www.classicbookshelf.com

Classic Bookshelf has a large collection of books whose copyright has passed into the public domain. Whatever your view on the propriety of such a venture, it is certainly will be seen as a boon to some people. There is no way to download the texts, so you can only read them on line, but it automatically gives you bookmarks between visits, so the book or books you are reading will be opened where you left off. There is an extensive collection of Oscar Wilde books on the site.

www.irishlynx.com

Irish Lynx is a portal site of, well, Irish links (the more obvious domain name of www.irishlinks.com was already taken by a site that has nothing to do with Irish interests). It was initially set up two years ago with the idea that if you have, or know of, a good site, share it. This is one of the basic philosophies of the Internet, and it's good to see this ideal being so well honoured here. Up-to-date, accurate, a great resource with graphics and colour kept to a minimum, it's easy to use.

www.cluas.com

Recent winner of the "Best community or special interest award" at the Golden Spider Irish Internet Awards, this music and cinema webzine has been up and running for a year and a half now. With a mission to prove that anybody can get up and start an on line publication, Cluas has achieved all of this without funding, sponsorship or full-time staff. It is an admirable and well deserved success story for a site made up of good writing, good humour and good ideas.

www.paylars.com

Rock band Metallica are suing Napster, an Internet resource that enables users to download MP3 music files from each other's hard drives. They are also suing several American universities for allowing MP3 files to be stored on their computer networks. The band are claiming copyright infringement. PayLars.com gives fans the chance to make a donation to the band to make up for all the revenue the band thinks it's losing. It's a spoof, of course, but has raised over $500.

www.theonion.com

With headlines such as "South proposes rising again for another year" and "New study finds college binge drinking to be a blast", The Onion, which started as a paper in 1988 and has been an online institution for five years now, is a weekly blast of hilarity from the US mid-west college town of Madison, Wisconsin. As well as spoof political and social stories, it has film, music and books coverage from a very talented stable of writers. Don't go there if easily offended.