By Kate Russell Click Webscape-r

Kate Russell gives us her latest selection of the best sites on the World Wide Web.

If you are looking for an all singing all dancing media player which will play just about any file format and you want it to be open source, then look no further than VLC: a free download available from VideoLan.org.

Long known to the web wise, VLC is the ultimate multimedia application. So, what is so special about this player?

Well it can chew up and spit out just about any sort of media file: MPEG, DivX, OGG, DVD - in fact it would be quicker to list the file formats it does not support.

The technology is open source and is constantly being updated by developers in 20 different countries.

There are also different versions of VLC for pretty much every operating system around. All your multimedia problems solved with a quick download and it is free.

Want to make Hollywood style animations on a shoestring budget? You do? Then try your hand at the art of Machinima.

Machinima animations make use of video game engines to try and help budding moviemakers realise their vision.

Machinima.org.uk is great site for fans of this type of movie making, providing a resource data base as well as a gallery containing numerous animated examples.

If you fancy trying your hand at making your own machinima, the site has a Getting Started section on the front page. This provides a handy guide to making your own masterpiece.

There are links to software which will help with editing, graphics tweaking and audio and most of these bits of software are open source and free.

So if you fancy becoming an animation master forget pen and paper, break out your favourite videogame instead.

iLike is a music social networking tool. Much like Last FM this site reviews your playlists and music collection, and then suggests other music you might like too.

After signing up, tell the site which artist and songs you like and it will assess the data to come up with other suggestions for your listening pleasure.

There are samples and in some cases entire tracks to listen to, confirming whether the site's suggestions are indeed to your taste.

But the site really starts to make more sense when it is used with a social networking tool.

It is currently one of the most popular Facebook applications so people can use their existing social networks to suggest and share music that they might be into.