Touring - computer on board- how to?

We are doing a 4 month trip through the himalayas and as it is a big environmental project needing major blog and website updates nearly daily ( need to keep sponsors happy). Am looking around for a good way to take and power a small computer that can do the email, blog update thing, and hopefully edit movies. Any suggestions on kit and ways of doing it or stories from past experiences greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Gav
www.cycle-for-change.com

For what it's worth, I'd skip on bringing a computer. Many blogs can be updated via email, so all you'd need is a cell phone for most of your entries. The rest can be handled at Internet cafes.

If you absolutely must bring a computer, netbooks (e.g. Asus Eee PC) are light and cheap.

www.cycle-for-change.com

Maybe I'm still annoyed by the thought of Al Gore burning up gallons and gallons of fuel so he could look out the window of a helicopter at the frozen wastes of the antarctic. Why is it that people who are out to save the environment insist of using lots of resources to get to exotic places just so they can have a dramatic backdrop for their pictures?

How about instead of of helping the climate by consuming a boat load of fossil fuels to get yourself and your equipment to the Himalayas, why don't you do something actually useful and stay home and do a bike tour in Japan that doesn't involve getting on a plane. Show you can have a really cool adventure without burning up a lot of fuel. Really, we'd love to hear about it.

Speedo

Maybe I'm still annoyed by the thought of Al Gore burning up gallons and gallons of fuel so he could look out the window of a helicopter at the frozen wastes of the antarctic. Why is it that people who are out to save the environment insist of using lots of resources to get to exotic places just so they can have a dramatic backdrop for their pictures?

How about instead of of helping the climate by consuming a boat load of fossil fuels to get yourself and your equipment to the Himalayas, why don't you do something actually useful and stay home and do a bike tour in Japan that doesn't involve getting on a plane. Show you can have a really cool adventure without burning up a lot of fuel. Really, we'd love to hear about it.

Speedo

While I may agree, was it really necessary to threadjack?

/offtopic

Lots of CMS systems for website have plugins that'll allow you to update via e-mail, I'd check into that then you could use an internet-enabled cell phone to post updates. Otherwise, look into a netbook with a solid-state drive.

[edit]

Whoops.. yeah, what Bacciagalupe said.

I think your starting place should be to find out what kind of connectivity might be available - cell phone coverage, wifi, landline internet connections... then you can figure out what sorts of technology you need to get.

I did a 2 month tour this summer with a small laptop, but it was in the US/Canada, so power and connections were a non-issue - wifi and outlets everywhere.

I've had poor luck with solar power in the past, but it was a very small older panel system, so you could check if solar is a possibility. I would suggest looking into what the himalayan climbers do for connectivity and power - lots of big expeditions are hooked up to the internet - but I guess you won't have sherpas to carry a huge solar panel or a generator, so it might not be relevant.

Hope this helps at all, I'm envious of your trip!

We are carrying a small Acer and it's working out fine. We've been able to do our videoediting and everything on this thing - it weighs about 1.5 pounds.

I found a black berry is amazing with searching google maps.

GPS
It has wifi
of course email.

You probably can buy the card for phone for the area I am sure.

The internet cafe idea sounds good only to someone that hasn't tried it. In 2007 I toured the Loire River Valley in France and found internet cafes to be mostly non-existant in all but the biggest cities; which meant riding around the city looking for an internet cafe. And, to make matters worse, the French use a different keyboard so nothing was where I expected to find it. I had to hunt and peck for every character. It was very frustrating after a hard day's ride.

You don't say where your point of origin is but someone else seems to think you're starting from Japan. However, if this is not the case and you will be traveling through US airports, you run the risk of having Homeland Security seize your computer for threat analysis. If you take a computer make sure it has a DVD writer and make certain to write off your important stuff daily. Even at this, don't expect to be able to find writable DVDs at the corner shop. In France I had to ride kilometers out of the way to find DVDs and then, the price was 4 times the price I pay in Switzerland.

Also, keep in mind that one moderate fall can destroy a laptop; especially the LCD panel. Even a cell phone or Blackberry can have an LCD failure. I've had two different devices that quit working because the LCD failed, including my cell phone (though not while touring).

For any telecomm gear be sure you have a multiband phone that is capable of connecting to different systems and be sure you have international dialing activated on your device account. You might want to consider a BlueTooth device that will let your computer talk to your phone.

If money is not an issue, you might want to search for a laptop specifically designed for rugged / field work. It seems to me the phone idea is the best way to go but can you count on there being connection in remote areas?

Just my two cents
Charlie

While I may agree, was it really necessary to threadjack?


No. Sorry.

Speedo

Considering all the dangerous chemicals in a computer and the poor job of recycling the industry is doing, especially in China, I would suggest you write your journal on hemp paper with a pencil.

Gonna have to side with the threadjacker here. I am completely fine with wealthy guilt ridden liberals paying for your vacation. But when the money is in your bank account, please stop polluting the language with insincere humanitarianism, maudlin awareness-mongering, and inarticulate calls to action.

These self indulgent climate change awareness adventures are the shameless second coming of The White Man's Burden, and I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your sponsor's pockets that that's how the Nepalis are going to see you.

Thanks to those who offered advice, food for thought and a great help. to those that slagged off the trip - Not really the forum is it? Have already done some amazing trips in Japan and if we can make even ten people change their behaviour and get involved, our two flights for the year and what ever the carbon footprint will be more than balanced out. Disagree with what we are doing all you, like but here is not the place to do it. Your cynicism belongs elsewhere.

I can see this thread going the way of some others I won't mention, descending into bickering and hair-splitting...

I'd go with the ruggedized laptop, if you have the money and can handle the weight. (Probably heavier than a regular laptop.) Have you thought about how you're going to keep it charged?

There's something to be said for a handheld you can feed with AAs.

I have used the Tom Bihn Brain Cell to hold an ASUS EEE PC and the Brain Cell did a great job of keeping the laptop safe. I can't address the access issues but that combo is lightweight, very effective in terms of protection for the PC, and the ASUS doesn't have a hard disk to crash - it's all flash-disk based and runs a standard Windows XP os.

I have used the Tom Bihn Brain Cell to hold an ASUS EEE PC and the Brain Cell did a great job of keeping the laptop safe. I can't address the access issues but that combo is lightweight, very effective in terms of protection for the PC, and the ASUS doesn't have a hard disk to crash - it's all flash-disk based and runs a standard Windows XP os.

Those look nice. I made one of these: http://isoglossia.com/2006/07/20/how-to/ and put the computer in a ziplock, then into the case, then another ziplock. Sometimes it was in my HB bag, sometimes in a rear pannier.

I used a Fujitsu Lifebook P1610, which has a regular (not solid state) hard drive. I wouldn't recommend this model if you wanted to do video, though - it's pathetically slow.

For a 4-month trip with dirt roads and a real computer requirement (not just nice-to-have), I would look for a solid state hard drive, and a 'rugged' model. I would have gotten a toughbook but I couldn't afford it.

We are doing a 4 month trip through the himalayas and as it is a big environmental project needing major blog and website updates nearly daily ( need to keep sponsors happy). Am looking around for a good way to take and power a small computer that can do the email, blog update thing, and hopefully edit movies. Any suggestions on kit and ways of doing it or stories from past experiences greatly appreciated.
www.cycle-for-change.com

What I've evolved to is a hybrid approach using both a small laptop and keeping vital data on a separate USB/solid state disk. I also currently have a small netbook and would recommend one of them with solid state disk. Here is some of that evolution on some of my largest trips:

~1992: Crossed the USA with a Sharp 286 laptop. Did the dialup thing with acoustic coupler modem from motel rooms. Uploads predominantly of text-based emails. Protected the laptop with extra foam and a large waterproof bag. Laptop was fine during the trip. Eventually some time after trip the display cracked.
~1997: Crossed Canada with a HP Omnibook 800 laptop running Windows 95. Did the modem thing including acoustic coupler modem but more phone jacks. Protected the laptop with foam and waterproof bag. Laptop was fine during trip and still ok.
~2001: Circled Australia and crossed USA and more for one year cycle trip. Used Sony Vaio and also auxiliary Pocketmail device. Primary frequent updates were via Pocketmail phone connection. Less frequent updates were from mini-Zip disks that I mailed home. Father maintained web site from daily emails plus every 2-3 week web page updates that had been mailed home. Laptop disk died part way through Australia. Replaced disk and did a system recovery.
~2007: Crossed EurAsia including crossing Russia. Also followup trip 4000km across China. Used small Sony that was essentially a $$ predecessor to netbook generation. Protected laptop with foam and waterproof bag. Laptop survived fine though after trip the display cracked. Did not actually connect the laptop to any wireless network in Russia. Instead, did local editing and then transferred main content to more than one U3 thumb drive with secondary storage. When we got to a major city (every ~week or two weeks) took the USB drives with me to an internet cafe and uploaded content to web sites. For the most remote parts of Siberia (but where every 1-3 days we might cross a town along the trans-Siberian railroad with cell phone service), also provided very short updates via cell phone SMS message -> twitter -> web site with short GPS coordinates and oneliner type messages. One of my USB drives failed and had to be reformatted.

Last week I cycled 575 miles through Texas from Brownsville to Dallas. For my more local US touring, I'm using a small netbook and relying on wireless uploads.

If I were to leave today on my next third-world tour, I'd likely:
(1) Use a small netbook type laptop with solid state disk. In addition, as a bit of a tech geek, I'd be able to boot Linux from SD card and carry two backup copies of the operating system on an SD card and/or be able to restore my solid state disk with OS from SD cards/USB. I'd keep some extra copies of my main data e.g. photos and videos on separate and redundant USB drives.
(2) I'd separate the OS platform + tools from my data. Keep redundant copies of both, e.g. restore disks for OS and/or booting from SD cards; keep my data on at least two copies on separate USB flash drives.
(3) I'd look at how frequently I really need to upload info. If not real frequently, I'd probably avoid using my laptop be the communications device I used for uploading and instead rely on internet cafes and other things and not connect the laptop to networks. (Uploading lots of large files like video and/or trying to do frequent uploads might add a fair amount to your trip costs as opposed to waiting until you are back to upload some of the largest pieces of info and instead using web pages + photos initially). If there is cell phone service, I'd get local SIM card and be able to send short SMS including GPS coordinates and short update.
(4) I wouldn't go as far down the "rugged" laptop area as some suggest here but instead go more down lines of redundancy of OS even to point of having second netbook back at "base camp" if that made sense. I would keep my data on more than one removable USB drive and be able to use redundant communications including relying on local internet cafes for some (all?) uploads.
(5) I'd find someone on the home front if possible to help receive some incoming posts/blogs and help admin that if necessary as well.

I have used the Tom Bihn Brain Cell to hold an ASUS EEE PC and the Brain Cell did a great job of keeping the laptop safe. I can't address the access issues but that combo is lightweight, very effective in terms of protection for the PC, and the ASUS doesn't have a hard disk to crash - it's all flash-disk based and runs a standard Windows XP os.

Hi

my friend had the ASUS EEE PC with in Japan. We both decided that the EEE PC is not suitable for both of us. Why? Because the keyboard is too narrow. This answer I wrote in 60 sec. On the EEE PC it will take 5 Min. to correct all the mistyping errors.

Thomas

Those look nice. I made one of these: http://isoglossia.com/2006/07/20/how-to/ and put the computer in a ziplock, then into the case, then another ziplock. Sometimes it was in my HB bag, sometimes in a rear pannier.

I used a Fujitsu Lifebook P1610, which has a regular (not solid state) hard drive. I wouldn't recommend this model if you wanted to do video, though - it's pathetically slow.

For a 4-month trip with dirt roads and a real computer requirement (not just nice-to-have), I would look for a solid state hard drive, and a 'rugged' model. I would have gotten a toughbook but I couldn't afford it.

Just to keep it simple, you don't need to buy a computer with flash hard drive to have one.
Just buy an IDE or SATA (depends on your hard disk interface) flash drive, and you're done.
Look on the image I attached to see a flash drive.

Good luck,
Kfir

What I've evolved to is a hybrid approach using both a small laptop and keeping vital data on a separate USB/solid state disk. I also currently have a small netbook and would recommend one of them with solid state disk. Here is some of that evolution on some of my largest trips:

~1992: Crossed the USA with a Sharp 286 laptop. Did the dialup thing with acoustic coupler modem from motel rooms. Uploads predominantly of text-based emails. Protected the laptop with extra foam and a large waterproof bag. Laptop was fine during the trip. Eventually some time after trip the display cracked.
~1997: Crossed Canada with a HP Omnibook 800 laptop running Windows 95. Did the modem thing including acoustic coupler modem but more phone jacks. Protected the laptop with foam and waterproof bag. Laptop was fine during trip and still ok.
~2001: Circled Australia and crossed USA and more for one year cycle trip. Used Sony Vaio and also auxiliary Pocketmail device. Primary frequent updates were via Pocketmail phone connection. Less frequent updates were from mini-Zip disks that I mailed home. Father maintained web site from daily emails plus every 2-3 week web page updates that had been mailed home. Laptop disk died part way through Australia. Replaced disk and did a system recovery.
~2007: Crossed EurAsia including crossing Russia. Also followup trip 4000km across China. Used small Sony that was essentially a $$ predecessor to netbook generation. Protected laptop with foam and waterproof bag. Laptop survived fine though after trip the display cracked. Did not actually connect the laptop to any wireless network in Russia. Instead, did local editing and then transferred main content to more than one U3 thumb drive with secondary storage. When we got to a major city (every ~week or two weeks) took the USB drives with me to an internet cafe and uploaded content to web sites. For the most remote parts of Siberia (but where every 1-3 days we might cross a town along the trans-Siberian railroad with cell phone service), also provided very short updates via cell phone SMS message -> twitter -> web site with short GPS coordinates and oneliner type messages. One of my USB drives failed and had to be reformatted.

Last week I cycled 575 miles through Texas from Brownsville to Dallas. For my more local US touring, I'm using a small netbook and relying on wireless uploads.

If I were to leave today on my next third-world tour, I'd likely:
(1) Use a small netbook type laptop with solid state disk. In addition, as a bit of a tech geek, I'd be able to boot Linux from SD card and carry two backup copies of the operating system on an SD card and/or be able to restore my solid state disk with OS from SD cards/USB. I'd keep some extra copies of my main data e.g. photos and videos on separate and redundant USB drives.
(2) I'd separate the OS platform + tools from my data. Keep redundant copies of both, e.g. restore disks for OS and/or booting from SD cards; keep my data on at least two copies on separate USB flash drives.
(3) I'd look at how frequently I really need to upload info. If not real frequently, I'd probably avoid using my laptop be the communications device I used for uploading and instead rely on internet cafes and other things and not connect the laptop to networks. (Uploading lots of large files like video and/or trying to do frequent uploads might add a fair amount to your trip costs as opposed to waiting until you are back to upload some of the largest pieces of info and instead using web pages + photos initially). If there is cell phone service, I'd get local SIM card and be able to send short SMS including GPS coordinates and short update.
(4) I wouldn't go as far down the "rugged" laptop area as some suggest here but instead go more down lines of redundancy of OS even to point of having second netbook back at "base camp" if that made sense. I would keep my data on more than one removable USB drive and be able to use redundant communications including relying on local internet cafes for some (all?) uploads.
(5) I'd find someone on the home front if possible to help receive some incoming posts/blogs and help admin that if necessary as well.

+1 Debian Linux ;)

Just to keep it simple, you don't need to buy a computer with flash hard drive to have one.
Just buy an IDE or SATA (depends on your hard disk interface) flash drive, and you're done.
Look on the image I attached to see a flash drive.


Another possibility for EEE PC netbooks and likely others is a SDHC card or USB stick. See these instructions: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/Install and then follow those for how to install to a SDHC card or USB stick. This lets you keep the original OS that the netbook came with and also for not too many grams more have extra backup copies of a (debian) operating system to boot from if something happens to the original OS boot disk. Even if Windows is your primary OS, having rescue and repair tools on the bootable SDHC card from Linux could be a help e.g. see utilities such as these:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LiveDistros

For the technically inclined, there are also instructions out there for creating bootable Windows on a USB, e.g.: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-pocket,1113.html
I have experience doing the Linux side, but not with Windows so don't know how well Windows works.

Once you have more than one copy of a bootable OS drive...also keep your data with redundant copies on other drives (e.g. USB drive or SDHC cards).

... don't know how well Windows works.

Terribly.

It's an interesting concept though, Windows working I mean.

Because this thread went the way of talking about solid state computers (asus eee), I will just ask this here and not start a new thread. I'm really interested in these but just don't get it b/c I'm not a tech type of person.
Can someone explain how solid state works in layman's terms? Or is it that the solid state runs off of something like a memory card for a camera?

What I've evolved ...

Great post, thanks for putting so much time into this mev

Because this thread went the way of talking about solid state computers (asus eee), I will just ask this here and not start a new thread. I'm really interested in these but just don't get it b/c I'm not a tech type of person.
Can someone explain how solid state works in layman's terms? Or is it that the solid state runs off of something like a memory card for a camera?

That's pretty much it. It acts like a hard drive, but uses memory chips instead of moving parts.

That's pretty much it. It acts like a hard drive, but uses memory chips instead of moving parts.

One more. Is the memory already installed or do you buy it? Like, I can buy an 8 gig card for my camera use it up and buy another, you do the same with a solid state computer? Thanks, btw.

+1

+1 on the Asus eepc 900 series. You need the 8.9 inch screen. The keyboard is perfectly fine of typing after
a few mins of practice. I used one to update a daily blog on the road. The linux version has all the tools you need and just works. Boots fast too.

I like the idea of the Asus netbook, but there are a couple of questions.

1. How do you keep it charged on the road?

2. Most if not all of the newer netbooks have Windows XP installed. For a number of reasons, I'd prefer to use Linux. If I were to wipe the drive and install a Linux system, would I still have the functionality or would I need to hunt down patches to get the computer to run properly and connect to the Internet?

One more. Is the memory already installed or do you buy it? Like, I can buy an 8 gig card for my camera use it up and buy another, you do the same with a solid state computer? Thanks, btw.

You buy the computer with a solid state disk drive instead of a hard disk drive. There isn't an additional 8 gig type of card that you need to buy. Just like people sometimes might replace a hard disk drive in their computer, you could replace a solid state disk drive with another. However, that type of swap doesn't happen in the same way someone plops in a new SDHC card in your camera to fill it with photos.

The boundary between the two can blur, because it is possible to also take the same SDHC 8 gig card that fits in your camera, put it into a PC and format it like a normal disk. You can now install an operating system such as Windows or Linux on that SDHC card and on many more recent computers tell the BIOS to boot off the SDHC card instead of the hard drive (or solid state drive).

Recently the technology of solid state disk drives has advanced in several directions:
- significantly cheaper (still more expensive than hard disk drives but not as big of a gap)
- more reliable e.g. used to be after ~10,000 writes, writing would start to fail. Now
we're an order of magnitude or two better
- faster
The net result is solid state drives start are becoming much more interesting to place in computers, particularly in applications like laptops used for bicycle touring where the lack of mechanical moving parts on a drive becomes an advantage for a laptop that might be shaken a bit in bicycle panniers on rough roads.

I've had an occasional USB thumb drive fail or a camera SDHC card also fail, so I also still get slightly cautious with a solid state drive in a laptop when touring. So just like a hard drive in a bicycle laptop, I make sure to minimize consequences of such failure by bringing along an ability to run a recovery disk or related tool (often shipped in that CD/DVD that comes with the computer) on the road and backing up my data in more than one place, as well as being able to boot off a USB/SDHC card if that is an option.

I like the idea of the Asus netbook, but there are a couple of questions.

1. How do you keep it charged on the road?

2. Most if not all of the newer netbooks have Windows XP installed. For a number of reasons, I'd prefer to use Linux. If I were to wipe the drive and install a Linux system, would I still have the functionality or would I need to hunt down patches to get the computer to run properly and connect to the Internet?

I rely on plugging mine into a normal outlet. When I'm away from such outlets for a longer time, I'll switch back to pen and paper. I've seen cyclists who carry solar panels for recharging, e.g. http://www.mvermeulen.com/saltlake/big/may30_04.jpg (This photo is of Ken Kifer of http://www.kenkifer.com who was a strong cyclist advocate but tragically was killed by a drunk driver five years ago; I met Ken when we were both touring the summer before his death).

Laptops frequently have special hardware for things like displays, network cards, etc. so before installing Linux on one, I'd search in Google and places like http://www.linux-laptop.com/ to see others experiences installing Linux on one and if necessary where to pick up extra drivers. So yes, there is sometimes some searching for patches that is useful/needed.

However, two other things that can help are (1) "live CD" distributions that let you boot Linux off a CD and see how it runs before deciding to install it on the hard disk and (2) not installing on the hard disk, but instead installing it onto bootable media like a SDHC card or USB thumb drive and then telling the bios to boot from that media. For example, I followed instructions here: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/InstallOnSDcardOrUsbStick to put Debian linux on a SDHC card and boot from it.

I think you will need a satellite phone system rather than a cell if you plan to update your blog on a regular basis. That will be a lot more difficult to carry and power than a small laptop.

+1 Debian Linux ;)

Using Debian Lenny here. Gotta love Linux.

mev, thanks for taking the time to explain that. i get it now. :)

Alex Lockhart (http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=3Tzut&page_id=68041&v=Fy) built a power system that ran off of a Son 28 dynamo hub. His system is complex, but he was able to use his full size laptop for 1 hour per day and have reserve for lights. He was on paved roads, so his speeds were probably higher then yours will be. Less speed and distance for the same amount of riding time translates into generating less overall power. Regardless of that, netbooks such as the Asus Eee Pc 901 require much less power (asus claims an 8 hr battery life with XP), so in theory you could get more daily computer time.

As for daily connectivity in the Himalayas, I'd guess that a satellite phone would be the only way. They are extremely expensive. I know nothing about their power requirements. As someone else mentioned, find out what kind of communication networks there are where you will be touring.