In the days before computers became a primary means of artistic expression, people had to make do by stretching the media formats they had available. One of the legendary magazines in the history of multimedia experimentation was Aspen , although it only put out 10 issues between 1965 and 1971. Andy Warhol, Marshall McLuhan, Lou Reed, and John Lennon were among its contributors. Now Aspen has been translated onto the Web ( www.ubu.com/aspen /) and is quite an intriguing artistic time capsule.

There's nothing like a multifaceted collection of sites built up by the long-term efforts of a single person. Minneapolis-based newspaper columnist and author James Lileks ( www.lileks.com ) is one such self-publisher who has a particular fascination for the quirky charm of mid-20th-century media and advertising. There's a lot posted here: unappetizing photos taken from cookbooks, postcards of diners, forgotten comic strips, matchbook covers, even some telegram art.

As pop-culture institutions go, the 90 years that Ripley’s Believe It or Not! has been around are practically a record. That also means that Ripley’s has appeared in most media forms, from print to radio and TV. And now it’s kept up-to-date on the Web ( www.ripleys.com ), where a well-designed site offers video clips, news items, podcasts (called oddcasts), and even archived episodes of the old-time radio series.

It was bound to happen: Now even Web-distributed content can win an Emmy Award–if it's good enough, that is. That's what happened with It's JerryTime! ( www.itsjerrytime.com/ ). And after watching the handful of short animated films posted there and browsing some of the accolades the site has garnered ( American Splendor 's Harvey Pekar seems to be the most-referenced cultural touchstone), you'll probably agree there's some merit in going the independent route. But don't forget–you have to be good.

Since the summer television season is turning out to be one of the lamest on record (with the possible exception of Traveler ), maybe it's time to buy or rent some shows from the past. For several years, TVShowsOnDVD ( www.tvshowsondvd.com/ ) has tracked current and upcoming releases, offering reviews, comments, and rumours, plus on-line polls on what people would like to see out next. Or you could go outside and play, I guess.

A few months ago, I thought about recommending the on-line graphic novel Shooting War ( www.shootingwar.com ), but it wasn't finished yet. Now all 11 chapters are available, and are even scheduled to appear in print later this year. Oddly, some of the more fanciful plot points of this terrorist struggle set in 2011 have come true, so you might as well read it now before it's as old as reruns of The Daily Show .

If you wonder sometimes, 'bout sound and vision, panicking in Detroit, or who looks a lot likeChe Guevara, you must visit the David Bowie Wonderworld Fan Site ( www.bowiewonderworld.com/ ). You won't have to stand on a chair to make your point of view.

There's no question that computer games have been one of the major driving forces behind the last couple of decades of computing, with programmers and hardware developers constantly challenging each other while gamers have provided the commercial impetus to keep everything going. But few people know that the first computer game was created in 1952.

Too lazy to e-mail yourself chunks of public-domain books to read on your smartphone or PDA, or via your Web browser’s RSS feature? Then try DailyLit ( www.dailylit.com/ ), a free service that’ll educate you up with the classics, a chunk of text at a time.

Curious about the history and development of video games? Visit the Game Innovation Database ( www.gameinnovation.org/) to learn how we got to where we are today. And feel free to contribute anything you think is significant that hasn’t been added yet. I’d probably contribute a few things, except I’m too busy playing Star Wars: Empire at War and Silent Hunter III.

There are some interesting self-published e-books out there. Take Ray Newman's Abracadabra!: The Complete Story of the Beatles' Revolver, 103 pages of research documenting the making of Revolver , complete with quotes from interviews and Web links. It's a free download as a PDF from www.revolverbook.co.uk/ . Also check out the Google Earth–enabled views of London as the Beatles knew it in 1965 and 1966.

Now that there are so many Web logs (okay, I'll give in and call them blogs), people have developed innovative ways to organize masses of them. Placeblogger ( www.placeblogger.com/ ) goes by neighbourhood, city, region, and country to make it easier to pick up the chatter from far-off locales.

Some Web sites are so huge that you could spend weeks seeing what's there. That's certainly the case with Archive.org, which holds constant surprises behind every click. From live concerts to corny old corporate-training films and absolutely everything in between, this site alone is almost all the Internet anyone needs.

Most people have heard of cyberpunk, that rapidly-becoming-real species of science fiction that involves plugging directly into cyberspace. Less well known is an entertaining subgenre called steampunk, generally set sometime in an imaginary 19th century in which steam technology and mechanical computers have reached the kind of potential imagined by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

If you're looking for original art in bulk quantities, check out the Daily Painters Gallery ( www.dailypainters.com/ ) for art by "painting a day artists and habitual painters". Sounds like we'd just be enabling the 130 artists involved by purchasing anything, but then you see a puppy you simply can't resist among the five dozen or so works added each day…