Weather Web-Camera Homepage

Creating a homepage for a weather web-camera

This section explains how to create a homepage for a weather camera. In particular, creating a simple homepage with HTML, meta-tags and search engine optimisation for search engine indexing.


			Weather web-camera homepage Some web-camera manufacturers provide as part of their package, a custom web page to view a web-camera. This web page may also provide image archiving and live streaming. However, this is service provided and maintained by them for only their customers. The configuration of the web page can require disclosure of the web-camera's IP address which, has security implications. It is possible to build a customised personal homepage for a weather web-camera; one using tailored fonts and styles. Rather like a personal homepage, this web page can reside on the free disc space that comes with most ISP packages. The web-camera could even display an image on a MySpace type page. For most weather web-camera applications, all that is needed is for the web-camera to upload the image at regular intervals to the free disc space on the ISP's server. The homepage then becomes the known place for the weather web-camera. It is important that a web-camera uploads its image to a remote server. If a web-camera was to grant browsers from anywhere on the internet access to the image directly via it's built in web server, this would have significant security implications. Implications not only to the web-camera, but the entire network the web-camera was attached to. This is because a hacker will not only be able to identify where on the internet the web-camera is, but also it's router and, all of the other computers attached to the router. By uploading to a remote server, such as that owned by the ISP, the web-camera's real location remains hidden and safe. To do this, the web-camera will need to be configured to upload images automatically to the remote server at regular intervals. Never assume everyone else is a computer geek. Having a weather web-camera homepage reliant on visitors installing a third party plugin onto their web browser assumes they have both the skills and motivation to do it. In reality, most people click off somewhere else. In this example, the homepage displays a simple Jpeg image which requires no further action from the web site visitor.


			System plan A plan of how an IP web-camera interacts with the free web space. Note how every other person on the internet has unrestricted accesses the homepage on the ISP but not the camera directly. This decouples the web-camera and it's network from world-wide hackers.


			A simple homepage This is HTML code for a very simple homepage that displays a greeting and the uploaded weather image. HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language is a set of commands that format web pages. This web page is formatted using HTML. To create and edit an HTML document requires only a simple text editor, such as Notepad. Simple HTML files are given the file extension of .htm <html> <head> <title>Cornwall Weather Camera</title> </head> <body bgcolor="deepskyblue" text="white"> <div align="center"> <h1>Saint Malaisey Cornwall<br>Weather Camera<br></h1> <img src="Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.jpg" border="1" width="320" height="240" alt="most recent image"/> <h2>If it's sunny then it's going to rain</h2> <h2>Thank you for visiting!</h2> </div> </body> </html> This HTML is created in a text editor and saved to a file called Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.htm This will be the homepage for the weather web-camera. The file Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.htm is then uploaded to the (hypothetical) disc space belonging to user handyandy21 on the bigbad ISP. Then, the weather web-camera is then configured to upload it's image at regular intervals to the same directory on the ISP that contains the homepage. It is uploaded with the file name of Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.jpg This is the image that is seen on the homepage. This latest image always overwrites the previous one. If for any reason the weather web-camera fails to upload the image, the most recently uploaded image is always be available for display. To view the homepage the following (hypothetical) domain name is then entered into a web browser http://handyandy21.myfreespace.bigbad.net/Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.htm

Example homepage

Click HERE for a production version of the example homepage. Use the view source feature in the web browser to examine the underlying HTML.


			Page Counters and Meta-Tags A Page Counter or hit count, is a simple number displayed on a web page that is incremented every time someone visits the web page. It might read, This page has been visited 1,092,233 times. It should be noted that counters also get bumped every time a search engine spider crawls the web page; which is not strickly a visitor, but healthy never-the-less. The mechanics of a page counter are specific to where and how a web page is hosted. Most ISP's and web hosts support some kind of page counter. Web pages built with Microsoft Frontpage will have a page counter component that runs in the Frontpage Web. For example: <p>This page has been visited <img src="_vti_bin/fpcount.exe/?Page=Webcam.htm\|Image=1\|Digits=4"/> times</p> Or on an ISP this might read : <p>This page has been visited <img src="../mywebhost/HitCounter.php?user=weatherwebcam"/> times</p> Meta-tags are added to a web page to provide information about a web page, but their content is never displayed by a browser. There are three meta-tags to be concerned with here: The description meta-tag states what the page is about. The keyword meta-tag provides words to assist search engines index the page. The Robots index meta-tag that instructs search engines to automatically add this page to their indices if, the page is encountered by a search engine spider; this a programme that trawls the internet for web sites. <head> <title>The Malaisey in Cornwall Weather Camera</title> <meta name="Keywords" content="weather, web camera, webcam, malaisey, cornwall, surfing, beaches, atlantic, beaches, storms"/> <meta name="Description"content="This is a web camera in Malaisey in Cornwall"/> <meta name="Robots"content="index"/> </head> The keywords webcam, atlantic, weather, etc, will be applicable for anyone trying to find this homepage in a search engine. Add what ever terms are applicable, even if they seem obvious! However the big search engines providers like Yahoo, Bing and Google, place more weight on words contained in titles, headings and page content rather than values held in meta-tags. This is because search engines index the contents of a single web page and not, the topic of an entire a web site. Some search engines do focus on meta-tags, however, it is a safer bet to Search Engine Optimise the homepage, rather than rely on depreciated keyword and description meta-tags.


			Search engine optimisation Simply, Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is the clever construction of words on a web page that improves the chance of that web page receiving a higher page ranking on a search engine when, a person does a search with a related search phrase. For example, searching Bing for Shaun the sheep will never yield any web pages that do not contain that phrase. It is a misconception that search engines index websites. They only ever index web pages contained within a web site. Furthermore, they generate their indices using the words on those pages and not the meaning or context of those words: Even though certain search engines claim to associate page meaning with web site content, they are still just seeing letters, not meaning. As a consequence, care should be taken when creating web page content because, people often discover the entire web site, based upon the words and phrases contained on a lone web page. People intuitively know the above homepage features a weather web-camera view, but a search engine has no such intuition. People do the thinking, so help them find your web site. A well optimised web page respects the terms that people are more likely to use when looking for that page. For example, when searching for weather cameras, people are more likely to use search terms like weather wecams, than pretty skies. With the example homepage, they may also be searching for webcams in cornwall, saint malaisey and, any combination thereof. Deciding upon the most likely search terms is more often an intelligent best guess. Always be ready to revise titles and content when some new phrase or permutation becomes apparent! The most popular search terms that are relevant to the content should always go in the page's Title tag. Thus, The Malaisey in Cornwall Weather Camera. Search terms must also be worked into the page's content to aide indexing. Hence, Saint Malaisey Cornwall, Weather Camera appearing on the page; a page which is also given the filename of Saint-Malaisey-Webcam.htm To assist indexing, a web page should have a long descriptive name. Other phrases that could be worked into the homepage include weather web-camera, web cam, and it's alternate spelling, webcam. Alternate spellings should be used sparingly as a search engine may ignore these. Adding unrelated cheat terms like Jolie-Anniston-Pitt may get the page's rank dropped from first to last place! The homepage can be further optimised by adding the some more content specific terms like beaches, tides, sea, Atlantic, storms, surfing in Cornwall, clouds, Cornwall cottages. SEO is good copy writing. <h3>Saint Malaisey is a traditional Cornish village by the sea. At low tide we have two fantastic beaches and at high tide, a lookout which is great for watching the Atlantic storms pounding our coast. Throughout the year we offer great food and a warm welcome. In 2005 we became an official Surfing in Cornwall centre. Enjoy us all year round! We've cottages for rent in Saint Malaisey and throughout Cornwall too.</h3> A well optimised page may not win extra clicks, but a badly optimised page will always lose them.


			The future is mobile With the explosive growth in mobile internet technology, feature-able devices such as the iPhone and Android Smartphones, offer an opportunity to view a weather web-cameras and other web data, from anywhere! In fact, weather data is more prescient to persons on the move than those sat in the warm glow of a home computer. When targeting mobile devices, consider the rather diminutive display sizes and, that data over mobile networks is still rather expensive. So what is sent should be based on a need to send, rather than be nice to send. In all ways, data is expensive, so a mobile specific home page should avoid fancy page design. Kiss. The weather web-camera home page described on this page should display on most mobile devices without trauma.

Double Vision

Two cameras pointing at adjacent views can create a panoramic-ish weather web-camera. A pan-and-tilt device can also be adapted to move to one view, upload the image to one filename, pan to the next view, and upload the next image to a different filename. The web-camera's homepage displays both images side-by-side. This simple HTML code stiches two views together:

  <table style="border: 0; border-collapse: collapse;">
    <tr>
      <td style="padding: 0;">
        <img src="Image_Left.jpg" />
      </td>
      <td style="padding: 0;">
        <img src="Image_Right.jpg" />
      </td>
    </tr>
  </table>

When placed side-by-side, both images combine to form a psuedo panorama. Lens distortions and exposure differences always reveal the join, but nevertheless, this reveals more about the weather than a single view. Doubling is especially effective with mountain vistas. Clever programming of a pan-and-tilt web-camera means only one camera is needed to capture all of the images... on all points of the compass!


			Using a Community Weather Service Alternatively, there is a far easier way of sharing your weather web-cam, and all without writing a single line of code! There are internet based community weather services that allow weather stations to upload and share their data and webcam images, in the Cloud. By registering the internet location of a weather station, the weather service takes care of management of both data and images; providing a movie of uploaded weather images. These weather services act not just as a way of archiving data and images, but are great for sharing real-time data with the wider meteo-fan community! Most services are free, relying on a combination of advertising and personal donation. On a technical note, the weather service will need to find your data and images on the web. For most domestic DSL users where the I.P. address is dynamic, meaning it can change at any time, the router will need a Dynamic DNS domain name. This might be MyMegaWeatherCam.DYNDNS.tv which is the location registered with the weather service. To set up a Dynamic DNS domain name, consult your ISP. Any firewall restrictions will need to be tweaked to permit the weather service to pull the images and weather data from your location.


			Summary Uploading images to a remote server keeps the real internet location of the web-camera concealed and safe from unauthorised access. Keyword meta tags are nice to have, but these days are no longer a need to have. Search engine optimise the homepage; use words in the content that people are most likely to use when searching for weather web-cameras. Target mobile devices as well as the more traditional laptop and desktop. The homepage is your page; be free to design it with custom content, colours and fonts!