DIGITAL L.A. : PARENTS CAN MAKE PCS SAFE.

Byline: David Bloom 

Worried more than ever in the wake of various school shootings about what your children are doing on the computer? Two Intel senior managers have recently come out with a book that may provide some useful suggestions, ``The PC Dads Guide to Becoming a Computer-Smart Parent'' (DTP Trade Paperbacks; $13.95)

Of course, the entire 311-page book can be encapsulated by one piece of sage advice on Page 118: ``You have time to spend together with your child. Avoid the temptation to use the computer as an electronic baby sitter. Instead, make it a partnership affair, something you both share and enjoy. We call this shoulder-to-shoulder learning.''

But the book includes much else, with chapters on topics such as ``Raising a Computer-Smart Daughter'' and ``Boys, Game Addiction and Violent Software,'' and appendixes with suggestions for child-friendly Web sites, nonviolent popular games (such as the sainted SimCity and many high-adrenaline racing titles) and more.

Among the tips for digital parenting: Put the computer in the areas where you live, rather than tucked away in a bedroom or other back area; create a software ``diet'' that balances various needs - and rotate the offerings; create and post rules on usage; keep an open mind to the inevitable changes ahead.

It also has suggestions for managing how much time children spend on games, suggesting tricks like using poker chips as chits to track how much time children spend on educational programs and uses. For every half-hour of such usage, they get a chip they can cash in for an equal amount of time playing games.

If you want to put into practice some of what you've learned from the book, go to their Web site, at www.intel.com/intel/educate/pcdads/index.htm.

History lessons

Here's a big idea: Little books illuminating complicated subjects. Doubleday has now published four books under the rubric ``The Big Idea,'' each focusing on one thorny technical topic by way of one particularly intriguing historical figure.

Paul Strathern authored all four books, two of which have just come out. One focuses on Albert Einstein and his theories of relativity; the other on cryptography and artificial intelligence pioneer Alan Turing and the computer.

Don't expect great depth in 100 pages (with large type, even), but they are brisk reads that give a quick rundown of both a large figure in 20th-century thought, and the ideas they helped shape.

The books also come with brief annotated bibliographies for further reading, key points and sayings, and a chronology of their subjects' lives and times.

The other two books in the series, by the way, are about physicist Stephen Hawking and black holes, and Isaac Newton and gravity. Nothing like thinking big.

Get in the game

Among the tidbits gleaned from the massive Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles comes this little fact:

The recently released Game Boy Color  hand-held machine, with its 56-color display, is roughly 100 times more powerful than the original Atari 2600 console of the mid-1980s, according to one estimate.

Even more powerful is SNK's new handheld game machine, the Neo Geo Pocket, with a 16-bit processor that's roughly twice as powerful as the Game Boy. We won't even talk about what to make of Palm Pilots and the like that have an increasing array of games available.

And though the 128-bit processors in the Sega Dreamcast, the Sony PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo Dolphin all promise to make possible astounding new games as those machines hit the market in the next two years, current machines are far from dead.

Sony is doing the most to make sure that doesn't happen by promising backward compatibility in its PlayStation 2; any game you buy for the original PlayStation will play in its successor machine as well.

But even with new machines tempting everyone in coming months, consider this: Majesco recently announced it will start making and selling its own version of Nintendo's 16-bit Genesis game box, which came out the generation before the N64.

At $30, the Majesco Genesis is supposed to provide gaming opportunities to families that can't afford the expensive next-generation machines and software. And there's plenty of games for the box still around, with Majesco selling titles through major outlets such as Toys ``R'' Us.

Football goes HDTV 

In a development that will surely send the number of high-definition television sets in sports bars around America skyrocketing, ABC-TV said it will broadcast the next Super Bowl and all its Monday Night Football in HD.

ABC will work with Panasonic to broadcast all 17 Monday night telecasts, one wild-card playoff game and next January's Super Bowl in Atlanta.

A few sporting events - including some of KTLA's Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games and two playoff football games last season - have been broadcast in HDTV, but nothing with the drawing power of Monday Night Football - and certainly not of the Super Bowl.

Having seen some of the HD demonstration footage shot at the Super Bowl a couple of years back between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers, I'll tell you now that fans' jaws will drop when they see their favorite teams on a large-screen TV in high-definition resolution.

In the demonstration I saw some months ago on a wonderful Vidkron projection system, you could practically pick out the beads of sweat on Deion Sanders' brow at 200 feet. As an onlooker said, it's more like a window than a TV set. So who really needs an NFL team in Los Angeles anyway? Besides the NFL, I mean.

Looking ahead

``The Next Twenty Years,'' a seminar series in its second year, is making its Los Angeles stop this week at the Pantages Theatre with a crew of thinkers pondering the future of entertainment while two dozen companies show the technology they're offering to help get there.

The Thursday seminar will feature Digital Domain CEO Scott Ross, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and Warner Bros. Online executive vice president Jim Bannister talking about entertainment and the future. Their discussion will be moderated by Dan Farber, a vice president and editor in chief of ZDNet.

At a cocktail party beforehand that's part of the event, about two dozen companies will be showing off their bleeding-edge technologies for all to see.

It's the second year for the seminar series - other events will be held in San Francisco, New York and London - and if it matches last year's stimulating discussion, it should be a blast.

The event will be held at the Pantages, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Some tickets are still available, for $25 online at www.next20years.com, or $35 at the door.

Virus killer

Here's a useful site for people worried about Melissa, Chernobyl and all the other fast-multiplying viruses out in the digital universe these days, not to mention more basic computer maintenance needs.

McAfee.com (at www.mcafee.com), from the software division of Network Associates that creates anti-virus and other programs, is a boon, replacing all that packaging with convenient online access to a suite of infection cleaners and other services for your home computer.

And for the time being, the services are available for a free trial, though the company will charge modest subscription fees soon enough. The services available include VirusScan, the Oil Change automatic updater program, Uninstaller QuickClean and 2000 Toolbox for Y2K checkups.

The site does raise some privacy issues, of course. You'll have to decide whether you want to give some company unfettered access to your hard drive to allow for the scans and other cleanup work to be done. But McAfee officials said they've bent over backward to assure they don't invade anyone's privacy while giving them a hand managing their machine.

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Photo: Intel senior managers Mark Ivey, left, and Ralph Bond lend a helping hand with ``The PC Dads Guide to Becoming a Computer-Smart Parent''