Is Microsoft Corp. the big bad daddy of the 90s going soft in the head? No, it's just trying to be smart. While Microsoft is tussling with the US government over allegations the company is using its operating system monopoly power to muscle into the Internet, Gateway Inc. has struck a deal that's sort of a surprise.

Gateway will begin selling personal computers with a customised startup screen next month that won't have the familiar Windows display. Microsoft doesn't allow computer makers to alter the start up screen. Gateway computers will see a brief flash of the logo, followed by a customised Gateway screen. Users will have a choice of a web browser, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Other computers makers have filed depositions with the US government saying they also want control of the startup screens.

We've been having a debate here in the office about which is better Netscape Navigator or Microsoft's Explorer browser. It's surprising how people get so passionate over a piece of software. I have no ties to either. I just want the thing to work.

One colleague, believing the praises a friend had for Microsoft's Explorer (ver 4), switched browsers recently and the switch paralysed his computer -- he couldn't even dial into his Internet Service provider.

"It took over my screen man,'' he said the next day. "It's like Disneyland all over my computer. It's changed things around.'' The software had dug its tentacles deeply into his operating system. He eventually had to reformat his hard drive and a week later emerged from computer nightmare, a bit dazed, proclaiming success and he had finally got his laptop working again with old standby, Netscape.

We feel for you man.

I'm interested in hearing -- in an informal survey -- readers views on one or the other side of the issue. Or perhaps like me, you'll straddle the line.

It's like the famous dictum said at a German university -- I can't remember when -- about the atom. A professor is reported to have told a student: "Monday, Wednesday and Friday we treat the atom as a particle. The rest of the week it's a wave.'' Somedays I'm Netscape, on other's I'm Explorer. The new version of Microsoft Explorer is much better than the buggy one of old, although some of the major computer magazines still remain highly critical as to its charms.

Send in your votes and experiences to the E-mail address at the bottom of the column.

Sony and a group of other Japanese consumer-electronics companies in a few months are relaunching the MiniDisc (MD), a small recordable digital-audio medium that looks like a thinner version of a floppy disk.

It can record up to 74 minutes and is a small disk enclosed in a thin 2.5 square-inch plastic casing.

The MiniDisc flopped in competition with the CD, but it has been a success in Japan. The relaunch is been done in conjunction with a bunch of MD players including a version of Sony's Walkman that goes for $500. The sound has be described as slightly inferior to CDs but of much better quality than a cassette.

A UK company experimenting with using electricity mains for Internet transmission turned streetlights into radio transmitters. United Utilities Plc is trying to market its Digital PowerLine technology by allowing high-speed Internet access and was testing the equipment with users in Manchester.

Unfortunately streetlights, which are the right vertical length of a conductor, began acting as transmitters of the data users were downloading and the signals began interfering with other broadcasts. Back to the drawing board.

The first handheld TV phone has been introduced in Japan by Kyocera Corp. The device consists of a 5.9 ounce telephone handset and a 3.2 ounce attachment.

The lens attachment has a black-and-white liquid-crystal display that updates images twice a second. Users can also access the Internet and share data with personal computers.

Tech Tattle focuses on technology and computer industry issues. Call Ahmed at 295-5881 ext. 248 or 238-3854. E-mail techtattle ygazette.newsmedia.bm.

WINDOWS DRESSING -- Mirosoft chairman Bill Gates at the spring launch of Windows '98