Cursor

Gossip and rumours to cursor@independent.co.uk

HEARD OF the Nokia 5510 phone? Course you have – there are ads everywhere. But they're invisible to Orange. A friend of Cursor tells of his agony trying to get a replacement for his Nokia 7110. An Orange customer, he thought Orange would sell something so cool. Nope. "Orange customer services claimed they'd never heard of this phone," he tells us. "But it's available on Vodafone!" he said. "One2One! Cellnet! Your rivals want to poach me from you but I'll stay if you offer the 5510!" No dice. Could Nokia help? No, they couldn't. Result: one new customer for Cellnet. Using an Ericsson phone.

AHH, THE "internet for learning" scheme. Such a good idea. And Research Machines – so generous in making their facilities available. Too generous, perhaps. Those folks at www.ifl.net have forgotten the rules about connecting mail servers to the modern net, ie, you shouldn't leave them with the equivalent of the keys in the ignition and the engine running. Cursor is bored of all the spam e-mails sent via the mx.ifl.net mail server. Time, perhaps, for a perusal of the manual?

GRATEFUL TO Jeff Adkins, who went to the site for Microsoft's .NET initiative. "Microsoft .NET is about making technology work for people, instead of forcing individuals to adapt to the..." it said. The what? As he gazed to the right of his Netscape browser window, Jeff realised he'd have to scroll a bit. Ah, there it was: "...adapt to the limitations of their computers." As Jeff says, at lowendmac.com: "Huh."

Gossip and rumours to cursor@independent.co.uk