Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
This allows you to pipe the text into speech-synthesized alarm calls, web reports, SMS messages, and so on. There
are a couple of common rules here, which should be adopted wherever possible in this and other types of data feed:
u
Use one line for each piece of data to ease subsequent processing
u
Remove the old status file first, because erroneous out-of-date information is worse than
none at all
u
Don't store time stamps; the file has those already
u
Don't include graphic links, not all mediums support them
In the case of weather reports, you might take exception to the last rule, because it's nice to have visual images for
each of the weather states. In this case, it is easier to adopt two different XML files, targeting the appropriate medium.
Minerva does this by having a
makedata.xsl
for the full report and a simpler
sayit.xsl
that generates sparse text for
voice and SMS.
Local Reporting
Most gadget and electronic shops sell simple weather stations for home use. These show the temperature, humidity,
and atmospheric pressure. All of these, with some practice, can predict the next day's weather for your specific locale
and provide the most accurate forecast possible, unless you live next door to the national weather center!
Unfortunately, most of these devices provide no way for it to interface with a computer and therefore with the
rest of the world. There are some devices, however, and some free software called
wview
(
www.wviewweather.com
) to
connect with it. This software is a collection of daemons and tools to read the archive data from a compatible weather
station. If the station reports real-time information only, then the software will use an SQL database to create the
archive. You can then query this as shown previously to generate your personal weather reports.
N
If temperature is your only concern, there are several computer-based temperature data loggers on the market
that let you monitor the inside and/or outside temperature of your home. Many of these can communicate with a PC
through the standard serial port.
Note
Radio
Radio has been the poor cousin of TV for so long that many people forget it was once our most important medium,
vital to the war effort in many countries. And it's not yet dead!
5
Nowhere else can you get legally free music, band
interviews, news, and dramas all streamed (often without ads—take that, Spotify!) directly to your ears. Furthermore,
this content is professionally edited and chosen so that it matches the time of day (or night) at which it's broadcast.
Writing a piece of intelligent software to automatically pick some nighttime music is unlikely to choose as well as your
local radio DJ.
From a technological standpoint, radio is available for free with many TV cards and has simple software to scan
for stations with
fmscan
and tune them in using
fm
. They usually have to be installed separately from the TV tuning
software, however:
apt-get install fmtools
(OWEVER
AMUSINGLYTHEWEBSITEFORMYLOCAL""#RADIOSTATIONOMITSITSTRANSMISSIONFREQUENCY
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