Future shock?
I, too, feel sorry about the old man Douglas Rushkoff saw being humiliated when he tried to use a computer mouse like a TV remote control, and I have no sympathy for anyone who mocked him. But it's not because we're insecure that we find such things funny. The bloke who thought his CD tray was a cup holder remains funny, as does the one who tried to use the computer mouse like a sewing-machine foot control.

There has always been a difference between different types of technology. You couldn't use a seaport like a railway station, or a sewing machine like a knitting machine, or a fountain pen like a piece of chalk or a typewriter like a wax cylinder recorder.

Technologies have to be simple, amenable, not uncomfortable to use, not totally incomprehensible, I agree. But I'm sure that once it was all explained, the old man too would have given a wry smile.

Just because we're modern, we don't have to make everything like everything else. Standardisation is boring and life's rich tapestry would be that bit more fat-free if every type of technology had so carefully been "brought to the human", in Rushkoff's words, that there was not even the difference between a palm-top and a lap-top to divert us.

Very few of us are totally useless when faced with the shock of the new. Give us all credit for a bit of learning ability, Douglas.
Martin Hillman
martin@hillman.demon.co.uk

Betting worry
Your article about children being able to engage in pre-pay commerce on the internet (Online, October 26) is of concern for those of us trying to protect the vulnerable from gambling on the internet.

In a survey last year, 4% of teenagers claimed they would like to use their parent's credit card to gamble online. Innovations such as Splash Plastic will ultimately make it easier for those who are vulnerable to gambling to lose all their disposable income.

Innovations will almost certainly require a continuous review of gambling laws to take into account the rise of internet gambling.
Dr Mark Griffiths
Head of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University mark.griffiths@ntu.ac.uk

E-everywhere
Roddy Forrest (Online 26 Oct) asked if it is possible to send and receive emails from multiple ISPs through one connection. Jack Schofield replied that it wasn't. I think that Jack may be wrong.

Most ISP mailboxes are POP3 compliant, so you can pick up your email from any net connection as long as you know the server name, user name and password. Three solutions I use frequently are:

• Under Linux, fetchmail will deliver mail from any POP account into my local mailbox. My email program of choice, mutt, allows me to change the "From:" header to any values that I want.

• Under Windows the email program Eudora allows you do define "personalities". Each of these has its own POP connection parameters and associated email address to use on outgoing mail.

&##149; When travelling and reading/sending emails from cyber-cafes, I use Webbox, which allows me to read mail from up to five POP sccounts and send mail which appears to come from these accounts.
Dave Cross
dave@dave.org.uk

Not friendly
Thanks to Nigel Wilmott for a refreshingly honest appraisal of Linux's chances of taking over from Windows in general usage. It may well be a great OS but at the moment it's just too user unfriendly for the average home user.

Distributors such as Corel and Red Hat are doing their best to overcome this, by making the installation process smoother, and installing a GUI (graphical user interface) by default, but this is all just window dressing. In Linux the command line still rules.
Steve Jeffery
Steve.Jeffery@catalystuk.com

Nigel Willmott might consider buying a boxed set of a Linux distribution. If he wants to get Redhat he can, for a tenth of the price of a copy of Windows 95, buy a box which as well as CDs contains an installation manual and 60 days unlimited installation support.

As to network problems - networks tend to just work, so long as you're using an open protocol. If he is trying to get a closed Microsoft protocol to work, this can still be done, but he will have to install Samba, which, indeed, will be a lot of work. He might like to consider getting Linux to be his server (and he won't have to pay a penny more) and get Microsoft to fit in to its choices. That way Windows doesn't get a chance to scupper any other operating system interactions. Modems, again, should be no problem -so long as it is ISA, since no protocol has been settled on for PCI modems.

Perhaps he might also like to look in the many Linux newsgroups, where he'll find hundreds of people ready to help him out. Just a thought.
Ben Ross
guardianunlimited@house-hill.demon.co.uk

.it's a joke
What is Richard Heller on about (Online, October 26)? The whole point of regional-specific top level domains (like .uk, .au, .tv, .it) is surely for companies, organisations and individuals to allow the rest of the internet world to know where they hang out - not so some parasite can try to make up (not very) amusing names.

How intensely hypocritical, too, for him to brag about his own pointless and irrelevant registrations (why would a Lithuanian company be interested in "heartfe"?) then react with "fury" when someone else has beaten him at his own game or claim that such registrations are "for no good reason". Sorry? I fail to see a good reason for Mr Heller to register "makemoreca" anywhere at all.

And as for those pesky Italians - how dare they make it difficult for non-Italian companies to register a ".it" domain name! I suspect the embassy could have told him how but wisely chose not to. Next he'll be complaining he's finding it difficult to register a .gov.uk domain.

I suggest than when the state of Ontario gets its own top level domain, Richard registers "mor" before anyone beats him to the name that is rightfully his.
Antony Hawkins
A.D.Hawkins@sheffield.ac.uk