Poetic advice
I write in reference to Victor Keegan's interview with Christina Patterson, director of the Poetry Society (Working IT Out, March 28). Patterson suggests that the net has not invigorated poetry in the development of new forms. However, beyond hypertext, there are relationships emerging between poetry and programming, which point to the poetry of language being written for the screen distinguishable from existing poetic forms written for the page or voice.
I refer to work such as the Orbital Poetry Engine (see below) - a weaving together of languages (poetic and programming) developed last year, as a collaboration between myself and the artist Neil Jenkins, which combines the poem Orbital with an internet mapping program. We have since collaborated using this "engine" to redefine different poems, the number and the names, for example: www.herenorthere.org/11.09.01/ and to reflect aspects of surveillance on the internet with Echelon - www.herenorthere.org/!/ It is, of course, difficult to keep up with everything taking place on the internet, but I hope these examples point to the possibilities for taking words and language beyond the concepts of authorship, publication, and the market place, to which Patterson was referring.
Mac Dunlop
mac@signhear.net
Get real
The £1 charge for a music track suggested by Dave Birch (Music Industry in a DReaM, March 28) illustrates how the record companies have yet to come to terms with the internet. A pound per track is as much as, if not more than, what is currently demanded for a CD after adding all the costs of marketing, production, distribution and retailer mark-up. The internet passes most of these costs on to the user. A more realistic charge would be 10p or 20p per track.
Most would happily pay that for a legitimate copy that didn't depend on the vagaries of Gnutella. But why not pay that direct to the artist and do away with the record company altogether?
Roger Houghton
mail@rogerhoughton.com
Flash upgrade
Tracy Brown says, with regard to Flash: "It is time for the old crankies of this world to wake up and smell the upgrades." So all those people browsing the internet on state-of-the-art palmtops and mobile phones (which might not have Flash, and aren't easily upgradeable) are "old crankies"? Or blind people, for whom Flash's "stunning, entertaining visuals" would be rather lost, are in Tracy Brown's words, "too lazy and stubborn to adapt"? That viewpoint amazes me.
By all means, use Flash if your website warrants it. But please make the site usable by those who cannot use or do not have Flash.
Matthew Somerville
matthew.somerville@trinity.oxford.ac.uk
Tell it as it is
The chief usability problem is not whether a site is built by a professional or an amateur. It is whether the web builder will accept criticism. I always tell web builders that before they go live with a site, they should get a few vaguely competent internet users (not friends or colleagues) to spend an hour trying to make the site work - without assistance. And do they? Do they heck!
They would sooner stick a ferret down their trousers than admit their websites are less than perfect.
Ian Richardson ianmedia@netcomuk.co.uk
Pop-up block
For all those who are irritated by pop-up adverts, I suggest a change of browser. Mozilla, an open source browser based on the Netscape code, has just been released in version 0.9.9, which permits the user to block websites from opening new windows and moving or resizing existing windows. To judge by your feedback last week, this is a long-overdue development. Mozilla is available (free!) for Windows, Mac and Linux from Mozilla.org. James Eagle
jeeagle@yahoo.com
Green sleeves
At my local computer store, I can buy a black ink cartridge for £27.50 and a colour one for about the same price. Alternatively, I can buy a new printer, complete with black and colour cartridges for £19.99. What's my ethical position here? Should I buy the printer, remove the cartridges and throw the printer away or should I pay the extra £25 and help save the planet? Mick Harper
mickxharper@aol.com
