NETWATCH . . . MR. GORE'S CYBERHOOD

A spiffy Peter Max-designed color shot of the White House, reams of federal data, recorded meows from Socks -- all via computer for the price of a phone call? You bet your p.c., as of a White House cyber-ribbon-cutting today. Old Net hands say Vice President Al Gore, intrepid Internaut, has brought the paper-logged feds onto the infobahn with "Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook," a new Internet site on the fast-growing World Wide Web. With an Internet address and a Web browser program, such as Mosaic, Net users can sign on to a White House "guest book," view pictures of the mansion's rooms (except the Clinton quarters) and see cartoons poking fun at Gore's wooden image. More useful are graphical and hypertext aids that retrieve information from federal agencies, such as the EPA and the Small Business Administration. A less powerful, text-only browser, like Lynx, gets you there without the frills.