14 DAY TRIAL // Weather prediction didn't reach perfect accuracy yet, but it's heading that way. No matter how accurate are the predictions, they are useless if you can't find out about them in time. Of course that I am not talking about newspapers, radio or television as forecast sources here, I am talking about computers and Internet.
As usual, you can solve this problem in two ways. First one would be to google for the information you want, while the second is using a specialized program to retrieve forecasts, send weather alerts and more.
Today's weather display application is called Weather Pulse and has reached version 2.05. Its installation kit has almost 3MB and the setup process is fast and silent, without hassle.
Once the program is started for the first time, it will ask you to enter a location on Earth to get weather information about. Then, it will display the current weather status into the system tray. You will also get a desktop desklet showing this information. The main program interface is well done and easy to use. Even more, it's skinnable!
Now I'll leave the tray and desktop weather displays for you to discover and I'll talk about the things that can be done from the main window.
The main window has a menu bar, a city selection bar with a toolbar and an information window below. The toolbar has six buttons on it, and I'll get there soon.
First, a few words about the menus. There are five menus here - File, Picture, View, Skins and Help. The second one is only active when a weather picture is loaded. The pictures can be loaded using the Weather Images button from the toolbar.
If you want to update your weather info, you can use the button from the city selection bar. In order to have more than one location available in the drop down menu, you must add them first. This task can be accomplished using the Add City function from the File menu.
Now, let's talk about the five areas associated to the remaining toolbar buttons.
The Current Conditions area displays current weather in the currently selected location, delivering information such as temperature, humidity, dew point, wind, UV index, visibility, pressure and more.
Next, you can check the 10 Day Forecast area. The name says it all. Here, you will get a short forecast of the next 10 days, containing the highs and lows, humidity and estimated chance of precipitation, along with the sky condition.
The Hourly Forecast delivers the detailed weather forecast for the next 24 hours, while the next area, Detailed Forecast, shows the weather for the next 10 days, but in the shape of a resume for each day.
Last area contains Weather Alerts, but fortunately I didn't get such a thing. Probably you wouldn't like to receive weather warnings for your area either, but they can even be life savers in some cases.
The skins included with this program are well done, and most of the options available in the Settings area will help you make Weather Pulse work the way you want it to. What can be set? Emailing weather alerts to a specified address, placing weather images as desktop wallpapers and fully customizing the look and feel of the program sounds enough?
Before you go, take your time and read the conclusions. No matter where you go, I wish you a sunny and peaceful weather...or maybe cloudy and cool, but just the way you like it!
The Good
With this program installed, you can't miss the weather forecasts - they're on the system tray, they're on the desktop, alerts can follow you even when you are away! And let's mention that first of all, Weather Pulse it's free, handsome and easy to use.
The Bad
Sometimes relying on more information sources can be really useful for increasing accuracy, and this program only uses www.weather.com for this purpose. The worst things about it are its lack of any decent Help content and the instability proven by the two crashes that I got in a few hours.
The Truth
Good things come for free, and even if the cake has a strange taste, it's free and it's fresh. Weather Pulse is such a cake, and if they'll solve the stability problems soon, it will taste absolutely delicious. No matter what, you have to try it now, since it's one of the best in its family!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
