Links

Lugnet used to be the forum where everybody came, displayed and discussed everything Lego.
However, due to it's aged forum functionality, well hidden sign-up page, and lack of moderation, it could neither accomodate the large influx of new lego hobbyists. As a consequence the unified community was split into a range of different specialized forums with better functionality and more room for everybody.

But despite a considerably lower activity, Lugnet is still the central hub of lego on the internet, that can help you find the pages and forums relevant to you.

Brickshelf is another pillar of lego on the internet by being the only free image-hosting service dedicated to lego pictures.
Despite being flooded with lousy pictures of lousy models and competing with general hosting services with better functionality such as flickr, it's still a great place to look out for new top creations in themes you wouldn't otherwise encounter in the the specialized forums you normally visit, as well as the place you can show off your creations to the wider community - in short, it's the place to see and be seen.

If you want a quick-start on great builders on Brickshelf, Paul B. Hartzog has compiled a great list here.

Brickjournal is a free quarterly online magazine about the lego hobby.

The magazine is characterized by a high quality and articles about everything lego-related: events, people and their creations that go much deeper than what you'll ever see in internet forums or even personal homepages.

With 5 contributors there's often several blog entries on The Brothers Brick every day, highlighting high-quality lego creations from around the net.
Although they don't catch everything posted on Brickshelf and in various forums, following this blog is a great opportunity for those of us who don't have time to sift through a lot of rubbish on Brickshelf.
Besides this they tend to keep an eye out for cool lego-related videos on Youtube as well as a host of Japanese blogs with amazing stuff we don't usually hear about because of language barriers.

Despite the fact that some great builders have either not joined or left because of personal emnities and discussions turned bad, Classic Space Forum is still the place where most of the cool guys of lego space hang out. On top of this, it has a nice friendly atmosphere because people are happy to give both helpful suggestions and praise the models or details they like, which has helped a lot of new members become really good in no time.

However with around 1000 members, it is starting to get a little hard to follow, but luckily Jason Whittenburg has made a really cool summary-page where you can select between thumpnails of all the models presented on CSF.

The place to download and share free Lego CAD software for your computer. Forget about graph paper: making a 3D model of your creation is a piece of cake, and afterwards you can use it both for building instructions and to make computer generated images:
You can find some of my files and a guide about how to use them in the Galleries > Building instructions and some of my renderings in the Galleries > Misc.Gallery > Artworks sections.

Peeron is a database with inventories for nearly all official Lego sets ever sold, so you can either get a full list of parts of a set you consider buying or find the sets that contains a particular part you need.

PICSL on the other hand is a collection of scans of old building instructions and catalogues, so if you've lost the instructions for an old set, or just wish to reminiscence over the old catalogues you used to drool over as a kid, PICSL is the place for you.

Bricklink

Bricklink is an online marketplace where you can select and buy excactly the parts you need from other lego hobbyists - and even get rid of your own excess parts!
Generally speaking the prices per part are roughly the same as in sets, and most sellers are and most of the sellers are trustworthy and the ordering process is quite smooth.
The only drawbacks are that freight or postage generally add quite a lot to the price, that you often have to fill orders with several shops to get the parts you need for a particularly project and that it often take quite some time to browse through the contents of a shop. However, considering the fact that you get a lot of parts you don't need in sets anyways and often only a couple of the ones you do, Bricklink is usually the cheapest option unless you just wish to stock up in general.

Lego Shop

In case you live in an area of the world where the shops don't carry lego, or only a really poor selection, you ought to have a look at The Lego Company's own internetshop: Not only do they have the best selection, they also seem to have the cheapest freight rates, and ships to most countries in the western world.

This is the free statistics service I use:
Pro's: Detailed knowledge of how visitors behave on your page, and how many times they've visited. Friendly and helpful user forum.
Con's: Dependent on 3rd party cookie freaking most privacy settings and anti-spyware programs out. And visitors that blocks them really screw up the statistics. You can avoid such problems if you separate the code into a small text file and use SSI-code to call it back, as it then looks like the cookie comes from your own server.

Finally, here's a linkbutton to this page, if you wish one on yours.