Print Screen Deluxe (PSD) is one of those applications about which one wonders why no one thought of it before. "If you can see it you can print it," is the program's slogan, but there's much more to it than printing.

One of the problems with the World Wide Web is that many Web site designers do not take printing into account. This flaw is not inherent in the Web, but reflects poor page design. PSD overcomes these limitations, allowing you to print or capture any Web (or any CD-ROM or program) page or part of a page, and utilize it as you wish.

Before the PC GUI (graphical user interface, e.g., Windows), a press of the Print Screen (or PrtScrn) key would suffice to print everything on your screen. Under Windows one must copy the image to the clipboard, from which data can then be pasted into other applications for printing.

A great deal of fussing and futzing is required to get that information printed or otherwise deployed the way you want it. Print Screen Deluxe returns control to the user.

A small program, which does a few things very well, it includes some powerful tools, so it is not immediately intuitive to use. I've only scratched its surface, and already see several ways that PSD may simplify my printing tasks. You can capture the entire screen, a particular Window, or an area that you define. The captured area can be printed, automatically or selectively; or saved to a file in a variety of formats, including .jpg, .bmp, .pcx, .png. Once captured, the image can be manipulated in many ways, such as stretching, shrinking, rotating, zooming, color correction, contrast or sharpness adjustment, posterizing and other special effects.

I suggest loading your printer with scratch paper and playing with the various options until you find those that best suit the way you work. There is a 16-bit version for Windows 3.1, and a 32-bit version for Windows 95/NT. Street price is under $30. A 30-day trial version may be downloaded from JE Software.

Attorney General Janet Reno has requested $64 million to fight cybercrime, and the FBI has made a big deal about two high-school kids breaking into Pentagon computers.

What's going on here? Is the DOJ looking after the best interests of national security, or is it politics as usual? Is Reno just trying to wring more tax dollars out of our depleted pockets?

To get some perspective, note that the Pentagon computers receive about 250,000 attack attempts annually, 64 pct of which are successful break-ins. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the geniuses in Washington that the root of the problem is in their own sloppy security procedures. It doesn't take an espionage expert to gain access to a "secure" computer system if a lazy employee uses his dog's name as a password. The government spends millions on computer security, but takes less care in implementing it than many individuals do with their personal e-mail.

Prosecuting 15-year old amateur pranksters won't solve the problem. The Defense Department should be embarrassed by its own incompetence.

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