Weblogging from Various Ends of the Earth? 44
J. Lawless asks: "My friend and I will both be travelling to remote portions of the globe next fall -- he in a pan-Australasian motorcycle trip and I on a trip into Italy. We both have the same problem: how to get content (text and photos) onto the Internet given that our only lifeline to it will be through random Internet Cafes? It would seem that some sort of PDA to be able to do text entry and image integration would be best, but then what? Most, if not all, cybercafes take a dim view of dropping software on their box for access. For added difficulty points, Dave will be spending much of his trip without reliable electricity hookup, so how to keep the mess running?"
umm, none of the above (Score:2, Insightful)
Your ego and blogshare can barely stand it!
Why don't you spend your time there learning, enjoying, experiencing. Leave the updates until you get home. I mean really, are people voting on what you do next during your trip?!
Re:umm, none of the above (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:umm, none of the above (Score:2)
when writing a weblog most people write for themselfs anyways..
Re:umm, none of the above (Score:1)
For the love of gawd, this is a site of geeks and nerds... we tend to do things because we want to, to push boundaries, or just for the bloody hell of it. Who cares what about the usefulnees to other people, or the practical applications. No, Hemmingway's adventures weren't relayed in real time, but that's not the point. If their version of "sit back and enjoy the scenerey" involves also debugging conectivity problems, so be it.
Simple solution (Score:2)
Re:Simple solution (Score:1)
However, I think that a laptop is the way to go.
And I guess the cybercafe guys won't object if you plug your laptop to their LAN.
simplest (Score:5, Insightful)
err.. a phone? (Score:2)
the quality in the camera sucks(and in some it's not even fit for a small pic on a blog), but it's ok for blogs(in 3650 at least, and in 6600, 7650 distorts quite a bit) and travel pics. plus you can't beat having the ability to take the pics on the phone and then ftp them where you like(or use some blogging software to automate even that part). this is one thing that they(smartphones) really are actually pretty good at doing, staying connected to the 'internet world' while having some adv
Re:err.. a phone? (Score:2)
You'll have GSM access throughout Italy, and I'm sure the local mobile phone carrier provides GPRS (high-speed data).
Then just send your pics to a picture blogging service via MMS, most of which also have text blogs you can update from your phone:
CamBlog [camblog.com] + a Blogger [blogger.com] account
mLogs [mlogs.com]
RareWindow [rarewindow.com]
For many, many more services and tools for Mobile Text/Picture Blogging, check out the left column on this site [cameraphonereport.com] ("Moblog Hosting Companies"), and the right column on this [moblogging.org]
A few options (Score:2)
1. Wifi on the PDA/laptop
2. USB thumbdrive to transfer from a PDA/laptop
3. PCMCIA card adapter and compact flash or SD memory
4. Camera with USB cord and the same memory format as the PDA (cafe's might not object to connecting to your camera and you could put PDA data on the memory card in the camera.
Enjoy your trip!
Options (Score:1)
If that doesn't produce any results, the odds are pretty good that
Use IPass for a global ISP (Score:1)
I pay about $7/month plus a reasonable per minute fee to be online. Looks like they have software for PDAs now too.
Problem is jacking into phone systems around the world. I have had success in India, Germany, Slovenia, the UK, and the US, but in Austrian and Switzerland I found myself having to twist wires together because they had an odd wall plug.
That said - take the
How about.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh.... (Score:2)
See, you already started inflating the comment beyond what it actually said, in the traditional blog-style of having nothing to write about and therefore making stuff up. I didn't at all
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Pen and paper, 35mm camera (Score:2)
I think he should just lay down fiber optics everywhere he goes and bring a laptop. Problem solved. And he'll be doing the locals a great service by bringing them into the 21st century with the rest of us!
... writing?
Americans.... (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, for every American venturing outside God's own country, everything is an adventure. Italians, do they have computers or even refrigerators? Australasia only uses flint and bongos for communication, right?
Best to take a shitload of bogrolls and Dr. Pepper cans with me, because over there they probably only have these aboriginal drinks, like larvae juice.
My advice: leave your electronics at home and discover the world through your eyes and ears, not a lens and a keyboard. Speak to people. Find out why they hate USians.
If you really can't help it, take an old, used Ibook and a compatible digital camera. Store Pics/Sounds/Files on an USB Keychain Ram-Plugin and use that to swap files between your Ibook and internetcafe's computers. You will see that extraUSians have computers too.
Sheesh..
Re:Americans.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Shocker: he knows that internet cafes exist! Maybe you didn
Virtual mod point to you (Score:3, Insightful)
Keeping a travel journal is a long tradition among travelers from many cultures. Some of the greatest travelers of the 19th century mailed copies of journal entries back to correspondents at home. Making that journal available to ones family and friends in real time is something they would have appreciated. I can tell you from pe
Re:Virtual mod point to you (Score:2)
Wear a Canadian flag on your backpack and say "eh" a lot.
Re:Virtual mod point to you (Score:2)
Don't worry about real time updates (Score:3, Insightful)
For the purpose of keeping a journal (which is a very respectable thing to do on a trip like that), take your laptop and your digital camera and use it for dumping pictures and taking notes. No internet access. No email. No games. Do nothing on your laptop that you can do at home.
I recently took a trip through California. The laptop rules were simple: dump pictures onto it and jot down notes. That's all. And you know what -- I loved it. My wrists felt better, my head was less congested, and I spent enough time checking out things that I normally don't get to see. You know... a vacation...
Thanks for the helpful and :P to the haters (Score:3, Insightful)
As to the haters -- what question did I ask? What question did you answer? I generally detest the Internet and blogging for the same reasons you do. What can I do about it? Whine?
No. Make it better. I write, its what I do. Relax. Go find something you do well and do that, 'cause clearly lifestyle advice ain't your bag.
For the record, yes -- I do know how to enjoy myself quite well offline and have taken enough photos and jotted notes to suffer the inadequacy of those later: "WHERE is this now?" For my previous trips, I've enjoyed a leather journalette, but where's the challenge in that? Nowhere.
Vis noodlenose's suggestions that "COMPUTERS ARE EVERYWHERE" -- clearly you ain't been where I been, brother, and I'm glad I won't find you there next time I go.
Tips for travel blog (Score:2, Informative)
My suggestion is to buy one of Sony Cybershot models(Eg: Sony DSC-P92).
The advantage with this model, drivers are very small and easy to install.
And after installation it creates a USB harddisk(which has all your pics(.jpg format) in it), just Preview with IE and upload to your blog.(special photo extraction software is not required)
Install the drivers over internet and connect your camera to the usb port.
(Keep th
Re:Tips for travel blog (Score:1)
And why not just use one of the many digital cameras that do not even need a driver to work as a USB hard drive?
if you can find an internet cafe (Score:1)
Outback blogging (Score:1)
Re:Outback blogging (Score:2)
I'm taking a 1966 Ducati 250cc motorcycle. Yeah, not the "best" bike, but what's the point of doing something easy? There's no way to upgrade the electronics on a Duc for a laptop because, based on my earlier slashdot question, you can't tricklecharge a laptop. It's a small bike. As one guy put it, "a Schwinn with an engine". Space will be a premium and even with the
Go all out, be real high-tech (Score:2)
And use a damn pencil, paper, and an old fashion camera!
I'm all for using technology to make our lives easier, but you start going out of your way in order to incorporate technology into something, it gets a bit rediculas.
Ask yourself if it is really that important that people have a report of your trip as you do it, live on the internet?
Take a look at the advantages:
Flat-rate GPRS in Italy (Score:1)
PROs
You don't need a landline
Coverage is all over Italy
An handset with builtin GPRS modem will cost you as low as 100 Euro including USB-to-phone cable.
ADDED BONUS
Calling home will cost you much less than using public phones or, worse yet, hotel room phones
CONs
Speed is nothing to shout about (about 43Kbps downlink)
Write to me if you want more details:
from experience: (Score:2)
If you read further along [slashdot.org] in the journal, or if you caught the article [slashdot.org], you can see that I faced similar problems with portable computing equipment. I got some of the same, unhelpfull
My solution to the same problem... (Score:1)
travel (Score:1)