David A. Rosen - Helping People and Businesses Achieve Remarkable Results...

Weather Station at my Home... Why?

So, I am lucky to work for a diverse set of customers.  One client is Primex, a wireless device and auto-synchronizing clock and weather station device company.  The division that is the leading seller of weather products and related devices is called Accurite

As a father, educator, hobbyist and part-time geek, this was my best hooliday gift.  It started with the Acurite 5-in-1 weather station and an internet bridge.  The weather station is a compact device with 5 different measuring sensors in it and is the size of a shoebox.  I took the device out of the box and bolted it down to my deck railing at the farthest point from the house and 15 feet off the ground.  I put the batteries in the display and I was off to the races collecting and displaying the most recent, by the second, wind speed, direction, barometric pressure, rainfall data along with calculated wind-chill, dew point and 4 hour to 5 day forecast.   Now we dont leave the house without checking the weather display.

The second and very fun part of the system is an internet bridge that send the data directly to an iPad App and custom web-page (http://mybackyardweather.com)  that displays a current dashboard of the data from my weather station.  Furthermore, I connected my weather system, through the internet bridge to the Weather Underground, a website that provides weather data from over 22,000 personal weather systems along with the National Weather Service and airport weather reporting systems.  When you go to weather underground you see:  David's Weather Center in Warren, NJ.

Oh yes.. and Acurite and Weather Underground both have iPad and Android apps to monitor the weather from those devices in addition to your own personalized web pages.

So Why have My Own Weather Station???

If you know New Jersey, it is full of hills, valleys, beaches (at sea level) and mountains 1,000 ft. +.  The reality is that the weather in Green Brook, down 850+ ft from our town has different weather than our home less than 5 miles away.  And in many cases, our weather patterns remind me of when I lived in Boston where the mantra was "if you don't like the weather.... wait a minute."

What I am finding is that there are more reasons than just fun to have your own weather station...  namely:

1. Seeing the temperature related to our house and town which can vary from the weather reported in Newark, Plainfield or other National Weather service sites...
2. Knowing how windy it is can be helpful.  Launching rockets on a windy day is tough or flying a kite with no wind?
3. Is it raining and do I need umbrella? (I guess I could look outside... but I can know exactly how much rain has fallen today or in a specific period).
4. What is the dew point?  Ok, so I am an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer... knowing the dew point is helpful to know if humidity will freeze up on my telescope or camera
5. Getting the right gear for flyfishing..
6. Knowing what the road conditions are like in my neighborhood (Icy or not).
7. Being the only one in Warren, NJ with a personal weather station :-).  

I intend to add more devices such as the temperature in our second refrigerator to know if the motor is failing or not.  We will also put one of these at our beach house to keep an eye out for conditions there.

So look for my weather station on wunderground.com and let me know what you think.

Here is the current information from my weather station.  

 

 

 

2011 - The Year of Video Chatting/ Conferencing and Tablets

How many Video Conferences go on in your house or office?

It was a half day for my two middle school kids, so I picked them up and brought them home early.  As I walked into the house to get ready for a GoTo Meeting, There was my 13 year old, on her MacBook Pro, on-line video chatting with here study group getting ready for several tests tomorrow.

I made a mental note, like "Cool".  Its really interesting watching her interact, through video and document sharing. 

I then walked downstairs to our home theatre room where my 11 year son was playing XBOX Kinect with a friend of his while video chatting another friend of his who lives across town.  As I watched the boys interacting in video chat and then playing ping pong through their avatars that moved as they did, I thought "Way Cool."

So I walked over to my home office, just in time for my next meeting.  It was a GoTo meeting with a colleague in Israel. 

I have been using cameras on my desktop and laptop computers for 10 years now, starting off web conferences with a camera on and then shutting it off when starting the powerpoint or document presentation/discussion. 

Now, GoTo meeting has a new feature called HD Faces, and I am in their Beta program, loving the video conferencing capability of it...  and I thought to myself....  "Wow...  This is really Way Kewl." 

Three Video Conferences going on in my House simultaneously. 

My First Video Conferencing Experience 

For many of you who know me well, I started looking at Video Conferencing back in 1983 when AT&T invited me to Epcot Center at Disney World where they showcased...  "PicturePhone Meeting Service" (PMS - go figure).  I spent other time as an innovation management adviser to IBM, AT&T and others after that looking at various alternative ways to leverage the video, multimedia, rich content, and avatar representations for shopping applications, video conferencing, collaboration and many other alternatives... 

We have come a long way... baby.

I am still giddy about the pervasiveness of video conferencing from today's experience.  I have been Facetiming for a few months with people all around the country, as well as with my family when travelling.  Being able to travel and be on the other side of the continent and see my wife and two kids on my iTouch while they huddle around my daughter's Mac is absolutely amazing and makes travel so much more bearable.

What I look forward to, is the experience with my iPad when I'll be able to hold HD video conferencing with colleagues, clients and family, wherever I am.

So, Call me sometime.  I'd love to see you.

The experience is amazing and video will become more pervasive.  This is the time for Video and Tablets... nearly all of the tables have front and rear cameras getting ready for Video.  4th Generation wireless networks are preparing for not just downloads of music, videos and other content, but video conferencing as well. 

(The downside is that I can see our broadband providers try to move faster to increase bandwidth charges for heavy users... and watch many of the economic benefits go out the door).

Dick Tracy (Who?)  was way ahead of his time.  He had the first video watch I believe. 

Call me.  I look forward to seeing you soon.