Understanding Word Tables: Microsoft's Valuable Persons Site: Word Table Basics - This is a very clear and thorough guide to using tables in Microsoft Word from the Microsoft MVPs site. There are links to lots of other helpful articles on Word and other Microsoft software.

Computing's History: Old-Computers - A delightful trip through the old history of computers, with pictures and histories of the individual systems themselves.

Herding Cats, Sorta: Quantum Picture - This company develops image recognition software, and this page is their whimsical discussion of image recognition, illustrated by a cat door that controls what cats can enter and what they can bring in.

Origins of Google: Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine - This is the original paper (this copy available at Southern Cross University, Australia) by the founders of Google, outlining their plans for a more efficient search engine.

Don't Try These At Home: Improbable Results - The Ig Nobel Prizes honor people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." Ten prizes are given to people who have done remarkably goofy things— some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise. The winners are selected by the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine.

Microsoft vs. Psychic Friends: Locker Gnome - You have to scroll down this page a ways to get to the story, but it's well worth it. The authors needed technical support, and called both Microsoft and the Psychic Friends Network for assistance. This story details their trials and their conclusions about the better of the two.

Real Time Machines: Physics Today - Science has come up with lots of new ways of determining the age of substances, and their work is fueling the exploration of our ancestors. Here's a Physics Today story discussing the new methods.

The Guggenheim: - There are two entrances to the Guggenheim's online site, for broadband and narrowband. Either will give you a creative, enlightening virtual tour of some of the world's greatest art.

The Bunk Stops Here: Purportal - That virus announced by Microsoft or AOL sure sounds dangerous, at least the way your brother-in-law described it. But before you forward the message to everyone you know, type a few words from it into one of the best debunking sites' search engine to see if it's real. A very worthwhile site.

Hobbit Names Here!: Chris Wetherell's site - You've seen The Lord of the Rings , you've read the book (or you're one of us, the people who've read it over and over), and you aren't yet satiated. This site will generate your Hobbit name. Be patient, the site gets a lot of traffic.

Where in the World…?: Map-O-Rama - Tired of dealing with MapQuest? Maporama is a European provider of maps, including many in the US. The maps are attractive and easier to read than those at MapQuest.

Online with AOL: C|Net Insider - It's a little dated, but this story of trying to use up the free 700 hours AOL used to give to entice new subscribers is very funny.