Wednesday September 29,1999
SC-CIA Taps Game Whiz For Fashion Tips
By B.S. Battle.
Walnut Creek (SimCity newswire) - The Sim City Central Intelligence Agency said Wednesday it had set up a fashion company headed by a computer-game artist to help speed up its development of state-of-the-art disguises.
The venture capital company, called Qool Qlothes, takes its name from ``Q,'' the Ian Fleming-created master gadgeteer who supplied the fictional James Bond with lethal clothing and cars.
The company was formed to ensure the SC-CIA a pipeline to the best video game art talent to solve the most pressing fashion problems, said William Wallow, the agency's chief spokesman.
Qool Qlothes will invest in start-ups or partner with companies like MAXIS to help solve the spy agency's suit and skirt processing needs, said Gilman Gaggula, the 39-year-old chief executive officer of the new company. ``Our first job is to find out what cool skins exist today in The Sims,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``We're going to create a baseline of today's best character skins.''
He said the company aimed to solve SC-CIA problems in working with agents that really don't know how to dress themselves. Along the lines of a normal private sector video game model, this would create ``shoes-off value'' for those working with Qool Qlothes, who could then take attitudes back to market.
"Most of our agents just don't know how to dress cool or even naturally.", says Gaggula. "But after we sat them in front of The Sims game for a couple hours, and let them see the new skins and cars they could use, they, like, freaked out." Maxis has agreed to release a preview of some of the newest, secret in-game character skins created by Eric Chin and some of the cars The Sims will be able to take to work.
Available here: Download Graphics Pack 2

Wednesday September 15,1999
The Sims fans, web servers prepare for SimsSkinsTutorial download
By Tex Chure.
With headphones cocked on either ear and Kraftwerk blaring in the background, Sean Baity was in good company Tuesday.
The SimShow preparedness director and officials from all three groups that serve The Sims jostled last-minute preparations before powerful SimsSkinsTutorial.zip barrels through the internet early next week.
"We're hoping for the best tutorial for making skins and preparing for upload," spokesman Jeff Charvat said. The SimWatch news letter serves 300 customers directly in Berkeley, Georgetown and various other counties in 38 countries through website cooperatives. In addition, the news will be posted on all available message boards.
"People need to understand that after the tutorial, there will be a lot of skins on the sites," assistant producer Sean Baity said. "Don't take it for granted that the lines are not hot just because you think the power is off...Oh wait a minute....I mean that it is a step by step tutorial with lots of pictures in HTML format."
People who want to make skins but are mystified by the process should download the tutorial and follow the examples. Its as simple as downloading the zip file and extracting it to a directory.
"You just point and double click on the TheSims Skin Tutorial.htm file and it just opens," said one astounded tester. "Its like...SO easy."
Available here:Download Sim Skins Tutorial

Thursday September 02,1999
Upgraded HomeMaster With PAINTINGS
This just in......renegade French programmer Franck "Animal" Le Ouay has just completed a much awaited update to HomeMaster........new code allows users to create paintings out of JPG and BMP files......see included readme for further details.....Download HomeMaster DX5000