Episode-465- Technology Based Tools for Preppers
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Many preppers seem to shun technology in exchange for more “primitive” skills such as bush-crafting and stellar/solar navigation. Personally I feel neither should be relied on to the exclusion of the other. For instance I carry a lighter in every kit I own but I also know how to make friction fire and I can fire steel as well. Each tool has its place and acts as redundancy for the others.
A fellow prepper once mocked my use of a GPS, I simply asked if he rode a horse to work on a daily basis. The point was received with that one question. Technology can be both a blessing and a curse, it is up to us to fully utilize it while still understanding its limitations.
Join me today as we discuss the following technologies
- Emergency Weather Alerts from The Weather Channel
- Google News Alerts
- Facebook/Twitter
- Off the shelf back up power
- Solar/Hand Crank Radio
- Vehicle based GPS
- Handheld GPS
- Cell phones and apps
- Thumb Drives – Portable Data
- Lap Top Computers
- Digital Camera
- Ready.gov etc.
- YouTube (Download Helper)
Resources for today’s show…
- Members Support Brigade
- Join Our Forum
- Ready Made Resources – (sponsor of the day)
- Western Botanicals – (sponsor of the day)
- Google Alerts
- Video Download Helper (it is a FireFox extension by the way so you need to run FireFox to use, Internet Explorer sucks anyway)
- Email Weather Alerts from the Weather Channel
- My Video on Setting Up Weather Alerts by eMail
- Ron Hood’s Survival.com Magazine
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.
While I don’t scoff at GPS. I do tell people not to depend on it. The following link describes a situation that turned out well, despite the dependence on just a GPS unit:
http://wildedtx.blogspot.com/2010/06/terlingua-adventure-disaster-and.html
The funny thing is, even rideable horses were hi-tech once. Just ask the Ancient Egyptians who had their asses handed to them by the state-of-the-art chariots of the Hittites. The modern horse was “invented” through breeding, they didn’t emerge that way from Mother Nature’s assembly lines, heh :p
Holon theory: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/05/holons-and-economic-resilience.html
This has some relevance to the whole “low-tech as a redundancy for hi-tech” discussion.
The gist of the holon thing: mixing in redundant low-tech back-ups with the hi-tech processes leads to some waste, but it means that a system can fail gracefully (a term from programming) instead of crapping out if everything doesn’t run 100% smoothly.
Yeah, I’ve been mocked, teased, stonewalled, and even threaten on various survivalist Websites for using a computer. What a bunch of hypocritical CIONINTEL PRO creeps.
I use http://www.keepvid.com for my Youtube videos I wish to carry with me. It does not have the ability to strip audio only, but it is free.
Look at Nixle.com. The partner with local gov’s and LEOs to provide alerts and other info about the community to your email or phone.
Zamzar works great for grabbing videos. Lots of options (like file format) – http://www.zamzar.com/ I use it a lot for grabbing animation reference.
Piracy is not a crime!! Theft is taking the original, piracy online is making a copy.
The world has changed but the corporations refuse to listen.
Facebook saved my sanity a few weeks ago. Tornados ripped through our area beginning of June and hit my hometown hard. I live about 30 minutes from my friends and family and the only way I knew they were okay was facebook. My high school was destroyed and my family lives about 1/2 mile from there. Facebook told me they were okay when the news didn’t know. My friend was home alone with her 3 kids while her husband was out checking on his parents who were hit. A second wave came through and facebook let her talk to my mom and I to keep her calm until he got home. The next morning, everyone was checking in and posting photos, much better coverage than the news had!
Hi, all.
I like the idea of 12v inverters for the car to charge small item with your car and I keep one with me.
I did not understand how to jump a car without another vehicle’s help as described in the podcast. Did Jack mean that you can keep a charged marine battery in the vehicle (and then use jumper cables)? What did I miss? Thanks, Matt
Jack, other than iBird Explorer Pro and First Aid, what other iPhone apps do you see useful?
@Matt the device is called the PowerDome EX
http://bit.ly/9itMBh
It is a back up power source, it also jumps dead batteries, is a radio, an air compressor and more.
@Kevin I will do a show on apps some time in the next week or two.
Encryption is a must for thumb drives/portable data – TrueCrypt is a useful freeware encryption program: http://download.cnet.com/TrueCrypt/3000-2092_4-10527243.html
Ditto on TrueCrypt. Very flexible. Extremely robust. Never worry about LOSING SENSITIVE DATA! Also, it’s better than freeware, it’s open source and therefore even more secure.
More TrueCrypt info and documentation: http://www.truecrypt.org/
Free, open source video encoding software (i.e. for YouTube rips):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidemux (Linux, Win, Mac) & http://www.transcoder.org/ (Linux)
I use Zamzar as well. I can rip videos from youtube to video or audio. I can also convert text files to other formats. And for people on a budget, the fact that it’s free is a plus (they offer a paid upgrade version).
Guys, if you haven’t already you need to checkout evernote.com
This is hands down the BEST web clipping tool out there. I have many “notebooks” setup and synched between all my devices including a free iPhone app.
Bookmarks are dead, evernote is so much more useful as you can capture all of the information along with the web url right to your own personal archive which you can then organize etc.
Has excellent OCR technology built into it. Take a picture of a product at the store with your phone, search for keywords in that picture to find it later.
The windows and MAC native apps take it over the top. they are excellent and make taking screenshots and clipping web content a breeze
Tip on cell phones in an emergency: During the evacuation of Houston during Hurricane Rita, cell phone services were overwhelmed. Local calls were getting me busy signals all the time. SMS messages also wouldn’t get through.
(I had to run a last-minute trip for one last prep that we just thought of. I sent an SMS. Five hours later I got home. Then the SMS came through on the wife’s cell phone.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrican_Rita#Texas
I called my uncle in the Northeast (I was bored sitting in traffic). The call went right through. I asked my uncle to call my wife and he reported back the call went without problems.
I don’t know if this was a one-time phenomenon or a glitch, but my uncle is now our designated point of contact if something similar ever happens again.