Friends of Matti Saari, the 22-year-old culinary arts student who murdered 10 people in his school on Tuesday before fatally shooting himself, say he spent much of his time surfing the Web, Finnish media reported.

He lived alone with his cat in a student flat near the vocational school he attended in the southwestern town of Kauhajoki, some 300 kilometres south of his hometown Pyhaejaervi, where his family still lives.

Some of Saari's Pyhaejaervi friends said he was bullied as a child and described him as an outsider.

Classmates and teachers in Kauhajoki however described him as an ordinary and sympathetic young man, although some said they had been concerned about his fascination with guns and school massacres.

'The Sunday before last, when he was drinking his last beer and was very drunk, Matti wrote an Instant Message saying 'I could kill that person.' He did not mention any names,' a close friend told the Iltalehti tabloid.

'We asked him 'you would not kill anybody, right?' And Matti said he would never do anything like that,' he added.

The friend, whose name was not given, said Saari's acquaintances had realised in the spring of 2007 that he admired video messages made by the Virginia Tech school shooter Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at the US university.

'You could tell from his facial expressions that he admired them. He told us to have a look at them and said 'isn't it great?',' he said.

Another classmate, Mr Joni Helminen, however gave a different description of his friend.

'I could talk with him about everything. He was really clever and good at school. He was a conscientious student who participated in class discussions,' he told Iltalehti.

Mr Helminen only escaped Tuesday's horrific attack because he finished his test early. He left the classroom just 15 minutes before Saari burst in and began shooting.

'I wondered why he didn't show up for the test (for a business class). We were talking about the test the night before,' Mr Helminen said.

Saari's former classmate Mr Marjo Lehtomaeki from Pyhaejaervi said he had met up with him last weekend in a bar and they had planned to meet again.

'I could never have imagined that he would do something like this. We were talking about how he would come visit us,' Mr Lehtomaeki told the Ilta-Sanomat daily.

On YouTube, Wumpscut86, a profile posted by a 'Mr Saari' says his interests and hobbies include 'computers, weapons, sex and beer.'

The profile was pulled off the video-sharing website on Tuesday but copies made by some Internet users show the page has links to four videos, featuring a young man with fair hair and dressed all in black firing a handgun at a shooting range.

The images were eerily similar to those posted by Pekka Eric Auvinen, who shot eight people and himself in Nov 2007 at another Finnish school.

According to the head of the police investigation, Jari Neulaniemi, Saari had left two notes in his apartment explaining his actions.

In the notes 'he said he hated mankind and the human race. And that he had been planning this since 2002,' Mr Neulaniemi said. -- AFP