NYCPHP Meetup

[Rolan Yang]

This is somewhat, but not completely related to the "Report with line 
breaks" thread.

I discovered yesterday that Google spreadsheets allows importing 
external data into the tables with the "=importData(URL)" function. 
Thought it would be cool to import some weather and home automation data 
which I am store on my home server.

Here's a small mashup which I threw together this morning that displays 
real time usage of my home furnace and the outside temperature.

http://www.omnistep.com/furnacemonitor/

Runs off linux,apache,php,mysql,google spreadsheets & gadgets.
There are links to source and component info in case you are interested 
in how it works.

It was surprisingly easy to throw together graphs and reports with 
google apps+gadgets. The only issue I might have with using this in 
"real" production is the passing of proprietary company data over Google 
(and possibly third party) networks and also the fact that running large 
dataset apps with javascript can turn a Pentium x GHz computer into what 
seems like a 386sx running Windows 3.1 (occasional freezing and crashing 
is expected).

~Rolan