Here is a study that is of interest to all of us who spend a lot of our hours before a computer screen. The British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reported in its April 18 issue a study supporting the use of large arm boards to significantly reduces neck and shoulder pain as well as hand, wrist and forearm pain.

?Based on these outcomes, employers should consider providing employees who use computers with appropriate forearm support,? said lead author David Rempel, director of the ergonomics programme at San Francisco General Hospital. The boards reduced the risk of incidence of neck and shoulder disorders by nearly half.

Musculoskeletal disorders of the neck, shoulders and arms are a common occupational health problem for individuals involved in computer-based customer service work. The forearm support is commonly called an arm board and attaches to the top front edge of the work surface. The researchers also predicted a full return of armboard costs for employers within 10.6 months of purchase.

?Based on this study, it is in the best interest of the company and the employees to provide forearm supports and training,? Rempel concluded.

They also suggest employees take scheduled breaks, maintain an erect posture, adjust chair height so thighs are parallel to the floor, adjust arm support and work surface height so the forearms are parallel to the floor, adjust the mouse and keyboard location to decrease the reach, and adjust monitor height so that the centre of the monitor is approximately 15 degrees below your visual horizon.

Happy adjusting. I think I will now buy some shares in a armboard maker.

I was talking about Jorge Luis Borges with an Argentinean friend of mine the other day, remembering his wonderful short stories. The conversation gave me a hunger to re-read some Borges. Since I don?t have any of his books handy I turned to the next option, and there, on the Internet I found an astonishing attempt to capture his ?Book of Sands?.

It?s among the ?projects? available at Artifice/Eternity (http://artificeeternity.com/webprojects_content.htm).

Call it literature transformed by the new technological based medium.

The web project attempts to emulate the story by mixing the pages at random, and having them numbered in no discernable order as the Book of Sand is without beginning or end. Created by Maximus Clarke, the site offers readers a puzzle. Solve the order and you get into the Hall of Fame. For an even more imaginative rendition of the book (and a glimpse in how Flash and other Web design tools are adding to our concept of the text) go to Ariel Malka?s site.

At Chronotext (www.chronotext.org), Malka is playing with the interface between text and reader manipulation. He has transformed the short story into scrolling line of texts. You are able to read the whole story by creating slopes along which the text slides by dropping or removing ?sand? from a page. If you?re in the mood for more manipulation I recommend the virtual landscape of a hill on which you can read the Book of Isaiah in a circular fashion. You have to manipulate the design to scroll the text properly.

Try Helix Type Reader 2, in which a ?double helix meets (Soren) ?Kierkegaard?. Or Babel Fish, described as ?Generations of translated text, sliding around a cyclotron?.

If you?re going to be sailing in European waters and need to stay connected try Wired Ocean?s new service, which offers a cheaper method to get online. Current methods of connecting use a satellite link up cost about 24 per megabyte at a slow rate.

The Wired Ocean approach uses a hybrid solution, combining two different types of satellites for downlink and the uplink (return) channel. The ship?s Internet communications are managed through a specialised client server.

Because the configuration is more economical the UK-based company is promising cost savings of as much as 70 percent over current systems. See if the service can help you at www.wiredocean.com.