Topic: Meteotemplate - new free website template

[PaulMy]

Guys you can also check this one, it allows minutely CRONs and is for free:

http://mywebcron.com/

Thanks Jáchym and Carl.  I will keep note of those alternates.


Don't know what happened or changed at my end, GoDaddy or cron-job.org, but there have been no further cron-job.org failures at all so far.  Also noticed in their FAQ

What should I keep in mind when developing my cron-controlled scripts?You should design your scripts in a way that they send as little data as possible, ideally just a short status message at the end of the execution, e.g. "OK" — or simply nothing. In case your script is written in PHP and needs more than 30 seconds of run-time, you can use the following trick to let it continue to execute in the backgroudn: Use the PHP function ignore_user_abort(true) to tell PHP to continue the script execution after disconnection.

If I get failures again I may look to add that suggested PHP function.  Any suggestion how/where I would put that in the /update/cumulus.php and bloomSky/update.php scripts?

Paul
   

[Mapantz]

Guys you can also check this one, it allows minutely CRONs and is for free:

http://mywebcron.com/

Thanks Jáchym and Carl.  I will keep note of those alternates.


Don't know what happened or changed at my end, GoDaddy or cron-job.org, but there have been no further cron-job.org failures at all so far.  Also noticed in their FAQ

What should I keep in mind when developing my cron-controlled scripts?You should design your scripts in a way that they send as little data as possible, ideally just a short status message at the end of the execution, e.g. "OK" — or simply nothing. In case your script is written in PHP and needs more than 30 seconds of run-time, you can use the following trick to let it continue to execute in the backgroudn: Use the PHP function ignore_user_abort(true) to tell PHP to continue the script execution after disconnection.

If I get failures again I may look to add that suggested PHP function.  Any suggestion how/where I would put that in the /update/cumulus.php and bloomSky/update.php scripts?

Paul
   

I'm with GoDaddy, where do you view your Cronjob errors?

I've got five running: One every minute, two every five minutes, one at one hour and one at once every 24hrs.

[virusdunil]

About mywebcron.... not a single update in database... since registration at 10 AM...and its now 10:20 AM

[SimonB]

Updated to 5.0. Now need to work on the custom menu items for the mobile site

Thanks for keeping me away from my work

Simon the mobile menu should not be edited, it includes the pages that were optimized for mobile devices. It is not intended for you to add all the plugins etc. The mobile section is not an exact copy of the normal version, it is a stripped down section that contains the major weather station pages and reports, but it will not work well for other pages that are not already included in the menu.
Some plugins etc. simply cannot be viewed on a small screen, you can never fit a detailed map or a graph on a small screen, even if it scales right, it would not be readable. So I recommend you don´t add anything to that menu

Jachym

I'm not referring to the plugins. Most of the value in my site are the timelapses.

I need those visible but don't want them in the homepage blocks.

It's ok. Happy to fiddle

[PaulMy]

I'm with GoDaddy, where do you view your Cronjob errors?

I've got five running: One every minute, two every five minutes, one at one hour and one at once every 24hrs.

I don't think you can see the errors on GoDaddy, but if an email address is added in the cron job setup it should send notices of failure.  At least in my Linux hosting plan. 

I used to get several email notices when I first set up cron jobs on GoDaddy but that was due to errors in the cron setup.  I have not received a notice in many months from GoDaddy and have 6 crons run twice an hour (one at 00:xx and 30:xx, one at 05:xx and 35:xx, one at 10:xx and 40:xx, one at 15:xx and 45:45, one at 20:xx and 50:xx and one at 25:xx and 55:xx)

I didn't realize you can set GoDaddy to as low as 1 minute.

Paul

[Mapantz]

I'm with GoDaddy, where do you view your Cronjob errors?

I've got five running: One every minute, two every five minutes, one at one hour and one at once every 24hrs.

I don't think you can see the errors on GoDaddy, but if an email address is added in the cron job setup it should send notices of failure.  At least in my Linux hosting plan. 

I used to get several email notices when I first set up cron jobs on GoDaddy but that was due to errors in the cron setup.  I have not received a notice in many months from GoDaddy and have 6 crons run twice an hour (one at 00:xx and 30:xx, one at 05:xx and 35:xx, one at 10:xx and 40:xx, one at 15:xx and 45:45, one at 20:xx and 50:xx and one at 25:xx and 55:xx)

I didn't realize you can set GoDaddy to as low as 1 minute.

Paul

Ah that's right.  I didn't know about the email thing for ages, when I logged in to my webcam, I had close to 100,000 emails. It would send one everything a cronjob ran haha

[kocher]

I'm thinking that maybe can could get a dynamic banner, based on data of current conditions (block "current") of each station.
In this way we would not be dependent on other external sources 

[Jáchym]

I'm thinking that maybe can could get a dynamic banner, based on data of current conditions (block "current") of each station.
In this way we would not be dependent on other external sources 

Yes, that would of course be ideal, but I explained some time ago why there is no way you can do this.

The interactive banner doesn´t look at temperature, humidity etc. The main parameter is something like "cloudy", "partly cloudy", "heavy rain", "snowing" etc. There is no way you can get this just from the numbers. Weather Display has some sort of a guess, but first of all not everyone uses WD and second, this is really just a very rough estimate.

There is no way you could:
- differentiate accurately between snow/rain
- differentiate things such as cloudy/partly cloudy/mostly cloudy
- people with no solar sensor would not even be able to tell if it is sunny or overcast - likewise, at night it would be impossible for everyone

So the banner has to use external data to get the current conditions.

[nitrx]

Is there no way to use the nearest METAR ?

[wvdkuil]

Is there no way to use the nearest METAR ?

I have to agree with that.
Even Yahoo uses the METAR data to generate the current conditions (CCN) for a lot of area's.
METAR specifies the CCN in detail   visibillity, cloud height, amount of precipitation, type of precipitation and more.
Already for years the METARs are used to have descriptive texts at the Saratoga- and Leuven-Templates

It was nice to use Yahoo as in one feed there was the CCN and a five day forecast. As long as the "0Ath" problems are not clarified, I will not use Yahoo and advised all user to switch back to METAR.

One negative point: The airports are not always located close enough to be used for all weather-values.

This is the source for processing a textual METAR: http://weather-template.nl/weather28/metar/wsMetarTxt.php?sce=view
Such a METAR is loaded from the NOAA site with this URL http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/observations/metar/stations/XXXX.TXT

A lot of thanks for the METAR processing as used in this script goes , as nearly always, to Ken True http://saratoga-weather.org/
Wim

[Jáchym]

Hi guys,

yes I completely agree and I would be much happier using METAR right from the beginning, but there is one fundamental problem... it has nothing to do with the technical side of things, I can easily make a script for it - in fact I dont even have to - Meteotemplate already has a page dedicated to METAR, where there is a code to decode the Metar string.

The main problem is - as you have even mentioned it yourself Wim - the data availability. And by that I mean the fact that there is not so many METAR stations and I know that people were complaining sometimes even about Yahoo being too far away from them. Not to mention my climate page, where I only had the METAR places in general.

The question therefore now is - do we want something probably more reliable (although the Yahoo thing works at the moment, just not in 100% cases) but probably much less accurate because of the distance, or is it better to use something which is not always available, but when is, is more accurate...

And this is a question I do not have an answer for and unfortunately there is no right and wrong. Making several versions of the header is not really something I am a big fan of

[wvdkuil]

Hi guys,

yes I completely agree and I would be much happier using METAR right from the beginning, but there is one fundamental problem... it has nothing to do with the technical side of things, I can easily make a script for it - in fact I dont even have to - Meteotemplate already has a page dedicated to METAR, where there is a code to decode the Metar string.

The main problem is - as you have even mentioned it yourself Wim - the data availability. And by that I mean the fact that there is not so many METAR stations and I know that people were complaining sometimes even about Yahoo being too far away from them. Not to mention my climate page, where I only had the METAR places in general.

The question therefore now is - do we want something probably more reliable (although the Yahoo thing works at the moment, just not in 100% cases) but probably much less accurate because of the distance, or is it better to use something which is not always available, but when is, is more accurate...

And this is a question I do not have an answer for and unfortunately there is no right and wrong. Making several versions of the header is not really something I am a big fan of

I use a setting for that in Leuven-Template.  Users choose which CCN source will be used, either WD, Yahoo or METAR.

My "weather in nice cities" comes in two flavors Yahoo and METAR.
A few users ran  both, just to check the differences, almost identical for all parts of Europe, Yahoo sometimes lags a little behind, but that can be caused by Yahoo caching the METAR data and my script then caching Yahoo data.

So I wonder in which area's Yahoo has better CCN compared to METAR.

And there is always WU which also supplies current conditions, although I never displayed them so far.

Wim

[nitrx]

I'm almost sure the conditions from yahoo are also extracted from metars ... or do you think they have an observer in every town ?

[Mapantz]

It's a bit of a tricky one, this.
The Metar idea is quite good, I guess you can incorporate some of the users station data in it.. ie; if X amount of rain falls in X amount of time, override Metar with drizzle banner/rain banner etc..

I'm quite happy with how Yahoo works at the moment as it has been updating all the conditions much better lately. The only thing that does set it back somewhat, is how CPU intensive it becomes when the banner turns animated.

[kocher]

There is no way you could:
- differentiate accurately between snow/rain
- differentiate things such as cloudy/partly cloudy/mostly cloudy
- people with no solar sensor would not even be able to tell if it is sunny or overcast - likewise, at night it would be impossible for everyone

    http://www.meteoelche.com/download.php

  Download: http://www.meteoelche.com/meteoActual.rar

With a slight modification, you can be obtained certainly accurate images:

   http://kocher.es/curweat.php
   http://kocher.es/curbannerweat.php

This is intended for users of Davis stations; but, really, it gets data from wind, temperature, dew point and rainfall.
Similarly, it could perhaps be done with the template, obtaining data from the database.

[Jáchym]

I think Yahoo uses metars, but it interpolates them, in other words it combines several nearby metars. Because I noticed it is not always the same.

This seems to be a never ending problem - I remember that the original banner actually used World Weather Online, many people complained saying it is not accurate for their location. So I changed it to Yahoo (looking back it was a wise choice, given WWO is 540USD/yr since beginning of April for new users...). And I did get a few emails about the original WWO banner being more accurate.

The most accurate forecast in general as well as great availablility and data consistency is yrNo. No doubt about that at least in my opinion. The only problem is that unfortunately yrNo only provides forecast, not current conditions.

The main problem is that the banner is something people see all the time and especially with precipitation I often got questions why the banner was/was not showing rain when it was/ was not raining etc. I was therefore considering using data from the rain gauge for this, but then there is the problem with rain/snow, most people dont have heated rain gauge so snow is not detected. And also, sometimes it can be just a very light drizzle, very difficult to detect with the rain gauge and I also don´t know how I would then do it. Like take the rain from last 30 minutes? But then there would still be 30 minutes delay before the bucket tips and then possibility of showing rain long after it has stopped and in some cases it is drizzeling so lightly I still have 0 on my station.

Wind is easy and in fact the current banner already uses wind speed from station data. So the main problem really is the "condition". WU is something I want to avoid at all costs (I think the reasons are quite obvious...).

[Jáchym]

intended for users of Davis stations

so unusable.... plus this only works during the day, there is no way any station can differentiate between for example overcast and clear sky at night

[kocher]

intended for users of Davis stations

so unusable.... plus this only works during the day, there is no way any station can differentiate between for example overcast and clear sky at night

This script  detect perfectly the conditions of day and night and, of course, the rain, snow... day and night 

[Mapantz]

I've been using curconditions.php for Cumulus - http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=12831

That's been spot on at knowing the difference between drizzle/rain. Might be worth looking at to get an idea.

[Jáchym]

It's a bit of a tricky one, this.
The Metar idea is quite good, I guess you can incorporate some of the users station data in it.. ie; if X amount of rain falls in X amount of time, override Metar with drizzle banner/rain banner etc..

I'm quite happy with how Yahoo works at the moment as it has been updating all the conditions much better lately. The only thing that does set it back somewhat, is how CPU intensive it becomes when the banner turns animated.

Yes I am aware of that CPU problem. In fact I was planning to change the banner completely. I was not able to find any usable scripts though that would be able to generate the drops and also their intensity etc.

This was in fact the first script I ever made and I even released it like a yr ago, long before Meteotemplate was created. It was originally created for my own webpage and it worked fine because I live in a large city with 2 professional stations nearby. I also did not realize the problems with the way this is programmed, I see it now, the reason why it sometimes gets so CPU demanding is that to create heavier rain, it overlays several "rain divs" on top of each other, each generating the droplets.

I guess this need a completely new script, not just data source, but also the actual code. But I havent figured out yet what would be the best option. The rain/snow etc. will always rely on some Javascript, the data source is obviously a problem and taking data from db likewise, even the rain would be a problem. Because I would have to decide on some interval and amount to be used as a threshold value and I have users who have several thousands of mm of rain each yr and users with less than 50/yr. And also the station accuracy is quite variable, Davis I guess is ok, but for example my station really sucks at this. I know that often it rains, the banner shows rain because it is taken from Yahoo and in the evening I check my station and it says 0, simply because it was not enough for the bucket to tip or because for some other reason it just wasnt detected.

[Jáchym]

This one is quite nice:
http://codecanyon.net/item/jquery-rain-and-snow/full_screen_preview/6252872

But it isnt for free.

Another option would be using just static bg images to show rain, snow etc.

[Mapantz]

This one is quite nice:
http://codecanyon.net/item/jquery-rain-and-snow/full_screen_preview/6252872

But it isnt for free.

Another option would be using just static bg images to show rain, snow etc.

How much is it? And if you owned it for example, can you allow it to be used by other people?

[Jáchym]

This is exactly the problem Tina, it is 6USD, but even if I bought it it is always a license for one user obviously...

[Jáchym]

Combining station data with external data is also dangerous....

imagine for example a place such as the UK, where there are often strong winds and I remember very well from Edinburgh how quickly the conditions can change. So if for example I used the cloud cover from external source and precipitation from rain gauge, I might end up with a "sunny" and rain drops coming from the sky. If you use one source, there could be a delay, but at least it would be consistent.

[Mapantz]

Snow and Clouds.. lol

http://codepen.io/montanaflynn/pen/orxwK
http://codepen.io/NickyCDK/pen/AIonk