So you plan to be the next www.filthyrichwebmogul.com? Plan to ride a nifty push-bike to work, wearing flip-flops and capri pants and a sun hat? Or, better yet, plan to spend your days at home, tele-delegating work amongst your web-developer minions?

Computers are expensive. The software that makes them do what they do is extortionate. And you're bound to pay a pretty penny for essentials like leather office furniture, etc., when you're outfitting your office. So once in a while it's nice to take advantage of the freebies that circulate on the web. The free stuff is called shareware, and it'll do anything from upgrade your Word program, to calculate complex accounting logarithms, to send a barking Mother's Day card to your mom back on the homestead.

Advertising has become a ubiquitous force in the virtual world. Most web pages devote the top and/or bottom and/or side panels of their sites to adverts. In fact, the convention has become so predominant that it's a wonder web-surfers continue to respond to the ads. For most people, advertising on the web is like wallpaper in a room: you know it's there, but you don't pay much attention to it. There are other things you came to see.

The dot.com industry has already altered the way people do business. Techies go to work in cargo pants and orange sweatshirts (with matching beanies), and don't get home till days later, thanks to bunkbeds installed over their desks. That wardrobe alone would pose an impediment to a normal social life; but add the time factor, and you've got a frightening proportion of today's 20-somethings maintaining their friendships mainly via the internet. So how will they do it?