Cumulus Support

Hello everyone from a complete Newbie. I think I have got most of the basics understood from the site, but to get started I wanted to ask a few questions if I may around hardware.
I plan to use a dedicated new notebook to run Cumulus but have a few associated questions if I may:
a) may I run Cumulus from the Cloud or would I be safer doing so from a USB-connected hard drive?
b) I know I need around 25MB for Cumulus, Windows 7 or XP running - is there anything else on the hardware side I should know before I go shopping? For a number of reasons I don't want to us either of my Macs for the task.
c) The wish to use a notebook is for silence as it will be in the living room next the the Davis console.

Thank you in advance for advice to help me get started.
Simon Daubeney, York in England.

simon-york wrote:may I run Cumulus from the Cloud

I don't know whether anyone has tried; I haven't so can't advise.

is there anything else on the hardware side I should know before I go shopping

You just need to make sure that the PC has a suitable port for whatever type of Weatherlink logger you own - USB seems the most common these days; if you have one of those make sure you read this FAQ - http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#How_do ... Cumulus.3F

Be sure to disable any power-saving options on the notebook.

simon-york wrote:Hello everyone from a complete Newbie. I think I have got most of the basics understood from the site, but to get started I wanted to ask a few questions if I may around hardware.

Welcome Simon. You chose wisely. The VP2 is a great piece of kit.

I started back in May 2009 with my VP2 connected via a USB to a Samsung NC10 netbook and it's behaved impeccably. I would advise you to run Cumulus from the netbook's hard drive. Perhaps use an external USB drive for backup.

Steve has pointed you to the best guidance. Come back with any questions after you've ploughed your way through that.

We do have an information page about choosing a dedicated weather PC on our website at:

http://www.weatherstations.co.uk/dedicatedwxPC.htm

This isn't Cumulus-specific at all, but the broad hardware advice might be useful. The only problem is that this sort of pointer page ages quite quickly - traditional netbooks are already becoming hard to find having been superseded by the cheap small AMD laptops. And the latest Bay Trail Atom laptops are just making their entrance as in:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/asus-tran ... let_review

But still a bit costly.

Many thanks for the replies! Today has been a memorable day - quite glad my anemometer was down for replacement with the Davis unit and there was no 15ft pole attached to the side of the house. Even so have lost a ridge tile.

Looks like I shall be using the IP datalogger option with the Davis unit and copying my friend's set up to pick up the data - hopefully a straightforward process with the help of someone who has an identical setup. Once I have the Davis station running happily will add in the Cumulus software and doubtless seek advice once more on refining and developing my own site in York over time.

Thank you everyone who offered advice, I very much appreciated it.