Since 55-year-old Arthur Hall Jr. paid $15 last summer at Wal-Mart for FamilyInfo, he says it’s become indispensable for keeping track of his mother-in-law’s mounting health-insurance claims. “It’s cut my recordkeeping time in half,” he says. Sure, the interface is a little simplistic: a toothy, white cartoon family of four-mercifully, silent and unanimated- appears on the program’s opening screens. But since simplicity is the point, FamilyInfo can be forgiven. Enter data into dozens of clear forms, and next time you need to look up a child’s social-security number, the date of a last dental exam or a pet’s vaccination date, it’s in there. One uncharacteristically grim feature: FamilyInfo will generate a missing-person poster and police report for a family member who’s disappeared. (Windows CD-ROM, disk 800-318-7838) Grade: B+
Unlike FamilyInfo, which automatically enters the same last name for all family members, NPBK makes way for gay partners, stepfamilies and, yes, Chia Pets. (The makers of FamilyInfo say new versions shipping in March will allow for multiple surnames). Significantly, NPRK allows users to export data such as patents and living wills to Intuit’s Quicken. What Nolo lacks in charm and color, it makes up for in dogged thoroughness. (Mac disk 800-992-6656; Windows disks ship in March.) Grade: A
There’s a reason this product is on sale only through the manufacturer. Unless 4Home Productions and Parents magazine ship a major upgrade (no plans yet,company executives say), the program can’t compete with NPRK or FamilyInfo in the recordkeeping department. Even its parental advice is weak: it won’t help you grasp anything much more profound than the difference between colic and croup, or the Old English derivation of the name Shirley. Its interface also has a serious case of arrested development. (Windows disk 800-778-5445) Grade: C
This is the only program we found that makes your next physical exam as big a priority as your weekly bowling habit. A good thing? You decide. But once you’ve satisfied the urge to log in those lane conditions and ball weights, you may find DSR’s Records Database Deluxe comes up short. Users can record data in more than 70 categories, including wine collections, warranties and monthly budgets, but nowhere does it group those forms in order of priority. By arranging them alphabetically, DSR gives users no way to control the order in which they appear. Instead, “emgcy” (DSR’s shorthand for Emergency Information) is wedged between a form to record dreams and one to track information on employees. Not exactly easy to find in an emergency. (Windows CD-ROM, disk 800-455-4377) Grade: D
Not exactly. Considering Scarborough Enterprises shipped this program in 1994, you’d think the interface would look newer than a 1982 Atari game. The operating environment looks like a rough draft for Microsoft BOB: a graphically unsophisticated home office, living room and kitchen in which each icon acts as a gateway to the program’s limited functions. To log in medical records, users can type a date and only a one-line description of the injury or treatment. Recording family events is an even bigger challenge: try describing a 50th anniversary in 59 letters max.
