NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day & iCal

I have set up an automator workflow to have NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) as my desktop image. It would automatically change each day via iCal. AWSOME PICTURES, by the way.
I have a snag . . . iCal isn't running the workflow . . . I had to use spotlight & click on the application to start the workflow today.
To originally set this up, I selected "iCal Alarm" from the plug-in list so that Automator can create an appointment for this workflow as a daily event. I chose 3:00 AM as the start time.
I checked iCal preferences, and found the "day" start & end times where 8 AM & 6 PM. Could this be the reason why the workflow didn't start when I turned my computer at 5 AM today?
Also, I'm Wireless, & connect to the internet manually each time . . . I'm wondering if the workflow gets snagged because I don't have an internet connection automatically with start-up?
KenMackay
1.25 GHz Power Mac G4; 1.33 GHz G4 iBook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

The Automator, as plug in, and iCal works perfectly at the alotted time. The only snag is that I have to be internet connected at the time the program is sheduled to run. I am wireless, & opt to manually "click in" to the internet at each start up. So, if I start up the computer
ii after the scheduled workflow start
, the Automator kicks in immediately to play catch up, but quites as soon as it can't connect to the URL . I can't connect to the internet fast enough, manually, to accommodate the Automator workflow.
I'm wondering if I have my wireless connection
ii connect
at start up, Automator won't be interupted & the APOD will appear at start up, even if I start my computer a little
ii after
the iCal workflow start.
Kenmackay
1.25 GHz Power Mac G4; 1.33 GHz G4 iBook Mac OS X (10.4.2)

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Random astronomy picture of the day

Not sure where to put this, I found a script on t'internet for downloading today's APOD and setting it as the gnome background. I then modified it to:
a) fix it to work with gif images as well as jpgs.
b) add xfce4 compatibility
c) get a random image instead of todays image
#!/bin/bash
#Filename: apodwallpaper
#Location: ${HOME}/.bin
#Purposes: Downloads NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day and displays it as the
# GNOME background
#Author(s): acvwJosh of Ubuntu Forums, modified by Colin Dean <http://cad.cx>
## Modified by deicist of ARCH linux forums: added xfce4 support, added .gif support, added random support
## requires athena-jot package from AUR
##random stuff goes here
##start date is a cutoff year to get images after. I use this because most pre-2000 images are too small to make good desktops
STARTDATE="2000";
NOW=$(date +%Y);
randYear=$(jot -r 1 $STARTDATE $NOW);
randMonth=$(jot -r 1 01 12);
randDay=$(jot -r 1 01 28);
getDate=$(date -d $randYear/$randMonth/$randDay +%y%m%d);
#change this if you want the image to be in a different directory
FILENAME=apodwallpaper
APODWALLPAPER=${HOME}/.${FILENAME}
#remove directory if it exists
rm -rf ${APODWALLPAPER}
mkdir -p ${APODWALLPAPER} && cd ${APODWALLPAPER}
# download image from apod site
wget -A.gif -A.jpg -R.txt -r -l1 --no-parent -nH http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap$getDate.html
# move image from obscure folder to main folder, rename image
find ./apod -name "*.gif" -or -name "*.jpg" | while read line ; do
mv "$line" "${FILENAME}.jpg"
done
#######uncomment next 3 lines for gnome
#gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename "blank.jpg"
#gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options "zoom"
######uncomment next line for xfce4 -primary display
#xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor0/image-path -s ""
#xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor0/image-path -s "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor0/image-style -s 3
#uncomment next line for xfce4 -secondary display
xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor1/image-path -s ""
xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor1/image-path -s "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor1/image-style -s 3
# Uncomment ONE of the following for use with feh (thanks to SkonesMickLoud)
#feh --bg-tile "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-center "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-scale "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-seamless "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#get rid of cruft
rm -rf apod robots.txt
Last edited by deicist (2009-03-26 22:29:14)

If you'd like to add it, the following works with feh:
# Uncomment ONE of the following for use with feh:
#feh --bg-tile "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-center "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-scale "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
#feh --bg-seamless "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
Also, line 26 should read rm -rf ${APODWALLPAPER} as ${APODWALLPAPER} is a dir, and most users would (probably) want to avoid confirming the removal of it every time.
I also get this error, even though everything seems to work:
./apodwallpaper.sh: line 15: jot: command not found
./apodwallpaper.sh: line 16: jot: command not found
./apodwallpaper.sh: line 17: jot: command not found
Jot isn't in the repos or AUR, is there an alternative?
Last edited by SkonesMickLoud (2009-03-26 17:39:51)

Grab picture of the day with Spry?

Hi,
I want to grab the picture of the day from:
nasa APOD site
and make that picture spry-fade in on my web page. Since I
don't know how big the picture will be I need the frame to auto
size or use spry shrink/grow to set pixel size??
Not sure how to proceed.

You can only request AJAX data from the same domain as your
Spry page.
Therefore, you will need to use a server side component to
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You can use their RSS feed to get the URL, but they don't
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Picture of the day (Thread)

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Hey there.
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Message was edited by: Carol Jeanne

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NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day & iCal

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