Valerie Cowan Surfs the Net

SOME news this week will make some of the more mature readers of this column feel positively ancient.

A 17-year-old web entrepreneur is preparing to launch a new UK-oriented portal site.

Tim Dunton, who made a name for himself by building an entire university site when he was just 15, will go live with 2b next week, offering news, weather, sport, free e-mail and other features.

The customisable site, at www.2b.co.uk, will generate revenue with banner advertising and eventually act as a front end for e-commerce, such as holiday selling.

The young Mr Dunton said he thought a UK-centred portal was long overdue.

"Everything is too concentrated on America, so I wanted to create a site to fill what I thought was a gap in the market," he said.

"Even UK versions of Yahoo and Excite are backed by American companies, so I thought it would be better to start with something completely independent. "Most users just surf US content at the moment, and we want to bring them back to the UK."

Now where did I put that anti-wrinkle cream?

V for Victory for Virgin

VIRGIN Net has claimed a success for its website on the V98 festival at Chelmsford Essex.

The site, v98.com, has generated over 220,000 pages of impressions since the launch over three weeks ago.

This score was more than double the online audience for the previous year's event, the company said.

Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher and rock legend Iggy Pop were among the stars that made surprise appearances on the site during the event last weekend, and they were joined by Real Video interviews with Burnley-based anarchists Chumbawamba, Rialto and Faithless.

For those that can say "I was there" and who are lamenting the fact you didn't get that certain someone's phone number, may want to leave a message on the site.

You never know, it might work.

Careers advice at a glance

BT'S HomeCampus, the award-winning Internet education site, boasts a range of new features for the new term including a guide to starting school for parents and pupils and a comprehensive A-level site. Other additions include career and university advice as well as Streetwise, a look at real-life topics like travel, work rights and money.

The service, which is available free to Internet users for 12 months, won a gold award at the Education Technology Awards earlier this year.

It's an obsession

THE Internet is a breeding ground for obsessives. Everywhere you look there are websites on the strangest of subjects created by people who seem to spend every waking minute following their favourite actor, singer or TV star.

One Internet user, Glen Gower, has had enough.He's set up the Obsessive Fan Site, subtitled "excess that only the Internet can provide".

He has a theory that what is responsible for clogging up Internet networks is not junk mail, but the "thousands and thousands of pathetic fans" visiting obsessive fan sites.

He says: "I'm sick of 100k jpegs of Matt Damon. I'm tired of Janet Jackson's face tiled on to backgrounds. I don't want to read about your "wish lists" and I don't care about your blurry concert photos." Every week Gower gives out awards to the most excessive and embarrassing sites on the web - and invites you to nominate ones you think might be suitable.

Check them out for yourself at http://countingdown.com/fans/

Go for yoga

IF you spend as much time at a keyboard as I do aching shoulders and wrists will be all too familiar.

The keyboard yoga website could provide the answer - it has exercises to ease your joints which can all be carried out at your desk.

It's just unfortunate that you have to operate a keyboard to find out how to do the exercises!

WEBSITE: http://www.ivillage.com/fitness/yoga/index.html

Julia's Luna mission

ON December 10 last year 24-year-old Julia Hill, known as Butterfly, climbed 180ft up an ancient redwood tree in California in protest at what she sees as logging corporations' devastation of the area.

She hasn't set foot on ground since - and has vowed not to until she has done everything in her power to save the tree, which she has called Luna. She spends her days writing poetry and speaking to the world at large on her cellular phone. Follow her campaign at http://www.lunatree.org/.

For sculpture vultures

ROBERT Toll creates sculptures, mostly of the human form, from gas-welded steel.

Take a look at his work at http://www.

tollsculptor.com/

IF you've seen something interesting on the Internet, send me an e-mail at vcowan@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.