Day 10 - The Technology
Sawsealady
David Moore
Tue 5 Dec 2006 12:22
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"20:09.319N 35:16.18.678W "
Day 10 - The
Technology
We have decided that from today each blog entry will be
written by a different crew member.
I am first off.
We keep being asked how we are sending
emails.
Here's what we do
-
We take photos using a digital cameras. Adjust the photo, cropping, etc, using Adobe Photoshop Elements.
The photo is resized to 8ins in width then saved for the
web.
The photo below started at 1,421kb and finished at
19kb.
The email is produced in Outlook Express on David's Acer
laptop. On transmission the email is reduced in size by
software from Mailasail to further cut down the slow communication
speed. This is done to both outgoing and incoming
emails. Our Motorola Iridium phone is plugged
into a USB port.The phone is held up to the sky. Once
there is a good signal we dial out to the ISP. In this case Mailasail. The
position is taken from the entry we put in the top line of the blog.
Mailasail position this on Google Earth which you see when you go to our blog
page.
There are 60 Iridium satellites orbiting the earth in a
moving polar orbit. With a perfect view of the horizon, we normally
get several straight away.
As well as the blog we send an email of our position to
ARC control. We then get any emails waiting from friends or any urgent info from
ARC such as Maydays.
The only difficulty is typing with your nose while holding
yourself down with one hand and the laptop with the other.
 This photo, taken yesterday, was in 10ft waves - they
don't show on still photos !
Donald McSwein - Blogmeister
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