Subject: From: Date:

Off line web browsing martin.terry.cyberdude.com Thu, 24 Aug 2000 00:27:59 -0400 (EDT)

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Hey All-

For those of you using ECS's web server, or considering it, here's an update on my usage.

ECS is running on a computer in my Garage, so all "user" interaction is done from a
client PC located in our family room connected via ethernet. ECS has a modem connection
to dial up the internet, but the client's only connection is to the ECS computer.

I originally had ACE on the client, which worked great. I preferred ACE's user interface
to ECS for it's simplicity.

Once Mark implemented the web server, I have tried to duplicate the functionality of
ACE using a web browser on the client. I don't use any of ECS's built-in web pages,
other than as a maintenance tool, and a great learning aid.

So far I've had a great deal of success implementing what I need on web pages - Lighting
and Appliance Control, Telephone Calls and Messaging as well as Log access. Buttons
for Scenes, Alarm status and arming, etc. Great stuff - Mark is awesome!

Since ECS is able to serve any web page, I've started to expand the things I can display.
For example, I currently have a weather event that downloads a text description of the
weather and reads it. I wanted to implement a simple "weather page" on my web browser
as well.

First, since ECS does not have a full-time internet connection I went out and researched
several "offline web page" tools. I found one that fit my needs called HTTRACK - it
can download web pages for offline viewing and has a command line interface, perfect
for batch files. It creates the offline pages in a file structure that mirrors the original
site, so the URL is just slightly different from the original page. It automatically
downloads all components of the page, and can follow links, etc. There are a lot of
options to control exactly what you want to download.

Next, I setup httrack to download yahoo's weather page for our location. I chose yahoo
because it had a pretty clean layout without a lot of "busy" stuff I didn't want, plus
it gives current weather and a 5 day forecast. I setup a batch file to connect to the
internet, get the page, then disconnect. After running this I could enter the url: ecs:3000/offline/weather.yahoo.com/mumble/wx.htm
and now my client computer can get this page served up by ECS. Great so far.

Then I decided to chop out the banner advertising that plagues us cheapskates that want
information for nothing. :) I created a batch file that examines the downloaded page,
determines where the "real" weather info starts and ends, and chops out everything else.
Another test and eureka, no more Visa ads.

So now the weather is available from an icon on my ECS client, updated daily (I'm thinking
of changing this to every 4 hours). Pretty cool stuff.

Now the wheels are turning - stock info, news headlines, movie listings, the possibilities
are endless. :)

Don't let anyone tell you ECS isn't the coolest automation platform ever!


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