The drawback of listening to the latest in Jean Auel's cave-lit series is that you can't skim. . . . In the print version, lingerers and masochists can read every word of such passages. The rest can digest it with a glance and get on with the action.

The Los Angeles Times is on Prodigy under the name TimesLink and, like its parent, is filled with lengthy stories on every imaginable topic. But this strong content is trapped inside one of the ugliest and most confusing user interfaces I've seen on an electronic paper. The opening screen sports 20 buttons, a clunky and juvenile Prodigy-style illustration and a garish ad. That said, there's a lot here, including much material that goes beyond what's in the dead-tree edition.