Trying to Get "Le Grille" Working Again

You may have noticed (in fact, we hope you have; that means you’re a regular Uncharted visitor) that we’re having a little difficulty at Uncharted.net.

Our photo uploader works, well, kinda, and you have to treat it like an old pickup, whapping it here and turning up the radio to drown out the noises there. The story uploader, well, that isn’t working at all.

We’re sorry.

We’re working on a solution that includes rewriting some of the programming that lies behind Uncharted.net, and doing so on a shoestring budget. We’ll try to do a better job of keeping you up to date on our progress so your visits to Uncharted.net are fun, not frustrating. Although sometimes it’s fun to watch someone be frustrated, as Homer Simpson here:

Rest assured that the experts we have working on Uncharted.net’s woes are much better at their jobs than Homer is at masonry.

In the meantime, we’re working on a few solutions that’ll keep us all sharing our photos and adventures until we’ve got the site working as we’d like.

1) The photo uploader is still working, but you just have to be patient with it. If you get an error message, just reload the page, or open up Uncharted.net in a new browser and try again. Most of the time (and trust me, I’ve done a lot of trial and error on this ) your photos will be there, waiting for more to join them or for your muse to help you write captions.

2) If you’ve got an itch to write a story, simply post it to your blog, on Facebook, Google+ or whatever space you’ve got and send us a link at Uncharted’s Facebook page, which you can find here.

3) If you’d rather leave the hosting to us, contact us via our Facebook page and we’ll work things out.

4) If you have any suggestions, want to make a donation so our site upgrade goes faster, absolutely let us know.

Thanks for your patience. We love seeing your photos and reading your stories. We hope this interim solution in keeping your enthusiasm alive will, well, keep that enthusiasm alive. Let us know what we can do to do better.

An Oil Change's Worth of Stories to Come

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We just finished traveling over 3,000 miles, mostly on interstates but a lot – notably in Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa – on more minor roads, on our annual vacation. That’s an oil change’s worth of traveling.

Lots of Uncharted stories to come, obviously. Not necessarily stuff off the beaten track, but some stuff, I believe, well worthwhile to future explorers who want a little advice on whether or not to take the road less traveled. And we certainly did hit some less-traveled roads. If it hadn’t been for that one slow truck we got behind while winding down out of the Big Horn Mountains on US 14 through central Wyoming, for instance, we wouldn’t have seen another soul on that trip. Well worth it, by the way – spectacular views of the mountains, the valleys, lots of snow still on the ground and, at the top in that odd little alpine valley, a roadside spring for refreshment.

And more to see. Now that we’ve traveled those roads, we’ve got more reasons to go back when we have the time and the inclination. Maybe that’s the magic of Uncharted: Knowing where you’re going to go next.

Alan Murray: Detecting Gorillas All Week Long

Within the next hour and a half, Uncharted's Alan Murray will be detecting gorillas. Much better than Dr. Bunsen Honeydew here.

Gorilla detecting is a good metaphor for what Alan is doing this week. In case you've forgotten, Alan is teaching a week-long writing and leadership seminar at the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's summer workshop series. The gorilla detecting comes in as Alan teaches his students that we have to go beyond the obvious and stretch ourselves as writers and communicators to succeed in any kind of writing endeavor, not just journalism. (I wish I'd realized the importance of the communication part when I was a journalist; that would have helped avoid several unpleasant problems.)

We've had a busy month, getting Alan ready for this week's adventure. And we're not done. Andrew will work as a Skyped-in guest speaker on coordinating writing with visuals, while Dave will also Skype in to talk about SEO and other ways to generate web traffic. As Uncharted's director of creative content, I'll be working with Alan all week as well, offering feedback on his students' writing. It's going to be a challenging week.

Alan is up to it, through. He's good at detectoring gorillas.

It's Just This Thing I Have . . .

I don't know what it is with me and ghost towns.

Back in the late 80s, a Dutch exchange student we were hosting wanted to go pan for gold. He'd gone to the local army surplus store and bought an authentic gold-panning pan -- they have everything at our surplus store, except the gold -- and wanted to try it out. I figured, why not go gold-panning where the prospectors had found gold years before?

So we headed to Stanley, Idaho.

Stanley itself is nto a ghost town, though it is almost. Nearby, however, is the ghost town of Bonanza, which sounded as a likely spot.

We camped, made a fire, monkeyed around as high school kids will do, then went panning for gold. Didn't find a single flake. But we had a ball poking through the old buildings at Bonanza, wondering who lived there, why they left, and why in the world they used such splintery wood for the seats in their outhouses.

Then on out, I was hooked.

I've been through ghost towns in extreme southern Idaho, where they built their homes out of stone because trees were scarce. I've been through several in central Idaho, where the roofs have crumbled and trees are growing up through the buildings.

And I've been to Gilmore, Idaho, time and again, hoping against hope that on the next journey, I can convince my wife to buy a lot there. They're for sale, you know. Owning part of a ghost town. How cool would that be? Read more about it here.

Gilmore, Idaho, from the surrounding hills. Photo by Michelle Davidson.

Uncharted Gets another CSPA Invite

Well, we're officially in at the CSPA. Here's what Alan says about our repeated invitation:

Here is the link to the workshop I will be teaching. The Columbia University people told me that the reasons they are having me come teach this summer are because I come well prepared and get really good reviews with class numbers increasing. The words they used to describe the sessions were things like innovative and attention-grabbing. They also like that we cross train and deal with small staffs. This invitation would not be possible if it were not for the team effort that goes into helping me prepare for these events. Each of you have played a key role in this and I appreciate it. When I go to these things and am successful it is only because of this team. You should all take credit for this. Thanks.

That makes us feel pretty good. Here's the link he mentions.

App Review: iSurvival

The time hasn't come yet that an iPod Touch is the first item I think of when I'm compiling a list of wilderness survival essentials, but a friend of mine recently recommended a survival app that just might change my mind.

It's called -- maybe this won't win points for originality -- iSurvival. But as I mock the name, I have to say that for an occasional wilderness wanderer like me, it's got some handy stuff, though I'm hard-pressed to way when, in the future, I envision myself becoming lost at sea. Published by Utah-based Fishington Studios, the app is billed as a "military grade" wilderness survival manual. And considering the friend who recommended the app worked as a paramedic and in California and follows military minutia as he has a son who is a soldier, I have to believe that this app lives up to its billing.

Wilderness Survival, ten-year-old style

There are small tells throughout the manual that reveal the text in iSurvival wasn't originally written for the leisure wilderness crowd -- the chapter on shelters, for example, advises that you choose a place to build your shelter that "provides concealment from enemy observation" -- but, in general, the tips therein echo those I've read in more expensive manuals, including a few I've got lying around the house because I haven't yet gotten around to getting lost.

Though I've poked fun at the manual a bit, it's certainly something I'd have at my side if I were wandering off into the wilds. The app's clear textual presentation, accompanied by clear, useful illustration of survival techniques ranging from shelter-building to identification of edible wild plants.

The link provided above says the app is available for $1.99. I searched iTunes and got it for free, though perhaps the "free" was a short-time promotional price. 

The only fault I can see in this app is obvious -- run out of power for your handheld device and the app is locked away forever. Perhaps they've included a chapter on locating current bushes . . .

Fixed the Photo and Story Modules

Great news! We successfully fixed the "share" function of the Uncharted website so that you can once again share your photos and stories from your adventures! Feel free to use your Explorer account to sign in and publish away on Uncharted's website. Invite your friends to do the same by sharing this link with them so they can become an Explorer too: http://uncharted.net/account/register

We look forward to seeing whatever you have to share with us as you continue exploring the uncharted and keep shooting for 2011 Explorer of the Year. For 2010 we gave away a nice Uncharted t-shirt and a couple bumper stickers to the winner, and well do the same or better this year, so share your adventures often!

Now we are working on new upgrades to the site and we will have some more news, tips and information to send to you again soon. As always, if you have anything you'd like to share w/ the whole Uncharted audience or have feedback, we welcome you to send it to feedback@uncharted.net. You can also keep in touch with us at our page on Facebook or Twitter. In the mean time, all the best!