Bad mix
Neil McIntosh makes a good case for listening to internet radio with RealPlayer (Step by step, May 3). Unfortunately he fails to address the downside.

I clicked away according to his instructions and soon reached the Search page, where I asked for stations broadcasting "Classics".

This produced lots of "Rock and Roll Classics" and about three "Symphonic Classics" of the Easy Listening variety. Alright, perhaps Classics is too wide a classification to be useful. So I tried "Scandinavian Contemporary", which unaccountably offered "Country Music from Nashville"! Then I went for "Chinese folk", which defeated it completely!

Henry Ford famously said of his Model T car, "They can have any colour they want, so long as its black." It would seem that RealPlayer offers music from anywhere in the world, so long as it's American pop.

Windows Media Player is slightly worse, in that its Presets list is headed by a dozen stations that can't be moved or deleted.
John King
johnmking@clara.co.uk

Nice of you to mention Macs (without spitting) twice this week but far simpler for internet radio than Real Player is Apple's iTunes, which makes it a real breeze to listen to internet radio and, on my iBook and speakers, sounds better than it usually does on the tuner.
Jason Davies
ucrajpd@ucl.ac.uk

No dream
I read with interest Dave Birch's slightly pessimistic take on the world of 3G phones (Online, May 3) and the financial woes of all companies involved.

During his look to the future, he imagines a day when maps can be sent to his phone. I am happy to tell Mr Birch that MapInfo has already made his dreams come true.

We provide the Location-Based Intelligence for Vodafone's unique Vizzavi service. This is not a dream, or something that may happen by 2005. This is something very real that works today.

However, the future isn't just about putting a map on a mobile device, it's about providing information to a user that is always relevant to their constantly changing position.

Whatever new uses people put their mobile devices to, you can be confident intelligent location-based intelligence will be at its core.

On another brighter note, I am glad to let Mr Birch in on a secret. Not all companies involved with 3G are hugely in debt. At MapInfo we have just posted a 30% revenue increase year-on-year and managed to add 18 cents to our stock value on Nasdaq.

So, the old saying must be true... where there's maps... there's brass.
David Flower
General manager and VP EMEA, MapInfo

Dave Birch complains that the ticket machines at Woking don't even take £20 notes. He's lucky. At Sevenoaks station they won't even take "new" £10 notes.
Martyn Berry
berrymartyn@beeb.net

The inventors have got it wrong - again. I don't want a mobile that will tell me where I am. Even in my present enfeebled state, I am usually capable of determining that.

What I really need is a mobile for my teenagers that will tell me, when they ring me, where they are.
John Horgan
john.horgan@dcu.ie

Net vegans
Thanks for a well-timed (and helpful!) article, which introduced the notions of veganism while making it sound tasty! As a vegan by association (I live with one), I have scrounged for recipes, especially cakes.

This search is complicated by my allergy to Soya products (which makes us, as a couple, a dastardly duo for any dinner party), and a worse allergy to righteousness.

One vegan site had an entire article about a birthday cake, before the recipe was revealed. First, the moral issue around giving a child a birthday day cake was lost on me (there are no Nobel Prizes given for Party Poopers). Then the recipe was a labour-intensive affair that tried to imitate a "normal" cake.

Fortunately, with a little more searching, I came up with egg-less/milk-less and Soya-less recipes that were invented in the depression era! Of course! And they were delicious (probably due to leaving out that little teaspoon of high moral tone!).

I hope that readers give some thought to going animal-free, and these recipe websites will surely help! Many thanks.
Mary Benefiel
marybenefiel@yahoo.com

Congratulations on a timely and well written article on vegan websites.

I thought you might also like to know about www.veggieheaven.com, which has over 230 vegetarian and vegan recipes and also a UK Vegetarian Restaurant Guide based on reviews sent in by the public. It currently covers a total of 114 restaurants in 66 towns and cities - and is growing!
Peter Riding
peter@webserve.co.uk

Larkin about
Respect to the composer of the one line text poem: "They phone you up your mum & dad."

In the case of my Mum, who has recently been given a mobile but has yet to mistress the technology, the next, unsupplied, line applies too.
Will Watts
willw@applied.co.uk