Just as 8 meg broadband is set to become the norm for many UK homes, Bulldog has nudged it on a step further with a service offering speeds of up to 16 meg.

Bulldog, which is owned by Cable & Wireless, says it can double the speed of its existing service via ADSL2+ technology. The ISP has unveiled two packages - Anytime Plus which costs £15 a month and Unlimited Plus at £25 a month. A package aimed at small businesses will cost around £45 a month.

Here's another neat tip from Propellerhead for Word 2000/2/3 users, to display what the 'F' or Function keys along the top of the keyboard do. Right click into an empty area next to the Toolbar at the top of the screen, and select Customize from the drop-down menu. Put a check mark next to 'Function Key display' and a new toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen, with clickable buttons showing what each key does, plus their alternative functions, when you press the Alt, Shift or Ctrl keys. More great top tips like this one can be found in the BootLog archive.

It's easier than ever to be a movie maker these days - buy a camcorder, film your movie, upload to YouTube and you've got an international audience for your short. But how about going a step further and being a real producer on a real film?

Bayraider could make it happen. They've found that very thing on eBay. The film in question is a horror movie called "Survival", with shooting set to commence in June - check out Bayraider for the suitably manic plot. For your $500 you get a producer credit, a featured-extra role, at least one line of dialogue and a DVD when filining is complete.

Could this be your big break in the movies? Check out Bayraider for full details on this and loads more weird and wonderful auctions.

If you've not yet heard of YouTube, where have you been? It's a video sharing site and arguably the net's biggest phenomenon right now. So it's no surprise to see other companies following the same path. One such site is SelfcastTV, from the people behind the Blinkx.tv video search engine. And it's now available to use as a beta version.

As with YouTube, you can upload and share your videos, as well as searching and viewing those already uploaded to the site. And like YouTube, you can embed your video files into web pages using the code provided. But SelfcastTV does offer something a little different - on full launch, you'll be able to publish videos direct from your mobile and download content to their iPod or PSP.

Sony is adding two more models to it's range of HDD DVD recorders. The RDR-HX525 and RDR-HX725 feature 80GB and 160GB of drive space respectively, which for the HX725 means up to 249 hours of recording time.

The models feature Sony's new 'IQ' system (standing for 'Intelligent' and 'Quality' apparently), which includes a DV terminal for One Touch Dubbing, set-top box control, pausing of live TV, chasing playback and high quality recording mode for the best picture quality.

Well, if the rain comes down over the Bank Holiday weekend, you can always spend your days 3D modelling, after Google released a free version of SketchUp - a tool for creating, viewing and modifying 3D images. And if you're proud of your designs, you might be interested in the company's 3D Warehouse - a website where SketchUp users can store and share designs, or collaborate on joint 3D projects.

The software is available as a result of Google acquiring @Last Software in March. The free version is for personal use only. It is based on the existing SketchUp Pro 5.0, a fee-based version with a commercial licence and more advanced features.

The casing might change shape occasionally, but nothing massively different has happened to speakers in a long, long time. Which is why SoundArt's Canvas Art Speakers stand out so much from the rest of the crowd.

SoundArt is a canvas speaker system designed to show off your choice of art or photography, whilst playing your tunes from any sound source. I've yet to hear them in action, but the maunfacturer claims they deliver "a stunning, natural audio performance" through the canvas.  Or as natural as music through art can get.