INTERNET, SATELLITE PHONE AND OUTDOORS…
It probably doesn’t make sense to many of you. It may even seem as breaking some unwritten rules what to take to wilderness. However, for me internet and satellite phone, which will enable me to send daily messages on this website from the furthermost places, are fantastic tools for providing information about what’s going on. Right now and in real time!
To send messages on the website via satellite phone and PDA wasn’t my idea, indeed. I was watching an American expedition to South Pole in 2000. They used special software which made it possible to add new messages on their expedition website every day. They could do it that way themselves, without help of the third person. No supporting team was needed which would be receiving the messages, putting them on the website etc. Everything was done directly from Antarctica. A big advantage was also that the software was made especially for a small pocket computer and not the regular notebook. Saving of weight (the whole system weighted under half a kilo = app. 1 pound) room and energy necessary for charging appealed to using the system practically anywhere.
With the time, software was improved by their founders and offered, of course, for sale. Unfortunately, the price was too high for me to afford. Just a satellite phone itself costs about 1.500 USD. I had no other option but to do a research on internet and find another way. I needed a solution which would be affordable, possible to learn in decent time and adjustable to my needs. I don’t recall how much time I spent on-line looking for information, studying, testing, praying…. As the result came my first bigger expedition website – Loap Solo 2006. It was basically a heavily modified version of publishing software for blogs Wordpress. It was adding my messages on-line automatically and also enabling website visitors to post their own comments and notes.
Finse 2007 website is, therefore, second newer version of this software. Just like its previous version it makes it possible for me to send messages and photos from places where there’s no reception or access to internet. Someone might call it an extreme blogging.
COMMUCATION SYSTEM DESCRIPTIONCommunication system – put together by myself, the system enables me to publish messages on this website from anywhere in the world using my satellite phone and PDA. The system is based on Wordpress, a blog publishing software accessible for free which is written in PHP language and backed by MySQL database. Together with other plug-ins, the WordPress manages securely the whole expedition blog – publishing of sent messages, visitors‘ comments, archives, etc. Single parts of the system were modified to reduce a size of transmitted data sent to the website during the uploads. It also lowers a price for satellite network connection. Messages, including HTML language, are written in text programme Word which is a part of operating system of pocket pc, PDA. I copy those messages into arranged Wordpress website saved in my PDA, attach an image from a digital camera and send it on the expedition website through a satellite phone. They are published there automatically. |
THIS WEBSITE AND W3C STANDARDSThe expedition website validates as a XHTML 1.0 Strict and comply with the industry standards set by the W3C. All the pages are styled with CCS2 and some parts of the website require Macromedia Flash Player. PHP is used for server side programing and the web site is hosted by hostgator.com. Even thought I did maximum to support all web browsers, you should download the most recent version of your web browser. |
