The biggest advantage of Cosmi's 10,000 Recipes is revealed in its sheer volume. Unlike a traditional cookbook, however, recipes aren't arranged by theme, so it makes browsing a long and arduous task, starting with "A boiled dinner" and finishing, 9,999-odd recipes later with Zwiebelkuchen (onion pie). If one is to get any satisfaction out of this CD-ROM, brushing up on your keyword search skills is advisable. Search methods here are by keyword, ingredients (perhaps the most useful methods), recipe name, and preparation time. The disadvantage of the voluminous catalogue here is that, for example, a simple keyword search under chicken delivers thousands of recipes, some of which might contain a mere teaspoon of chicken broth. Yet keyword searching is also the beauty of a CD-ROM cookbook: entering the terms "kiwi" and "dessert" yielded 25 results, from Ben and Jerry's Kiwi Ice Cream to Aloha Cheesecake. The database is internationally well-represented. A keyword search using the word Thai resulted in spicy dishes ranging from Lemon Grass Seafood Combination to Fiery Shrimp Curry. While instructions are generally clear, a search under the keyword Japanese promised Salmon Sushi, and delivered a recipe consisting of vinegar and salt, with no mention of the fish. Handiest trick: a yield-conversion tool converts ingredient measurements if you'd like to adjust a recipe for six people into a meal for two, saving you headaches with a calculator. [+]

Stephen King's F13 decks out your computer with a horror aesthetic, offering "deathtop" images, "screamsavers" and a trio of mini-games. The capper is a beautifully presented novella, Everything's Eventual, a story that brings King's usual theme into a high-tech context. The program is largely disappointing. It has been argued that the most critical element of horror media is sound, and F13 does have a cornucopia of chilling and ominous noises. However, everything else is carefully honed to a PG level of taste-rather than being scary, or even creepy, most aspects of F13 fall into the category of horror camp. Two of the three mini-games are simple twitch games. In Bug Splat, you flatten insects messily before they can overwhelm your screen; in Whack-A-Zombie, you dispatch the undead with a shovel. The third game, No Swimming, lets you feed various animals to a school of piranha. The games are hilarious, especially Whack-A-Zombie, but they are not very challenging and definitely not fear-inspiring. As for the novella, while its interface is gorgeous, this too is weak when compared to Stephen King's other work. [+]