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Fall projects

We’re still more than three weeks away from the official start of the ski season, which is always the best time of year to relax, hang out with friends, spend some time on the couch, catch up on movies, or spend some time with your hobbies.

We’re still more than three weeks away from the official start of the ski season, which is always the best time of year to relax, hang out with friends, spend some time on the couch, catch up on movies, or spend some time with your hobbies.

If you don’t have a hobby, now wouldn’t be a bad time to get one. All you need to get started is on the Internet.

 

For the musically challenged

Want to learn a musical instrument? The Internet can help get you started.

For guitar there are literally a dozen “Learn to Play” websites out there, but one of the best I’ve found is at http://guitar.about.com/library/blguitarlessonarchive.htm , and the 11 lessons they have posted by instructor Dan Cross. The do it yourself website eHow ( www.ehow.com ) also has some tips to get started.

Want to learn to play piano? Try www.learn-piano.org and follow the lessons and links.

Want to learn to be a DJ? Check out www.djvibe.com/learn/mix/ and DJ101 and 202.

If you want to try your hand at digital music creation, then you can either get an Apple with Garageband, or download some free authoring software. Try Hammerhead ( www.threechords.com ) to build your own drum riffs, or Audacity ( http://audacity/sourceforge.net to make complete tunes. Stomper Hyperion ( www.lysator.liu.se/%7Ezap/stomper/ ) is awesome for the electronica set.

 

For Do It Yourselfers

Want to turn your staircase into a chest of drawers? Turn your old carpet into a lounge chair? Inhabitat.com is an online magazine that celebrates sustainable design concepts, finding ways to make small spaces more livable, and recycling all sorts of materials into funky and functional furniture and products. This is a great place to go for ideas and inspiration. Some of the projects seem pretty simple.

If you’re looking to do something a little more basic, like fix a leaking faucet or tile the bathroom, there’s heaps of good advice at eHow ( www.ehow.com ), wikiHow ( www.wikiHow.com ), and HowStuffWorks ( www.howstuffworks.com ).

If you have a room you’d like to renovate but just don’t know what to do with the space, check out http://floorplanner.com — just type in the dimensions of your space, and use this online software to move furniture around and try out layouts without straining your back.

The Rona website ( www.rona.ca ) also has a lot of online applications under the Interactive Tools bar. Some of the tools include a layout designer, a colour selector, a plant selector for different light and terrain, calculators to determine how much wood, paint, tile or other products you need, virtual walkthroughs of your home exterior, and expert consultation.

Home Deport ( www.homedepot.ca ) also has a wealth of information available on everything from painting to installing windows and doors. It’s kind of hidden, but click on the Site Map button and look for the DIY Home tag.

 

For the budding artist

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to paint, go with the guy who paints a landscape in 22 minutes — Bob Ross, on the Joy of Painting. The shows are still on television, but you can also pick up a few tips online at www.bobross.com . The How-To Projects section has step-by-step instructions to create landscapes.

The Online Art School ( www.interactiveartschool.com ) has 10 free lessons for newbies, and after that you’ll have to pay.

The BBC also has an extensive educational site ( www.bbc.co.uk/learning/ ) which includes a section on art.

 

For the reader

If your favourite fall activity is reading, the web is not a bad place to start. Ordinarily I’d direct people to support their local bookstores, but for ideas on what to read the best place to go is the web. Start at Indigo/Chapters ( www.indigo.ca ) and type in the name of a book you like, then scroll down the page to see the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list. For example, people who bought John Kennedy O’Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces also bought Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, John Banville’s The Sea, and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. You can also find out who put the Confederacy of Dunces on their top-10 list, and look at other books that made the top-10.

 

For the couch potato

If you’re one of those busy people for whom couch time is a rare commodity, then you can use the web to help you make the most of your downtime.

One way to do that is to make sure that you’re always watching what you want to watch, rather than surfing aimlessly through the dial, is to start using a device like a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) or TiVo. You can also get yourself a Media PC or Apple TV to hook up to your television and download and stream your favourite shows through the Internet. Most networks are offering online versions of shows these days, with commercials, and you can buy shows commercial-free at iTunes ( www.itunes.com ).