Bye, bye monkey

On page five of a brochure ITV Digital sent out to celebrate its launch last August is this headline: "There's no such thing as too much football."

Oh, the joys of hindsight.

Microsoft and Unisys have set up a website to promote the wonders of Microsoft operating systems and the horrors of things like Unix (http://www.wehavethewayout.com ).

It emerged this week that the site ran on, err, Unix, and also (horror of horrors) used the open source Apache web server software.

When this slightly embarrassing gaffe came to light, the site was swiftly taken down for a day or so and reappeared running on more 'acceptable' software (i.e. Microsoft's), and equally swiftly went down again.

It is now back up, but there's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Online porn is no longer tickling the punters' fancy. In May 1997, 16.8 per cent of searches carried out on Excite were of a sexual nature; that figure has now plummeted to 8.5 per cent, according to stats released this week.

Searches for employment opportunities, commerce, travel and the economy have risen from 13.3 per cent to 24.7 per cent.

Is the web growing up? Maybe - unless the sex surfers have now got all their favourite sites bookmarked of course. There are also more women in the internet community these days (42 per cent), which may also have had an impact.

Still, good to see that porn is playing a less significant role these days.

Meanwhile, the UK's would-be 'silver-surfers' are to get the chance to play with technology on a bus. But not just any old bus.

Barclays is working with Age Concern and investing £600,000 in four such vehicles which will be fitted with IT kit for use by the elderly and their carers.

The buses will trundle around the country for three years, exposing senior citizens to the web. It's hoped that over 1,000 people will get on board each one (but not at the same time).

Far from being technophobic, some NetValue research shows that the oldies aren't scared of IT at all. The 55+ net population has nearly doubled since 2001, with more than two million of them logging on regularly - that's around 13 per cent of the total home UK online population.

Forty per cent of them bank online, with Egg the most popular choice. Barclays comes in fourth incidentally, but it would be highly cynical to suggest its sponsorship of the buses has anything to do with that.

And here's some proof that retired folk are getting to grips with what's good (and what's not) in the online world. The Round-Up's parents have had web access for a year or so now, and daddy Round-Up was very excited indeed this week to discover that he could listen to Radio 4 online (which he proceeded to do for some time).

Mummy Round-Up simply wondered why he didn't turn the radio on instead. (That probably illustrates a fairly important difference between the sexes.)

Sun's Scott McNealy has struck again. In a speech made just before Easter, the soundbite-friendly CEO warned developers to resist Microsoft's attempts to lure them into using its technology - and keep them there.

He urged them to test applications against all browsers, not just IE. Failure to do so creates dependency on Microsoft, McNealy claimed in his own inimitable style.

"You can take the offer from the dark side," he said. "The first hit of heroin is free."

He continued: "People ask me why I'm negative [about Microsoft]. It's because I can't leave my kids to a world of control, alt, delete."

A horrible vision of the future, I'm sure you'll agree.

Last Monday, we published a story about an initiative by Avaya to give mobile workers access to the corporate LAN while on the road by wiring up burger vans along the busy A3 between London and Portsmouth (http://www.silicon.com/a52305 ).

Despite the fact the story is (a) clearly ridiculous, (b) had the word foolish in it and (c) was published on 1 April, no one seems to have twigged it was an April Fool.

silicon.com apologises for the confusion and promises to come up with something much less subtle next year.

In the last Round-Up, the vagaries of Michelin's online route finder were highlighted by the experience of a Mr John Greer. The site suggested he take a 90 mile detour to complete what should have been a 14 mile journey. John challenged readers to use the feature (http://www.viamichelin.co.uk ) to see if anyone was sent on a longer random trip.

Well, we have a winner: Dennis Golding typed in Warfield to Maidenhead (10 miles) and it suggested a 120 mile journey. (Michelin doesn't think Warfield exists you see, and instead thought Dennis meant Worfield).

While we're on the subject, an Andy Piper of Penarth in South Wales had a similar experience with Scoot when asking for nearby businesses. He was surprised to find a pizza delivery firm just 11 miles away in Western-Super-Mare. As Andy said, "True, it is 11 miles away, as the bird flies. But because of the Severn, by road it's about 70 miles. At least the pizza would be free (or wet)."

But the most surreal incident of this kind was witnessed by Robert Howe. He went to Shell's PlusPoints website to change some of his details. He was sent this utterly odd message: "Thank you for providing your correct date of birth. Please wait ten days before trying to log in again."

Strange but true.