Feng Shui
Balance the yin and yang in your home, arrange your furniture to maximize comfort and harmony within your surroundings, and organize your office to bring wealth and opportunity to your door. These are topics covered by Feng Shui, an informational CD-ROM intended to help users design their homes with the flow of positive energy in mind.

Feng Shui is essentially an interactive textbook, explaining the basic concepts underlying the age-old Chinese art of managing the movement of chi--the life force--within the home. It is a do-it-yourself manual for anyone interested in Feng Shui. Offering tips as involved as repainting your rooms in positive colors, or as simple as putting a plant in a corner that will otherwise disrupt chi's movement, Feng Shui gives a good general overview of its topic. It also answers frequently asked questions, including how to choose a Feng Shui consultant.

The information in this CD-ROM is intriguing and well presented, with photographs, illustrations, and live readings of all the textual passages. However, Feng Shui never moves beyond the level of simple data delivery. There are no interactive exercises, and no means for creating energy-savvy floor plans of your home. Users hoping to evaluate the flow of chi through their houses will have to do this manually, using the data provided. There is no way in this package to use the computer to shortcut the process--it might as well be a book.

Even if its bells and whistles are rudimentary, though, the core content of Feng Shui offers significant interest to anyone looking to create appealing and comfortable environments for their family. It also raises issues often ignored by Western decorators, by bringing the whole environment to a user's attention. As long as your high-tech expectations aren't engaged, these features will make exploring Feng Shui a thought-provoking and thoroughly worthwhile experience. --Alyx Dellamonica