Reeds Digital Almanac- No Show?

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seacock

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Did anyone buy a 2011 Edition of the Reeds Almanac at the 2010 Southampton Boat Show? Inserted in the Almanac was the registration key for their Digital Almanac.

I purchased one for about £35 on the premise that I'd have the Digital Service of the Almanac by the New Year - 6 months on and nothing's materialised - Grrrrrrrr! Are we being taken for a ride again, as we were back in 2009? I've written and complained to Reeds, who've tried to soften my complaint by claiming that the Digital Service is FREE to all those that have purchased the printed edition. A misuse of the word I feel, since the Digital Service is provided as a 'condition sale' and included in the cover price.

The public's been chasing online Almanacs from Reeds and Wileys and the like, for the past 3 years - all of which have failed.
Searching around, there are plenty of good reliable freebie one's on the world wide web, just as good and if not better than Reeds. Some even provide full-scale Admiralty charts for FREE!:

Ports-and-Harbours.com
VisitMyHarbour.com
SailingAlmanac.com
Ports.org.uk,
Marinas.com
Marina-guide.eu
 
seacock said:
Did anyone buy a 2011 Edition of the Reeds Almanac at the 2010 Southampton Boat Show? Inserted in the Almanac was the registration key for their Digital Almanac.

I purchased one for about £35 on the premise that I'd have the Digital Service of the Almanac by the New Year - 6 months on and nothing's materialised - Grrrrrrrr! Are we being taken for a ride again, as we were back in 2009? I've written and complained to Reeds, who've tried to soften my complaint by claiming that the Digital Service is FREE to all those that have purchased the printed edition. A misuse of the word I feel, since the Digital Service is provided as a 'condition sale' and included in the cover price.

The public's been chasing online Almanacs from Reeds and Wileys and the like, for the past 3 years - all of which have failed.
Searching around, there are plenty of good reliable freebie one's on the world wide web, just as good and if not better than Reeds. Some even provide full-scale Admiralty charts for FREE!:

Ports-and-Harbours.com
VisitMyHarbour.com
SailingAlmanac.com
Ports.org.uk,
Marinas.com
Marina-guide.eu
Click to expand...


Yes I bought it from Amazon on the strength of the digital - I would not have bothered otherwise. I thought it would be handy to be able to do plans from the PC at work (only in my lunch hour of course). Still waiting ....
 
In all fairness, Reeds did offer me a book as some means of compenstation whilst I waited, but I kindly turned it down since I felt this would imply that I accepted the situation - which I do not! Its all very well of them to say that the Digital Service is FREE, but the fact is that money has been exchanged for these goods and services which have not been forthcoming.
 
It just occurred to me whilst reading your last sentence. You do realise that its going to be an Application and not a static web site? You can only download it once onto one PC. You wont be able to access it from one machine to another, as you can with the web. This is going to be its one big draw back. Therefore for access and portability your work PC is not a good place to nominate.
 
Which also means its very one-dimensional, and does not reflect the dynamic nature of the web, or draw on any of its benefits....

IMHO, absolutely perfect example of an 'old world' organisation struggling and failing to come to terms with the 'new world' producing a marginally useful product so that somewhere someone within their organsiation can say 'yes - we are web savvy'
 
I've been wondering about this too...went online today and the beta is up! I don't know how long it's been up for.

I've been playing with it and it looks nice, I'm not sure I'd ever use it on a boat (hate having laptops or those weird pad things on a boat) but it's great for office chair cruise planning - or dreaming in my case.

The route planner 'thing' looks useful if you're too lazy to do any of the tide calculations by hand but I'm not sure what it means when it says it can calculate safe sailing distances.

(been lurking for a while on the forum, good chance as any to say hello to everyone...I've been sailing for a while on charter boats so the next step is to find a small boat to make some mistakes in without losing too much money)
 
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