How to minimize upload time/cost

[Mike Jacoubowsky]

I visit France each year for the Tour de France, and attempt to update our
website with photos & stories each day. Unfortunately, Internet
connectivity in some parts of France is non-existent (the top of Alpe d'Huez
is one such place). As a result, I often waste a lot of time trying to find
some way to connect to a local phone line or find the mythical Internet Cafe
(the one at Alpe d'Huez was useless; it was a bunch of computers hooked up
to dial-up lines, and they wouldn't allow you to use your own).

So next year I'm thinking I ought to just bite the bullet and do it via my
GSM/GPRS phone. The catch? It's expensive. At .0127 per *kilobyte*, you
get about $13/megabyte. Ouch! So the question is, how do I make the
absolute best-possible use of the connection? Or, specifically-

When you log on, what's the nature of the traffic going back & forth between
your server and your laptop? What can be done to minimize this? And
finally, how does one avoid the dreaded "time out" errors that you often get
when updating a large website across a slow connection?

Thanks in advance-

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

The best you can do is to set up a subweb for the this part of your site, so that is the only
content that you have to publish. There is nothing that you can do about time-out cause by slow
connections, just make sure your images are as small as possible.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Dave Satchell]

Get an account with T-Mobile and add unlimited internet for $20. Then
get one of their bluetooth enabled phones like the Nokia 3660, get (or
add) bluetooth to your laptop, and upload all your files that way. I
would check the map of the areas first to make sure that they will have
internet access in those areas but it should work fine. I'm not sure
about the actual transfer speed though I believe it is around 96k. I
would check with T-Mobile though as there is a new generation of phones
that may be coming out soon that will make the connections even faster.

I do this with my phone and laptop all the time and the nice thing about
bluetooth is that you won't have to take your phone out and connect it,
plus you can get a bluetooth wireless headset so another thing you won't
have to connect.

You can also check out http://www.howardforums.com , this is a web site
dedicated to all things cell phone related and is broken down by
manufacturer and provider.

Dave.

 

[Mike Jacoubowsky]

Get an account with T-Mobile and add unlimited internet for $20. Then

get one of their bluetooth enabled phones like the Nokia 3660, get (or
add) bluetooth to your laptop, and upload all your files that way. I
would check the map of the areas first to make sure that they will have
internet access in those areas but it should work fine. I'm not sure
about the actual transfer speed though I believe it is around 96k. I
would check with T-Mobile though as there is a new generation of phones
that may be coming out soon that will make the connections even faster.

Dave: But I'm talking about France, not here in the US. Does T-Mobile
include international roaming for just $20? That would seem like quite the
bargain, and thus quite unlikely!

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

 

[Mike Jacoubowsky]

Get an account with T-Mobile and add unlimited internet for $20.

Just checked the T-Mobile website; their overseas internet roaming rate is
$15/megabyte. Just a tiny bit more than what AT&T is charging. If I can
figure out how to limit the size of the upload, this is a workable price
(might cost me $5-$15/night, but that sure beats running all over town
trying to find a phone to use!).

My present overseas phone includes Bluetooth, so it shouldn't be much
trouble using the laptop to use it as a modem. Famous last words, of
course...

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com