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Firstly, this is NOT just another meteorlogical weather widget! This widget gives you the metaphorical weather! :-)

Not sure if you need to take an umbrella out this morning? Well, if you want to know that, then you'll need to get yourself some other widget because News Cloud answers the more important question - should you even get out of bed today?

This fun widget summarizes the latest news as a weather symbol: the better the news, the better the 'weather'! If the news is gloomy, it's a bad day, so better stay home and surf the web instead.

News Cloud is a fun widget that summarizes the latest news as a corresponding weather symbol. The widget automatically measures the amount of good news vs. bad news to determine the metaphorical weather: the better the news, the better the 'weather', and vice versa. The news is then visualized using one of several weather symbols: ranging from brilliant sunshine through to violent thunderstorms.

News Cloud automatically updates every 15 minutes to keep track of the latest news. It will also refresh the news summary each time it is redisplayed.

The front pane shows the current news 'weather', the news source, and the time that News Cloud last fetched the news. Clicking on the news feed title will display the corresponding news stories.

A number of special weather symbols are used in specific circumstances:

If News Cloud cannot contact the news feed (for instance if there is no internet connection), then it will display FOG.
If News Cloud is receiving a news feed but cannot identify any good or bad news, then the weather will be CLEAR.
If the amount of good and bad news is exactly equal, then a rainbow will be displayed to represent the mix of sunshine and rain.

A number of options are available from the widget's Preferences pane.

Firstly, there is a choice of news feeds. The available news sources are drawn from leading RSS feeds, and cover varied news types: general news, technology news, business news and pop culture. Multiple instances of News Cloud may be used to monitor more than one news feed simultaneously. There is also the option to display the percentage balance of good news and bad news found, and/or the number of good and bad news stories found. In that case, good news is detailed on the left of the front pane, and bad news on the right.

The Preferences pane also has a button to invoke a demo mode that runs through the weather symbols used to represent the range of news.

Any feedback on News Cloud, good or bad, is welcomed.

Please send bug reports, suggestions for improvement, suggestions for additional news feeds to support, and any other constructive comments via the link below. You can also register to receive news of updates and other widgets from nigelstreet.com.

Click here to Send Feedback

Click here to Register for News Cloud Updates

Thanks for your interest.