>>John;
>>
>>Seems like we also heard a promise that computers would create a paperless office. How many trees have died because of computers?
>
>I've often thought of this, whenever I saw thick layers of printed paper. OTOH, the same things would have been done without computers, and they'd have to write the same information several times, then use another paper to total it on, then provide several copies for important people etc etc.
>
>I think the big forest savings come from online entry - when the data is acquired directly, without being first written on paper, and in online reading of the data, i.e. directly from the screen without printing. I've tried to instruct my users to do it as much as they can, and have seen huge savings in paper when they switched.
>Though, in some cases, it simply doesn't work that way; those who are supposed to use the results are away from the computers, and want the printouts brought to their desks. Well, can't win them all.

To achieve a paperless office, we need good interfaces that don't depend on crappy report writers, and good networks (WANs or company intranets or whatever) that present the data with as much security as needed. That's especially tricky in a case such as ours, where we want to share data and documents with the Navy (not necessarily classified, but probably company confidential) and don't have a secure shared network.