Just want a few leads

Anon

I am planning to start up a service for the local Storm Spotters of which I am one, that will send out emails designed for Cell Phones to alert them when they need to be ready for a storm.

I figure this is a great project to use to learn PHP. It will have a web interface, do email, use a database, use scheduling, etc. Lots of different areas.

First thing it will have to do is go to the NWS Watches & Warning Page and parse everything out on a regular schedule. Then it will update the database. Then the emails will be sent out (event drivin). People can login to a password protected page and change the counties and products they want to recieve or remove themselves compltely. Also there will be a sperate interface for the head people in our local skywarn to manualy send out messages.

So, first things first. How do I parse the page? Just looking for some commands to research on my own. Direction is all I want for this project. Well atleast until I just can't figure something out. 🙂

Thanks
Mebane2

sp0rk

Intresting idea, and certainly doable in PHP.

First you need to actually download the data in its raw form. fopen and fread will do that.

Parsing the data will probably involve arrays and creative use of strip_tags, explode and preg_grep.

Then it's database-time, when the fun really starts. =)

Anon

Yea Database time is always my favorite! MySQL is one to look into but if you have a ton of E-Mails and a ton of data watch out because MySQL may slow down. This is a killer idea though and hope all works out well with it. Sp0rk is right with everything you will need to know for project. Also make sure if anyone puts in data to you make sure it goes through HTMLspecialchars($string) that will strip out all the < and > and anything else that could potentially damange your system. Like if someone could do a:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

That would not be very cool.

Hope all goes well!
Chad R. Smith
www.brokenformula.com

Anon

Thanks. Will have to take a look at that as soon as I recover fum lunch. Was just out working a public service event and we all went out to Golden Coral for lunch.

I have tried soooooo many of those free signup services for weather info and found them all lacking in some way, shape, or form. Atleast for a Storm Spotter. And since I have been working in Cold Fusion for years now and C++ before that, I knew exactly what I wanted, and basicaly how to get it. Just a matter of learning new words for old ideas.

The other systems out there always have problems. Well atleast for someone like me. They are mostly designed for the average person. For me, I need to know if and when Spotter's get called up, when I need to start monitoring the weather, when warnings are issued and what they are for, and I need it sent to my Cingular Nokia Phone that can only get about 90 chars and can't span messages.

If a watch is issued for any county all I need is one message, not one for every county I have signed up for seeing as our Spotter coverage area here covers 19 counties.

If the NWS thinks Spotter Activation may be needed I need to know that. Or if we are activated I need to know that.

I need to know when warnings are issued, what type of warning, for what county, and when it expires.

And I need it to fit on my cell. Plus having a manual message send would be good too. This system will not be in replacement of other true warning devices since as it's all internet based it is inherently likely to fail right when you really need it, but it has helped in other forms enough to know it would be a definate value added service to our spotter community.

This system would be just for North Carolina and really just for Storm Spotters. Compltely Free. We currently have about 100 users on the yahoo groups list I setup for our group. So I wouldn't expect more than that many, and infact prob far less. I would have a seperate system that would distribute more general things via standard email and would just run that off my own listserv.

I definatly want to get my lists off Yahoo.

So like what I would get on my cell phone would be like

______ Watch till : M
____ Warn for Cty till : M
Storm Spotter Watch
Storm Spotter Activation
NCO Watch
NCO Activation
Gen. Msg.:____________________

There would be choices of like 10 types of alerts for any of the 19 counties for each person. I think even if I get 100 people signed up it would be within MySQL's abilities. Then again I am new to MySQL too.

I will be sure to come back for more questions 😃

L8z
Mebane2