Use your computer to find a hobby

Having downloaded tens of dozens of programs and viewed hundreds of websites, here’s a selection of the very best hobby-related resources.

Whatever your interests ­ from the sciences, to animals, arts and crafts to outdoor activities, digital media or food and drink ­ there’s bound to be something for you.

It doesn’t matter how busy we are, maintaining additional interests outside our day-to-day preoccupations is always a good idea, if only to keep our minds active.

Just as taking a well-earned holiday can often recharge our batteries, so does making time for a hobby. In fact, having a hobby is probably much better for your health than vacationing, as most hobbies can be enjoyed on a regular basis.

It’s now well understood that hobbies can provide many hours of relief from stress and can also boost our creativity, self-esteem, passion, pleasure and accomplishments. In particular, it’s also possible ­ if not medically proven ­ that even simple activities such as reading, playing cards or board games and doing crossword puzzles may prevent or minimise memory loss as we grow older. So hobbies are not only fun, they can also be good for our health, too.

To help you find some starter resources for a selection of popular hobbies, we’ve divided them into broad subcategories, and whether they are a website or a downloadable program available is indicated by the following keys: Website, Windows, Mac and Linux.

SCIENCE & ASTRONOMY

Electronics Assistant (Windows)
This program provides 2,000 online calculators and more in a standalone application. It converts resistor and inductor colour codes, calculates LED series resistors, capacitance units, series/parallel resistors and capacitors, frequency, reactance and more.

Fun Science (website)
This website shows how to build scientific equipment from relatively cheap materials. Projects include instructions for making telescopes, microscopes, batteries, sidereal indicators and several other instruments.

Google Moon (website)
Based on the popular Google Maps interface, Google Moon has three modes: Apollo mode provides information about each of the Apollo missions; Visible mode provides satellite imagery for the Moon; and Elevation shows a false colour rendering of the Moon’s elevation.

Google Sky (website)
Also based on the Google Maps interface, Google Sky shows a sky view created from a collage of Hubble Telescope space photographs. The website offers multiple layers of viewing and a selection of featured observatories.