Sci-fi Buffs' Cd Journey Into The Bowels Of History

The Age

Tuesday December 14, 1993

SCIENCE-FICTION buffs won't be able to resist The Journeyman Project for Windows, an adventure game set in the year 2318. You are a member of the ``temporal protectorate", an elite group of agents formed to safeguard history from sabotage following the advent of world peace and unification.

A rip is detected in the fabric of time. Your task is a journey into the bowels of history to thwart the corruptive forces. The CD has an original music score, photorealistic 3D graphics and digital video footage. It is priced at $135. Telephone Firmware Design on (047)217211 for details.

To liven up boardroom presentations or business communications, Compton's New Media has released 100 pieces of business clip art and accompanying sound files on CD for DOS, Mac or Windows PCs.

Called Business Backgrounds, the recommendation for this one depends on whether you find photographs of paper clips, rubber bands, shredded paper, and artistically cropped keyboards accompanied by elevator music stimulating or not. Priced at $69.95, the CD is available from Dataflow on 8236239.

If you really want to grab attention, you might try running The Animals! CD from the Software Toolworks in the background. This is not clip art but a tour of the San Diego zoo's 200 finest mammals, birds and reptiles. How you would tie it into a business presentation is anyone's guess but it might be an entertaining twist to any corporate presentation.

Clicking on a habitat map shows you animals that live in one of the Earth's climatic zones. You can also go on a narrated tour bus. This one is priced at $35.70 and available from Multimedia City, telephone 5634888. _ LM BOOKS PROMOTED as a ``gentle introduction to personal computers", `The Little PC Book' (Peachpit Press, RRP $34.95) is just that _ gentle.

Intended for a mature readership, it is an ideal first book for someone who wants to become computer literate without getting bogged down in DOS and jargon.

The book is broken into four parts _ Getting Oriented, Putting Together a System, Rules of the Road and Stocking Up on Software. It also includes, at the back of the book, a ``DOS Cookbook" and a ``Windows Cookbook".

The first part begins by explaining why someone should learn about computers. To get across the message that the learning experience is not hard, it draws an analogy between operating a computer and using home-entertainment equipment such as television, hi fi and a VCR.

After mentioning that there are an estimated 100 million IBM- compatible users and 10 million Macintosh users, it devotes the rest of the book to discussion about PCs.

The book touches briefly on DOS, Windows and mouse actions, but not in enough detail to scare the reader off. It then lists ``10 places to get help learning about your PC", but because this is an American book it lists technical-support telephone numbers and user groups in the United States, and the reader will have to disregard much of this information. (You wonder why publishers can't localise this content before the book is released in foreign countries.) Part two provides excellent information on the various components that make up a PC system, how to choose a personal computer, the CPU, memory, hard and floppy disk drives, monitors, peripherals and expansion slots. One chapter takes a look at the keyboard and what the various keys do; while other chapters focus on printers, modems, mouse usage, and ``putting it all together".

Part three looks at setting up your workplace, turning the computer on for the first time and working with files.

Part four deals entirely with software: how much do you need, what type there is, where you get it from, and what it does.

If you were wanting to buy an introductory computer book as a Christmas present, this is well worth a look. I found it to be streets ahead of the ``Dummies" books in explaining awkward concepts in relatively simple terms.

`Plug and Play Programming' (M & T Books, $79.95, disk/book) is for C++ programmers embarking on large projects. It deals with a new construction technique called ``plugs" _ objects that perform specific tasks, which are designed to be reusable, and which are designed to connect to each other in such a standard way that a series of plugs can be assembled into a functional program.

Author William Wong also demonstrates how to debug programs using plugs, with the aid of filters (these are frequently Tee filters that have an extyra plug or socket as part of their configuration.

This is a disk/book package, with the disk containing examples of c++ code and a library of plugs.

`Microsoft Publisher By Design' (Microsoft Press, $45) provides comprehensive instructions on how to design anything from a company logo to a catalog with what is perhaps the easiest, although certainly far from the most powerful, of desktop publishing packages.

Broken into four parts (Getting Started, Microsoft Publisher's Tools, Design Projects and Appendix), the book starts at the very beginning, discussing the differences between word processing and desktop publishing and how to recognise text, pictures and drawn objects in the desktop publishing environment.

The book follows the philosphy of the software package in that it caters for the novice, even to the point of including sections on working with, and mastering, a mouse. And yet it still manages to clearly deal with the powerful features and tools of Publisher in much detail.

It takes you through the whole gambit of desktop publising software techniques; including starting a publication from scratch, layout and design, paper folds, automatic page numbering, working with text and pictures, printing and using the program's tools.

TOP BOOK TITLES 1. Using Access 1.1 for Windows Pack Que, (ISBN 1565293231) $59.95 2. Sendmail O'Reilly, (ISBN 1565920562) $59.95 3. Internet Guide for New User McGraw-Hill, (ISBN 0070165114) $57.95 4. Upgrading & Repairing PCs Third Edition Que, (ISBN 156529467X) $69.95 5. DOS 6.2 For Dummies IDG Books, (ISBN 1878058754) $34.95 6. Using Word 6 for Windows Que, (ISBN 1565296117) $59.95 7. Secrets of the Visual C++ Masters SAMS, (ISBN 0672302845) $79.95 8. Adobe Photoshop 2.5 Handbook Random House, (ISBN 0679791260) $49.95 9. All About Computers Ziff Davis, (ISBN 1562761668) $19.95 10. How to Use Your Computer Ziff Davis, (ISBN 1562761552) $44.95 Titles supplied by The Technical Book Shop, telephone (03)6633951.

Best of week's shareware `FRANCOIS is just a tad over 86 centimetres tall with wavy sand- colored hair, and sparkling blue eyes."

Love's Fiery Imbroglio (LOVEFR.ZIP) is an interactive romance novel in which you play the female lead (men are not supposed to play) and make the choices. You even choose the name of your dream man and the setting of the story. When playing, choose your actions carefully, for if you take things too slowly Francois may start reminiscing about his ex-wife; but if you're too eager, you might find yourself alone with the delivery boy.

The computerised version of the New Testament (NTW15.ZIP) is a very professionally presented program. As well as simply reading from cover to cover you can easily skip to a particular book or chapter. Other features enable you to do a word search, take notes and look at maps.

The special events facility is the most interesting though, as it lets you compare how different books covered the same event.

Jewel Thief (JEWELTHF.ZIP) is a very basic Windows game that requires the player to fetch jewels without getting caught by the enemy. Slam, another Windows game, is a computerised version of air hockey (WSLAM.ZIP).

Keeping track of Windows is Barclocks (BARCLOK.ZIP), a neat utility that places useful information, including the time, free memory, and free disk space on the caption bar of the active window.

Powerbar/Write (PBWRITE.ZIP) spices up Windows' built-in word processor, Write, by adding a buttonbar with a clock, filefinder, and autosave function, among other features.

Like the Mac trashcan, Trashman 2.0 (TRASHM.ZIP) allows Windows users to drag files and subdirectories into the trashcan where they are stored, and deleted later. _ JB All these files are available through the Melbourne PC User Groups, telephone 6996222.