Don't you just look forward to these sorts of days? Yesterday, your favourite site loaded quickly, today you're wondering why bother. It's taking ages for your email to download and there's just one important reply you've been waiting for, but at this rate, you'd rather be doing something else. And those sites that offer all sorts of freebies then open browser windows all over your desktop as you move to another site. Ten minutes are wasted in cleaning up.

Perhaps it's Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology at work: There's always one more bug. Or will one of many variations of Murphy's Law help: If you apply Murphy's Law, it will not be applicable. Not happy yet? Just keep your patience and see if you can get to Comedy.com.

In the last column, web•Wiz suggested you visit Visual Route to see how data travels from your computer to a server and back when you're online. This week there are other sites to give you more detailed information about how the 'Net works. Some of information might be technical, but you'll get a good grasp of what's going on.

Did you know that Mark Thatcher was the inventor of the amphibious sandal? Pay a visit to the Invention Dimension to see why people such as Nikola Testa, Edward Lear, Bill Bowerman and Luther Simjian are remembered.

Details about Australian inventors and innovators are talked about at Yesterday's Innovators. Try your knowledge by identifying the work of these people: Arthur Arnot, J.A. Birchall, A.G.M. Mitchell, O.U. Vonwiller, George Shepherd and Geoff Healey.

Another school year has begun and your teachers haven't wasted any time in giving plenty of homework. However there are numerous sites to help with assignments, or give a hand with revision, or lead you through tutorials to give a better understanding of class work.

web•Wiz has previously mentioned BJ's Homework Helper and the Penrith City Library's Homework Help Centre. Another is Homework Spot which caters for different student ages.

These are just a few of many, many sites worth keeping in your favourites. Using sites listed in the web•Directory, especially the Education & Learning section, and resources at others, you should be able to build up a wide choice to help you with all that homework which teachers can always find more of.

If you've downloaded the free version of AceHTML, after running it for the first time turn on the browser preview pane so you can immediately see how your page will appear as you enter your HTML tags.

AceHTML includes a HTML reference library listing all tags or elements. Just note that you'll probably never use many of them so concentrate on the common ones such as headings, links, images, paragraphs, bolding, italics and tables when you start out.

In the last column web•Wiz mentioned sites such as Driveway where you can store your files online for backup purposes. Many of these sites also offer a sharing feature so you can email friends and colleagues to allow them to download certain files from one of your folders at the site. This process can avoid lots of problems when trying to send large files as email attachments to others. - Update - Driveway have announced that their storage service will cease as of 1-Mar-2001. See their site (www.driveway.com) for more details. Use another service such as Freedrive to store and share files.

We'd better keep our head down for the next few weeks until Mir has made it's final descent. According to reports, the last remnants of Mir should land in the Pacific Ocean east of Sydney. Check Space.com for the latest information.

Are you one of those movie-goers who notes any mistakes in a film? web•Wiz likes to see what time shows up on clocks in scenes to see if it's consistent. Movie Mistakes lists errors found by viewers and you can contribute too - worth a visit for those with an eye for detail.

One site worth mentioning this week is the Audio Directory for those looking for sites on topics ranging from music to electronics. Another, in keeping with the current talk of innovation, is Australian Space Research.