Q: What are the system requirements for HWC?
A: Version 1.xx requires any Macintosh computer running OS X 10.3.9
or later. An Internet connection is also needed. As HWC contacts the weather
servers every 15 minutes an 'always on' connection is preferred.
Q: How frequently will HWC send out emails?
A: Test and data emails will be sent every 24 hours if enabled
in HWC's preferences. Alert messages will be sent as detected.
HWC requires that the trigger condition must be not present for
at least 2 hours before another alert will be triggered.
Q: I'm using the clear sky alert (for my night time telescopy
habits) and even though conditions have been clear for days, I
still get a message from HWC every night?
A: Yes, the clear sky alert will 'clear down' when outside
of it's monitoring period - night or day.
Q: Where does HWC get its weather data from?
A: Currently from weather.com, The Weather Underground, NOAA and
METAR.
Q:Where does HWC store its weather data?
A: In your home directory under /Library/HWCData/
Q: How much space does the data take?
A: Currently about that 1.6 megabytes per month per location.
Q: Intego's Netbarrier product seems to have a problem in
HWC; I can't get it to allow HWC's decoders? I keep getting an
alert about some process called 'Python'?
A: Unfortunately NetBarrier doesn't cope with processes running
under Python at all well. Intego we're totally silent when we
approached them about the problem but luckily Paolo Cordone figured
it out. Please see this page for
details of how to fix the problem.
Q: How do I reset the minumum and maximum vertical graph
scales?
A: After every sample is received from the weather server, HWC
recalculates minimums and maximums based on the viewable portion
of the data set. There is no way of manually resetting the scales.
Q: I can't get the email alerts to work/I can't get HWC
to send mail at all. (OS X 10.3)
A: This normally happens if you set up Apple's Mail.app AFTER
installing HWC. When HWC is run for the first time it picks up
your mail preferences from the System and if Mail has never been
configured HWC will receive rubbish as the server settings. The
way around this is to configure and test your email with Mail.app
then delete HWC's preferences found in Your Home folder/Library/Preferences/co.uk.lightsoft.HWC.plist.
Next, run HWC and test the email features; it should now be fine.
Q: Is it OK to put my computer to sleep when running HWC?
A: Yes, however, if the computer is asleep, HWC will not be running
and hence can't send out warning alerts. When your machine awakes,
HWC will calculate how long it was asleep for and fills the data
set with interpolated data for the length of the 'sleep' so the
graphs maintain the timeline.
Q: How much does it cost to register HWC?
A: HWC costs $35. For that you receive a registration code that
will be good for all future versions of HWC.
Q: How do I register HWC / What's the process?
A: We use Kagi to process payments for our software. You go to
our order page on Kagi's secure server (you can get there from
within HWC) and enter your details. Kagi email us your order and
we send you a registration code for HWC. Kagi take a cut of your
payment and send us what's left. With this we buy a tin of cat
food for the cats so they can carry on writing more cool Mac software.
Q: How does the unregistered version of HWC differ from
the registered version?
A: The unregistered version of HWC is not crippled in any way
but it does show a small dialog box when launched if unregistered,
and every so often lets you know it's unregistered in the log
area. After fifteen days HWC will cease to fetch new weather data.
After you enter your registration code HWC will unlock and run
normally again.
Q: I have a problem, how do I get help?
A: Please see the HWC support
page. BUT please read the manuals first; they may answer your
question.
Q: I really would like feature X, or I'm not really happy
about the way HWC does something. Where do I send feature requests
/ criticism / praise?
A: We really appreciate all feedback and constructive criticism.
Please email HWC@lightsoft.co.uk
with your comments.
Q: I am an existing Kairos owner. Is there an upgrade path
to HWC?
A: Yes. If you registered Kairos before September 30th 2004 then
you can get a free upgrade to HWC. All you need to do is send
an email to hwc_upgrade@lightsoft.co.uk
with your Kairos registration code and user name and we'll email
you your new HWC registration details.
Q: Something I really must know, is HWC written in Carbon or Cocoa?
No really, I'd like to know.
Most of it is Cocoa (yum), some lower level stuff is Core Foundation
(yuck), the SMS stuff is mainly standard BSD calls (yuck) and
the decoders are Python.