Forecastfox is better than ever with the lastest version. Sort of at least. There’s been three significant changes as far as I can tell. Two are good and one is either not good or it doesn’t matter.
First of all, the icons are bigger and prettier. They’re much easier to see than the old ones. It looks good.
Secondly, they’ve added a radar function. This shows up as a circle that shows a little radar screen as a mouse-over. This is a cool feature, though I must admit that the picture they show is zoomed out too far. I can see as far to the west as the Dakotas and well into the Atalantic on the other side. I can also see well into Canada to the North and down to Tenessee to the south. My beloved glove of a state is just a tiny spot in the middle…. it’s hard to see where the rain is. On the other hand, clicking on it will bring you to the full sized map on a web page.
The final change is that the data now comes from accuweather.com as opposed to weather.com. Accuweather hasn’t been forthcoming in releasing their forecast data in the past so I haven’t been a big fan of theirs. Plus, I think their site layout sucks, although come to look at it they’ve done some major work since the last time I was there, so it’s not so bad. I still prefer weather.com though. Oh well.
If you care about the weather at all, get this extension! It’s very very customizable and can be put in any toolbar. I have mine set to show in my menubar to the right of the actual menu items and the left of the “access” icon in the corner. Where there was once wasted space I can now see the current conditions and the forecast for the next week! It’s great.
Comment by Carl Schaad — June 7, 2005 @ 12:07 pm
Thanks for your notes on the Forecastfox extension. I’m doing some work gathering feedback on the new version. I’d like to hear more about what you mean by “Accuweather hasn’t been forthcoming in releasing their forecast data in the past”. Feel free to drop me a note if you have the chance.
Best!
Comment by Lucas — July 16, 2005 @ 4:57 pm
My appologies for taking so long to respond…. I’m an expert at forgetting things and procrastinating…
I originally said what I said because of things I had read about them over time. Going back to look…..I’m not sure if I’m crazy or not…
Simply put, I believe that what I said was plain wrong. I probably had the situation confused in my head.
The real thing that I don’t like about accuweather is their support in the elimination of public access to basic weather data from the NWS. I don’t want to see this information privatized when it’s already available for free and we’re all paying for it.
Comment by Carl Schaad — July 28, 2005 @ 10:35 am
Hey Lucas,
I apologize if I didn’t respond to your inquiry – but I did want to respond to the concern you raised about Senate bill 786. If you go to the CWSA’s site, freetheweather.com, and check out the bill itself ( http://freetheweather.com/s786.pdf ) take a look at sec 2.c.2; which states:
Data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings shall be issued under paragraph (1) through a set of data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers of products or services and by such other mechanisms as the Secretary of Commerce considers appropriate for purposes of that paragraph.
Everyone reporting on the bill seems to ignore that last part, which clearly states that the ultimate decision of how data is released is up to the dept. of Commerce. All the CWSA (and AccuWeather) desire is a level playing field in terms of competition in the private sector.
If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to drop me a note – always happy to “talk shop”!
Best,
Carl
Comment by Peter Gaultney — October 6, 2005 @ 12:52 pm
There is an extension for an for ForecastFox (extension for an extension =) ) which gives a much better look at your radar situation. Check it out here: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=3976
The small radar wasn’t of much help to me, but this one is wonderful!
Comment by Lucas — October 8, 2005 @ 11:52 am
Interesting. I’ll have to check that out.