We have the technology - pocketmail

imported
#1

Is it now possible to upload journal entries direct to trailjournals by putting the date of emails sent from handheld devices like pocketmail in the subject bar?

I am a technodunce myself, but a friend told me this is more or less standard practice these days in most blogging software and even on Pocketmail’s new ‘in house’ journal site. It would sure free up some more drinking/pizza time for all the busy hikers who currrently have to spend all that time hanging out in libraries in the towns along the trail. If it is not now possible, my friend tells me it would only take some minor modifications of the trailjournals code to enable it. Any ideas?

st rick

#2

Actually, the technology has been around for years upon years. At least since the advent of email.

Personally, I use FETCHMAIL and PROCMAIL ( software ) to redirect mail culled from a central email box and redirect it via my mail servers to users on the network (note: I am a UNIX Sys ADMIN who does this all the time).

Best of all, the software is free.

It would a simple matter to set it to deposit email in a web folder where I run a script ( PHP or ASP or CGI ), reformat the email, insert HTML, and then insert the entry in a static webpage.

The big question should be if there should be some sort of delay in order to protect people on the trail from harrassment because they can be tracked more easily.

Vaya Con Dios,

Mr. BOO AT '99 GA–>ME

Mr. Boo AT '99 GA–>ME

#3

Mr Boo makes an excellent point about delay. You have no idea who is reading your journal, and the real fanatics will try to find you on the trail. It does happen. I recommend a ~7 day delay for posting journal entries.

To minimize your time at trail town libraries, email your journal entries to a friend instead. The friend can cut from the email and paste onto your trailjournals page.

yogi

www.pcthandbook.com

yogi

#4

Mr. Boo is speaking chinese. Can you say all of that in English please?

sparepocket

#5

Sorry Everyone,

By the very nature of the beast, one has to speak a different language when it comes to computers, networking, scripting, email redirection, and http protocols. This ain’t hiking folks! Darn it all!

The important thing is that what St. Nick asked and what the friend of St. Nick’s said was true.

A hiker can email a journal entry with a pocketmail device that one carries on the trail to someone with a special comment in the subject line and have that journal entry automatically be posted onto a website without the reciepient of the email needing to get the email and entry it onto the website for the hiker who sent the email containing their journal entry from the trail.

Because I am also a UNIX Sys ADMIN aside from being a thru hiker, it is as trivial for me ( or any other UNIX Sys ADMIN ) to set this up for a hiker with a pocketmail device as it was for me or any other thru hiker to slip into our backpacks every day.

For a Window’s Sys Admin, however, it could take a week or two just to configure the Exchange Server. Ahhh, the power of the graphical user interface ( GUI )!

Basically, one sets up an email drop box, for example, myjournal@somedomain.com. You use FETCHMAIL to retrieve email from that email address every 30 minutes. This is the email address the hiker/journalist send his or her journal entry to.

You can then process every email message that FETCHMAIL gets from myjournal@somedomain.com that is sent from "thejournalbeingupdated@pocketmail.com" ( the pocketmail address can be used as a filter too! ) with PROCMAIL which looks for a subject line pattern that would look "DA JORNAL MONTH:?? DAY:?? YEAR:?? ". PROCMAIL can transfer that message to a folder on the server for later processing.

The Sys ADMIN can then have the server run a batch or BASH script every hour that scans that folder, checks for recent email, and when it finds a new email, process it and paste the entry into a webpage called “MYjournalONtheTrail.html” at whatever website that is hosting the journal.

It is this last step that can be changed by design. You can do it every hour or once a week.

And even when you run the script, you can increase the delay by limiting it to a delay in the online journal for more recent entries.

In other words, you can build into the automated software a one, two, or three week delay in journal entries.

Hope that clears it up ( O.K., I know it isn’t, but you guys are into hiking which is far more important than how to do it )

Good Luck,

Mr. Boo AT '99 GA–>ME

Mr. Boo AT '99 GA–>ME

#6

I think the answer to my original question is probably no, it is not autonamtic, but the technology is there to easily create a system whereby a hiker types the journal date in the subject bar of any computer email(or pocketmail) and it uploads automatically to trailjournals. All this without the hapless hiker having to do battle with the librarians in Hiawassee library (or wherever) in a furious bout of cutting and pasting before their 30 minutes runs out. To see how user friendly such a system can be just take a peek at pocketmail.com’s new journal’s page.

Any word from our heroic hosts Zip and Leif, who are still doing a fantastic job whatever?

:slight_smile:

st rick

#7

“It would sure free up some more drinking/pizza time for all the busy hikers who currrently have to spend all that time hanging out in libraries in the towns along the trail.”

No hiker has to spend all that time at all. It is a choice.

If one wants to automatically email their journal they can just use a blog which allows that. Means you can’t have your journal here but you do have the option of the automatic instant entry.

Hmm, how come Trail Journals doesn’t allow that feature? Rather than the way they have it now, one could choose to have a blog installed in their journal for the automatic instant email journal entry. Maybe it’s not possible for the people who run this fine site but it makes sense especially with technology evolving as it is! I know, many people are against technology on the trail (even though they use Gore-Tex and other current synthetics) but right now, for a price, one can do their journal on certain cell phones and email it in Wham, just like that… only they don’t have the option of having it automatically posted… unless they have a cellphone with web capability then maybe. In any case, the auto entry possibility should exist in Trail Journals as it does with a blog site out there. Would be a great feature!

About the thought of having a delay and maybe someone stalking you - if you’re that paranoid then don’t post a journal or someone who’s scared somebody might stalk them can make sure their journal is posted days later by handwriting and mailing their journal to someone to transcribe… but it shouldn’t be a feature installed across the board for everyone.

I Don’t Believe in Trail Names

#8

Automatic pocketmail-to-trailjournals posting would be a great feature to add to trailjournals, especially for hikers who do not have someone at home who has the time to cut-and-paste. Posting journals in real-time would be cool.

However, erring on the safe side is not a bad idea, either. Readers get very involved with journals and some of them eventually think they “know” the journalists. Some of those readers go looking for the journalists. It’s a little bit creepy. If you don’t want to be found, then have a delay when posting your journal entries.

yogi

www.pcthandbook.com

yogi

#9

We have discussed the idea of making this option available to our users, but as with most things on the site it takes time. Unfortunately 90% of the time we put into trailjournals is for support. I can’t imagine trying to ‘teach’ people how to e-mail their entry in…

In 2004 Radar posted his journal from his pocketmail. Blaze requested this feature for his 2005 CDT hike and I updated the code and made it more of a possibility for other hikers to use… but it still needs more testing. If some one would like to test it out on their hike just e-mail me.

If we didn’t need jobs… there would be so much we could do. :slight_smile:

Leif

#10

As I have said, setting it up is trivial.

As Leif points out, training is necessary, and they don’t have time for that.

Really, I don’t think they need the frustration setting this up considering this site is not a money maker for them. Their skill in setting up this site tells me that it would not be difficult for them to do it.

As for myself, with a video camera and software I have on my machine, I could make a video for the end user explaining how to do an automatic posting.

I just don’t know if I would want to set it up myself since I think it should be about the hike.

Because I online journaled on my '99 thru hike, I do have some input on this. I carried a PDA and emailed my journal entries in via equipment bumped forward in a drop box. I had a friend do a cut and paste into a web entry form.

As I said, it is about the hike. Making it easier to upload an entry is a good idea from a pragmatic viewpoint, but it could get in the way of an attempted thru hike.

If you walk into town feeling tired, frustrated, and feeling irratated that you have a stupid journal entry to send in to make it all real time, you might just up and quit in a fit of momentary anger.

A 37 cent stamp, an envelope, and a mailbox do the job of posting just as well as a PDA, Pocketmail, or 30 minutes at the library. It just may not do it in real time.

So, if someone asks me to help them do it automatically, I might say yes, but I will ask that they make the hike their first priority and use the online journal only to advertise the journey.

Remember, the journal is not the journey.

Well, that is my two cents worth…

Mr. Boo

Mr. Boo AT '99 GA–>ME

#11

“it should be about the hike” … What exactly is “it”? Having automated journal entry ability would get in the way of a thru-hike? Maybe yours. But can you honestly speak for everyone in the world? Of course, not, I’m sorry, that was a stupid question, stupid question, such a stupid question to ask… no one can possibly know that automated journal entries would get in the way of everyone’s hike. Perhaps part of someone’s hike IS journaling daily. That may not be part of YOUR hike and that’s okay. The actual hike itself need not be everyone’s first priority. Some folks (very few, sadly) set out on a thru-hike to raise funds for a charity with that being the #1 Priority and successfully completing the trail the #2 priority. That’s okay (in fact, better than okay!) People shape their hike in various ways to suit themselves and if that includes the ability to automatically update a journal everyday then so be it. That ain’t a bad thing. Maybe for you. But again, you cannot possibly speak for everyone who ever sets out on the trail. No, you can’t, this I know for sure.

The journal CAN be a part of the journey. An automated journal entry would be an excellent thing… and there’d be NO need to have to teach in any super-expanded way how people can achieve the feat. Someone will know how and someone will teach others how and others will post here to those who have exact questions.

The way things are set up now is almost just fine… almost because technology is here for the automated entry. The pervasiveness of that technology will only disgustingly grow for people to take advantage of if they choose. As much as I despise most technology I’m 99% close to picking up a Palm Treo 650 cell phone PDA dealie so I can update a Trail Journal as I please INCLUDING sending in pictures taken on my digital camera.

Now, if you become aware of someone typing in a journal entry at any time during the day and sending it in automatically and doing that each and every single day, one of your first thoughts about that hiker might be - “blech, not putting his hike first, too busy working on his journal, i don’t really care for that. That person just doesn’t get it.”

If that person doing what he’s doing, is happy about his hike and his daily journaling, then why would you judge that as bad in some way? Why??

One person’s hike is not EVERYONE’s hike.

Happy Journaling!

I Don’t Believe in Trail Names