Gaming & Gadgets

[Rudi1034]

I hope I am posting this in the right place...if not I am really sorry.  I am new to this whole talking to other people online thing...Heck I'm rusty at just the talking thing.  I am a stay at home Mom and have been for almost 10 years.  If you wanna talk Dora, Spongebob, Abs's and/or 123's  I am up to date on those topics...I can even hang in there if you want to talk phonics....which I think is just making them relearn baby talk all over...but just me...a whole bunch of experts say that the way I learned to read, by actually reading was so completly wrong that I am lucky I am not extinct...If i wait a year or so there will be a new best way...and hopefully that will be a lot easier.  But if you wanna talk like a grown up...it's been a LONG time since I was in the company of grown ups enough to be fluent in their language.  Sorry for sad, lame attempts at humor...nervous that the cool kids are gonna not like me...I already made a near fatal error apparently.

Anyway, sad story...skip it and lets say we covered it...The fact that is relevant here is we canceled cable to cut costs...and I am lonely and sad...as well as my kids.  Is this the answer to our prayers.  Or is this one of those things that you need one to make the new one work...but cause it's new it's a gotta have item? 

What I wanna know is if I have basic wireless internet...will I be able to watch TV shows on my laptop?  Yes or no?  Simple and small words please...really...not joking much at all...your posts on here make me feel like I am a trained seal, or something as equally not smart...lol 

Thanks for any help and ideas you can offer!

[GS7k]

Well Rudi I'll try and not use any words not featured on Dora or Diego. The TV Tuner unfortunatley is going to be useless in your situation. What it does is allows you to plug a cable line into your USB port so you can watch and record TV onto your computer, but since you cancelled your cable it's no good. Now majority of TV stations (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, PBS..etc) are now putting their shows on their websites to watch off the internet, so I would just google these stations and see what they have posted. An alternative are website like www.hulu.com that collect and place TV shows to view online, but are a little more adult based. Not sexual or over use of profanity, just adult humor and dramas, which it sounds like you need.

[Entropy]

As GS7k said - a TV tuner will only help you if you have TV content to tune,  whether that is cable or broadcast OTA TV.  For OTA broadcast you just need to connect an antenna to your old TV.  (Or if it's an analog TV, purchase a converter box or a newer digital capable TV.)

For viewing TV shows directly on your computer - try hulu.com or the website of whatever network produces the show.  Many of them post their episodes for online streaming now.

Two things to be aware of:

1)  Adobe Flash (used by nearly all of the legit TV streaming sites) is a major system resource hog.  You need a pretty fast computer even for standard def content.

2)  The online streaming offerings often have WEIRD availability rules/restrictions, such as "show will be posted 8 days after it airs and kept posted for 5 weeks only".  These vary from show to show, even on the same network.