Quicken

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - There was plenty of time to greet the guests who came in the morning. "You want to take a seat and see what's going on?" Palm Beach County Judge Charles Burton asked Christine Todd Whitman, the Republican governor of New Jersey. "We'll kick her out soon," he jokingly assured his colleagues on the county's canvassing board, which is under a tight deadline to finish a hand recount of 466,000 ballots cast nearly three weeks ago. But before nightfall yesterday, with Secretary of State Katherine Harris less than 24 hours from certifying the winner of the presidential contest in Florida, it was clearly crunch time.

Negotiations between the Orioles and representatives of third baseman Cal Ripken have intensified in an effort to prevent the 40-year-old organizational icon from filing for free agency for the first time in his Hall of Fame career. With a 15-day free-agent filing period beginning immediately after the World Series, Ripken is apparently seeking a de facto rollover of the contract that paid him a $6.3 million base salary last season. While the club has considered offering the perennial All-Star a lower base salary combined with appearance incentives, majority owner Peter Angelos and vice president of baseball operations Syd Thrift have expressed confidence in a tidy resolution.

If you just bought a $1,000 digital camera that takes 3.3 megapixel pictures, you might have thought you had everything you needed to get started with your new hobby. But it doesn't take long to discover that it's too easy to run out of digital "film," and that getting those huge photos from your camera to your computer can be a real headache. Luckily, a trip back to the computer or photo store will turn up some accessories that make life easier - higher-capacity digital film cards for storing your pictures and dedicated digital film readers that plug into your PC and help transfer photographs to your computer.

"Quickening," by Laura Catherine Brown. Random House. 318 pages. $23.95. Laura Catherine Brown, a Manhattan graphic artist, is new to the art of book writing. But she has attracted major interest from a major concern. Random House is publishing her first work, titled "Quickening." As a publicist for the publisher put it, her novel is "not a comforting read." Take his word for it. And take mine. If you've found your moral compass, or, if your outlook on life is optimistic like mine, there probably isn't a good reason to pick up this book.

Originally, my Windows Start button and icons were at the bottom of my monitor screen. All of a sudden I realized they had shifted to the right-hand edge of the screen, and I cannot find the key to return them to the screen bottom. It isn't a key, but the mouse that moves the task bar in Windows from the bottom to either side or the top. To move the bar, put the cursor in a spot on the bar without icons and, while holding down the left mouse button, use a sweeping motion to move the whole thing to a different edge of the desktop.

Human Genome Sciences Inc. said yesterday that it will share part of its gene database with a San Diego-based biotech company as part of an agreement to quicken the development of promising drugs. In return, Rockville-based Human Genome has the option to license the DNA gene-delivery technology developed by Vical Inc. for use in up to three gene-based products. Vical can license up to three genes from Human Genome's proprietary genomics database for gene-based product development. "We are delighted to collaborate with Vical in applying our considerable genomics database in the development of DNA-based pharmaceutical products," said William A. Haseltine, chairman and chief executive officer of Human Genome.

Caveat emptor is Latin for "buyer beware," as the Plain Language Law Dictionary that comes with Quicken Family Lawyer will tell you. And as long as you beware of the warnings the program gives you, Family Lawyer is well worth the few dollars you'll spend on it.But first, beware of this review, because I make my living dispensing legal advice, not through a computer, but the traditional way--across a mahogany desk. For that reason, I was prepared to dislike a $20 item which at first glance promised to replace much of what I do."

You'll love the latest version of Quicken. Known as Quicken 2000, the $90 package for Windows 95/98 is designed to take us across the great divide into the millennium with some major and quite appealing enhancements, particularly in the area of personal financial planning for today's bodacious bull market.Added to standard Quicken modules for tracking spending and investments are powerful Internet tools that bring such features as constant stock price updates, the ability to calculate "what if" scenarios about possible stock buys, asset-mix changes and a fascinating net worth module that lets you use Internet databases to find the market value of your home based on comparisons with your neighbors' properties.

During the next few months, doctors at three U.S. hospitals are expected to begin giving breast cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy infusions of an experimental cell-based solution in the hope of restoring the vigor of the patients' bone marrow and immune systems.The new drug, Stromagen, made by Baltimore-based Osiris Therapeutics Inc., is an outgrowth of research efforts to regenerate diseased and damaged body parts using "master" cells, known as stem cells, which give rise to other more specialized cells in the body.

We need to write our business's employee manual in Spanish. Is there a program to convert typing in English into Spanish?Translation software is readily available, including Universal Translator by Language Force Inc. (www.wforce.com), which handles 33 languages. You type in English using a word processor and then copy sentences to the computer's clipboard. The software translates the saved English to paste into a new document.Keep in mind that even the best software falls down in translating nuances.