Subject: From: Date:

A WX tip Kevin Keast Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:01:52 -0500

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Hi folks,

I am working on a cool event that may spark some interest>

I want to monitor weather info....not just the National Weather Service
forecasts (got those already).  I don't want to fork out the money for
weather station equipment (not quite that desparate...yet)  I came up with
the following idea that I am working on:

Many schools/unniversities have weather stations and like to broadcast the
current weather conditions.  I have found that of the two weather stations I
have found they both put up .jpeg or .gif images of the weather data.  It
looks pretty nice too.  I am going to download (modem connection) the .gif
image every so often for updated weather (to go along with my NWS forecast
(downloaded every 4 hours).

I know what you are thinking.  ECS needs it in .bmp format to display as a
background.   Yep, so how about this.....a command line freeware program
called "GIFFY".  Find it at http://www.softseek.com .  I have not tried it
yet but it converts .gif files to other formats, including .bmp.  I have not
found one for .jpegs but I bet there is one out there somewhere.

Anyway.....Just a neat idea.  I'll let you all know if the idea flies or
dies.

Kevin

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