How We Created This Site From The Road

GuidedTour --> Click GuidedTour and go from page to page on our route without missing a stop! It's easy!

Eric models the in-car geek setup.

Building a website is no mean feat, especially on the road. Here's what it takes to make it happen:

Hardware Ingredients:
• IBM ThinkPad
• Xircom RealPort (for modem + LAN access)
• Lind Electronics (car power adapter)
• Lap Traveler from A2Z Solutions (in-car laptop stand)
• Nikon CoolPix 900 (digital camera), extra SanDisk CF card, several sets of NiMH rechargeable AA batteries, and a PCMCIA CompactFlash adapter

Software Ingredients:
• Macromedia Dreamweaver (web page creation)
• Macromedia Fireworks (web graphics production)
• TravRoute Co-Pilot (GPS and mapping)
• Picture Information Extractor [PIE] (software for digital picture manipulation)
• blank maps (from GraphicMaps.com) for the TripWatch logo
• Apache (web server software) to serve this site to you!
• PHP (extensions to Apache)
• FreeBSD (Unix operating system that Apache runs on)

Recipe:
• Go to a lot of exciting places. Take tons of pictures with the CoolPix. Try and remember what they were.
• Pop the CompactFlash card into the PCMCIA Adapter. Use PIE to extract and rotate JPGs.
• Copy a meagre 5% of the pictures to the web development area. Use Fireworks to resize and manipulate in batch mode.
• Add textual and graphical content, purée with Dreamweaver until done.
• Find a RJ-11, make a libation to the telephone gods, connect phone cord to RealPort and dial. Presuming connection success, upload and test site.

Credits:
• Special thanks to Andy, Matt, and Lori for their help putting this site together and keeping the server up.