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We will hold your hand every step of the way. Well possibly both your hands, actually, because you will want to use our step by step guide to using a laptop, if it's the first computer you have ever owned, on our Laptop Literacy page, while you find out how best to use the glorious new knowledge, on this page, about staying in touch with the world from the comfort of your own boat.... In fact, whilst we need no convincing about the merits of owning a laptop, we are still in the dark ages ourselves, when it comes to the subject of using it to communicate with the Internet whilst at sea, so perhaps we can learn together?! We will be asking those that seem to know, to guide our faltering steps...

If, on the other hand, nobody but God knows more about this subject than you, not only can you help us to educate ourselves and our readers but you can use this page to talk to each other about it!
This page is where we sincerely hope we can help each other get to grips with the Internet on board the boat.
If you have already cracked it and are merrily receiving your e-mail and surfing the Net on board, you may like to help us ordinary mortals to join you up there with the gods of the computer kingdom.
We would like to hear anything you have to say, whether you are struggling to make your system work or have got it off to a fine art, even mid-ocean.

Manufacturers of the necessary equipment are welcome to ask us to review any system they care to install and even describe how to work it on this page, once we have mastered the art ourselves! We welcome information from all and any sources.

If you are wondering whether it is worthwhile being online aboard, tell us what disadvantages you perceive in doing so.
If you are wondering how you ever managed before you were online aboard, tell us what it has done and is doing for you.
Share your hints and tips with us and we'll try and keep our readers up to date with the ever growing world of the onboard Net.

Meanwhile...developments between two giants of the business world, Microsoft and Ericsson, at the turn of the Millennium, should mean improvements for seafarers. A strategic partnership has been formed, the first between the two companies, to develop and market end-to-end solutions for the wireless Internet. The basis for the partnership is a shared vision of convenient and fast access to information any time, anywhere, from any device. They plan to deliver mobile e-mail solutions for network operators, which is good news for those of us who rely on e-mail as our main communications tool. 

Ericsson will be the majority shareholders in the partnership and, as part of the deal, will provide their Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) stack to Microsoft and will adopt Microsoft Mobile Explorer for feature phones, giving operators, developers and consumers more choice and functionality in developing, delivering and accessing wireless information and services. The partnership will focus on solutions that utilise Microsoft Windows NT Server and Exchange platforms combined with Ericsson's infrastructure and mobile Internet technologies.

Their plans are ambitious and, frankly, very exciting. We know the world is full of people who consider it a fair sport to knock Bill Gates. He probably couldn't care less, and why should he? The higher one climbs, the more of one's backside one exposes to the snapping curs below.

Bill Gates is to computers what Henry Ford was to motor cars. He has brought the opportunity to the masses to use and enjoy something which started its existence as a hugely costly and complex technology, destined for only a tiny handful of individuals to employ.
What his company has done, and continues to do, has changed the world. For a few, it has perhaps changed it for the worse, more due to the uses people have made of the technology than to the existence of the technology itself. For the great majority of us, it has changed the world for the better in more ways than one can count. 

Ease of communication, access to information, amusement, to name but three. Were it not for Microsoft, we could not have created this magazine, an activity which has given us great pleasure and brought us new friends and will, with a little bit of luck, bring you pleasure too, and the opportunity to participate in making it an ongoing publication by adding your news, views and stories to our pages for others to enjoy..

We are happy that Ericsson and Microsoft are to combine skills and resources to take the movement one step further and look forwards to developments. We'll be keeping you posted on these pages. Perhaps from out at sea somewhere ...

If you're all done with the Computer section, you may like to enjoy a diversion with Quizzicles...