Last month, i finally decided to retire my 5 year old compaq laptop (screen hinges were broken and the keyboard started acting up...). since i use my laptop as a back up nav system, I figured that a tablet PC would be nice. Found a not too expensive HP touchsmart which works as a regular laptop or convert to a tablet with both pen and finger inputs. Obviously it's not daylight readable and not waterproof, but it works just fine in an enclosed pilohouse works really well, but as everybody knows, you always run into surprises when setting up a new computer. First surprise was that ATT only offered one model of Express 3G card and it doesn't even work with their own software. After a couple of hours on the phone with ATT and not getting anywhere, I figured it out myself by downloading the card manufacturer software (option globe trotter) and ditching ATT Connection Manager... here are the details on the rest of the stuff. 1)- Nav software: I installed both SeaClearII and OpenCPN. both are free, OpenCPN is a little nicer in my opinion, open source and still being developed by an actual cruiser. It's not perfect but pretty good, not worth spending hundreds of dollars on fancy commercial soft. http://www.sping.com/seaclear/ http://bigdumboat.com/cpnindex.html Both programs are small and easy to install, they dont' take tetrabytes of disk space and memory! 2)- Charts: I downloaded all of the NOAA RNC charts in BSB format and installed them. OpenCPN makes it a little easier to import the charts, whereas with SeaClear you first have to import them using SeaCal, a utility provided in the download. not a big deal, but can be a little more confusing if you're not a geek. http://www.charts.noaa.gov/RNCs/RNCs.shtml 3)- GPS: that's the tricky part... because my new laptop runs Vista 64, I coudn't use my older Delorme LT20 USB GPS. turns out that Delorme has not published a USB / Serial driver compatible with 64bits system. How nice of them! Since i had to get a new GPS, I figured i'd get a bluetooth model and picked Globalsat BT368 (about $60). it's the size of business card and about 8mm thick. Has a 10hr battery, rechargeable with AC, cigarette lighter or USB port. Options are always nice on a boat! Setting it up was easy using Vista Bluetooth control panel, if your laptop doesn't have built in bluetooth, you can get a USB bluetooth adapter. as a bonus, the GPS also works with my Windows Mobile cell phone giving accurate position on Google Maps for mobile. Nice when on land... I had a minor issue while setting up the GPS with OpenCPN as Vista configured the GPS on COM7, which OpenCPN didnt' accept. I posted the question on the support forum and was told to manually edit the .ini file; that did the trick. 4)- GPS sharing: in addition to nav software, i run a google earth tracker, unfortunately it turns out that the Vista Bluetooth Serial Protocol doesn't allow two programs to share one GPS, as i was able to with XP and the delorme serial emulator. Took me a while to figure it out, the solution being Franson GPSgate. The "express" version cost only $12.95 and allows 2 programs to share a single GPS. http://franson.com/gpsgate/ Easy to install, it has a 14 day trial, after which you have to buy the license. It found the GPS right away and create virtual ports for both OpenCPN and Goops to share the single GPS. Note that i tried using Xport (mentioned on the OpenCPN support forum) but that woudn't work. 5)- live google tracking: The program i've been using to upload Google Earth KML files to my website is Goops. There is a free version, small and easy to setup. http://goopstechnologies.com/ Every minute (or whatever interval you choose) Goops upload a KML file which anyone with google earth can download. Or they can also open the file in Google Maps as well as in browser with the google Earth plugin. 6)- Webcam: no major issues there, I reinstalled my logitech 9000 and Active Webcam by PYsoft. Active Webcam works well, allow a lot of things to be customized as well as multiple cameras so if needed i can also upload images from the notebook built in webcam. http://www.pysoft.com/ 7)- mobile webcam: I came across an interesting piece of software, Webcam+ by Ateksoft. it's a little program for windows mobile which lets you use your cell phone as a webcam and upload captures directly from the cell phone, without using a computer. Image quality isnt' as good as the Logitech but it is highly mobile; easy to use from the tender, somewhere ashore, etc... http://www.ateksoft.com/webcamplus.html trial version is free, times out after 3 or 4 minutes and you have to reset it. Full version is $24 Pascal miami, fl hatteras 53MY live helm cam @ www.sandbarhopper.com