The Process
tl;dr version
EvoCam takes picture every 30 seconds, uploads it to a web server via FTP. EvoCam also holds on to the images until just before midnight when it creates a video from the stills and uploads the resulting .mp4 to the same web server. The rest is all done outside of EvoCam using Automator, Cronnix, Dropbox, Zapier, IFTTT, etc.
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Thank you.
How It All (Mostly) Works
The process has been hacked together over the last 12+ years since I first pointed a camera out the window and fired up EvoCam. I have used at least 3 computers over the years to run EvoCam, but it’s been the consistent part of the process. Which kinda sucks because the makers of EvoCam, Evological, went dark years ago, and I have been unable to find software that does the things I need it to do. I am trying to keep everything running on older computers, but ideally I want to find another solution.
If you are a software developer and want a project, please contact me.
I am having a hard time deciding where to begin. So here are some bullet points to flesh out soon by transfering over blog entries from another site. Read the tl;dr above and then these bullet points:
- EvoCam is taking still images every 30 seconds. It is simultaneously uploading the image to be presented here, and adding each image to files which it will later turn into (.mp4) videos — one for the 24-hour version and one for the daylight-only. This process can be found in detail in a blog entry from 2018.
- At midnight EvoCam saves the local video files and uploads the same files to this site via FTP.
- Shortly after midnight an Automator application runs — triggered by a Cronnix, a visual cron application — which moves the daylight-only video file to a Dropbox directory.
- The Dropbox file’s presence triggers a Zapier applet which uploads the video to the YouTube channel, adding the title with the previous day’s date, a description, and tags.
- A short time after that another Automator application moves the file out of Dropbox (to save storage space!) and gives it a new chronological name for archives.
- There is also a cron to compress each month’s worth of daily videos, and move the old files to the trash to save local space.
- A few hours later an IFTTT applet creates a new post to this website’s WordPress blog. The blog is federated using the ActivityPub WordPress plugin, meaning that a new “toot” is posted as well. This allows people to follow the project from whatever federated service they may use, such as Mastodon.