Webpage dynamic data

Don't know how to do this, myself, but I suspect you need to look for something like an RSS feed. This will take you to the UK met office 'feeds' page; they'll send stuff, but as far as I can gather, it's warnings, rather than a general report or update.

Thanks! But I am not sure if I am looking for RSS feed. I am not sure if you need to visit weather.com as its primarily US focused. However, they have option for hour-to-hour forecast. When you click for that option, it is displayed as a table. Instead to visit the website for that table, I would like have that information in my XL file. Pretty much what I am looking for is a table of with columns, say, time, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity ... and so on. I would input time and then I want to import data for rest of the columns. Pretty much an XL table, but instead of extracting data from other XL file, I want to get it from, say, weather.com source.

I am no idea how to describe this. But more questions and comments might help me word it better.

P.S.: I just registered so that question was asked by me.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection look here, we're using the "dreamweaver" and I think we can do that but I'm sure you can find a tool here...

I think I figure it to some extend, but still need help.

Its called webqueries (http://www.exceluser.com/explore/webqueries_1.htm) in MS XL.

I use openoffice and there its under insert > Link to External data

However, I didn't have success with it when I tried url. Only when I save the webpage on my desktop and then opened that file. Even with that I couldn't figure out "worksheet" formula and each time I have to select the tables among all the components for that webpage. Any help with that would be great.

Wonder if I need to start new thread for this as this is now bit of MS XL vs OO Calc and more like how to use spreadsheet???

Thanks!

Feels like I have become smarter after registering .

I didn't figure out OO calc, but they got similar (may be better) feature for google docs and that's too its "Worksheet" function. (http://documents.google.com/support/spreadsheets/bin/answer.py?answer=75507&useful=0&show_useful=1&comment=en%20:%202%20:%20Explain%20why%20url%20and%20query%20in%20quotation%3F%20How%20can%20I%20feed%20url%20and%20query%20info%20from%20other%20cells%20in%20sheet%3F&#helpful)

Still few wrinkles here-there to deal with like, how can feed url data for google doc formula via data in another cell, rather than hard coding.

Let's see you figures this out first

I really don't know, but I imagine you must be able to do "something" with VBA (which underlies Excel). Need to find an Excel whizz-kid (and it ain't me!).

Here is a good link, with some examples to try.

http://www.vertex42.com/News/excel-web-query.html

I fell across this while looking for a means to log data from a RS232 port (RS485 network).

This gives me a realtime current value, but does anyone have a means to use excel to log the data in the spreadsheet

Hi,

This service is known programatically as Web Services. In the past before MS and others provided tools fand rules or this it was called "screen scraping" we have developed a number of applications that rely on these services. Suggest you seek profesional help to programme. It wont cost necessarily a lot, and may be cheaper in the long run than learning how to do it your self, your call,

Regards,

timpatco

Hi,

Just logging in so I can get entries in my email,

Timpatco

If your information is in the form of an image or HTML text then both of these can be uploaded periodically using small VB-script or JAVA-script on the web page. If you are not familiar even then whenever user opens the page will get the new image or web page as an image loaded within a web page. All you have to do is to copy new data image regularly on your server which means you will over write the existing image so each time user will get new image.

You can also dynamically change the name of the file to be loaded and that can be done within java-script. Attaching a timer function to it, you can automatically reload the new data. Look at timer functions, clock and calender functions and image and web page loading mechanisms.

Calculators can use cgi bin data transfer through forms or email and ASP processing at server and sending back processed data on new display page.

You need to have some idea of embedded script processing methods embedded within HTML pages. Get hold to some tutorials and then try on your computer first.

You need a web-scraping application that will pull the data from weather.com. The scraper could then save the data to excell via an OLEDB connection. To have all this run via timers on the client side, I would recommend using AJAX (async javascript and XML).

Greg@gneenterprises.com Microsoft Certified Professional (ASP.NET)

Processing stuff with Windows sounds really difficult, I'll stick with Linux and its scripting..

For the data I collect, I save it to a RRD (Round Robin Database) then for the applications that need the information, I just extract that information from that database.

You should be able to pull the data your required into a MSDB (Microsoft Access??) then link the MSDB into your documents with the required queries.

Then just run a process that grabs the required data from the Internet on a time base and pull that information you require to be saved, save it to the MSDB, then your Excel/Word docco can pull the info from the DB when its required.

this is the one I have generated from local data (not webpage scraped)

http://www.rods.id.au/weather/Home-Temp.html

The database/tools I'm using here is RRDTOOL

Ok guys. I think I have figured it out. At least so far. Snaketails, timapatico, and shyam: I am not sure what you guys are referring to, but is it same as comments # 2-6? Anyway, thanks!

sites that display dynamic data utilize applications like cold fusion mark up language (.cfm)

this software runs in the background and preprocesses the requested page. It reads information from a database (or excell sheet) and creates a dynamic web page that is then served . the page is a template and the information is read from the data base from the key you enter into the search - zip code in the case of the data base as is the weather.com

cold fusion can also use a web page for input -- ie you can write a script that will go the page and sort and parse the info from it and write it to a server and put it in a file (like ecell, txt,etc), this file can later be used to serve your own page

the weather service gets its info from the national weather service

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/

chances are the info is publically available FTP directly from NOAA free .. using a script to access the weather. com database is not advisable

i think you would be able to use visual basic to make a tool bar to show the info in excell

Hi, cbs, sounds like you know your stuff.

Phrases like "dynamic web page that is then served..." and "sort and parse the info from it and write it to a server..." are a bit of a mystery to me.

Your statement "chances are the info is publically available FTP directly from NOAA free .. using a script to access the weather. com database is not advisable" really makes me wonder at what I'm missing out on (being a BOF).

For all us slow-brains, lame-brains, and no-brains, any chance of a few examples (or links to examples), please?

Thanks in anticipation, John.

cbs,

I gotta agree with John. You need to enlighten us further. I has suspected these webpages extract data from some database. However, when I started this forum (and even now) couldn't figure out how to access those database (of course, when the information is freely/legally available). Usually, with urls, you can go to page source and figure out what's the link. However, it didn't work in this case.

Then, I met webquery tool and was happy. And, now you mention it wouldn't be advisable to use weather.com data, it got me thinking. Why you say so? Is that warning just for weather.com?

Here's what I have done so far:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pRCtT3hNh54gr88kszlBhag

This definitely solves my problem as it stands. However, I want to learn more.

Thanks!

The info I posted in a previous posting is totally dynamic data, ok not a MS based web tool, but Linux, but the idea is the same, the data I'm using is sucked off the weather Station through a modified RS-232 connection (the wired signal lines are correct, but the communication is nibble-wise and uses CTS/DTR for data comms)

That info is stored locally in a RRD database (yeh ok, I have said this, just trying to make it clearer) So, if I'm sucking the data from a external source, or local source, storing local and displaying in a simple format.

From that, I have 2 web pages,

The graphical -> http://www.rods.id.au/weather

The Mobile phone small text type -> http://www.rods.id.au/m-weather

Now, if I want, I can get the info that "Forecastfox" grabs from Accuweather.com (which I guess is just a post and get) then I could have the weather forcast on the pages as well, then goto the next step and download the rain pattern images from http://www.bom.gov.au (local to Australia weather site) and display them for several hours, similar to how their dynamic Java scripted pages do it

Snaketails,

It is clear now. What you and cbs suggest is the solution when one needs to store the data like requested in comment # 6 above. In case when there is no need to store the data and just use the current data, how do you compare this method with webquery tool I have used (refer comment #16 for the sample spreadsheet)? Is one method better than other? on what terms?

Thanks!