Computers are almost required on a boat nowadays. I say almost. If you're out for any length of time you need to communicate home. Post cards and Letters just don't do it anymore. You are wise to be able to get wx info and the internet provides often the same images and fax's as meteorologist use. What people use and need and want of course varies. I have a netbook and a Mac and there are two advantages of the netbook over the Mac. One is running the Pactor. Yes; I can run it on the Mac with a couple of program or run it natively by booting into a windows partition but that's just a PITA. I tried it for a bit. The other is the way the PC deals with Hi Gain antennas driven by RealTek drivers. The programers for RealTek must be paid off by MS, IMHO cause they interface on the Netbook is better then the Mac and it seems to hold the signal better. Weird. What's weird to me is that it's easier to program much of the interface on a Mac, to create a window for example you simply give the command and 4 coordinates that you want it to have for two opposing corners. On a PC you have more lines of code. Be that as it may, I find the discussion most always enlightening. I now know there are more CAD programs for the Mac; not that it will help me now.

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