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BLUE SKIES™ v1.1
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1994-03-29
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WELCOME TO BLUE-SKIES!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A unique weather display system has been created, dubbed Blue-Skies. Written
by University of Michigan student Alan Steremberg under a National Science
Foundation grant, Blue-Skies is designed to provide an extremely user-friendly
interface so that users with a minimal computer background can easily obtain
the information they need.
The Blue-Skies program offers users relatively fast access to literally
hundreds of real-time weather and environmental images. Among its innovative
features is the incorporation of a file transfer protocol based on the
University of Minnesota's "gopher" (though we call it "groundhog") service.
Blue-Skies is a gopher client, with interactive graphics capabilities current
Macintosh gopher clients do not support. The gopher protocol allows for easy
control of the graphical user interface, the addition of special topics that
can be dynamically updated without altering the client.
WHO CAN USE BLUE-SKIES
----------------------
Blue-Skies was developed with K-12 schools in the State of Michigan as its
primary target. At this time, however, no restrictions are being placed on its
distribution or use. If non K-12 use grows to the point where the K-12 schools
see significantly reduced service, access to the Blue-Skies data will be
restricted.
HARDWARE REQUIRED
-----------------
Blue-Skies runs only on color or gray-scale Macintosh computers. It will not
run on the Mac+ or Apple II computers. Plans are underway to port Blue-Skies to
IBM-PC machines running Microsoft Windows, but this software will likely be
unavailable until 1995.
If you are not connected to the Internet, you will need a modem. We
recommended a fast modem of at least 9600 bps, because many of the images are
large and take considerable time to transfer over slow phone lines.
SOFTWARE REQUIRED
-----------------
Blue-Skies is a TCP/IP application which requires a TCP/IP network to be
properly functioning prior to Blue-Skies being launched. A TCP/IP network
connection can be directly connected, as in the form of a campus ethernet
backbone, or the required TCP/IP connection can be established via dial-in
service.
If you are connecting via a modem and phone line, you will need another
layer of communication software. This layer will consist of either a SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point-Protocol) connection
from desktop to service provider. Contact your local network service provider
to determine which protocol is supported.
Recommended Reading:
The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh
by Adam C. Engst
published by Hayden Books.
This book contains a good foundation for the technical aspects of network
connectivity, as well as a thorough map to information resources on the
Internet. Included with the book is a copy of Apple's MacTCP software. We
STRONGLY recommend you run MacTCP 2.04 or higher; early versions of MacTCP have
a bug in the part that figures out how to talk to other machines on the
Internet (the code dealing with the DNR, or Domain Name Resolver, does not work
correctly.)
Users should also have NCSA telnet, a free public-domain communications
program that will allow one to access the normal text-based Weather Underground
data (the UM-WEATHER program that you are running now.) NCSA Telnet is included
in the Internet Starter Kit.
PPP
MichNet, the service provider for Michigan, supports PPP network access.
MacPPP was developed by Merit Network, Inc, and is freely available.
MacPPP can be retreived with anonymous ftp:
machine: merit.edu
directory: /pub/ppp/mac
*********************
Network Authorization
*********************
A new user of the MichNet network will need to obtain a network
authorization account. Application paperwork is found in the file
"application.txt" or Network_Application_Form.txt, depending on where you are
reading this file.
or contact:
Merit Network, Inc.
Attn: Merit Authorization Service Account Manager
2901 Hubbard, Pod G
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
***********************
HOW TO GET THE SOFTWARE
***********************
Using Gopher
------------
If you are using an old version of Blue-Skies or the freely available
Turbogopher program, connect to: groundhog.sprl.umich.edu (port 70), change
directories to "Software", then double click on the "Blue-Skies_1.0.sea.hqx"
file. It will then be transferred to your computer. The file is over 200K in
size, so it will transfer rather slowly (about 3 minutes at 9600 baud if you're
using Blue-Skies 1.0).
The "hqx" extension on the file means that it has been compressed using the
freely available BinHex4.0 software; you do not need to worry about
uncompressing the file, since Blue-Skies and Turbogopher will do this
automatically for you.
The "sea" extension on the file means it is a "Self Extracting Archive".
This means that the file is really an archive of several files. Simply double
click on the rectangular "Blue-Skies.sea" icon, and the files containing the
latest Blue-Skies release will be extracted (a dialog box will appear asking
you where to put the files on your hard drive). Once the files are extracted,
you may throw the "Blue-Skies.sea" file in the trash, if you wish. It is no
longer needed to run Blue-Skies.
Using Fetch, Xferit, or NCSA Telnet
------------------------------------
One can also get the software using one of the freely available Macintosh
file transfer programs such as "Fetch", "Xferit", or "NCSA Telnet".
Connect to: madlab.sprl.umich.edu.
When it asks for your user name, type in "anonymous".
When asked for your password, simply type your email address.
Now you are connected to our ftp file server.
Change directories to "pub/Blue-Skies".
Before transferring the file, be sure to set the transfer mode to binary.
Finally, get the file "Blue-Skies_1.0.sea.hqx". You will need to run the freely
available "BinHex 4.0" program to uncompress the file.
*********************************
What BLUE-SKIES currently offers:
*********************************
Interactive Weather Maps - A unique feature of the Blue-Skies program is the
availability of Interactive Weather Maps, which contain a weather image (e.g.
radar map with fronts, satellite image, etc.) in which all textual information
on current conditions and forecasts is embedded. There are cities plotted
throughout the map, and as the computer mouse passes over the cities, the
current conditions (temperature, wind direction and speed, etc.) are shown on a
status bar. If the user clicks on the city, the latest National Weather
Service forecast for that city is displayed. The user also has the capability
to zoom in on selected regions of the country, allowing more cities to be
displayed and allowing greater exploration of weather phenomena.
The interactivity allows students to explore basic questions of meteorology,
such as "What are the changes in winds, temperature and relative humidity
across a cold front," or "What is the relationship of precipitation and clouds
to low pressure systems?"
International Weather Maps - Color maps of temperature and precipitation are
generated every 6 hours for most of the world. These maps will soon be
interactive, and display the monthly climatological data for several thousand
cities across the world when one clicks on the city.
Weather Animations - Weather is, of course, a decidedly non- static
phenomenon. The Blue-Skies program acknowledges this by allowing access to
Quicktime movies of the latest several hours of satellite imagery, as well as
precipitation and frontal movements, temperature changes, and wind field
changes. The animations are created and updated hourly on an IBM RS/6000
workstation using Apple software. Currently, the animations cover a 24-hour
time period.
Ozone Hole - While the display of weather information is the primary goal of
Blue-Skies, there is no limitation to the breadth of information which can be
disseminated via this technology. Recent images of the percent of normal ozone
column, as reported by the TOMS satellite is made available as it is released
by NASA. These images empower the students and teachers to observe the raw
data at the earliest opportunity. The data are released in an unverified form,
which force the participants to evaluate whether the results seem plausible,
given the risk of erroneous data in the raw data stream.
Air Pollution - All the daily Acid Rain precipitation chemistry data from
the Utility Acid Precipitation Assessment Program will be made available. This
allows students to interrogate a single day across sites, or a single site
across days. Data in a tab- delineated format can be downloaded to your local
computer by clicking on the icon for a selected site.
Famous Weather Events - Inasmuch as nature seldom cooperates with course
planning a special folder containing archives of selected weather phenomena has
been created. This folder contains images and data corresponding to
hurricanes, tornado outbreaks, snow storms, and other materials useful for
classroom projects. The imagery included in this archives will be used to
support curriculum activities available on the system.
Curriculum Materials - Ideas and information on how to use Blue-Skies for
teaching in the K-12 classroom.
Exploring the Internet - A gateway to the amazing diversity of the
world-wide computer network called the Internet.
************************
FEATURES OF THE SOFTWARE
************************
Once a user selects an image and pulls it over the network, he or she can:
1. Save the image to disk;
2. Print the image to black and white or color printers;
and/or
3. Copy images from Blue-Skies into a report or presentation.
An Auto-Launch feature allows one to load images at a set time each day.
This is useful, for example, when one wants to load the large animation files
early in the morning so they are ready for presentation at class time.
One can add "bookmarks" to frequently-used images and forecasts by means of
a "Startup Items" file.
********************
WHERE TO GO FOR HELP
********************
We are primarily in the business of providing support on how to use the
Blue-Skies software itself. We realize that for those of you who do not have a
TCP/IP network connection in place, getting one working can be difficult. In
particular, getting macPPP set up correctly can be a challenge. We STRONGLY
urge you to establish a TCP/IP Intenet connection yourself, by consulting
support staff of your network provider. We simply do not have the resources to
be troubleshooting everyone's unique networking problems.
Questions can be sent to:
blueskies@umich.edu
or
The Weather Underground
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2143
or (last resort) call 313-936-0491
or 313-764-4584
*******
CREDITS
*******
Dr. Perry Samson: Director of Weather Underground project
Jeffrey Ferguson: Program Coordinator
Alan Steremberg: Main author of "Blue-Skies" Macintosh program.
Jeff Masters: Blue-skies content coordinator; Author of UM-WEATHER
Tracy Mullen Image generation and UNIX programming coordinator
Mike Monan: Macintosh and UNIX programming
Michael Kamprath: Macintosh programming
Neeraj Shaw: UNIX programming