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Tidbits March 1997 • Vol.8 Issue 3 |
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Did you ever want the characters in your favorite, tattered comic book to spring to life—leaping off the page and flying away or unexpectedly doing something goofy while going arm-to-arm with the evil 20-eyed villain? Inverse Ink's CD-ROM comic books, which run on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Macintosh, might take a little imagination out of the traditional comic book, but who can resist such a great juxtaposition of read-only classics and watch-only cartoons? The recently released quartet of Fox Children's Network comic books showcases favorites from the Saturday morning lineup: "Tick," "Eek!stravaganza," "Life With Louie," and "Bobby's World." Also, Superman, Batman, Aqua-man, and Superboy CD-ROM comics give the classic 1960s DC Comics animated television series a whole new life. The company plans to release more titles.
Some panels change shapes into something you didn't expect, and others reveal hidden "hot spots" that can be clicked for unexpected action. Occasionally, you'll come across a secret file folder with hints about the unfolding story. The story lines themselves are clever, capable of being appreciated by aficionados young and not-so-young. Watch each square as often as you like, turn pages back and forth, or choose the Autoplay option to have the comic book played to you. Each Inverse Ink comics' $10 price tag is a few pennies more than a new comic book, but it's a good price for any CD-ROM, especially one that computer lovers and comic book lovers certainly will find so wowing. "It is good, this comic book," as the Tick might say. "I am pleased." Inverse Ink Another Sim Takes OffIn the tradition of Sim games, SimCopter is concerned with keeping things running smoothly—in either one of 30 predesigned cities, one of your own creation from a previous Sim game, or one downloaded from the Web. As a helicopter pilot, you are responsible for clearing traffic, extinguishing fires, rescuing SimCitizens, and quelling riots. The pace of SimCopter starts slowly but can reach breakneck speeds if you don't answer calls quickly.Most three-dimensional games with as much screen detail as SimCopter suffer from pauses and flickering images. Quick motion resolution gives SimCopter an incredibly realistic feel, and the flight's smoothness adds to the thrill. (This realism includes animated violence, but the game still is rated for both kids and adults.)
In the $50 SimCopter, Maxis built in the capacity to destroy as well as create. You start with only a water bucket for extinguishing fires, but it can cause a mess of traffic jams if the pilot has maligned intentions. Tear gas rockets and a water cannon for use in riot control can make a megalomaniac enjoy flying the unfriendly skies. And for the ultimate in decimation, you can land at a military base and pick up an AH-64 Apache armed to the gills, letting you devastate a metropolis faster than you can say, "Godzilla!" It's always more difficult to build than destroy, and that's where the true heart of the Sim games lies. Those who lack patience may contribute to the chaos once things in our SimWorlds start to fall apart. But for those who cherish law and order, SimCopter's challenge is to hold back the tide of darkness and crime and make a simulated world a better place. SimCopter Get Ready To SaveWhen you take the coffee break of a lifetime, will you be prepared? The reality check offered by RetireReady Deluxe may not offer good news, but if you're worried about your retirement plan—or lack thereof—it maybe time to face some facts and figures.RetireReady: Successful Retirement Made Simple was created for anyone ages 25 and older, at any stage of planning. However, it's geared to baby boomers. The company quotes Merrill Lynch estimates that millions of them are saving only about one-third of what they need for a comfortable retirement, perhaps because they are too busy to plan. RetireReady puts at your fingertips the tools for making the most of your money and your years, by explaining and simplifying everything related to aging and finances. If you haven't saved enough to maintain the standard of living you desire (few people have), you won't be scolded. Rather, RetireReady simplifies the problem into a "retirement gap"—it has almost has a ring to it, doesn't it?—and helps you figure out how to remedy the situation.
Workshop information is explained in basic terminology that even a young person who hasn't bought a house can understand. A Resource Center offers relevant addresses and telephone numbers, and RetireReady Online links users to relevant Web sites. If you're already comfortable with the financial aspects of retirement, you can jump straight to the RetireReady Calculator, which calculates and charts how much money you want and how much you will have to maintain your current lifestyle. You can fiddle with the What Ifs of life to get a precise idea what you need to be doing, and inflation is even factored in. The CD-ROM, which runs on Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, has an estimated street price of less than $50. (You can run the Retirement Calculator and Resources sections from diskettes.) Of course, according to US News & World Report, every dollar a 35-year-old spends reduces his or her retirement wealth by $4. Perhaps such a complete, practical CD-ROM, however, should not be factored into this equation. RetireReady Deluxe What's Your Function?If your function keys are a mite dusty, give them a purpose and simplify your computer life with the LaunchBoard, which lets you reprogram the normally useless keys to launch World Wide Web sites and applications with the touch of a key.The complete LaunchBoard package, which sells for $69.95, includes a keyboard, software, keycaps with the logos of leading Web sites and applications, stickers for generic and blank keycaps, a keycap replacer tool, and a CD-ROM of free software. (Keycaps are the part of your keyboard you touch to type characters.) If you don't want to buy a new keyboard, a software-only version, which includes stickers for keycaps, is available for $29.95.
In about 10 minutes, we programmed the F12 key to launch E-mail and replaced the F12 keycap with an E-mail keycap. Then, we created our own keycap by drawing on a blank sticker and reprogrammed the F11 key to bring up the Windows 95 Phone Dialer. If you need a function key's normal abilities from time to time, you can temporarily disable the LaunchBoard software without it forgetting which keys were programmed for which tasks. Also, you can press and hold CTRL-ALT and the LaunchBoard key at any time to make it perform its normal function. LaunchBoard The 10-minute Web Page Creating your own Web page doesn't get any easier than with Asymetrix's WebPublisher. The package promises that it'll take 10 minutes or less, or you'll get your money back. Its contents don't disappoint, as long as you don't count the minutes it takes to unwrap the box, install the CD-ROM, and of course decide what you have to say to the world.With the Quick Page option, your home page can be created from one screen of options: Enter a title, import a graphic or use the default one, and type or import text. You can preview how the draft looks in your own browser, then click another button to deploy your Web page. For a little more flexibility, and to create a Web document with more than one page, you can use the MultiPage option, which has more options but is still simple. Choose from about 20 themes, including profession-oriented ones such as Travel, Dentist, Business, and Realty, or more light-hearted ones such as Green Thumb, Jungle, Kids Page, and Medieval. Additional themes are available at Asymetrix's Web site. Within themes, you can choose different layout options for each page. The page designs are snazzy and professional, but you should realize that easy Web publishing means you're not controlling much. WebPublisher does all the work, such as selecting fonts and setting colors for backgrounds, and you might get tired of Asymetrix's designs, snappy as they are. Also, the $90 WebPublisher isn't a learning tool by any means. You can use it all you want, and you still won't have a clue about the https, ISPs, and HTMLs of the Web. However, if you or the kids need a quick fix, the WebPublisher is perfect. One more thing: Even though you can put together your Web page in 10 minutes, do everyone a favor by spending more than 10 minutes deciding what to put on it. And please, don't forget to spell check it. WebPublisher Tree-hugging Software If 24-hour home shopping and instant purchase delivery weren't enough to have you downloading software from the Internet, there's one more thing to consider: trees.Online Interactive's atOnce Software, an electronic software distribution (ESD) company, recently teamed up with American Forest's Global ReLeaf program to bring light to a situation they liken to the compact disc controversy of a few years ago. Remember the backlash about the large cardboard boxes that held small CDs? Well, when was the last time you saw one of those cardboard boxes? However, as Online Interactive's Robert Nachbar points out, "This (ESD) is one step better, in that we don't need any packaging." The bits of data that make up a program are the same, whether they are transmitted via the Internet or as a box of software. The company plans to restart the promotion some time in the near future, although no exact date has been set. The standard benefit of downloading software is not what's planted, but what's saved: the environmental cost of packaging and shipping. Consider this: • Each year, more than 40 million software boxes and other packaging materials are thrown away. • Less than 30% of all packaged software is recycled, according to a study done by the Software Manufacturer's Association. • Each year, more than 1 billion diskettes are thrown away by end users, according to Green Disk. Once in a landfill, a diskette takes more than 450 years to decompose and eventually leaches oxides into water supplies.
Those figures, and ways to help reduce them, should definitely leave you something to ponder when the time next comes to buy yet another software package. atOnce
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