Earthquake Gadget for Windows Vista and Windows 7

After much searching I could not ever find an earthquake plugin like the old one for Firefox, which is now not compatible with Firefox 4. But, I did come across this cool little sidebar gadget that gives earthquake info, almost worldwide, and can be set for minute by minute updates. Clicking on an earthquake link on the gadget will reveal a map, as well as some generic info, including affected area, magnitude, and depth, as well as a direct link to the USGS for more specific information on that specific quake.

Anyway, I thought I should share it with you, and hopefully some of you guys could have some ideas for the author pertaining to ways he could improve the gadget. Something like this, I think, has been needed for a while, so I hope that some of you geology hobbyists and professionals can offer the gadget author some advice on ways he can improve the gadget.

You can download it here...

addgadget.com...

it doesn't work for me windows 7 but thanks for the idea !

Originally posted by LaTouffe
it doesn't work for me windows 7

but thanks for the idea !

ack! sorry to hear that, I'm running 64bit windows seven and it seems to be working fine for me, anything I can do to help?

First improvement, make it work in linux..
second improvement, make it wok in linux...
sorry the use of windows will bring about the end of the world quicker then any earthquake..
so its not enough to make me take the fall back into the pit bill gates dug.

but the best answer i think is just to use a realtime RSS feed of earthquakes and then it works on any system with a range of widgets readers and apps.
like this
earthquake.usgs.gov...

reply to post by aravoth


I am on 64bit too. Maybe it doesn't work because i have an animated wallpaper background.

Originally posted by sprocket2cog
but the best answer i think is just to use a realtime RSS feed of earthquakes...

The best answer is to write your own program to poll twitter every 5 minutes for the word "earthquake" and have a voice alert if it returns a tweet "rate" of a certain value. Combined with a grab of an RSS page every 5 minutes with a voice alert if it reads an earthquake over a certain magnitude at a certain distance, and build yourself a your own seismometer, again with a voice alert if it detects an earthquake.
I did that. Am I obsessed?

reply to post by alfa1


you did that? dude!

reply to post by alfa1

LOL, yep im all for voice alerts, i have knocked out a few GPS based speed warning apps for android (not on the market) just for my own consumption.
nothing like a cute female voice telling you too slow down your going to fast.... oh wait...
but i hadnt thought of a talking earthquake twitter reader.
so far all i had done was a twitter updater for my postion while im out on the motorbike.
but it wouldnt be hard with a bit of python to knock up a linux program.
but most people want a easy fix, they dont all have your skills

reply to post by alfa1


Dude. I just logged back in to tell you how impressed I am with your post. I am going to be looking in to this for myself.

Awesome.

All Hail Linus Torvalds!

Here is a pretty good link for seismic activity

www.iris.edu...

At the risk of sidetracking somebody elses thread, here's a few details if somebody wishes to write a similar proram for their own use...

It runs on an old standalone IBM thinkpad in the corner of the room. The same one that monitors my seismometer...


It grabs a whole bunch of different keywords (Formula 1, earthquake, tremor, tsunami, supernova, ufo, aurora, geomagnetic...etc...) from twitter and displays them as the horizontal lines. If the "tweets per hour" hit the red bar on the right, it generates a voice alert.
A second part further down grabs the rss page from geoscience Australia (cause thats where I am) and alerts on new/near earthquakes.
The third part at the bottom grabs the current planetary A and K index and shows as the horizontal lines representing geomagnetic activity, again a voice alert for aurora watching.

It started out as a simple experiment on Visual Basic 5 (shock horror) and I just got carried away. When I realised it was going to be a "proper" program, I was too far into it to start writing it again in C (my "proper" programming language).

I have eQuake Alert running on my Firefox 4, so it is possible to have this app running without any noticable problems.

From their official Facebook page they offer the following fix, which I can confirm works in Windows 7 (32)

eQuake Alert
Installing on FF 4.0.1
1) Restart Firefox
2) Enable Add-On Bar
3) Install Add-On compatibility Reporter - addons.mozilla.org...
4) Install eQuake Alert - addons.mozilla.org...
(Click on "Add to Firefox" Link, followed by "Install Anyway" button)
5) Restart firefox

Hope this helps.

wow this is so cool thanks bro, i really missed that firefox add on and they never updated it which annoyed the hell outta me ...
got the wigit downloaded and installed .

reply to post by Freelancer


You absolute freaking legend. I've been missing my equake allerts, and if this works, that problem is solved. Nice one

edit- I take it back, you've broken everything!!

I've had to log in on another computer to tell you this. Nothing works now, I need to know how to undo the above. I can't even open my addon bit to uninstal the addons I just added on, the slide bar has moved to the other side. I can open websites from my favourites, but I can't open any links within sites (such as threads) What have i done!!!! I've broken the interweb



edit again, am currently uninstalling firefox to reinstall it to see if that works. *fingers crossed*

phew, that's sorted that. Lost all me bookmarks, but I rarely used them anyway.

So....as you were.........