We get more letters - sent to tech@theguardian.com, almost entirely - than we have space to print.
But on the web, and the blog, space is unlimited, right? So here, in full, are the letters from which tomorrow's Technology section's Letters&Blogs section have been chosen. Read and please comment if you like; or email us. As you'll notice, we don't publish email addresses (apart from our own), so have no fear of spam if you've got an opinion.
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PRESENT INCORRECT
Wikipedia and other online encyclopaedias may have inaccuracies (Top of the Heap, 31/8/06), but these can be corrected fairly easily and quickly. Meanwhile, the print version of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians at my local library will be telling people that Nigel Kennedy was once a member of The Fall for the next hundred years or so (one of two or three mistakes in an entry of maybe 200 words). Stephen Parkin, London
People's dependence and confidence in the information they gather from a short search on Google is becoming increasingly misleading. In my own experience I recently proposed to another company that their product would work wonders in conjunction with my own. I requested a meeting to disclose more information as my company is currently in stealth mode. Two days later the company returned, saying it would be great for us to work together they had "lots of ideas about how my company could work with theirs". This didn't make sense though as there is no information available on my company. Lo and behold, the company in question had searched Google for the name of my company and my name. According to Google there was plenty of information about myself and my company as my company had been indexed on thousands of link farms as a result of a short adwords campaign on a former business plan for a different business. Realizing this I wrote to the company and asked how they knew what my company did and they replied "we Googled you". I explained they wouldn't be able to find accurate information on Google. The relationship has been halted. In my opinion it's because they don't know who to believe. I hope you can shed more light on this problem down the road. Thomas Hillard, CEO, Ekaweeka, Los Angeles
>> This is the problem that many of us librarians face when delivering information skills training to students. As I stand in front of 400 new medical students on the 2nd of October my main message will be "Don't click the first result!!". I will be using exercises and problem based learning to teach them how to find good quality information on the web. brumproject.blogspot.com
>> I remember the days when I was at university and using the web for research when I would go 30-50 pages deep into the results to find what I wanted! one-dollar-a-day.com/
>> The moral is, perhaps, if you need to succeed online make sure it's not based on a stretegy of getting traffic from Google as it'll cost you to be top of the pile. enn.ie/blog/
ENERGY SAVING TRUST The DTI's Low Carbon Buildings Programme is managed on behalf of the government by the Energy Saving Trust. It offers grants for solar photovoltaic panels as well as other microgeneration technologies, such as wind turbines, small-scale hydro, solar thermal hot water, ground source heat pumps and bio-energy. Grants totalling £4,371,742 have yet to be allocated. The application process is very straightforward, via an online grant application system which offers an instant response to grant requests. For solar photovoltaic panels, the Low Carbon Buildings Programme offers a grant of a maximum £3,000 per kWp (kilowatt peak) installed, up to a maximum of £15,000 subject to an overall 50% limit of the installed cost (exclusive of VAT). For the average domestic system, costs are approximately £7,000 per kWp installed, with most domestic systems usually between 1.5 and 2 kWp in size. Solar tiles cost more than conventional solar panels as they are integrated into a roof; however, they do provide for a more aesthetic appearance. Since the funding is provided in support of delivering Low Carbon Buildings, the conditions attached to the grant are aimed at ensuring that cost-effective energy efficiency measures are implemented alongside any microgeneration technologies. Such measures include; low energy light bulbs, central heating system controls, loft and cavity wall insulation – all of which are required under the current building regulations. For more information please visit the DTI's Low Carbon Buildings Programme website: www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk Kirk Archibald Programme Development Manager Energy Saving Trust
SPEED AT THE CORE Both Charles Arthur and Russell Caplan are right that computer companies tend to favour OS glitz over speed and efficiency, but Apple are far from being the worst offenders. I recently installed Panther (OS X 10.3) on a six-year-old PowerMac G4 to use as a home office/Web browsing machine. While it can't match my more recent kit for handling graphics and video, Firefox, Thunderbird and office apps go like the clappers, and all on a 400MHz processor. I don't think many six-year-old PCs would be as happy with Windows XP. Nigel Curson, Norwich
PHONE PAINS Well, I thought I was alone in this frustration with Vodafone! I tried 191 to get an upgrade from a SE-V800 media phone to a QTEK-9100 (HTC Wizard) win5 handset. (Vic Keegan, 31st Aug 2006) I was quoted £250 and remain on my £30pm tariff. tried again in the Vodafone store - was quoted £150 and a tariff of £35pm. Ridiculous, so I tried twice getting a Q9100 from eXpansys - and they were twice turned down by Vodafone. I strolled into my local O2 store and not only did they have 2 XDA-minis in stock, but I could have them for £35pm with 750 mins & 150 txts per handset and no money down. (18months contract). Needless to say I jumped at the offer as this amounted to a cost per handset of only £90. We love the wi-fi, media player and sliding keyboard and they're a great substitute for our aging Handspring Visors! David Paul Morgan, Cardiff
QUALITY CONTROL? Please can you stop the downward slide of this formerly excellent supplement into tedious discussions about civil liberties, freeing our data and which mobile phone your columnist has just received to test. The edition on 24/08/06 was blindingly dull – a main story about data sharing, another on data sharing from councils and Victor Keegan numbing my mind again about testing mobile phones. Who finds this interesting and why is the data campaign in Technology when it belongs in the Society section? What may feel like an interesting crusade on a little-covered theme is actually an exercise in poorly written, criminally bland hand-wringing that simply speeds up the supplement's progress towards my recycling bin. You used to have lots of stories about games which by the way are currently going through a renaissance – now your games coverage has been reduced to a "what I did at the weekend" blog and three reviews. You have good games journalists but appear loath to use them. The most interesting news you cover in 1 sentence newsbytes. Technobile began as mildly interesting but surely has run out steam – a rant about small buttons on mobile phones? Gosh, are they too small to use? How utterly predictable. You're a Technology section – why can't you write about new technology? You used to before you went broadsheet. There's almost no news about new technology or product launches beyond Mr Keegan's uninspired repetitious waffle. The only interesting stories on technology (memory and spinning skin) were buried at the back. The newly asked questions section is a pale imitation of what you used to run in the joint IT/Science section, which I mourn for its lost diversity, consistently interesting stories and lively discussions. I used to buy the paper especially on a Thursday just for that supplement. Now I rarely bother. Rick Gibson, London
FLASH DRIVE I'd question David Williams' methodology when he came to the conclusion that flash drive trumped all other synonyms for a thumbdrive (Letters, August 31) with 134 milion mentions on Google. By not putting in any quotation marks, he caught all the mentions of flash and all for drive. If you look for "flash drive", the answer is 15.3m; "pen drive" gets 5.7m; "USB drive" 7.9m; "thumb drive" 995,000; and "memory stick" triumphs with 26.3m - however, memory stick is a Sony SD card competitor so probably shouldn't even be in his list, so flash drive (or "USB flash drive" as about two third of sites put it) does indeed win. David Fox, London
