While many of us will once again be contentedly surfing by the time this is published, many others will not. Hundreds of thousands of people will be without power for several more weeks.

That's where the web can actually help. The kind people at LaurentianWeb have set up Opération Hébergement (www.laurentian.com/host). Their service allows you to offer to share your home with those currently without. You simply fill out the online form selecting certain criteria for who you can accommodate and they'll get the information to the shelters.

As our own situations get better and the storm begins to fade from our minds, we must remember that, with the devastation faced by south shore residents, it is still very much alive for others.

What's a desperate shopper to do? Log into the Sharper Image (www.sharperimage.com), of course. With the miracles of overnight express couriers and credit cards, you could be offering an "elevated feeder for larger dogs" tomorrow without skipping a beat. It's helpful to have plenty of credit left on your card, but they do carry some affordable bobbles. For $25 you could get your hands on the (very Operation-like) Alien Autopsy Game or, for five bucks more, a car air purifier. Or you could give your dad that 25th Anniversary Arlen Ness custom motorcycle he's always wanted (provided you have $50,000 of credit available). Who said necessity is the mother of invention?

The most plentiful dictionaries include the usual western languages plus Catalan and Russian, but a strong contender (as you can well imagine) is found in Québécois. So, if you were planning a little trip to Hawaii this holiday season, you might want to be prepared for that cabbie who sweetly says, "Have a nice day, white honky tourist" in his native tongue!

Since the site was redesigned in September, traffic has nearly doubled. More than ever, people are making their voices heard through the site--especially at the RantOnLine bulletin board.

Now, two more new developments: last week, after much reader clamour, selected parts of our classifieds were introduced to the electronic frontier. And this week, what with the postal strike and all, we're introducing "Alternative Mail" for those of you who never seem to find the time to pick up that box of 25 prefab holiday greeting cards. So gather your e-mail address book, log into our site (www.montrealmirror.com/postcards/cardcenter.html) and send away! With several "virtual" cards to choose from you'll be able to impress even the greatest humbugs .

Their Web site (www.studioxx.org) has also come of age. The most useful part of the site is its links page, which will take you to all sorts of other women's Web sites across North America, ranging from the helpful/informative to the subversive/totally cool. The site also features the writings, musings and multimedia art of the Studio XX women (provocative but esoteric at times). Still channelling its energies toward getting more women on the Net, Studio XX is also spearheading a project called Down to Earth in Cyberspace, designed to get other women's groups wired up.

Studio XX is holding its second annual Gong Show fundraiser--billed as "the funniest fundraising event of the year"--this Saturday, Nov. 27 at Graffiti Tango, 4848 St-Laurent, beginning at 8 p.m. $5-8. Info: 845-7934.

A few tips: first, try Infoseek. It's the only major search engine that allows you to subsequently search the results of a query. Second, use symbols and punctuation. Commas are useful to separate names, as in "Dolly Parton, Big Bird". A plus sign (+) before a word (with no space in between) states that the word must appear in the results and a minus sign (-) will omit a word, as in "Quebec-separation" (yeah, right!). The most useful tip by far is double quotes (""). Use them around words that must appear together. The difference between stuffed animals and "stuffed animals" will save you about six hours.

All of these tips are fairly basic, but if you're not in the mood to cyberdoddle, they're absolutely invaluable.