My web site needs help

[hdmax]

As do I!

Hi I am Mike from New Lexington, Ohio USA
I have a Davis Vantage pro2, with Cumulus software, (My web site is sixmileturn-weather.com )
I do not know the 1st thing about coding, so I started with go daddy and e-rice then http://saratoga-weather.org scripts.
Thinking I was all set to be up and running in no time flat, I jumped into it. Boy was I wrong.
After 50+ hours, and dozens of failed attempts, and the guys over at wxforums talk way over my head. I have no clue as to what some of them are saying, and days, and days can go by without any response.
So I am here in hopes of getting some hand holding for a real dummy. (I can build pc's and install any software that I have ever come across, but this code stuff is as alien as anything I have ever tried.
I have tried getting the site to update, like realtime data, I don't even care how pretty, or ugly the site is, I just want to get it to work, then I can try to pretty things up some.
I was so excited when I got my new weather station domain, and host, but the fun is gone now.

Is there anyone here that can/will help me? As after nearly 6 weeks of this, I am about to call it quits!

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and for any assistance you may have!
Mike

[steve]

You seem to have the 'default' Cumulus site installed and working, apart from the 'Flash' gauges, which need the realtime.txt file. Is it with that you're looking for help, or with replacing the site with the Saratoga stuff?

[RayProudfoot]

Welcome to Cumulus Mike. I'm like you, I find much of the web language a mystery and only change things very slowly as I build an understanding of HTML.

A couple of observations on your website and Cumulus settings...

1) You say you're in the US but your longitude of 90E places you in southern China north of the Himalayas! That should be 90W I guess.

2) You need to give your station a real name. Go into Cumulus - Configuration - Station and enter your station name in the Location section. That will be shown in the Welcome to line on your home page. How have you got "back yard usa" into the top line on your home page?

3) Your home page say's the page is updated every 1 minutes but it hasn't updated since 11:38 which would be about 1.5 hours ago assuming you're 6 hours behind UK time.

All your weather readings look okay apart from Highest Pressure on "This Month's High and Low", "This Year" and "Records".

I think there may be a bad record in your dayfile.txt or maybe year.ini or month.ini. Others may be able to qualify this.

There doesn't look to be too much wrong with what I'm seeing in the basic pages but it all depends on what you want to achieve. There are some magnificent websites around but it's always a good idea to walk before you run. I've made small changes to mine over the last year or so but it's still a long way from what I ultimately want. The good news is there's plenty of people here to help you.

One final point. Have you really had 38.14" of rain since 7 July 2011?

[hdmax]

Steve; the site does not update at all, no part of it! When I upload the files to the server that is the time of the last and only update. Today at 11:38am EST I re-upped all the files, so that is the time of the weather update.
I really don't care if I use stock or modified software, I just would like to be able to go to my weather site and see what the current weather is, not the weather from whenever I loaded the files on the server!
Does that make sense to you?

You seem to have the 'default' Cumulus site installed and working, apart from the 'Flash' gauges, which need the realtime.txt file. Is it with that you're looking for help, or with replacing the site with the Saratoga stuff?

[steve]

Steve; the site does not update at all, no part of it! When I upload the files to the server that is the time of the last and only update. Today at 11:38am EST I re-upped all the files, so that is the time of the weather update.

You don't upload the files yourself (other than the css file etc), Cumulus does it automatically. Have you filled in all of your details in the 'web site' section of the internet settings, and ticked 'auto update' in the 'web settings' section?

[hdmax]

First of all, thank you for taking the time to comment on my post.
As for the Back Yard USA header, I named it that in Cumulus config settings. Should it have a different name?
Got the Longitude fixed! Thanks for helping with that, I wondered why the sunset and moon settings were way off, not that is fixed.

As for the bar. pressure, I changed the settings and it kept the old high reading for some reason.
No we did not get 38+ inches of rain this month. In Cumulus settings it had a place to put toalt rain fall for the year, I went to a local weather site to get the rain fall amount, and placed it in there. We have gotten almost 10" of rain since June 1st, and 38+ for the year.

Welcome to Cumulus Mike. I'm like you, I find much of the web language a mystery and only change things very slowly as I build an understanding of HTML.

A couple of observations on your website and Cumulus settings...

1) You say you're in the US but your longitude of 90E places you in southern China north of the Himalayas! That should be 90W I guess.

2) You need to give your station a real name. Go into Cumulus - Configuration - Station and enter your station name in the Location section. That will be shown in the Welcome to line on your home page. How have you got "back yard usa" into the top line on your home page?

3) Your home page say's the page is updated every 1 minutes but it hasn't updated since 11:38 which would be about 1.5 hours ago assuming you're 6 hours behind UK time.

All your weather readings look okay apart from Highest Pressure on "This Month's High and Low", "This Year" and "Records".

I think there may be a bad record in your dayfile.txt or maybe year.ini or month.ini. Others may be able to qualify this.

There doesn't look to be too much wrong with what I'm seeing in the basic pages but it all depends on what you want to achieve. There are some magnificent websites around but it's always a good idea to walk before you run. I've made small changes to mine over the last year or so but it's still a long way from what I ultimately want. The good news is there's plenty of people here to help you.

One final point. Have you really had 38.14" of rain since 7 July 2011?

[hdmax]

I have setup Cumulus for the internet and have checked, and rechecked dozens of times. And for some unknown reason it will not do real time. But on wunderground it works perfectly. That is why I am baffled with this!
Do you suppose if I un-installed Cumulus and got rid of any and all of saratoga's files that I may have better luck?

Steve; the site does not update at all, no part of it! When I upload the files to the server that is the time of the last and only update. Today at 11:38am EST I re-upped all the files, so that is the time of the weather update.

You don't upload the files yourself (other than the css file etc), Cumulus does it automatically. Have you filled in all of your details in the 'web site' section of the internet settings, and ticked 'auto update' in the 'web settings' section?

[steve]

If you turn on ftp logging from the configuration menu, and then wait until an upload should have taken place, it will create a file called ftplog.txt in the Cumulus folder. Attach that file here and I'll see what's going on.

[hdmax]

Is this what you wanted to look at?

[steve]

You've put C:/Cumulus for the name of the directory on your ftp server:

16:57:30:687 Changing directory to c:/cumulus
16:57:30:687 FTP Command: CWD c:/cumulus
16:57:30:687 052062B0 TriggerDataSent 624
16:57:30:738 FTP Response: 550 c:/cumulus: No such file or directory
16:57:30:738 >|550 c:/cumulus: No such file or directory|

This is presumably the location of your Cumulus folder on your PC. It needs to be the location of your Cumulus html files on your ftp server. What you put in there depends on how your web hosting is set up, so it's impossible for me to tell you what to put. It may be that you just need to leave it blank, but sometimes web space is set up such that you have to put 'htdocs' or 'html_files' or any one of a number of other things. You should be able to work out what to put from what you see when logged in with your ftp client.

If you can't work out what's needed, and you're prepared to send me (by private message) your ftp details, I can log in and have a look.

[RayProudfoot]

First of all, thank you for taking the time to comment on my post.
As for the Back Yard USA header, I named it that in Cumulus config settings. Should it have a different name?

You're welcome. If you entered it in the location field then it will eventually show up on your website. But 'backyard' is a bit vague. Most users enter their town and state so visitors can see at a glance where in the world you are.

As for the bar. pressure, I changed the settings and it kept the old high reading for some reason.

That should sort itself out once you are uploading regularly.

No we did not get 38+ inches of rain this month. In Cumulus settings it had a place to put toalt rain fall for the year, I went to a local weather site to get the rain fall amount, and placed it in there. We have gotten almost 10" of rain since June 1st, and 38+ for the year.

Sounds reasonable enough. Just checking.

[tobyspond]

Hi Mike,

Don't give up!

I'm new to the website programming world too and have spent time banging my head against the wall! It is a steep learning curve - it takes time. I am still revising my website, learning as I go. My first step was just to get a site up and running, now, as my confidence and skills have increased, I feel comfortable making changes and upgrades.

There is a wealth of information here on the Cumulus forum.

Yes, Weather underground is real time data; however, Cumulus operates differently and there are a few methods to achieve "real time" data and there are others here on the forum who are more knowledgeable than me.

Any ways, good luck.

Kerry
http://www.tobyspondweather.com

[hdmax]

Thanks Toby, I think your web site is the nicest, cleanest, and most informative personal weather site I have seen.
Maybe once I get mine working like it should be, I can pick your brain and get some ideas how to set mine up like yours is.

Hi Mike,

Don't give up!

I'm new to the website programming world too and have spent time banging my head against the wall! It is a steep learning curve - it takes time. I am still revising my website, learning as I go. My first step was just to get a site up and running, now, as my confidence and skills have increased, I feel comfortable making changes and upgrades.

There is a wealth of information here on the Cumulus forum.

Yes, Weather underground is real time data; however, Cumulus operates differently and there are a few methods to achieve "real time" data and there are others here on the forum who are more knowledgeable than me.

Any ways, good luck.

Kerry
http://www.tobyspondweather.com

[tobyspond]

Thanks Mike. My website is the result of many hours, some frustration, mostly fun, and is still a work in progress. I started off with the basic template too.

I suggest you read the wiki pages; the information in the wiki was very helpful (thanks to all who contributed to the wiki) to me.

Then you may want to look at websites. You can use the Cumulus User map to start. Look at what you like about a website. That's what I did. Just remember to start slow; the changes do not have to happen overnight. Also work from a copy template; it will save time and frustration if a change does not work.

Feel free to ask me any questions. I'm happy to help where I can. I'm not a programmer although I can read code and pretty much figure out what the code is doing. There are others on this forum with more knowledge than I have.

Kerry
http://www.tobyspondweather.com/

[bnwrx]

Mike, your pages look fine, but they have not updated since last night at about 7:15pm. Is cumulus uploading?