Extreme Blogging!
July 24, 2011
Ok so I'm not in the arctic or the tropical rainforests, I'm not at the top of Everest or Snowden for that matter I don't however have domestic modern communication. No wifi and No mobile phone signal. I have made half hearted tempts to locate a signal when one might be available but glancingat the signal indecator for a few (being generous here) seconds before returning to my game of Geo Defense probably demonstrates my dire need to connect with the world back home! Wifi is a slightly different beast. Being disconnected is fabulous. I have to confess I did find a connection, Tobermory Harbour has open wifi. I have suddenly taken to wandering down to the Harbour when Tobermory way! I sneaked out a few tweets mostly DM's to friends I miss. But I returned to the solitude and seclusion of Treshish knowing I was disconnected.
So why is this leisurely vacation blog titled 'Extreme Blogging'?
With my headspace cleared from immediate business, that is the mechanism in which I make money, my desire to blog and make media while mobile has not diminished. Its only when with out wifi, or a connection to the internet that I discover that many of the numerous apps I have downloaded on to my iPhone turn out to be 'damp squibs' when out of the range of internet connectivity.
The Facebook app for example
Twitter is simply inactive although with Birdhouse I can stack draft tweets for posting.
For photo updates lnstagram is functional offline enabling me to stack pictures for posting when connected and the same is true for AudioBoo so I can still produce audio podcasts even if they aren't posted in real-time. But with AudioBoo they never are.
My favoured livestream mobile video app Bambuser can't capture or store without connectivity where as QIK will let me record offline for latter upload. I also discovered SocialCam, an app I had downloaded but never explored.
There are of course the iPhone's native apps but these are not part of my 'media pipeline' in the course of my day today media making. The camera app I use day to day, Camera+ does l discovered have cross posting functionality which an important factor when it comes to adding an app to my media making but in the context of this post is pointless as I have no Internet access. It does capture offline though. It doesn't capture video for which I have been using my Kodak xi 6. Video apps will be my next post me thinks. Just tried to add that to my 'blogs to do' list in Wunderlist only to discover a strange offline bug on the iPhone, another post in the making or possibly a targeted tweet!
Which brings me to blogging, the act of publishing my off-line musing. The apps I have at my disposal, my active blogging platforms with apps downloaded to my phone are:
I won't labour my point with 'no connection' screenshots but In the extreme blogging, off terrain blogging award goes to... Posterous
Posterous enables blogging via email and its simplicity to set up with one email message is extraordinary but being able to email your blog post is a feature many blogs and social networks can accommodate. It is however the only app which remains functional offline. Add a title, add tags, type your blog post and attached a photo, series of photos, video or audio file before sending. When blogging 'in the wild' catching an elusive signal for upload is never easy! I did manage to get one post loose. The chicken and the egg? - PCM projects
End NOTE: The post you are reading was not I am sad to say posted during my time away. Although it was created while 'in the wild' it was not uploaded. Why? Isn't that the whole point of this post? Posterous 'in the wild' is write and post. Once it's been sent it can't be edited. Including links and embeded images proved impossible as syncronisation became my stumbling block. I wrote my posts by hand with my LiveScribe notebook and pen, converted the text with MyScribe before editing and enhancing (inserting graphics and links) in Evernote. This meant my post needed to be sync to the Evernote app which... yes needed requires the Internet in order to get the data on to my iPhone. Doh! I did get to establish a route to publication and now have a collection of apps which make up the foundation of my media making. I did post a blog entry. I did learn that aggregation media to create a media rich post is a little tricker.
The journey continues.
Posted media during my time on Mull.
