Weather, water, and whatever the lake throws at us
A lot has changed at Scootercam in the last few weeks – almost everything, really. Here’s the rundown: New hosting provider We’ve moved from Hostinger to GlowHost and despite some rough first days, it’s looking good. GlowHost gives us access to ffmpeg, a utility that assembles our timelapse segments. Hostinger provided ffmpeg as well, but … Read more
Current Lake Michigan Shore Conditions
Scootercam will move to GlowHost webhosting; the account is being set up now. That’s where I’ll work on Scootercam’s WordPress plugins and theme. That’s it, really – these plugins will make Scootercam sustainable!
A comprehensive WordPress plugin for displaying weather information from Visual Crossing data, including current conditions, 24-hour forecasts, and 7-day forecasts. Features Current Conditions Display individual weather data points using simple shortcodes: 24-Hour Forecast Display a detailed hourly forecast table showing: 7-Day Forecast Display a visual weekly forecast widget with: Installation Configuration Data Paths Navigate to … Read more
Scootercam is a weather station website with webcams. It started out as a hobby but has outgrown its sandbox, and is on its way to a sustainable future as a set of easily-maintained WordPress plugins. Each plugin does something specific, and we’ll dive into each of them later. First though is the view from 30,000 … Read more
Most of Scootercam’s data comes from data broker Visual Crossing. Visual Crossing collects its weather data from a blend of national meteorological services, global forecast models, radar and satellite sources, and a network of local weather stations. The platform then merges and normalizes these feeds to provide both historical and forecast data at fine spatial … Read more
Almost all of Scootercam’s essential functions have been rewritten and improved by AI, and rebuilt as WordPress plugins. And I’m a bit stunned. I’ve been using Claude AI ($20 a month, so I need to finish soon). I’ve run into usage limits and Claude’s propensity to overthink solutions, but it’s been pretty solid. to The … Read more
A WordPress plugin that displays a beautiful gallery of sunset timelapse videos captured nightly by Amcrest and Reolink cameras in Allegan County, Michigan. Features Installation 1. Create Plugin Directory 2. Upload Files Upload the plugin files: 3. Set Permissions 4. Activate Plugin 5. Configure Settings File System Paths (Absolute): URL Paths (Relative to domain root): … Read more
WordPress plugin for displaying comprehensive sun and moon data including sunset/moonset beauty predictions, phase calendars, arc visualizations, and viewing information. Description This plugin provides detailed astronomical information with beautiful visualizations: Installation Shortcodes Prediction Shortcodes Sunset Beauty Score Displays tonight’s sunset quality prediction with score, rating, and contributing factors. Moonset Beauty Score [scootercam_moonset_score show_details=”false”] Displays tonight’s … Read more
