Easter egg hunts are nothing new to the physical or digital world. Whether it was the search for the chocolately goodness I so enjoyed during the springs of my childhood (and adolescence... and teenage years... and last year) or the eternal hunt for the hidden digital gems that plague my time with DVDs, the internet and various other media of recent years, the promise of finding that ever-elusive prize was always of great interest to me.

All right, I'll admit, I might be over selling it just a bit there, but who can say they don't enjoy the occasional easter egg when they stumble across it? My interest in the subject piqued again recently when I stumbled across a pseudo-egg in the BBC iPlayer website. Whilst trying to catch up with some Mock the Week antics, I found myself unable to hear Frankie Boyle's musings on how much he hates, well, everything. On examination, I noticed the iPlayer volume was down, so I went to turn it up (as you do). Lo and behold, on doing this otherwise innocuous task, I found that the iPlayer volume goes up to none other than 11.

Any Spinal Tap fans out there will immediately grasp the relevance of the volume going up to this number. In an infamous scene in the mockumentary 'This is Spinal Tap', guitarist Nigel Tufnel debates with Marty DiBergi the importance of having an amp that goes all the way up to 11 to make it louder, as opposed to just increasing the volume of 10.

That the BBC had the idea to include this reference in their iPlayer both surprised and delighted me. As I said, this isn't an easter egg in the truest sense of the word, but it was the catalyst for my hunt for other treasures. And so it was my search across the digital realm began. Here are some of the highlights of what I found:

Firstly, one of my favourite - and possibly the most under-appreciated - TV series of all time, Arrested Development: having explored my DVDs of this fantastic show at length, I was pleasantly surprised to find an out take of the character Tobias on disk 3 in the 'Deleted and Extended Scenes' section. Highlighting one of the options ('Best Man for the Gob') and pressing right on keyboard will give access to this video.

Elsewhere in the world of TV series, former cult-hit and now mainstream classic Family Guy produced a one-off Star Wars spoof called Blue Harvest (which - for those who don't know - is itself a reference to what the original Star Wars was called whilst it was being produced). On the DVD, head to the special features menu and hover the mouse cursor between the images of Brian and Peter and some hidden symbols will appear. Clicking them will access some nifty hidden features!

Donnie Darko and Memento were great films, and both have some easter eggs tucked into the nether-regions of their DVD iterations. Try pressing the up key when highlighting either of the appendices in the 'Philosophy of Time Travel' DVD extra on Donnie Darko. Or on the Memento DVD, see if you can find the much discussed chronologically accurate edit of the film. It's one of the harder ones to find, but is well worth a view for fans of the film.

Image provided courtesy of Rakka: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rakka/7524390/in/set-187991/

One of my favourite computer games of all time - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the original Playstation - featured a speech from its protagonist if you inserted the game disk into a CD player and played track 2. Meanwhile, in another Konami classic for the same console, Metal Gear Solid, one of the boss characters would 'read' the game saves on the memory card in the machine and comment on other games made by Konami that were saved on it during the battle.

In music, hidden tracks are common place on albums, often being heard if you let the last track on the album keep running. However, try rewinding the first track on Damien Rice's album '9' for about 4 minutes and listen out for what you hear.

Even Amazon's American branch are in on the act. Head to Amazon.com, and click on the Directory of All Stores link at the bottom of the page. Scroll down and hover the mouse under the 6 in the copyright notice at the very bottom and see what you find!

There are thousands more digital easter eggs out there. Be sure to have a search and let us know what you find - or tell us about your old favourites. Happy hunting.