Readers of the blog know that I’ve said before that you shouldn’t use a smart phone for backcountry travel. The most important reason for this is that you’re using battery life which will make it hard to use the phone to…
Blog Archives
The SpareOne Emergency Cell Phone
Tagged with: communications, emergency, gear, how-to, review, smart phone, technology
Posted in Blog Entry
Posted in Blog Entry
SARScene 2012 Presentation
I attended SARScene again this year (see here for last year’s presentation), and gave a presentation titled “Best Practices in Managing Geospatial Data for SAR Teams”. The idea was to present practical tips on managing “geospatial data” which is a…
Tagged with: communications, GPS, how-to, mapping, OpenStreetMap, SAR, technology
Posted in Blog Entry
Posted in Blog Entry
Calculating your own GPS accuracy
In my post on GPS accuracy I made some claims about the accuracy of GPS devices and used a graphic that was created by a third party that may have confused the issue for some people, as it appeared to…
Why you shouldn’t use Smart Phones for Backcountry Navigation
Smart phones are everywhere. By “Smart Phone” I’m referring to any mobile phone that has additional functions, but specifically for the purposes of this article a smart phone is any phone that has a GPS or A-GPS function. My assertion…
Tagged with: communications, gear, GPS, how-to, map, smart phone, technology
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
Snowmobiles and Avalanches
It’s not often that one single piece of information can save your life. Most of the time, especially in the backcountry, it takes years of training and experience to evaluate conditions, your ability and the technique necessary to take on…
On Getting Lost (Part 2): Corner and Edge Cases
First some definitions: missing is when someone you know can’t be found. Lost is when you can’t find yourself (you don’t know where you are). A missing person may not be lost. As I’ve mentioned before, there are several reasons…
Maps vs. Air Photos
Now that everyone with an internet connection has access to Google Earth and Google Maps, we all have access to some fairly high quality air photo imagery. This might seem to be a good thing, but there are problems with…
How to get up in deep powder
I’m a Telemark skier. I started in university because the gear was cheap, and I was poor. Also, being poor, I did not have enough money for a ski pass, so I learned to ski in the backcountry. For me it…
How to Convert PDF files to images
Let’s say that someone has provided you with some highly detailed maps, these maps are in PDF format. Our mapping application needs them to be images. There are about 150 of these files. How do I convert PDFs to images?…
BlueToque Software
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TrueNorth Geospatial
Mapping Software for Backcountry Professionals
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Locate people using their SmartPhones
