Internet Communications While At Sea?

ubergamer1337 writes "Next semester I will be participating in a college study abroad program known as Semester at Sea. The gist of it is that over four months 600ish students sail around the world on a converted cruise ship, visiting diverse port cities while taking classes when we are between ports. Debates about its educational merit aside, my internet options while I will be at sea will be severely limited. We get just 100 minutes of internet access for the entire voyage, and once thats gone the only internet access we have is a university email address, which is limited to messages under a megabyte with no attachments. I have been pondering different ways to staying in contact with friends and family back at home without running to an internet cafe in every port, and I have already decided that I want to set up a blog that can be updated by email, but I wanted to ask the collective wisdom of Slashdot if anyone knows of any other ways to transmit more then just your standard message through email. Some things I would be particularity interested in being able to figure out would be a way to send photos (encode them as text?), and a way to get Wikipedia pages etc. emailed to me."

Comments

Missing the point?

[Some guy named Chris]

Isn't the point of something like "Semester at Sea" to immerse yourself in the program, and become involved deeply in the studies and the people you're traveling with?

What you're wanting to do is like ordering escargot in a French restaurant and smothering them in ketchup.

Cut the cord

[Mononoke]

Say goodbye to your friends/family when you depart. Tell them you will contact them in an emergency. Then stay off the computers and spend time creating relationships with others on the ship. You don't need constant contact with the folks back home. Don't use them as a crutch.

Temporarily cutting off contact will be the best thing you ever do for yourself.

Re:Cut the cord

[jellomizer]

I think that is the point of the 100 minutes of internet. Enough for some emergency communication, not for blogging and letting people know what you are doing every second.
Drop the blog, no one cares anyway about the blog. And save it for a cram research of data, that emergency patch that you need on your laptop. Getting those baby pictures that come while you are out.

There is life outside the internet.

Limitations are in place for a reason

[fprintf]

Did you consider that the limitations on Internet usage are in place for a reason? It may not be the bandwidth, it may be to force participants in this program to get away from their computers and interact with each other. The limits they place sound pretty reasonable to me.

With that said, I'd say satellite is an option while at sea. Otherwise depending on where you go perhaps a tethered cell phone would do the trick. Expensive either way!

Re:Limitations are in place for a reason

[hansamurai]

It may be their intent, but this is Slashdot. He poses to us an intriguing and difficult problem and we solve it through various obtuse and technical solutions.

Unplug, get away

[gatkinso]

Screw your email.

Sounds like heaven.

You're Missing the Point

[likerice]

The severing of your electronic tethers is a luxury not to be taken lightly, my friend. Relax and enjoy the ocean breeze and various ports of call.

Re:Message queuing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's supposed to be for ed-you-ma-cay-shun. Being online is pretty much a requirement for education these days. I'm sure he'll have a whale of a time, but unless this boat has a huge library, I don't reckon there's much benefit in being at sea while studying.

Please tell me you're not serious. Handy? Yes. Useful? Yes. Required? No. It's only my opinion, but the more I work with students the less critical thinking I run into. Perhaps being unplugged for more than two minutes might be useful.

Flame away.

Use the opportunity properly

[EmbeddedJanitor]

If you're going on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this then why waste the time doing internet stuff that you can do for the rest of your life.

Use the opportunity wisely. Soak up the new experiences. DOn't be one of those fools that travel halfway around the world to sit in a McDonalds or an internet cafe.

Forget about the internet, email, wikipedia etc.They'll all still be there when you're done.