I used the Davis Vantage Pro solution. I wanted weather data for my garden as well as my greenhouse. I also wanted an easy way to publish my data on the web so that I could check it from work. I have more than once called home and asked my wife to open the greenhouse door because it was overheating. There is an open source Linux/BSD set of software named wview that talks to the Davis data logger. Check out wview home. The project is very active. Recently the station portion of the software has been abstracted so that it can be extended to weather stations other than the Davis Vantage Pro. Two have been added since then. The software consists of several daemons one of which is an alarm that can be set up to pass data to just about anything you care to interface. I have thought of building a greenhouse controller to interface but haven't gotten that far yet. The software can be configured to dump all of the data to a SQL database if desired. Anyway take a look and see if this will work into your plans. The link below is my Davis weather station. I have added a solar radiation sensor and a soil moisture sensor to the station. Accurate soil moisture requires soil temperature so this box has inputs for 4 temp probes and 4 soil moisture sensors. I didn't add the soil moisture sensors and just use it to add 4 temp sensors to the station. 1 of them is the temp in the greenhouse, 1 is the temp of the soil on my seed starting mat, 1 is the water mass (I just dropped the sensor in an open water bottle) and one is buried in the garden soil outside the greenhouse. I am running this site on an old 350 mghz Pentium which also serves up lots of other stuff. Here is a link that might be useful: My Weather Station

Thank you everyone... I am happily excited about getting my old PC back downstairs here where I am set up in my kitchen and do some trouble-shooting approaches to try and get my computer up and running ! I never in 5 years had one second of a problem with the HP brand , so that is what I bought this time ! My first 1-2 years of learning computer navigations, I started each subject line here in this forum with: "How Do I "save", "find"" get this on my search'" or fill in the blank, etc. ?The first time I ever suggested a possible fix to a query,and I was on the "helping" end of the line, was such a really cool feeling ! Yea ! I was thinking this evening about why my kids answer to my PC crash was "Throw it out. There is no fix for this...you have lost everything and it cannot be retrieved" is they are from the generation who easily disposes of everything! Their lives are so rushed ( THEY scheduled it that way) and they think anything that would require some dedicated time, is impossible. Their kids are rushed around from one sport to the next ( even some 2 or 3 per day !), they eat on the run, sentences are never finished and they plunge into deep sleep at the end of their day, and 6 hours later get up and do it all over again! I will keep you posted and will be trying the UBUNTU steps . I did have a faint beep on the old PC and mentioned that as a possible signal for Diagnosis and heads were shaken "no, it absolutely does not having anything to do with this" I mentioned the anology of my furnace having different sequences of beeps to help determine what part of the furnace system is having a problem....Ahhh, well. Patricia

I am making note of ravencajun's very helpful sites. My computer with Windows XP crashed last week and I had to buy a new one - I live in Toronto - and yes, I bought one that unfortunately has Windows 8. Windows 8 is not compatible with our paid for by the month security - found out that the hard way - and finally spoke with someone at Rogers who knew this - they all don't. I spent hours on the phone with HP in India and then the same with Microsoft. I also bought the Student Microsoft 2013 package that has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote - but it came with a KEY number - not discs. I have successfully loaded Microsoft Office Professional (with discs) on my last 2 computers so was not expecting a major problem - but I have one. You can only use the key once and it didn't take I know it has something to do with my e-mail address. The computer store where I bought the sucker told me to enter my e-mail address and carry on when I was setting up the computer. I did so, but my password was all lower case and this would not work with the new set-up so I made up a new one (apparently you can change it - but guess what - it won't let me). The person at the Rogers, our Internet/Cable company instructed me to uninstall the Norton anti-virus so that I could re-install our monthly paid for anti-virus that we buy from them. Well, it doesn't work with Windows 8 but he didn't know this. I called Best Buy - couldn't help. So I called HP and they took control of my computer and downloaded Defender. I knew not to try and load the Microsoft office until I had an anti-virus program installed. The HP fellow tried to install it and realized after I had typed in the key that it wasn't going to work. Apparently, according to Microsoft - he transferred me to him - this happens a lot - the e-mail/password problem - ends up corrupting something and you can't reload - so now the Microsoft fellow has sent my file to the appropriate dept. to be fixed and I am to expect a call from India within 3 days. Someone had better be able to fix this because the program cost me $139.00 plus our Cdn. taxes. Then Microsoft loaded on a Hotmail e-mail - but I noticed he did it via the temporary Outlook. While I love Outlook I have not purchased it and do not need it. So when I open up Internet I get the MSN - bing business and I have to sign in with my original Rogers e-mail with the new password that has 2 capitalized alpha characters. But I want my home page to be Rogers - we have Rogers Internet. When I am lucky enough to find it I can enter my e-mail using my original password - so something is still very iffy. The 'charms' as they are called on the first page drive me nuts. I only use my computer for e-mail, Internet and some Word - plus a few of the necessary accessories to keep the computer "healthy'. I do not shop on e-Bay, Amazon, etc., I don't play games, play music or watch TV. I use it like a fancy typewriter. I know there must be a way to increase the font size and the size of the screen. At the moment everything is probably in 8 point with 2 inch margins. I have always kept my fonts large and I didn't have the margins. it isn't a problem with my vision - at almost 63 I still have 20/20 but I see no point in straining my eyes just to see the darned computer. So - I HATE IT! I haven't hooked up the Brother laser printer I bought as yet. My old printer - a Canon - that cost about $60.00 used the dreaded inkjet cartridges - and even though I would tell it not to print in colour - and I do know how - it ignored me. Of course you can't print unless there are colour and black cartridges in the printer - so there I was with $51.34 worth of 2 cartridges - the colour is very expensive - plus our taxes on hand - and I was 6 days late in being able to return them. I knew the old printer would not work with the new computer so I was printing out what I could while I was crashing. It was kind of awful - non-responsive mode for an hour at a time. I have no plans to try and reload anything on to the new computer just in case there is something wrong with the data. Then there was the old computer. I deleted what I could but couldn't manage to get rid of the stuff that I really wanted to - as in my name, registration, Outlook Express etc. - so I took off the side panel, took out the likely pieces of hardware - gave them a soaking and took the hammer to them and then put the side piece back on before I took It to the store's recycling department. So I am not a happy camper. Every time I try to do something basic it backfires, so I will definitely look at raven's websites - and I guess I had better see if that darned new printer will work. Best Buy sold it to me with the computer so it had better work - and I will be having something to say to them about the Microsoft Office package. Sorry for the rant, but you got me on Day ONE! I keep trying to load a toolbar that has something on it to allow me to change the font but so far that hasn't worked.

I'm sorry it made you cry, FD. That was definitely not my intention. It makes me cry when I think of her standing at the gate as we backed out of the driveway and back out of her life. I think you're right...he just has to keep on trying and keep on visiting, even though it hurts. I started tearing up when SD read the birthday card DS gave her. It broke my heart! It said "Dear SD, I hope you have a very happy birthday. You should come visit sometime. I want to go ride bikes at the park. I miss you so, so, so much. Love, DS". It seems so unfair to him. He was 3 (almost 4) when he met SD. We spent every weekend DS wasn't with X (and some weekdays) together for 5 years. And then, all of the sudden, she's gone. Maybe it's easier for her to avoid talking to and seeing us than to have to say goodbye. I think her head has been filled with so many things that when she does see and/or talk to us it contradicts everything she's been told and doesn't know what to think. Maybe it's easier to live 90% of her life believing the crap BM tells her than to actually think and decide what she believes for herself. I'm not perfect and I know I've made mistakes where SD is concerned. I probably still do. I don't know any parent (step or bio or both) that doesn't. But I came to this forum to better my relations with BM, SF, sister, SD, DH, DS, X, and X's GF. I really do try very hard not to be like some of your SMs, and I definitely don't want to be like BM when she was a SM to DH's son. I want to encourage DH in his relationships withhis kids, but not be a catalyst for trouble. So when he asked me to go, I saw one of two scenarios happening: 1) they think "well I guess he just can't do anything without her now that they're married", or 2) they think I'm controlling him. Neither of which is even remotely true. The truth is that DH has no connection with his own daughter anymore and knew he would be spending a lot of time either alone or with BM and SF. He asked me to go because 1) he's scared to death of being hurt by his daughter's ambivilance to him, which he knew was probably going to happen; and 2) he didn't want to be alone all the way there, all the way back, and while he was there.