At bottomlinemac.com, the site run by Austin-based Bottom Line Distribution, stalwarts who still worship at the altar of the mighty Apple can find Powerbooks, G4 towers, and darling blueberry iMacs at boffo prices. It's worth enduring the site's mirthlessness for the variety and the value: a library of instructional books and videos, tons of software for everyone from accountants to video editors, and printers and peripherals from Hewlett- Packard, Epson, and Global Village.

KUDOS Shipping is free for any order over $100 that weighs less than ten pounds.

GRIPES Ever heard of "proofreading," guys?

World domination is a many-splendored thing. Round Rock's Dell Computer is the number one mail-order PC maker in the universe, so why shouldn't it be tops online? It is, of course, with some $35 million a day in goods sold through the Dell Web site, dell.com. But there's more to offer than simply notebooks and desktops. There are Web services, like online tech support and Dell Talk, a chat room for Dell acolytes. At a sister site, gigabuys.com, you can choose from more than 30,000 software and peripheral products in a superstore environment. Or log on to webpc.com for a multimedia presentation about the new computer in the Dell line born last November, the one that boasts "plug-n-surf" simplicity and accent colors, all for under $1,000. (Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? At least they didn't name it the iDell.)

KUDOS Loads of info about everything except Michael and Susan Dell's mansion.

GRIPES No stock options for logging on.