Born free

Douglas Rushkoff says "so far, no traditional US publisher has dared to make an offer on a book that will be released, for free, online before it is released in print," (Second Sight, 12 July) but this is actually fairly common for programming books.

For example, Phil Greenspun's online book at www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/ was then published as Database-Backed Websites.

And one that just came out was C++ In Action, available online at www.relisoft.com/book/, now published by Addison-Wesley. I just bought this one, after being impressed by the website. I have seen a few others, too.

But it is not just technical books. Phil Greenspun also created a website called Travels with Samantha (www.photo.net/samantha/), which has since been published.

There have been novels that pulled it off, too, but I do not remember the details.

Generally, publishers seem quite willing to publish books that have proven themselves online.

Dennis Peterson
dennis.peterson@agiml.net

Virus free

Hardly a week goes by without your Ask Jack column having some unfortunate writer with a problem attributable to a virus infection. This, and my own experience, suggests that very many computer users live in a fool's paradise without virus protection until they are struck. The fault lies in the industry, which makes little attempt to warn, or still better, protect users.

My very first PC (a TiKo) came with Norton Anti-virus installed and I have never been without an up-to-date copy of this program and its virus definitions in subsequent machines. I have lost count of the number of times it has intercepted floppy disks and emails bearing nasty infections. If manufacturers followed TiKo's example and supplied an anti-virus program as one of the "goodies" with the machine, rather than masses of software which the user may or may not want, it should go a long way towards reducing the spread of viruses and in educating beginners of the need to install such a program.

Harold Stern
harold.stern@virgin.net

Wrong key

So the software sellers you spoke to, Microsoft, Intuit, and Sage have been ready for the euro for years. But when are our humble keyboards going to sport the euro symbol?

Currently, Shift + Option+ 2 rather awkwardly gives me the euro symbol on a Mac. Maybe our friends in Euroland already have it on their keyboards?

Michael Farringdon
jandmf@aol.com

Online adds: And the euro symbol is only available with that keystroke in some fonts...

Taxi blues

Congratulations on your article about Dublin e-taxis. I am now looking for awards for which I could put it forward. For a start it is (unintentionally) hilarious.

But much more importantly, it is a metaphor for the entire dot.com collapse. One of the lessons of that collapse was that no matter how well an e-commerce website was designed, it was absolutely useless if what was on show was not, in every sense, delivered.

So it is with your article, which completely fails to mention the practical problems of taxis in Dublin: (lack of) supply and the chronic traffic they have to wade through, absolutely none of which will be "cured" by text messages on mobile phones, however wonderful that technology is.

What consolation would it be to wait for a (non-existent?) taxi even if you knew for certain your e-message did get through and got a (text) response?

Frank Desmond
frank.d@ireland.com