Mac fanatics
Poor old Ellen Feiss. One day she was an anonymous US student. The next, she was the star of a TV ad for Apple Computer, explaining in her unique way why she had fallen out with her Windows PC, and decided to use a Mac instead. Little was she to know that her slightly spaced-out style would inspire a huge, worryingly fanatical following on the internet. Today, there is a rash of fan sites: Ellenfeiss.net has managed to unearth various pictures of the teenager at school, while other sites sell mugs and T-shirts featuring her face, and circulate parodies of her famous TV spot. Ellen's reaction to all the fuss is still unknown: she, perhaps wisely, is keeping her head down, while Apple milks the ad for all it's worth. www.apple.com/switch/ads/ellenfeiss.html (requires QuickTime plugin)
www.ellenfeiss.net
http://ellenfeiss.gloriousnoise.com
Bouncy move
Bon Jovi might not be my musical cup of tea, but you have to applaud the band's anti-piracy efforts. Instead of attempting to copy-protect their CDs, a move that frustrates legal users and does little to deter freeloaders, the group have decided to beat the illegal copiers another way. They're going to make it worth your while to splash out on a legitimate copy of their new album. So, buy a copy of their new album, Bounce, and you'll get access to the band's American XS benefits package, which includes priority concert ticket offers and unreleased tracks available to download. The new album also comes without any attempt at copy protection, we're happy to report. www.bonjovi.com
Bollywood
With the look and style of Indian cinema being at the height of fashion these days, Niall Richardson should be expecting lots more traffic to his large collection of Bollywood album covers. The site is simplicity itself: spectacular thumbnails on the home page, and if you click on a cover you get a larger image and a track listing too. http://bollylp.users.btopen world.com
Fender bender
Is it art, is it sick, or is it just a joke? John Rooney claims to be "an artist who is torn between the desire to create and to destroy". The result is Crash Bonsai: miniature replicas of car crashes created using Bonsai trees and model cars. "Each model is unique," he promises, "and individually disassembled, cut, melted, filed, smashed, then reassembled to replicate a real fender bender."
www.crashbonsai.com
News junkies
C-Span is the US television network, funded by cable companies, that aims to provide access to the American political process. Over the coming weeks and months, its coverage of everything from White House and Pentagon press briefings to major policy conferences could be as relevant to us as it is to US citizens. Luckily for those of us not living north America, its website is an excellent resource, with hours of archived video stretching back from the last few minutes, to last year. There is a special September 11 section available at the moment.
www.c-span.org/terrorism
Culture Club
Have you seen the BT ad featuring a telephone, sporting a dancing chameleon and a small harmonium-playing frog that has Culture Club's Karma Chameleon as a ring tone? According to Gadget Shop, the phone was specially created for the advert. Now, it is taking orders for replicas, which should do everything in the ad when they arrive next month after a "frenzied development programme". At £70, they don't come cheap but, then, cutting-edge style never did.
www.gadgetshop.com
Lego buffs
Could Monty Python: The Holy Grail be any funnier? Well, maybe - if it was acted out by Lego characters. Film buffs - and Lego enthusiasts - will not want to miss a pretty remarkable library of classic film remakes, available as QuickTime or Windows Media, narrow or broad-band, from the official Lego website. My, how they have come on from the days of simple plastic bricks _ www.lego.com/eng/studios/screening/movie.asp?id=montypython
New & noted
· Bush 1.2 for OS X 10.2: your own artificial President? www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=16112&db=macosx
Six of the best Holiday planning
Where to go?
www.fodors.com
Off the beaten track
www.lonelyplanet.com
Bargains aplenty
www.teletextholidays.co.uk
Top notch hotels
www.lhw.com
Book up
www.expedia.co.uk
Rain check
www.meto.gov.uk/weather
