WXforum.net
Weather Software => Weather Display => Topic started by: CNYWeather on August 25, 2017, 06:05:34 AM
-
From Brian the developer of Weather Display:
in the past weather-display.com used to get a lot web traffic from wunderground.com
but not now after they re did their personal weather station web site
see if you can find the link to about what software is now available
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/overview.asp
(it is very hidden)
I do pay a monthly API fee to wunderground and was the first person to send them data way back in November 2000
so now WD sales have just about dried up, which spells the end
http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php/topic,65553.0.html
-
Well now that is interesting. WD was the first piece of software I used. With a Dallas Semi/AAG Electronic weather station. Must have been at least 15 years ago. But yeah, the world is changing for sure. I recall working with a guy from Sweden who wrote cool software to monitor internal (and external) modems. Guess that is in the big bit bucket in the sky, too. Well if it WD dies, hopefully Brian will open source the code.
-
The same thing is happening to a degree with Meteotemplate, with the developer who is exceptionally responsive and can program with the best of them, facing the amount of time it takes for non-payers asking questions to having to license some of the software tools if he commercializes the product.
As important as this is to us, we have to remember this is an exceptionally niche market, and as hobbyists we cannot afford what big TV stations and commercial endeavors can budget for this.
Brian has a product that is well received, works well for me, and my concern now will be making sure I keep the computer that runs the software healthy so if it fails (when?) in the future, I'll not be dead in the water.
Maybe he'll keep a small avenue open to generate licenses on a per computer request for a fee, which I'd gladly pay just to keep my stuff running. His software feeds my local displays, generates web pages that are better than most, and feeds an api load to Meteotemplate. To lose it would be a major kick to the midsection.
As much as online newspapers are contributing to the demise of the printed page delivered daily, the concept of shareware or freeware takes its toll.
-
Another thing: WU is taking a cut of the action by allowing you to purchase HW and SW thru them.
-
I made up my mind about this, but I wont go into that here.
With regards to this in general, it would be a shame especially since I see similar trends with regards to Cumulus
-
And all the other SW not bundled. WeatherCat, VWS, etc. I think this is the IoT of weather.
-
the problem is
the market is shrinking
new weather stations on the market go straight to wifi and straight to the cloud
i.e no need to run software on a pc/laptop (which people do not want to have running 24 hours a day now (people now use tablets/ipads anyway now, and so they are not on 24/7)
there are donation ware alternatives (cumulus,even if that has stopped being developed as well)
wunderground was a great advertiviser, but it has obviously got into selling agreements/promotions with meteobridge/pro etc and so that is pushed more
(i.e let that plug and play type hardware run 24/7 and do all the work of updating what you need)
-
This is a very difficult situation now for small developers.
Large companies like WU, NetAtmo, but even Google, Microsoft... they have many branches and so they can afford certain services for free. For example how many of you pay for having an email, probably no-one, they also have lots of visitors so advertising on its own makes enough profit. Then you can offer stuff for free.
The problem is that people sort of got used to this, got used to the fact that lots of stuff on the internet is "free".
It then becomes a major issue for smaller developers, especially when it is not just a hobby, in which case you need guaranteed source of incomes and subscription model seems as the only viable option in long-term. But let's be honest, we all hate subscription-based model as users...
I would say the only way for smaller devs to exist these days is to have something really unique (which also works only limited period of time because if it is something really unique and good, it just happens that very often these things cannot be patented and one of the larger companies will copy it. This happened countless times, probably the best example from these days is Snapchat, which was copied by FB and is now losing money.
Anyway, I sitll believe that WD is the number one PWS software and so it would be a real shame to see it go or no longer being developed. The market and trends are changing, no doubt about that, but in my opinion it only means also the financial model has to be changed. Not stopped. Changed.
-
Jáchym, Sounds all to familiar, have you seen the light?
-
Meteotemplate is not my job which changes things
-
Think Jáchym hit the nail on the head. Seems like PC run stations are slowly giving away to Wi-Fi direct or hubs like Meteobridge and MeteoHub.
My personal situation, Windows is progressively becoming the biggest headache I have to deal with. I run 2 weather stations here in McKinney, both on Windows laptops running Weather Display software.
At my main station I have Windows 7 and at my smaller station Windows 8. Windows is becoming such a frustration that I'm considering someday upgrading to Meteobridge. Unfortunately if I drop PC's I'd also have to drop Weather Display unless I can have the computer getting data from the network.
I'd imagine most people wouldn't go through the trouble of adding a PC to a self sufficient weather monitoring system but that's just my theory.
I absolutely love Weather and will continue to use it as long as I can and continue to recommend it but I really think the technology advances are what's hurting software developer.
-
The dumbing of the hobby.
With a PC getting the data, you can do anything with it. We use programs like Brian's to manipulate, graph, record and display analysis.
When we stop rolling our own, we are pretty much stuck with what the people like Davis contract to have programmed, then other than break fixes, shut things down.
I've seen many cool things done with data here, especially with Meteotemplate and the Saratoga initiatives. At one point with simpler tools, I used QBasic and an old PC to give me a rudimentary Weather Display, and learned a hell of a lot about programming, data bases, overloading a proecessor with all my ideas balancing against just making it work.
Heck, it is hard to find someone in high school who can do any programming outside of a web page. When computers filled rooms and Digital Equipment Corp was just putting PDP-8s and 11s on the market, I spent time with buddies going over the language manuals and learning how to program even though we couldn't get to a real computer to try out our ideas.
I lament the loss of various projects that WD allows some in this group (and unseen folks, too) in bringing laser and ultrasonic snow depth detectors, clear sky detectors, Bloomskys, additional soil and water temperatures, UV, sunshine, on and on with things that are either very expensive our outright not available with the Wx stations that are mass produced. Yes, those companies can fork over the bucks to hire engineers to do it right (something that unfortunately Heathkit didn't quite do so well with the ID-5001 in so many ways) but look at the discussion of the more accurate temp and humidity chips and all.
As we drift to an off the shelf hobby, so will folks be happy with the dumbed down offerings that make it so very exciting to be here.
-
It is all about apps these days. Mobile apps and webpages.
Does that mean the end of WD? Not really. There will still be quite a few people using it for quite some time. The problem therefore lies only in the fact that Brian's current financial model makes no income of existing users and there is no doubt about the fact there is and will be even less new users given current trends.
Whether we like it or not (and of course we all hate subscriptions...) it is the ONLY sustainable model for smaller developers in longterm.
-
I don't believe people have really yet started to get p$ssed off with Microsoft and windows 10, windows 10 is going to drive a lot of people mad, Microsoft's attitude with windows 10 is going to be even worse. A lot of PC based stuff done today is going to disappear
-
Our IT admin is a very calm person, the only time I ever see him swearing and being totally pi** off is (almost every day) when installing new Windows and then spending 1-2 days with trying to find (?), verify, install, verify again, configure, implement .... Windows updates... and usually without any luck
-
I run a dedicated win 7 pc just for WD. I wouldn't mind a yearly subscription to cover Brian's costs and support. I think if some people could do a small donation to him, it could really help him. Then it would help us running WD with support and updates.
-
This is a very interesting thread and at first glance, seems to doom our hobby. However, don't we need to take a step back and look at what we provide to our users? If WD and the myriad of other weather-related packages disappear, what is going to happen to our users? I've been on-line with a local weather site for over 11 years now and I still get lots of emails asking for enhancements or tweeks to my website. I started with VWS but finally gave up on that over a year ago now due to consistent program failures that the developer refused to even acknowledge were problems. I then switched to WD and my problems disappeared almost overnight.
Now, would I consider paying a subscription fee to keep WD active and updated - you bet I would! It is quite naive of all of us to think that we can continue to receive support and software updates at no cost beyond the initial purchase price of the software. Sure, we'd love to have it that way but, realistically, it just can't continue. Perhaps we need to ask Brian, Jachym and the others who have taken the time to develop these great software packages (that we depend on) if they can continue to offer their services to everyone at no cost? I'll bet while they may want to do that, they'll admit providing such excellent service should have a cost associated with it.
-
I initially gave for Cumulus and have followed up a couple times since and exceeded what the initial coat of WD was just in donations. I haven't donated in couple years because he stopped development on the version of Cumulus I use.
-
I initially gave for Cumulus and have followed up a couple times since and exceeded what the initial coat of WD was just in donations. I haven't donated in couple years because he stopped development on the version of Cumulus I use.
Hi Folks,
I donated $50 to Brian last week after reading the thread both on here and the Weather-Watch Forum. Granted I don't currently use WD, I still have my license for it and a copy of ver. 10.37R build 81 (or I think I still have a copy) running around here on a DVD.
I have been contemplating switching back to WD from Cumulus MX, and while MX runs fine and I haven't had any issues with it, I know the developer, Steve, hasn't updated it since January of this year, which is concerning for a lot of users.
John
-
The reality is, running a Win PC for collecting wx-data are out. The powercosts, Windows itself etc.
As said before cloud and wifi are the future but also RaspberryPi-like SBC's whats powerusage are a fraction of a PC's usage. Pi runs actually with less than 1 watt and with the European powercosts are its payback even less than a year in saved powercosts.
I runned WD for years on PC and switched to Pi + WeeWX in May. The main issue was the frequent crashes of the Win7 PC and all the hassles that caused. That PC, with 4G RAM + SSD, runned only WD and WXSIM. The Pi has now runned w/o a single crash for 4 months.
-
I choose to keep my own backups, photos, and all on multiple local hard drives. I do not and will not use the cloud or some remote provider of service.
I'll pay the couple bucks a month in electricity.
I'd like to have choices. I still use MS Word that is on my computer and not a subscription. It works just fine. I won't go to Adobe cloud sourced programs, and have one of the last versions of stand alone Lightroom.
I agree to your assessment but I choose to follow a different and equally valid method of doing my weather hobby.
-
I don't like cloud or subscriptions either, i'm so old-fashion too so i like to have the data on own drives. But even Pi can be runned on SSD, like mine wx-Pi runs, no need for crappy SD-cards there :-)
-
weatherc: Good to know about the tiny PC and raspberry setups.
I'll have to take a new look this winter when outdoor attractions are fewer than now.
Thanks for the clarification. Your original message as I read it implied that we should be dumping all stuff to the 'net' and have someone else keep tabs on it.
More than a good decade or so ago, I used QBasic to code my own pc to gather info from and old Heathkit ID-5001. The screen looked remarkably similar to WD in many respects. And I could fiddle with it all I wanted to change the look or storage frequency,etc.
Now I'm not smart enough to code with new tools and to look at the enormous variety of things Brian does with WD makes emulating his product on a personal basis impossible, even if I knew the language it was written in.
I grew up before computers, then when folks got them kids in school were taught to code, then just use the aps. That is sad, since it puts the magic back inside the box and out of the hands of those who need to learn.
The Rasp and Arduino projects return much of that to the common person. Still a lot of work, and many people now seem to have less than an hour's attention span. Maybe they should try writing a book!
-
Dang I hate to see the end of WD Although I haven't had a need to upgrade to the latest build lately I still rely on it to get the job done for me. I started out with VWS but there were so many things it couldn't do at the time I switched to WD and have been very happy ever since. Strangely it seems a lot of hobbies are dropping off the last few years but I don't have an answer as to why.
-
I don't believe people have really yet started to get p$ssed off with Microsoft and windows 10, windows 10 is going to drive a lot of people mad, Microsoft's attitude with windows 10 is going to be even worse. A lot of PC based stuff done today is going to disappear
I don't have trouble with Windows 10 running my 24 hour a day laptop fully devoted to loading my weather website. Maybe it only means I'm not intelligent enough to force serious problems to develop.
-
This is a very interesting thread and at first glance, seems to doom our hobby. However, don't we need to take a step back and look at what we provide to our users? If WD and the myriad of other weather-related packages disappear, what is going to happen to our users? I've been on-line with a local weather site for over 11 years now and I still get lots of emails asking for enhancements or tweeks to my website.
LOL, after 8 years I almost never get email directed to my site. When I do, it's only from a web developer or someone wanting me to put up a link. I think most people are happy with what the big company websites offer as weather info and forecasts.
-
Depends where you live, if you are in an area where there is no professional station nearby, then personal websites are nice. And please do not mention WU... :D
-
The reality is, running a Win PC for collecting wx-data are out. The powercosts, Windows itself etc.
As said before cloud and wifi are the future but also RaspberryPi-like SBC's whats powerusage are a fraction of a PC's usage. Pi runs actually with less than 1 watt and with the European powercosts are its payback even less than a year in saved powercosts.
I runned WD for years on PC and switched to Pi + WeeWX in May. The main issue was the frequent crashes of the Win7 PC and all the hassles that caused. That PC, with 4G RAM + SSD, runned only WD and WXSIM. The Pi has now runned w/o a single crash for 4 months.
I NEVER have an issue with WD crashing. I run on an Intel NUC with 16 GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD and Win7 Professional. It pulls 6-10 watts of power. I actually have two of these and neither one EVER crashes.
http://www.northgeorgiawx.com/weather-blog/weather-computers
-
I like Weather Display, but the software has become long in the tooth.
The interface is very disorganized, and it does not support both high resolution and high-DPI screens. Working with it is very hard because of this - all the windows have to be resized because they are cutoff and some of the graphs don't even fit.
Being a developer myself, it would be a lot of work for this guy because the version of C he is using to program it does not support high DPI screens and came from a time long before they existed.
So it may be best the software be open sourced and layed to rest. It was a very good program though for it's time.
-
I like Weather Display, but the software has become long in the tooth.
The interface is very disorganized, and it does not support both high resolution and high-DPI screens. Working with it is very hard because of this - all the windows have to be resized because they are cutoff and some of the graphs don't even fit.
Being a developer myself, it would be a lot of work for this guy because the version of C he is using to program it does not support high DPI screens and came from a time long before they existed.
So it may be best the software be open sourced and layed to rest. It was a very good program though for it's time.
For me it's the data, not the dated display. I've never used WD's graphics, only its data.
-
For me it's the data, not the dated display. I've never used WD's graphics, only its data.
Same here. Displaying WD's data on the web makes WD's display on, say, a PC irrelevant. Which is why I use it.
-
Geesh folks, why are you griping about WD? If you don't like it then don't use it. For me, and I think most of us on WXFORUM and the Weather-Weather forum, we are not looking at WD for professional purposes. This is a hobby and Brian has done a marvelous job in creating a tool to "enhance" that hobby. And, above all, Brian is probably one of the few developers who supports his software in an almost real-time mode. It doesn't seem to matter what time of the day or night it is, all you have to do is ask a question and he seems to come back with an answer in a very short period time. Not many others can say that. Perhaps we have all taken Brian's work for granted and that is a shame.
I'll continue to use WD as long as I am able to do so and it is available.
So, let's all give Brian and all of the others who have developed scripts and templates that use the WD data a BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE and THANKS! =D> =D> =D>
-
Geesh folks, why are you griping about WD? If you don't like it then don't use it. For me, and I think most of us on WXFORUM and the Weather-Weather forum, we are not looking at WD for professional purposes. This is a hobby and Brian has done a marvelous job in creating a tool to "enhance" that hobby. And, above all, Brian is probably one of the few developers who supports his software in an almost real-time mode. It doesn't seem to matter what time of the day or night it is, all you have to do is ask a question and he seems to come back with an answer in a very short period time. Not many others can say that. Perhaps we have all taken Brian's work for granted and that is a shame.
I'll continue to use WD as long as I am able to do so and it is available.
So, let's all give Brian and all of the others who have developed scripts and templates that use the WD data a BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE and THANKS! =D> =D> =D>
Couldn't agree more.
So it may be best the software be open sourced and layed to rest. It was a very good program though for it's time
Don't think it's time to bury WD just yet. The support is fantastic as stated above. A good example is the new PurpleAir sensor. Hits the market and now supported by WD. Can't believe how hard Brian works to make this a great weather program.
-
Agreed, i will use WD as long as i have a wx station,
For me it's the data, not the dated display. I've never used WD's graphics, only its data.
Same here. Displaying WD's data on the web makes WD's display on, say, a PC irrelevant. Which is why I use it.
I do not agree, turn on the monitor and there sits WD, no need to open any browsers, viewing the data in WD
is just not the same as online, its just missing something.
I have now cut my WX power consumption from £5 down to around £0.86pw running a laptop with 2nd monitor
that could be cut to about nothing if i dropped to an eco PC but i couldnt justify the £300 to £400 outlay so i opted
for a touch screen Vaio at £120 :) it can run 2 WD and WXsim with other smaller programs too, thats about it though...
-
That's great as long as you're sitting in front of the computer where it's running. I NEVER go to my bedroom and sit down and look at WD or anything else on that computer, I'd rather sit in my living room and view the data on my website. If I'm at work and didn't have my website, I certainly wouldn't be looking at WD, or when I'm out of town I wouldn't be looking at WD.
For me, WD is just the tool that processes the data. I then take that data and try to make it organized and attractive to view on my websites.
I have never used the graphs etc that WD creates simply because they're not that attractive.
-
That's great as long as you're sitting in front of the computer where it's running. I NEVER go to my bedroom and sit down and look at WD or anything else on that computer, I'd rather sit in my living room and view the data on my website. If I'm at work and didn't have my website, I certainly wouldn't be looking at WD, or when I'm out of town I wouldn't be looking at WD.
For me, WD is just the tool that processes the data. I then take that data and try to make it organized and attractive to view on my websites.
I have never used the graphs etc that WD creates simply because they're not that attractive.
Yes, so it does not suit you. Wouldnt it be boring if we were all the same? Obviously you have good reasons not to use it, which are valid for you.Others use their data and display them differently. I really see no point in this thread.
-
I use WD on all my sites and love it, I just don't sit in front of the computer that's running it to look at it. Not sure of your point but if you look at my website, I am not the same as anyone else.
-
Jachym, I believe the point of this thread has become the defense of WD as a superb collector of weather data from most PWS's. What we do with said data is highly individualized and probably not related to the actual graphical WD displays. I have a second VP2 console in my bedroom where I can view the current data generated by my VP2+. If something interesting such as precipitation or a dramatic temperature change is displayed I can then go to my web site and determine when and how such events occurred.
-
I agree with Jerry. There is so much data produced by WD, that WD can't possibly display it all on your computer, hence the websites.
I dropped VWS to strictly go with WD and do not regret my decision at all. If development on WD stops, hopefully WD will run forever on the boxes I now have. Despite the clunky interface, WD has more options and more flexibility than any other weather software out there.
-
Yes, I agree completely with that - in the end it would be strange if I said websites are useless wouldnt it... - but my point was that everyone uses WD the way they need it and for some it might be becoming redundant, for others it is still useful as it was at the beginning.
-
I'm hoping that WD will get the occasional tweak, when Brian feels in the mood and misses the project.
But as long as there are no major instabilities, I'm keeping it as my program to gather station data and then let me display it when and where I want.
Programs such as Jachym's Meteotemplate take WD data efficiently, and add many other resources to a very configurable web site display, all done with modern or even futuristic graphic design layouts. But without some source of local weather data, it would just be, well not quite but you get the idea, a re-packaging of other sources of data.
Also look at the Saratoga sites, and see how many say at the bottom that WD is used to gather and manage local data.
I know how it is when tools change, and the learning curve for the new one or the expense of upgrade is not worth it. Many years ago I wrote custom data base managment programs using first dBase then FoxBase (which I loved) yet when it had to migrate to the Visual FoxBase and MicroSoft sort of abandoned it, that was the kiss of death for those projects being upgraded.
I would point out that as many years ago as that was, one of the major projects I did still is humming along at a customer's site. They have heard me make referrals to programmers who have the tools and experience to update them, but since it works and does all they need, nothing has been re-written. I think WD is sort of like that, but on a much grander scale.
If Brian really is signing off on WD, my hat is off to his herculean efforts and my sincere thanks for a tool that does what I need it to do. It's not that I haven't tried some of the other stuff, but always found them lacking. Perhaps it was familiarity that was comforting and kept me with WD, but almost always the newer programs were far less sophisticated or left a needed function by the wayside.
-
I have to say I dont quite get some of the posts above. WD is not ending! Brian never said he plans to call it a day. Reading this is only likely to discourage potential future users. This thread IMHO is doing more harm than good.
-
Jachym,
That is delightful news!
There was a posting of a communication from Brian to a user some time back that was shared, perhaps wrongly, that indicated nothing further would be done, or so it seemed to read.
I re-read it several times hoping I was getting it wrong.
PLEASE keep going, Brian, and keep WD alive and kicking!
Dale
-
I've been in contact with Brian also and he says
no, WD's end is not near (will be one day though)
this thread should never have been started and its affecting other people who rely on WD for a source of income (e.g weather map live)
So.. Weather-Display will be around and Brian will be continuing support for his very popular program. I'm closing this thread on that good note .. no more speculations, please.