1. Complete the Request Form

2. Check Availability & Purchase

3. Email the Form

Email the completed form with your purchase reference number to the email listed on the form. If you have any questions about the process or the Drive, email me BEFORE purchase.

Below is a sample of the content on the Prep Drive.

Have a look at the full File Request Form for a more complete list of data available.

Maps

These are offline Android AlpineQuest maps with varying download dates and zoom ranges to help you navigate when the internet goes down. Enter the title of the map you want by referring to the maps below.

E.g. "GM - QLD - Brisbane" or "GT - USA - Seattle".

The free verion of AlpineQuest is included on the Drive, however it's limited to viewing maps and adding markers. Custom maps have an additional cost on a per-map basis, however there are also some free maps to choose from.

All maps include a wide selection of points of interest, such as markers on the capital cities of each country and well known landmarks around the globe. It also contains a free set of icons to use thanks to mapicons.mapsmarker.com.

Australian Maps

United States Maps

Other Maps

There's plenty of other maps to select from. Download the Request Sheet to see them all.

Kiwix Websites

These are downloaded websites which can be viewed on a mobile device using the Kiwix app. If you would like more information on one of the sites, just search for it in your browser. Not all information on the websites may be captured due to the time and file size limitations of the software used.

Those are just examples of 3 of the headings, so download the Request sheet at the top or bottom of this page to see them all.

YouTube Videos

A wide selection of videos from various YouTube channels to assist you visually on your preparedness journey. Videos are generally in 480p unless they require more detail. The green highlights are recommended channels, but all channels contain valuable information. See further below for the criteria used when selecting videos & channels.

Those are examples of 9 of the 12 headings.

1. Stay on Topic

Focus on the most important aspects of survival first including redundancies and different perspectives for those. (E.g: Food, Water, Fire, Shelter, Defence and Community primarily, so there will be a lot of redundancy in those categories) Additionally, focus on "How To's" and instructional videos and avoid comparison videos, gear reviews and news updates since these will be of little to no use in a survival situation.

2. Quality Content

Avoid clickbaity, fear-mongering and entertainment focused channels/videos and those with many millions of subscribers since they will generally shift to be more focused on entertainment and view count over time. (E.g: Canadian Prepper has shifted more towards the entertainment side of the spectrum recently, although his older videos are excellent) Avoid videos which can be conveyed in a simpler medium such as a diagram or even in text to make the most of the space. (E.g: There is no point in a video which shows you how to sharpen a pencil when you can list the steps out and save that space)

3. Breadth over Depth

Have a wide breadth of different topics rather than a lot of videos on single topics. (E.g: Have channels that teach about raising animals, gardening, homesteading and carpentry, over one which focuses solely on gardening) This also includes avoiding specialized topics which few preppers would likely use or aren't considered essential to survival. (E.g: In-depth details on using specific types of HAM radios, or how to mod a specific AR weapon)

4. Avoid Too Much Overlap

Have a limited content overlap for each topic to avoid 10+ videos on how to do the same thing. (E.g: Most homesteading channels have a range of gardening videos. So with a pool of 10 homesteading channels, you are likely to end up with 10 videos on how to grow tomatoes) Additionally, avoid too much similar content on a channel which would make little difference to survival. (E.g: Brewing 20 different kinds of alcoholic drinks may be useful if that knowledge is lost, but it won't help you survive any longer over just having 3 recipes)

5. Region Diversity

Keep the videos non region-specific. (E.g: Having a variety of gardening channels from different climates/countries. Also not rejecting channels just because they don't apply to a region - such as guns in Australia, where they are rarely personally owned)

By Joshua S.

A while back, I downloaded The Preparedness Encyclopedia. I reached out to the author to ask whether he had any video content that I could download. It turns out that he offers a hard disk product where you can choose content from a variety of video channels, along with maps, books and offline websites and he will send it to you in the mail. He offers different size drives depending how much you want to spend. I got the 1TB USB drive.

Being the first customer, he asked if I would write an honest review of my thoughts. My biggest issue with the experience was just looking up all of the different channels to decide, "Do I want this particular channel's videos? Are they going to be useful to me personally?"

The video quality is good enough. I am still to see small components well enough to repeat what is in the videos. So it's fine. I'd rather have more videos at a slightly lower quality than a fraction of the number at a higher quality. I actually ran out of space on my NAS, so I had to upgrade that as well!

It was a good excuse to do that. The 1TB USB drive worked fine and transferred files to my computer at a reasonable speed, but I don't think I would rely on that single drive alone.

The prep drive contains a massive amount of information, including offline maps, Wikipedia and gigabytes of practical and educational videos. If the Internet ever goes down, or the electrical grid goes out for an extended period of time, you will have a valuable resource. Secondly, Big Tech has already tried to shut down a gardening channel whose media is included on this drive. So it's good to have a backup for yourself considering the pro-censorship culture world we live in today. If they're going after gardeners, then pretty much no one is safe from the insane, anti-thinking, pro-corporate censorship.

The other issue is with all of the AI garbage quality content taking over. It would be ideal to download Wikipedia and other base sources of information now, before the info-pollution gets far worse. Many books are now written by AI and have incorrect and nonsensical information.

The maps are Android specific and require a program called Alpine Quest. I would have liked to see QGIS compatible maps, but I think I can install an Android emulator in Linux.

Side note: If you use Kiwix to view the Wikipedia pages offline, please block the program from Internet access at your router or software firewall level. The auto-update feature does not play nice and I even filed a bug with their developers about it. You don't want to program to auto-update you to a new version and find out that it's not compatible with your OS and find out that you can't view any Wikipedia pages offline anymore.

Chris was willing to download several playlists from channels that I specifically asked for, which was really nice. The other positive thing about his efforts is that he was thoughtful about his channel and video selection. He used a 5 point criteria where videos are on topic, of good quality (avoiding clickbait/fear), have good breadth, don't overlap, and are non-region specific. He talks more about his criteria on his site.

Chris was very helpful and provided a ton of of suggestions. He answered my questions and gave me his insight. It was a great experience to work with him on getting my drive set up. As I said above, the only issue I had was with all of the potential choices for content. So you may need to figure out what you want to prioritize. Spend a little extra and get the 1TB drive. You'll be happy you did!