The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 182

Peter Infotainment wvvw.smh.com.auiconinfotainment.html 4 -MlKnjr FitzSimons Rumbles in the jungle damnation DDD -r-r-r-n dataflow leu 5 Barbie breaks free, comes out as a lesbian, joins a picket line and gives her mansion to the Smith Family. In your dreams, writes Emma Tom. nidi rA ti '-J These Barbie CD-ROMs are $49.95 each. They run on Windows and are distributed by Dataflow, ph 9417 9700. SN'T it great the way multinationals are doing their bit to encourage young girlies into the exciting world of technology.

Mattel's new Barbie CD-ROMs, for example, allow the young female leaders of tomorrow to perform thrilling high-tech manoeuvres such as designing their own "You are invited to a Barbie party" postcards and making Barbie drink endlessly from a cocktail on a beach beside her mansion all accompanied by head-swaggling elevator background music." Wow. Pretty exciting, huh. The only problem is the limited interactivity levels permitted by Mattel a company so protective of its products that its Barbie CD-ROMs include the warning that the Barbie doll, Ken doll, associated family and friend dolls and "the colour Barbie pink" are all trademarks owned by Mattel. For Barbie lovers to mature and develop as human beings and computer users, they need to be able to question and test the boundaries of their role models a crucial exercise outlawed by the Mattel control freaks. While attempting to design some handy stationery with the Barbie Print 'n Play -Create Personalised Print Projects Featuring Barbie! CD-ROM, for example, not once was I permitted to strip Barbie of her yellow roller-blades, pink helmet and dumb body suit, and then redress her in Tank Girl combat gear.

Equally restrictive were the film studios in Barbie Storymaker Create Animated Stories Starring Barbie and her in which Barbie herself appeared and promised artistic autonomy. But try as I might, I could not cut Barbie's hair off, remove her lipstick or make her anatomically correct. Neither could I make her put on weight, get a real job, form a lesbian relationship, take up macrame, join a picket line or give her mansion to charity. In fact, after many frustrating hours, the most subversive thing I could make Barbie do was. a ballet dance on her bed while soap bubbles floated off her face.

While using techno products to entice young girls into computer literacy is an admirable idea, recycling the same stereotypes that have excluded them from such male-dominated domains in the past definitely is not. computer people who have lives together, who are on top of K' their technology, who are not obsessive about how they spend their time, may bypass this week's column. This is just something between a few of us members of Computer Games Anonymous, who are trying to get our lives back from the strange shapes, marauding invaders and evil aliens that beset them. We don't want non-sufferers sniggering on the sidelines about our pathetic obsessions, thank you very much. In short, get lost.

Right, is everyone from CGA all present and accounted for? Tetris Tex? Minesweeper Mick? Harry Hearts? Good. Now, when last we spoke, I was whingeing ad nauseum about how the brain-dead Windows 95 game of Solitaire had got into my soul. I gave fellow sufferers which is to say fellow losers information on how to temporarily disable it from your machine, but acknowledged that this was really only the equivalent of taking the bottle of whisky and hiding it in the top shelf of the laundry, under the third pile of sheets from the right. From the moment you know how to get back to it, it's not really a solution at all. I put the call out to find a way of totally disabling it, without having to pay the $35 Microsoft Support demands to give the information.

And now, troops, I have that information. I think. I'd like fellow members to read the following communique from one of our members, Dumpa, very carefully, considering all the consequences. I pass on, almost verbatim, his reply: As for removing Solitaire from your program, forget Microsoft and their $35, I'll tell ya for free. But a word of warning get it wrong and you'll be lucky if your computer still boots.

You may also have trouble uninslalling and installing other components or running applications, if you get this wrong. First, click Start, then click Run. Type in "regedil and press enter. Double click on "HKEYLOCA MA CHINE then scroll down to "SOFTWARE" and double click it. then then then then then "Optional double clicking on each and bringing up a further menu.

Once you do all that, you '11 have another window on the right with stuff in it. Scroll down to games, click on it and press delete. You have just done what is called "registry hacking which is probably the most difficult thing done in Windows 95 to date. Please note, I am not exactly using Windows 95 so you had better check it yourself before publishing it Let me know how you go, and if anybody has questions about this don hesitate to refer them to me, Dumpampgs. tiga.com.au So, how did it go? WHADD YATHINKI'MCRAZY You reckon I'm going to try something like that when the guy has given me every fair warning that the slightest wrong move and the whole thing might blow up in my face? I don't think you understand.

You go first and tell me what happens. If everything goes sweetly and you really have disabled the wretched Solitaire part of the games, then e-mail me back that it's safe and I'll tell the rest of the world to go ahead. What do you mean, why don't do it? That simply wouldn't make sense. If I throw myself on a maybe live grenade and end up byting the Big One, I would be left even without the wherewithal to tell all others not to do it. I would be a weeping and bloody mess in the comer, with my wings clipped and my computer commentator's licence in shreds.

So you do it Get the whisky back down from the top shelf, under the third pile of sheets from the right, and do it. If it goes well, get back to me. If it goes badly sorry about that. But don't say Dumpa and I didn't warn you. pjfitzozemail.com.au Oumt tmm ire NwTMwtK mm.

VOLCANOES: LIFE ON THE EDGE Price: $69.95 Runs on: Windows Publisher Corbis Distributor Hilad, ph 9700 9377 Rating: OOOOO 'riLfc unww: MKKio utmt utut wrWy wnwW. M-Tl C9 turvw, uHm hM ttw HOME REPAIR GUIDE Price: $19.95 Runs on: Windows Publisher Softkey Distributor: Dataflow, ph 9417 9700 Rating: OOOOO Shaky steps Cmmi: CHhm kLiMta buoti Earth movers jr1 isiefopairEiiQ'ipejia ti i i ii mmmmm OLCANOES embody that raw elemental power which at once terrifies and enthrals. So, armchair thrill-seeker that I am, I was quite excited by the blurb "'HMtEMM 7 i ,1. 8 MM 1 1 3 immmt 0 mtnrnm iwim 3 yi'wiii riumbirvj hmi vmm HMimni Mum Bi rWWMtf tM WH ftajdn A4)UQtMMt with promising I'd "come face to face" "mesmerizing Ho hum. Silly me, expecting footage of the St Helens blast; it pays to read the fine print.

What's this about the exhilarating travels of Roger Ressmeyer, renowned photojournalist? Seems Rog spent a year chasing eruptions around the world, but never quite captured a biggie at that climactic moment when the earth literally moved. There are some humdrum photo-essays about low-key eruptions, impressively succinct accounts of historic cataclysms, and a well-illustrated and cross-linked concise reference section outlining current theory, but nothing that will blow y6ur socks off. Why, oh why, do marketing folk keep hyping products with over-the-top packaging? To give it its due, kids doing projects sang its praises. I tried to get them to read Volcanoes: Fire from the Earth, just $19.95 from the New Horizons series, but it was far too comprehensive for their tastes. TONY KLEU ET'S amazing what you can find in the shops these days.

You name it, it's out there: canned exhaust fumes, chocolate bars with plastic in them, and American DIY guides on CD-ROM. I'm sure the level of DIY expertise displayed by your average American homemakers is no worse than you'd find in suburban Australia, but I doubt, very much, that they acquired their skills with the aid of this offering. We may have to swallow American burgers, music and values, but does someone have to import every crappy computer program they write? Quality aside, all measurements in the projects are imperial, while some tool names and construction terms would be alien to Australians. But back. to quality.

The video footage might have been shot for the Police Royal Commission from a jockstrap-mounted spycam, and does very little to illustrate the script. There's a lot of simplistic animation, not all of which matches the words. In one sequence, for example, you're told to hold a chisel bevel up, though the animation shows it bevel down. Then we come to the section "Do your own electrical repairs" Um, err, no! It's dangerous, and legally suspect. Sadly, there are no sections titled "Resuscitate your own spouse parentsibling" or "Extinguishing house This CD-ROM was developed by something called Books That Work.

A book would be a far better idea preferably one developed specifically for the Australian market. TONY KLEU See Peter FitzSimons on Net TV at www.smh.com.auiconnetTV.html 8 icon SMH JULY 26, 1997.