In Living Color

[Garth Bock]

In the past when the discussion about what the VP3 should have...one suggestion that was near the top of the list was a color display. That may never happen from Davis. I happen to have it happening right now. I have a Kodak W1020 (10") wireless picture frame. I have it pointed at the root folder of VWS and it displays a slide show of the jpgs ! I also have a special utility that grabs weather jpgs from the internet on a regular basis and drops them into the folder so I have a nice rotating display of weather information. I recently picked up a second Kodak W1020 so I can have one displaying local conditions from my weather station and one can display national info. While there are other ways of doing this I found this to be the simplest and quickest method. One of the guys here at work put together an RSS module and one of the main things it did was put FaceBook updates on the Kodak. Least to say I was dumb founded...or I founded him dumb...you decide. There is also an RSS program floating around that has been abandoned by the author but what you get is a demo program that has to be restarted every 2 hours (yeah yeah..I know...Startwatch or a Windows Task) but its not worth it. I have another frame that is fed by Windows Media Player (meh) but I have not got it working yet.

The next step is to put the actual weather station software on a remote monitor. I just picked up an IOMEGA USB GUWAVKit which adds a remote extra monitor through a USB Wireless transmitter (WUSB format on 2.4 ghz). So far it is working really well. I plan to put together info on all this with a vid clip or pictures for everyone that is interested.

[Bushman]

My 54" Samsung Plasma HDTV is wireless connected to my PC. I think I will have to stream my weather to that! 

[SylvaniaWeather]

Great idea.  Think I'll try it on my android tablet.

[Garth Bock]

My 54" Samsung Plasma HDTV is wireless connected to my PC. I think I will have to stream my weather to that! 

Yeah. You could do PIP. Have you figured out how to do a slide show to prevent image ghosting ? Also, what utility are you using to pull down extra weather maps ? Let me know when you have this working so I can include it.

Since Kodak went bust, the wireless photo frames have been showing up on eBay. I just recently picked up another one for $30 ! What I am doing is repurposing the frame to display conditions and graphics in full color. I don't have to grab my remote and turn on the TV and I don't have to use a expensive pad. The frame is on the wall displaying the weather constantly and is kind of the next step above the weather station consoles. Also, the frame can be programmed to turn itself on in the morning and off at night (better than hunting for the remote).