Son of Weather Grok is an application that displays weather conditions for cities from around the world. It taps into NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) data center using 4 letter ICAO codes for Airports. A web page to help you locate these ICAO codes can be found at:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/siteloc.shtml
The ICAO is the code with the 4 letters. The codes that use numbers will NOT work. Keep in mind that some remote stations, like most in Afghanistan, do not work. Give it a try, but some of these stations never seem to report any data.
Son of Grok will show the temperature, sky conditions, humidity, wind speed, pressure, ceiling, visibility, and much more. Weather data is usually updated hourly from NOAA, and you can set Son of Grok to get this data at specified time intervals. The data is then displayed in an easy to read format using fancy-schmancy sky condition illustrations like you see on the news, along with the details in a small scrolling ticker and drop down list.
What's the difference between Son of Weather Grok and Weather Grok?
Besides being a completely new, optimized rewrite of Weather Grok, Son of Grok can do two things father Grok was never able to do: Multiple windows and the option to save weather data as local text files.
How do I begin using this?
To start, double click the Son of Weather Grok application icon. Choose "File" then "New Window" from the menu bar, and then choose a city from the "Stations" menu (or Command + Click on the window).You can add or delete stations from this menu in the Station Editor, by choosing "Edit Stations List" under the stations menu.
Son of Weather Grok will now begin downloading and displaying the conditions for that city. To assign a new city to the window (file), simply choose a new city from the Stations menu. To create separate windows for separate cities, simply create a new station window and repeat the steps above.
Other Options:
The scroll speed of the ticker can be set either through the contextual menu (Control+Click) or in the Preferences panel (Edit > Preferences in the menu bar). You can also change stations by using Command+Click on the window itself. Son of Grok is Proxy Server friendly (the option can be set up in the preferences panel). You can also have Son of Grok get the weather at specified time intervals, when the application launches a file, or when you manually use "File" then "Update Now" from the menu bar.
Son of Weather Grok can optionally save the data for each city in a text file on your Macintosh after it is downloaded. This option can be found in the preferences panel. When you select "Save weather data files after updates", Son of Grok will create a new folder in the same folder the application resides in called "Weather_Data_Files". In here it will save all the data for a city in an individual text file. The file will be given the same name as the ICAO code along the a ".txt" or ".xml" extension. For example, Minneapolis, which has an ICAO code of KMSP, would be saved as a file called "KMSP.txt" in the "Weather_Data_Files" folder if it is saved as text (plain or tabbed), or "KMSP.xml" if you are saving it as such.
Changes:
Version 3.2
• Minor cosmetic fixes. Up and Down arrows in preferences now work.
Version 3.1:
• Fixed a bug that caused S of WG to erroneously report that no data could be found.
Version 3.0:
• Completely new GUI
• Many bug fixes. Faster and better connections to NOAA (ha ha), application no longer crashes when a file is dragged over the window under OS X, no longer stops working after extended periods of time, etc etc...
• Files can be saved as tab delimitated or XML.
• The timeout period and retry count can be user defined.
• Under OS X, title changes dynamically when docked.
• There can no longer be a PPC only, non carbon lib version. Sorry.
Version 2.0
• Fully Carbonized
• There is no longer a default file to choose to open at launch. In fact, Son of Weather Grok no longer uses station files. Rather, any window that is open when you quit Son of Weather Grok will automatically be reopened when you launch the application again.
• Non American standards can now be shown by default for ALL info.
• If there is a wind chill, the information will be shown below the temperature (rather than the temperature in opposite standard)
• There is now an option to show EST time rather than UTC time in the update status.
• The option to update all windows at once has been added (under "File", "Update All")
• Menu items now properly enable after Preferences window or About window is closed.
• PPP Connections via modems now work better.
• Sound issues fixed
• Works better
Usage:
Son of Weather Grok is, of course, 159% freeware. Please feel free to redistribute this application as you see fit, although you may never charge any fees for its distribution.
System Requirements:
PPC Macintosh, 5MB Ram, Mac OS 8.6 or higher or Mac OS X, Carbon Lib 1.2 or higher.
