The Daily Herald from Chicago, Illinois • Page 170

DailyHeiald Monday, November 18,1996 SECTION listings 5 --6 EsMovie listings 6 Check out tha Daily Herald Web site at http://www.dailyheraid.com BROWSING SURFING An adrenaline rush Most of us avoid dangerous activities at all costs. Others get an adrenaline rush from pushing their bodies to the limit and taking risks. Are you hooked on extreme sports? Do you think mountain climbers and skateboarders should have their heads examined? If you want to take a glimpse inside the world of extreme sports or if you're a self- proclaimed junkie there's plenty of adventure waiting for you on the Internet. The Mountain Zone bills itself as "the definitive source for mountain sports and mountain-related activities." And after a visit, you'll be hard-pressed to argue. You'll discover gear reviews, weather reports, first-aid tips and an online bookstore of how-to guides for snowboarding, mountain biking, and other outdoor activities.

Plus, Real Audio cybercasts of events such as the U.S. Open Snowboarding Championship and the Mountain Biking World Cup Series bring extreme action to your desktop. The site's clean design is complemented by colorful photos and animated THE. BUZZ The year's standouts: The December issue of Popular Science magazine names the best new products of 1996. In the computer realm, the winners include: Compaq's Presario 3000 personal computer which can easily be packed up and moved from room to room; WebTV (no price yet), the add-on box from Sony and PhiBps that provides Internet access on your television; and Mattel Barbie Fashion Designer ($40) GIFs.

nature calls, head for the Mountain Zone. Address: www.mountainzone.com (shown below) AdventureTime Magazine is a must read for thrill- seekers. Its articles provide insight into winter mountain biking, white-water kayaking, snowboarding, and other hair-raising activities. Plus, the magazine's regular Training and Sports Medicine departments will help you stay in shape. You'll even find safety tips and common-sense advice experts.

Address: www.adventuretime.com If you get an adrenaline rush out of sliding down rails and jumping over objects on a skateboard, take a spin on sKATEBOARD.com. It's not a glamorous site by any means, but you'll find articles on the joy of skating, a calendar of professional events, and an archive of cool You may even uncover a few tips and tricks'from the pros. Address: www.skateboard.com/ At Inline Online, a page dedicated to inline skating, the wheels are always turning to provide you with the information skaters are looking for. You'll find tips on everything from mastering maneuvers to maintaining skates. Product reviews and photos round out this fun and informative page.

Address: http://bird.taponline.com/inline which allows kids to use a computer, to craft designs for the famed doll. Diaper changing arid more: Time Warner and Procter Gamble'have launched a new Web-site called' ParentTime (http://www.parent time com). It contains material, on everything from choosing a name for baby to saving for college. JJSER GROUPS Satisfy nose for news If you want yet another way to turn your Windows 95-based PC into a 24- hour information machine, try the NewsCatcher from Global Village Communication in Sunnyvale, Calif. The small, pyramid-shaped receiver hppks directly to your serial.port and dishes out news to your computer screen 24 hours a day, seven days a week The $150 device picks up radio transmissions from the AirMedia Live Internet Broadcast Network, which utilizes a proprietary paging network to send signals.

SeniorNet: A notfor-profit group devoted, to teaching computer skills to vears and older. For information on DirPage Apple User Group: For novice. an.d experienced MaTcmtosh-users alike: The group meets'the third of month in.Westmont. Meetings feature. by Apple representatives and software vendors, SOFTWARE Egyptian mysticism Ancient Egypt has been an endless source of wonder, mysticism and silliness.

They all show up in three recent CD-ROM games on Egypt: "Secrets of the Luxor" (Mojave, $50) is short on story but long on puzzles. You play an archaeologist who has made an extraordinary discovery in a long-forgotten Egyptian pyramid. Your job is to find secret passages, restart ancient machinery and discover ways to avoid a series of booby traps. Many of the puzzles will drive players crazy as they search for clues to the solutions amid all the inscriptions on the walls arid floors. "Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh" (Interplay, $48) has less mysticism, more intrigue, more people, fewer puzzles and it's easier to play.

You assume the role ot Michael Cameron, who is sent to a mining site in Alexandria, Egypt, after wqrk- ers discover a strange, ancient box with a curse written on it. The curse has spooked the natives, your ex-girlfriend trying to figure out whether Egyptian authorities should be notified (which would shut down the mining operation) and the regional supervisor (played by ac tor Malcolm McDowell) keeps following vou around like a bad reputation. (GTE Entertainment, $70) is the newest game ot the three, and it doesn't restrict itself to ancient Egypt After you discover a transporter in an Easter Island cave, you can send yourself to the Mayan world, the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians, or, ultimately, the underwater city of Atlantis. Like "Luxor," it focuses on solving puzzles. CALEIMpAR Nov.

20: The Chicago Computer Society's Lotus spreadsheet special interest group meets at 6 p.m. in Des Plaines. (815) 389-8981. Nov. 20: The Hinsdale Chamber of Commerce will hold a lunch meeting, "The Internet and World Wide Web Await You," at 11:30 a.m.

in Hinsdale. It's open to the public. (708)354-1954. Nov. 20: The North West of Us Macintosh Computer User Group's programmer special interest group meets at 7 p.m.

in Palatine. (708) 603-1296 or http://www.nwou.org. Nov. 21: The Chicago Computer Society's WordPerfect special interest group in the Western suburbs meets in Lisle. Call (708) 271 9000 for time and other details.

Nov. 23: The Chicago Computer Society's Internet special interest group meets at 10 a.m. in Chicago. (312) 631-6549. calendar items and association meetings to Mark Le Bicn at: or (847) 427-4569.

Write' to Business Tech, Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington IL, eOQOfc 1 Compiled by MarkCeBisn from.tos. ''Angeles Times Syndicate, Associated Press, Reutars. MENU PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY Improving AOL still best home link to cyberspace Business analysts and techies these days typically dismiss America Online as a second-rate, "training-wheels" version of the Internet, despite the fact that it's by far the largest community in cyberspace and delivers far more people to the World Wide Web than anyone else. Even some longtime AOL fans have become exasperated this year.

The service suffered embarrassing outages, lost its pricing edge to flat-rate, independent Internet access providers, and failed to improve its built-in Web browser fast enough. In many cases, people just seethed at their screens as AOL informed them it was "adding new art" to their computers, and refused to respond to user commands. Now, however, AOL says it has reinvented itself. It has developed a significantly revised update of its software, version 3.0, which includes a better Web browser and in some cases even an embedded version of Microsoft's latest, topflight Internet Explorer browser. And it has decided to switch to a flat-rate price, with unlimited hours.

AOL has 7 million members, seven times the size of the largest Internet access services, Net- com and Worldnet, combined. But, putting business issues and techie snobbery aside, are the new software and pricing any good? Is the service reliable enough? Is AOL the right home base from which to enter cyberspace? The answers depend somewhat on which computer platform you use, and on your online usage patterns. I've been testing the new software on several types of computers, using regular modems, and it's a big improvement. It gives the service a clean, fresh look, and it ends the maddening wait-for-art syndrome. The new version also includes a cool new feature called the Buddy List, which alerts you if any of your friends enter the service, and al- Walter S.

Mossberg AOL is doing the right things, but there are still problems, and more needs to be done if it's to keep pace with the competition. lows you to instantly send them a message, or even invite a group of them into a private "chat room." But the full benefit is only available if you have a PC running Windows 95. The Windows 95 version of AOL, which is set to ship in a few weeks, is the only one which includes the excellent version 3.0 of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, because Microsoft hasn't yet released version 3.0 for Windows 3.1 or for the Macintosh. AOL's new software for older Windows, which is already shipping, still includes a proprietary browser, and the new Mac software, which will ship by year end, has an older iteration of the Microsoft browser. In my tests, the embedded Microsoft browser in the Windows 95 version of AOL worked just as well as the standalone version sold by Microsoft.

In some cases it was faster, because AOL stores images of many popular Web sites on its own internal computers. But in the evenings, when AOL's computers get swamped, it can be slower than stand-alone browsers. All of the Microsoft features worked fine, though AOL hides some of the nicer aspects of the Microsoft interface. Starting Dec. 1, AOL will be available for $19.95 a month, with unlimited hours, which matches most Internet providers.

Light users can choose an alternative metered plan that costs S4.95 a month for three free hours, and $2.50 for each added hour. If you get to the Internet through some other means, such as a corporate connection, you can get unlimited use of AOL See MOSSBERG on Page 3 Trade show big on smaii items Hand-held computers, portable devices stand out at Comdex Associated Pros, ou probably don't do all your cooking on your range you've got a toaster, a microwave and maybe an electric grill or bread machine. Why should computing be different? Traditional personal computers finally are getting some serious company, thanks to an emerging class of smaller, cheaper and more specialized devices. Network computers, hand-held PCs and gizmos such as "smart phones" and the trend of moving beyond the desktop are the hot topics at this year's Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, which begins today. "I think we're at the beginning of the real acceleration of the next wave of information technology," said Jim Groff, general manager of Apple Computer information appliance division.

Future computers will include devices as common as ATM machines and telephones, small enough to be toted around or blend into the environment, Groff said. This doesn't mean the imminent demise of the do-it-all desktop PC, which continues to become more powerful and easier to use. And while a basic PC Still costs about $2,000, it has more features than it did a year ago. Low-end machines are expected to become cheaper next year. Most of the new breed of gee- whiz computing products and their markets are untested.

But companies see opportunities in the PC's shortcomings. Farid Dibachi, chairman of Diba shows off several prototype products. Diba's wares will be displayed at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas. Associated Press Photo ogy research concern, found that companies typically spend up to thousands of dollars a year to maintain each PC. Further pushing the drive toward simpler, less expensive computing has been the rise of the Internet, businesses' increasing need for mobility and the falling price of parts.

"The whole trend now is to move beyond the desktop and to move beyond the classic PC," said Paul Saffo, director of the Institute of the Future, a non-profit research and consulting firm in Palo i Alto, Calif. The beyond-the-PC theme gets started in Las Vegas even before Comdex officially opens. Microsoft Corp. is launching its new Windows CE operating system at the Cirque du Soleil, a atrical circus that has traveled to a Las Vegas strip hotel for the product introduction. The Microsoft software will run first on new hand-held computers from a half-dozen manufacturers that are expected to compete with existing simple machines like Sharp's Zaurus.

But Windows CE, unlike operating systems of most other hand-held computers, also is designed to run a wide range of machines for businesses and consumers a bid by Microsoft to extend the dominance it enjoys with the PC to the new variety of computing devices. In another sign of the trend toward simpler devices, rival Netscape Communications Corp. this past summer spun off a company to develop operating software as well as versions of its popular Navigator Web browser for the same kind Personal computers still are too costly and intimidating to many consumers; market researcher PCs are ir And while essential for many businesses, PCs are notoriously expensive to maintain; a study by the Gartner Group, a high-technol- See COMDEX on Page 3 Small Investor Index: Small investors have been pulling millions of dollars out of mutual funds that hold medical stocks, fearing that a second Clinton administration might again push for a massive overhaul of health care. PAGE 4 TickerTalk: The boom in the stock market inspires some people to think of giving financial gifts to relatives or charities, and this kindness can happen without incurring a gift tax. PAGE 4.