OFF digital
Net access and email via an ONdigital box? I think not.
I've just spent a frustrating couple of hours setting up one of their set-top boxes, only to discover that, here in Wirral, I can get only the BBC digital service (a mere six channels). I can't even get those I'm currently getting via the analogue service.
Their technical bod tells me that there is no hope of this improving in the foreseeable future. Call me picky, but perhaps they should concentrate on providing better coverage before tacking on extra whistles and bells?
Ron Graves
Get real
Re Jim McClellan's article (April 6): it is all very well putting a megastore online with a catalogue to browse; this sells well-known items and brands quite well.
However, it often relies on traditional shops to do the displaying and demonstrating. This is fine if you live or work in, say, London - pop into Virgin/Tower/HMV, find that obscurity, then go online to find the best price.
But what if you don't have nice megastores to wander round in your lunch hour? And God help you if you are a classical or jazz fan.
There is a real difference between "shopping" and "buying things" - the net is OK at the latter, but pretty hopeless at the former. There should be a way to do this sort of "real" shopping online.
Nigel Tant
Simple plea
I find the discussion about different forms of web access (web TVs, Wap phones, GSM-enabled personal digital assistants) to be fascinating but perhaps not the main issue. If the web is to survive it must become more uni form. There are still too many conflicting standards of file formats and transfer protocols.
I would suggest that all existing formats should be supported but a default protocol that all platforms can use needs to be defined for every type of file transmissible over the net.
This way the disadvantages to Wap and web TV users may be reduced. I would also like to see a little less emphasis on graphics.
Flashing title bars and baroque framing may look good but even my 56Kb/s Winmodem struggles to download some sites.
Chris Emery
chrisdemery@chrisdemery.fsnet.co.uk
One at a time
Chris Price (April 6) seems so sold on the alleged benefits and wonders of internet-capable television that it has quite abolished his common sense.
"ONdigital... [makes] it possible to send email at the same time as watching your favourite TV programmes." But why would anyone want to do both at the same time? Surely, if people are watching their favourite programmes, they will want to watch those programmes, not fiddle with a keyboard?
Joseph Nicholas
Hidden trend
I was interested in learning more about the product called The Contact Messenger by Trend, as reported by Leon Forde (April 6). After extensively searching the web and using Switzerland's own search engines, I was unable to find any company or product of that name. I was wondering if indeed I had been "taken", by a late April fool joke?
Adrian Legg
Online replies: It wasn't an April fool... honest. Visit www.lovefinder-europe.com/index1_e.htm
Lyrics lost
I'm looking for a comprehensive online database of music lyrics where keying in one remembered line will trigger a search for full details of a song. Does it exist?
Martin Webber
