Technical Log
January 4, 2001
As we have spent most of the first four weeks acclimating our mind's and body's "inner technologies" to the cultural extreme of Asia, we have only recently begun to immerse ourselves into the technical aspects of the project with deeper intent.
Though we have accumulated nearly 200 MB of digital photo stills (only a fraction of which is currently being presented in the site), very little video footage has been acquired. After we return to Rishikesh in early February from the Khumba Mela festival in Allebhad, we intend to begin acquiring video content--mostly for video tape and DVD development after we return to the states, but may also attempt to place some footage on-line from India before March.
Although there are occasional "Cyber Cafes" in many cities and towns of India, the connections are typically very slow and unreliable. Here in Rishikesh, if the town's electrical power is even active (it is sometimes out for up to a few hours various times throughout the day and night) then the internet connection runs over 12 computer out of a single modem line (that I guess is no greater than 14.4 or 28.8). One may spend 1-2 hours reading and sending perhaps 4 or 5 emails. In standard web browsing, one might tend to lose patience rather easily. Although, from our experience so far, in any kind of web usage, the connection is usually dropped once every 30 minutes or so, and is sometimes never retrieved again for large segments of the day.
The Interfacing India team is very fortunate, then, to have made a valuable connection in the neighboring town of Dehra Dhun. The web host of the Parmarth Niketan ashram (www.IHRF.com) has graciously offered their speedier line to do the initial upload of the site (that you are hopefully reading now).
Thanks in advance to www.garhwalhimalayas.com for their assistance.
Learn about Transcendigital's mobile media gear.
February 21, 2001
The initial attempt to publish the "Interfacing India" project on-line from Dehra Dun failed. After having worked for four days on developing the site on the G3 laptop in Rishikesh, I then traveled for 3 hours by very crowded bus to Dehra Dun. Upon arriving at the Garhwalhimalayas office, a technical team there spent 4-5 hours with me in a failed attempt to either connect the Macintosh laptop computer to their PC network, or access the internet directly with the laptop. Even though I had devised of a back-up plan--having brought a portable CD burner with me (whereby I could then transfer the contents of the web site from one computer to another)--I had mistakenly left the cable (necessary to connect the CD burner to the laptop) behind in Rishikesh. By the time I returned to our accomadations in Rishikesh, it was nearly midnight--and we then had the priority to pack our bags for our immediate departure the next morning to the Khumba Mela. Anticipating that we would spent at least two weeks living in tents and amongst much dust and chaos--I decided to leave all electronic equipment in storage, and brought only the digital cameras. Feeling a great pressure to successfully publish the website, however, I was able to find the CD burner cable, and then made three copies of the web site onto CDs in order to bring with us.
Over the next 8 weeks, as we attended the massive Khuba Mela festival, traveled then to Varinasi, and then to Bhodgaya-- several attemts were made to publish the site without success (due to slow connection, FTP confusions, and a host of other challanges).
We feel it is extremely auspicious that the "Interfacing India" project was finally transfered on-line (February 5, 2001) from the small cyber-cafe that is within 100 meters of the sacred Bodi tree that marks the precise location where the Buddha attained enlightenment approximately 2600 years ago.
Surprisingly, the cyber-cafe which helped us publish the first edition of the "Interfacing India" project does not even have their own web site!
Perhaps Transcendigital will build them one as an act of Digital Dharma ...
See a sneak peek of the Flash-based Transcendigital main site currently in development.
March 8 , 2001
Having returned to Rishikesh to develop the next edition of "Interfacing India," we have realized that it IS possible to FTP from here. We have found a very nice "cyber-cafe" called "Unique Travels" that is one of the nicest we have seen in our travels so far. The atmosphere is clean, quiet, with new PCs (all having USB connections). Although it is by far still a cumbersome process of updating and maintain a site in these foreign conditions, we are very greatful to the staff of "Unique Travels" for their support and quality service.
"Unique Travels" still has to develop their own web site. But here is a photo of one "baba" (freind) involved.
