Asterisk Weather Station Updates

Well, our Asterisk® Weather Stations providing U.S. weather reports by zip code and airport code using your phone have come unglued again thanks to some more "improvements" from the National Weather Service. One of the problems with depending upon the web data of other organizations (such as the National Weather Service) is that, when they shift gears, you have to make adjustments to your applications as well. So this week is cleanup time at Nerd Vittles. In its continuing quest for the perfect web site, the National Weather Service decided last week to drop support for their Forecast at a Glance. This caused some wrinkles in both the Asterisk Weather Station by Airport Code and Zip Code applications which didn't know how to interpret the new menu. Personally, we were always big supporters of more federal holidays because it meant the bureaucrats and politicians had less time to screw things up. As we've said before, this new "improvement" is another good example of what happens when federal workers have too much time on their hands.

All of the Nerd Vittles weather applications for Asterisk (except the new Worldwide Weather Forecasts) depend upon NOAA web site information at a web link that looks like the following. You can enter either a zip code or a city and state. When you go to the new links, you'll notice that Forecast at a Glance is no longer the first option on the menu.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/port/port_zc.php?inputstring=Charleston,SC


Here are the step-by-step instructions to update each application. These instructions assume that you've already installed the Weather Applications previously. If not, just choose your desired installation from the Best of Nerd Vittles site.

Installing Weather by Airport Code Update. To install the Weather by Airport Code update, log into your Asterisk server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
rm -f nv-weather2-zip.*
wget http://nerdvittles.com/wp-content/nv-weather2.zip
mv nv-weather.php nv-weather.old3.php
unzip nv-weather2.zip
rm -f nv-weather2.zip
chmod 775 nv-weather.php
chown asterisk:asterisk nv-weather.php


Installing Weather by Zip Code Update. To install the Weather by Zip Code update, log into your Asterisk server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
rm -f nv-weather-zip.zip
wget http://nerdvittles.com/trixbox123/nv-weather-zip.zip
mv nv-weather-zip.php nv-weather-zip.old3.php
unzip nv-weather-zip.zip
rm -f nv-weather-zip.zip
chown asterisk:asterisk nv-weather-zip.php
chmod 775 nv-weather-zip.php


Test Driving the Latest Asterisk Weather Applications. To use the Asterisk Weather Station by Airport Code, pick up any phone connected to your Asterisk server and dial 611. When prompted, key in the three-character Airport Code for the weather report you wish to retrieve. Then sit back and listen to the latest weather report for your Airport Code from the National Weather Service.

To use the Asterisk Weather Station by Zip Code, pick up any phone connected to your Asterisk server and dial Z-I-P (947). When prompted, key in the five-digit Zip Code for the weather report you wish to retrieve. Then sit back and listen to the latest weather report for your Zip Code from the National Weather Service.

Nerd Vittles Demo Hot Line (courtesy of les.net). You now can take a number of Nerd Vittles projects for a test drive... by phone! The current demos include (1) MailCall for Asterisk with password 1111 (retrieve your email by phone), (2) NewsClips for Asterisk (latest news headlines in dozens of categories), (3) Weather Forecasts by U.S. Airport Code, and (4) Weather Forecasts by U.S. ZIP Code. You're not prompted for #4 yet, but it does work! Just call our number (shown in the left margin) and take any or all of them for a spin. The sound quality may not be perfect due to performance limitations of our ancient Intel 386 demo machine. But the price is right.

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