. The file has no private information, just the site names, descriptions and stats, all of which are available on the USAWF site. Usernames are not included. Before posting the spreadsheet I'm soliciting feedback from members in case someone would object to the summary data being made available. As I said, all the data is readily available on USAWF, although not in a single file for all sites. A possible alternative is to make the file link available only to members on the USAWF site on the User Control Panel page after a user logs in. A final alternative is to email the data file to any interested member who requests it, but I'm wary of receiving hundreds of requests  :eek:  My preference is to make it available here to anyone interested.  What are your feelings?

Rick

ps - http/https - If you connect to USA Weather Finder using your browser you may notice that it does not display the lock and say 'Secure", or displays the lock with an exclamation point. This is simply because many pages of the site display banner images that are pulled directly from members sites. Many members still do not make use of encryption and therefore the banner images are flagged as not secure. If you click on any of the pages other than Rankings, such as More Info, Join or Control Panel you will see a secure lock indicator. Secure SSL/TLS certificates are available free from many hosts and certificate authorities, and everyone should be using one!
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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2020, 07:42:51 AM »
Hey everyone. Just stopping in to say hi. USAWF is still operational and should remain so for the indefinite future.

Hard to believe that it has been operational for over 14 years. The first member was Saratoga Weather who joined on April 2006, and is currently ranked #1 on the list. He was followed by mdweather, NH Weather Data, The Succasunna Weather Station and many others.

Anyway, if you haven't joined yet, come take a look. If you decide to join please read the MORE INFO page to help you answer the questions in the join form.

--Rick
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Offline saratogaWX

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2020, 02:51:42 PM »
Hi Rick,
Wow, that's a first for my site.. usually it was running 7 to 10th slots.  Guess the extra viewers were following the AQI/purpleair feeds in my area recently.  I usually see about 400K 'hits' to saratoga-weather.org .. lately, it's been in the 650K-1.5M range.

Thanks for continuing to host/care/feed the usaweatherfinder!

Best regards,
Ken
« Last Edit: September 06, 2020, 02:54:05 PM by saratogaWX »
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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2022, 05:46:36 AM »
Hey everyone! Just checking in. USAWF is had its sweet sixteen birthday  \:D/ and is running just fine. There are currently 136 sites listed.

If you haven't joined yet, come take a look. If you decide to join please read the MORE INFO page to help you answer the questions in the join form.

Sunny Days to all,

Rick
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Offline SoMDWx

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2022, 08:50:27 AM »
Thanks Rick for all your inputs!

Offline Jumpin Joe

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2022, 03:28:52 PM »
Just tried to join... seems there might be a problem.  Here is the error message I received.

Fatal error: Database error in "/homepages/24/d438612390/htdocs/usawf/index.php" on line 56

in /homepages/24/d438612390/htdocs/usawf/sources/sql/mysql.php on line 90


Best regards,
Joe
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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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Re: USAweatherFinder.com Information and updates
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2022, 04:44:10 PM »
Just tried to join... seems there might be a problem.  Here is the error message I received.

Fatal error: Database error in "/homepages/24/d438612390/htdocs/usawf/index.php" on line 56
I just tested it by joining with fake information and all went well. Hmmm. That error line and message suggests that the database couldn't be loaded. I suspect it was a corrupted submission or data reading error of some sort and shouldn't happen again.

Let me know if you continue to have an issue.
Rick (N9RJH)
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