December 28, 2006 11:54
I've played around with this a bit and it's not bad for free. However, downloading files directly from their website is inflexible and results in a rather large file. Their uGrib is much more flexible and shows the files size of your query before downloading it. I'm running it in Parallels and it runs fine.
HOWEVER, I find two major shortcomings:
1 - I find the lack of upper air (500mb) data a major flaw. I even got a grib with upper air data by a direct query to saildocs and openning it in uGrib. While uGrib would show the surface data it would not show the 500mb contours (which MacENC would do).
2 - You must be connected to the internet to get the data - their is no email delivery option. Thus its only good for short term near-shore data where you either get data before departure, or you need a satphone or other internet connection.
Still, for free it's great as long as you're coastal cruising, though a port to the Mac would be useful.
My two cents
Scot
(btw - I've only had my MacBook a few weeks now, moving up from a couple of ibooks, and am VERY impressed by Parallels).
HOWEVER, I find two major shortcomings:
1 - I find the lack of upper air (500mb) data a major flaw. I even got a grib with upper air data by a direct query to saildocs and openning it in uGrib. While uGrib would show the surface data it would not show the 500mb contours (which MacENC would do).
2 - You must be connected to the internet to get the data - their is no email delivery option. Thus its only good for short term near-shore data where you either get data before departure, or you need a satphone or other internet connection.
Still, for free it's great as long as you're coastal cruising, though a port to the Mac would be useful.
My two cents
Scot
(btw - I've only had my MacBook a few weeks now, moving up from a couple of ibooks, and am VERY impressed by Parallels).