Greg In The Desert

Costco has La Crosse Technologies weather center that appears to be the same as the La Crosse Weather Pro Center WS-2810. I couldn’t find any markings on the package at the Costco in Albuquerque other than Costco Specific.

The WS-2810 is has PC compatibility using a wireless USB dongle. I’m interested to know if it’s Mac compatible. La Crosse only supplies PC software but I’m using WeatherTracker by After Ten Software with a similar wired model I picked up last year. This wireless model looks to be improved over the wired model I have now.

Costco’s price was around $80 and the La Crosse website lists the WS-2810 at $249.99. I did not see a simialr model on Amazon’s La Crosse Technology Professional Weather Center page (Update: There are 2810’s on Amazon
, they are not labeled as such are there are currently none available).

The description from La Crosse’s website.

WS-2810
Weather Pro Center:
Wind • Rain • Weather •
PC Software
$249.99

• Included PC Interface
• Wind Chill, Direction and Speed
• Solar Powered Wind Sensor
• Rain Data
• Forecast w/ Tendency
• IN/OUT Temp
• IN/OUT Humidity
• Weather Alarms w/ Storm Warning

Dimensions:
Receiver: 4.59" x 0.94" x 7.01"
Thermo-hygro:3.13" x 3.54" x 7.45"
Rain Sensor: 5.18" dia. x 7.19"
Wind Sensor:9.84" x 5.74" x 11.11"

My next option would be the Vantage Vue wireless weather station for about $300 at Amazon which is considerably more expensive.

• Rocky Mountain News to close, publish final edition Friday : Rocky for sale : The Rocky Mountain News – Colorado's oldest newspaper will publish its final edition Friday.

  The Rocky Mountain News, less than two months away from its 150th anniversary, will be closed after a search for a buyer proved unsuccessful, the E.W. Scripps Co. announced today.

  "Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges," Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, said in a prepared statement. "The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past."

• Amazon.com: La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger: Electronics – The BC-900 is a completely different breed: it lets you pick the charge current for each individual battery, has very sophisticated monitoring circuitry that controls the charging process, and is also capable of "renewing" batteries by running full controlled discharge-recharge cycles.

  I was a little skeptical that a fairly inexpensive product would be so thorough, but after reading all the 5-star reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did: it's all it's cracked up to be, and more. I ran all my AA and AAA batteries through it; some of them had been destroyed by my previous charger, and it weeded those out right away; some were in pretty bad shape, but a refresh brought them back to life at almost full capacity.

• Fox stays with ‘Simpsons’ – Entertainment News, TV News, Media – Variety – Fox has given a two-season pickup to its toon stalwart "The Simpsons."
  Deal will take the animated family comedy into its 22nd season, making it TV's longest-running primetime entertainment skein.
• The budget – The President just spoke on the budget for FY 2010. Some highlights below. OMB Director Orszag and CEA Chair Christina Romer are due to speak any minute now, providing some more details.

  Good news:"We have already identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions that will help us cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term."
  "We've targeted almost $50 billion in savings by cracking down on overpayments of benefits and tax loopholes."

  Bad news: "[We've] inherited a trillion-dollar deficit that will take a long time for us to close"

• Intel CEO says business more predictable – SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Intel Corp is seeing some predictability return to the chip business this quarter but it is still unclear when the downturn will hit bottom, Chief Executive Paul Otellini said on Wednesday.
• Within One Hour of Albuquerque, This Week’s Inspiration – Duke City Fix – Luckily, we live in Albuquerque, New Mexico! Within one hour in every direction of Albuquerque, there are some amazing places to explore. Since we both grew up in southern New Mexico, neither of us had explored much of the northern part of the state. So, after almost 9 years in the largest city in NM, and a great wilderness book Aaron received for Christmas, we have set out to expand our horizons past the hiking trails of the Sandia Mountains east of town. The Sandias are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but you can still hear the hum of the city and run into lots of people there.
• Joe Arpaio on Twitter? Yeah, probably not – Arpaio – or, more likely, someone using his name – started an account on Twitter, a social-networking service, and began providing updates that are so outrageous they actually resemble some of the comments that have slipped out of the controversial sheriff's mouth.

  The sheriff's media-relations office denied Arpaio was twittering, adding: "we're busy enough with real stuff!!!"

• ‘Trek’ cast to reunite on ‘Family Guy’–The Live Feed – The cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is reuniting for an episode of "Family Guy," a mash-up made in geek heaven that Fox will air next month.

  In the episode titled “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven,” the "Next Gen" crew (Patrick Stewart, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Wil Wheaton, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes) will provide guest voices as the Griffin family heads to the annual Quahog “Trek” convention.

• Facebook: Facebook’s Get-Rich-Quick Scheme – The Sydney Morning Herald caught Facebook redhanded running bogus ads for make-money-on-Google programs and other schemes. (Even Google says they're fraudulent.) The company's response: The ads are isolated incidents which go offline as soon as users report the scams.

  If only that were true. As the Morning Herald found, the same ads keep appearing. According to Online Scams Exposed, a blog devoted to ferreting out fraudulent ads, the reason why they're showing up is a deliberate policy shift by Facebook.

• Blu-ray Disc licensing gets cheaper and easier | Macworld – From a manufacturing standpoint, one of the banes of Blu-ray Disc's existence has long been the muddled licensing process. To incorporate the Blu-ray Disc format–as well as the CD and DVD formats–into a device, manufacturers have had to contact each format's patent holders to arrange for a license to include that format in their product. Now, however, Panasonic, Philips, and Sony have joined forces to create a consolidated process for licensing the formats in Blu-ray Disc products.

  The move is intended to promote the growth of Blu-ray Disc products. It should succeed in doing so, too–and not just by virtue of reducing the number of places a manufacturer must go to get licensing approval for its product.