The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 55

LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1994 E3 PRACTICAL VIEW Chatting the High-Tech Way, on the Women's Wire nip fdit Mesuiqp f.nnfprptup HiPin Desktop jft 'J I Hi ftv; 1 -3 i' I Lsil i.crivftii-.s The ABCs of Women's Wire What does Women's Wire require? Like any on-line service, a personal computer, modem and telephone line. What does it cost? Basic subscription fee is $15 per month. Members receive two free hours on-line every month. Additional access time starts at $2.50 per hour depending on location. A free starter kit including a floppy disk and instructions are available by calling (800) 210-9999.

Whafs on it? Here's a sampling of the information available: Missed Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on the Health Security Act? The speech, with others, is filed in "Hillary Speeches." Got a new bread machine? Baking tips and recipes are in "Culinary Corner." Teaching your teen-ager to drive? Ask for advice through the interactive "Parenting Forum." "Movie Reviews" offers more than 80 current samplings, plus the "10 Best Feminist Films of 1993." Are you experiencing discrimination or harassment at work? Check Career Finance for sources of assistance. Want to find a Women's Wire member who is a real estate agent, travel agent or free-lance writer? Look in "Business Card" and, while you're there, post a description of your business. -CONNIE KOENENN on-line computer service aimed specifically at the interests of women. a On-Line: In this new "electronic community," women use cyberspace to exchange experiences in everything from home Repairs to menopause. By CONNIE KOENENN 'eJIMES STAFF WRITER Ellen Pack and Nancy Rhine officially launched Women's Wire last month by inviting a large group of friends to chat with some guest experts.

Travel writer Thalia Zepatos Jjffered safety tips for women trav-! eling alone. Computer guru Esther predicted where the electronics industry is headed. Greens Restaurant chef Annie Somerville answered questions about gourmet Vegetarian cooking. Women from all over the country participated but nobody had Jo leave home. The audience was connected by its modems to Women's Wire, the world's first Jm-line computer service aimed specifically at the needs and inter- ests of women.

"We think it can become a very practical part of a woman's life," says Pack, 28, a New Yorker with an MBA from Columbia University. "It's just now becoming a tool that can save you time and money." "It's not mysterious it's not go- ing to take the place of the telephone or personal conversation," says Rhine, 43, a Midwesterner who has worked with computers since the 1970s. "It's just a convenient way to reach individuals and groups that is becoming very valuable." Interviewed by phone from their office complex in San Francisco, Pack and Rhine discuss their plans Jar bringing women into the world called "cyberspace." (The current estimate, according to Online Access magazine, is that only 15 to 20 of all on-line systems users are women.) Pack and Rhine envision subscribers turning to Women's Wire for information on everything from health and finances to movie rer views, and also using its interactive "capabilities to share experiences, find jobs, solve problems and just schmooze. 1 "Some women who have businesses at home say it's their virtual water cooler," says Rhine. "They can log on and network.

It really combats isolation." Women's Wire is the latest entry in the emerging world of commercial on-line services led by Prodigy and Compuserve that are not yet household words, but getting closer, as home computers become later, it will be in the data base." But where women get the greatest value, she thinks, is in interaction. That's the feedback Pack and Rhine have been getting since October, when they opened Women's Wire to 300 founding subscribers for a three-month trial period. "People are helping each other get through all sorts of situations," 'It's not mysterious it's not going to take the place of the telephone or personal conversation. It's just a convenient way to reach individuals and groups "The computer allowed me, as a single parent, to work and be available to my children at the same time," says Rhine, the mother of two teen-agers. "I've always seen its value as a timesav-er.

When she later moved to the Bay Area, she got a job on the Well designing a customer support function and she was hooked. "I could quickly see the power of the communications tool," she says. "During the uprising in China's Tian An Men Square, there was a man on the Well whose son was in China and they were talking regularly. The son used to send reports of what was happening at that very moment. To me it was revolutionary a way to get around governments and the limitations of the press." Like Pack, she is concerned because, although women are major workplace users of computers for data processing, they are being left behind in the real communications revolution on-line networking.

Their concern is shared by Judith Broadhurst, a New York writer who specializes in women and technology. "I don't think women yet understand what on-line computing can do for them," says Broadhurst. "I think they misper-ceive what it's all about. Men tend to be more curious about how computers work." For Pack and Rhine, the first goal was to create a system that Now here is the other downer when it comes to computers. To read the news on your screen, you will need to be connected to the telephone company by modem, and it is going to charge you an arm and a leg to tell you what Michael Jackson is up to that day.

You'll be tied up on the line for hours until you finish the comic strips. This means that you will feel financially pressured to read the publication as fast as possible so that it won't cost you a bundle. mi iMMWjfey, 7 JZ1 Women's Wire is the world's first incredible," she says. Although she's used a PC since i college, Pack doesn't consider her-1 self any sort of computer wizard. But when she moved to Palo Alto in 1992 as chief operating officer for a software company, she discovered the Well, a regional online system with about 10,000 members who network on everything from finding relationships to discussing the state of the world.

RHINE Pack found the network helpful in getting acquainted with interesting people even found a doctor and also noticed that most of the users were men. So she posted a note on the Well about starting a women's computer network and met Rhine. Rhine spent the 970s at a Tennessee commune, where she helped computerize a data base for the Midwife's Assn. of North America. Eventually she acquired a PC and moved to rural Northern California where she launched a word processing business and began educating herself in software.

Computer of Safeway is having a sale on asparagus. You can't enjoy these kind of discoveries electronically. One of the arguments for computer news is that the reader can talk back to the screen and vent his anger immediately at the editors. This is a joke. I don't know one editor who pays attention to reader mail, and he sure as heck isn't going to do it reading some guy's electronic bulletin board.

Reg. $69.99 NOW $44.88 You Save $25.11 CHIC 0 NANCY says Pack. "A woman recently signed onto the forum devoted to children and said her daughter had been diagnosed with severe learning disabilities and she didn't know how to cope. She heard from other mothers who suggested groups to work with, recommended special schools and told her how they had dealt with similar problems." Some have described this cess as "electronic consciousness-raising," but Pack likes to call it an "electronic community," with women exchanging experience in everything from home repairs to menopause. "The amount of support you see on the network is The promoters of electronic news are trying to sell us on the convenience of clicking a key instead of browsing through the pages by hand.

That shows how dumb they, really are. The joy. of a paper comes from being surprised. Your eye scans the page and suddenly you discover that Sen. Packwood won't release his diaries.

Bingo! On page 6 is an item you never dreamed would be user-friendly in all aspects. "We didn't want it to a technical challenge," says Pack. "We tried to organize the information logically and simply. We are heavy on customer service arid support. We take calls all the time from people who don't have modems, but want to know what they are." "It's a world at your fingertips," says Aliza Sherman, a New Yorker who subscribed to Women's Wire in December.

She had just switched careers from the music industry to a nonprofit group called the Domestic Abuse Awareness Projectand was looking for networking. She signs on every day, calling up everything from news headlines to Usenet discussions, she said. Her domestic abuse project, with its mission statement and most recent newsletter, is available in Women's Wire directory of organizations. "One subscriber, who read about us wants to have lunch and may even fund us," Sherman says. With a current membership of about 500, Women's Wire is a small player in a competitive game, but Pack and Rhine have high ambitions and think their focus gives them an edge.

"Our hope," says Pack, "is in five years Women's Wire will be a great global clearing house for information that will focus on communications and needs of women around the world." A newspaper charges one price and you get to read everything at your own pace. You can put it down, drive the kids to a soccer game and come back and pick up right where you left off without paying a dime to the phone company. To sum up, there, is no advantage to having a computer replace a printed newspaper. Letthe computers do your subscription billing, but leave the delivery of the news to something you can wrap fish in. SHAPE AND COLOR Directional trends in the newest spring suits.

Star neckline peplum SUIT IN rich fuchsia triacetate-polyester, matte goldtone buttons. Sizes 4 to 14 and petite 2 to 10. BlCCI BY Florine Wachter 325.00 ARTBUCHWALD more affordable. "The understanding is growing," says Pack, "but there's still a gap the people who haven't used it just don't have any concept of what is involved." The process, she adds, is relatively simple all it takes is a personal computer and a modem that connects your computer to a telephone line to send information in and out. Through it you can dial a commercial computer system that typically provides the following: Read-only information such as stock prices, weather and news.

Messaging forums to exchange ideas and information on topical issues in which users post messages for anyone who dials in. Personal mailbox for exchanging private messages. Subscribers can also exchange electronic mail (E-mail) with anyone who has an address on Internet (a global computer network) or participate in Usenet groups with topics ranging from pet care to restaurants. Interactive activities such as the Women's Wire chat sessions in which audience and speakers engaged by typing and sending questions and answers electronically. Essentially, says Pack, this breaks down into two basic types of communication: "One is the pure information side.

We buy data bases and have resource people putting them on-line. If a magazine did an excellent piece on breast cancer and you want it six months same grip on your nerves by clinging to the sides of a computer. The electronic newspaper is cold when it appears on the while a newspaper is hot, particularly when you start a fire with it. The advantage of a newspaper is that you don't have to sit down in a particular place and stare at a screen to find out what's happening in the world. Some people read it in bed, others at the breakfast table and still others on the train.

It is lightweight and portable and designed to be reader-friendly. Needless to say a computer is useless for lining a garbage pail or for the bottom of a bird cage. There isn't a machine on the market that you can safely take a swipe at the dog with when he does something bad. of Medicine and Director of the Center for Arthritis and Joint Implant Surgery at USC University Hospital, will discuss the latest treatments for "Arthritis and Joint Disorders." following cable stations: Can't Exactly Cozy Up in Bed With a "ot long ago I read that the San Jose Mercurv News had Dublished its first elec tronic edition of the Daper on a computer. It is predicted by some that the computer will eventually replace newsprint as the bearer of bad news.

As someone who has been working with news on paper for decades, I can only say: "Fie on computers and their information highways. The newspaper as we know it will never die." i Let me make my case. Not a day goes by without us reading bad The only thing that keeps us panicking is that we can hold to the pages with both hands -while we scan the grim headlines. is no way you can get the CHIC WIDE SHOES World's Largest Selection of Ladies' ft i Do You Suffer From Arthritis? SELBY. "Glamour" If pain from arthritis or other joint disorders is a constant companion, tune in to this week's HealthSense.

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