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We're Off. Again.

January 2, 2010: We're off! We'll be sending "ePostcards" along the way; you'll always have the chance to "opt-out" or to invite others to join in our missives. Click on that link to join the party!

All Aboard.

Arrived Singapore; transfer to ship. Jetlag and tiredness from 30+ hour trip. Picked up at the airport and transported directly to the ship. Took a couple of days to get over the jetlag with the help of the wonder drug Modafinil. There's a long story about that somewhere in our site...

January 5th - first day at sea. Began our "job" of helping passengers with their computers & internet access. The ship has made some changes to their internet accounting software, ostensibly for the better, but it broke a bunch of other things. It took a few days and some head-banging to figure out what the changes were and their impact on passengers' netbooks, but now we've got it pretty much figured out, and can get about 95% of passengers' computers working with the wireless system on board. It remains troublesome for reasons that would bore you to death, so we won't share unless you ask.

What exactly do we do on board to earn our keep? We help passengers configure their computers in order to use the internet connection on board. It's fairly challenging: each computer is configured a bit differently and some are remarkably "stubborn" to get working; passengers come on board expecting a seamless broadband experience like they have on shore. There are a whole host of issues, some unique to the ship but most have to do with the technical limitations of satellite-based internet.

In addition to PC (and Macs, and iPhones) we try to address any technologies that passengers may have on board. Digital cameras are probably the largest component of this, but also GPS units, GSM phones, MP3 players, book readers (Amazon Kindle...)

Next: Bali, Indonesia through Bangkok, Thailand.