As blogs all over the country and probably the world are being written about the complete devastation Hurricane Katrina caused, I am glued to the television screen like countless other people.

We are grateful that because of the advances in television and media outlets, we can see these things as they are happening. But at the same time, we witness things that are more like we expect to see in third world countries. Refugees, pestilence, death and destruction, and right here in our living rooms it all sits while we feel helpless.

Right about the time we think that nothing can get worse, our screen shows us someone being rescued by the Coast Guard or a stranger helping another displaced soul walk through the flood waters to get to dry land. Suddenly there is a glimmer of hope that maybe the tunnel has a pinpoint of light after all.

In the past, before live news reports, we read of disasters in the morning paper or waited for Peter Jennings to tell us what was going on (if it was since the television era began). The newscasts lasted half an hour usually and we heard what happened. Then we forgot. Now it is 24 hours of live coverage and I don't see how anyone with a television wouldn't be totally overwhelmed with compassion.

We can send money but often we can't truly feel as if we are helping. Money that we give to a relief organization now will not be given to those faces with haunting and terrified eyes that we see on the television begging for food and water. We can't share the water we sit in our dry homes drinking while knowing there are tens of thousands of people who are very thirsty. That is when the frustration sets in.

That is not to say that we shouldn't donate money. We MUST! Donate as much money as possible and hope that somehow the immediate needs for food, water, and medical attention are somehow miraculously met.

There it all is, big as life on our television screens. It is a little too easy to armchair quarterback, but I find myself asking questions that can not be answered. It is a complete human disaster and I often wonder why media personnel walk along asking someone what they've seen or how they feel instead of dropping the microphone and giving a big bear hug. It's like they have lost everything in the world they own and someone is asking how they FEEL?!

It is like a war zone in three states and although many people and businesses want to help, there is no way into the affected areas at the moment. People are not even allowed to stay in New Orleans and our televisions show them gathering, walking, praying, and crying. In addition to all the lives lost, there are unimaginable numbers of people who have lost everything except the clothes they are wearing.

After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, I heard a psychologist recommend that people do not stay glued to the television constantly in times of such disasters. Considering the staggering number of post traumatic stress cases that will be occurring in the aftermath that may be a good suggestion.

That does not mean that we can or should forget the suffering and tears of our gulf state neighbors, but maybe we can take a break sometimes, do something with the family, and so on. Most importantly, we all have to do what we can to help. Whatever form that comes in, it is a good feeling to know that we did something.

In this high-tech day in age, the VCR has become, to some, an ancient relic. My first experience with a VCR came in the very early 1980's, when my best friend's parents paid big bucks for one. We couldn't believe how cool it was to have a VCR and we would sit in front of the TV and watch the two videos that her family owned over and over again. Soon, mom and pop style video rental stores began popping up all over the place in my hometown. Back then, you had to pay a membership fee of about twenty dollars to join these exclusive clubs.

A few years later, when VCRs became more affordable, I bought one. I also joined one of those clubs and I would rent classic movies for myself and kid's movies for my son. I joined a mail order video club to beef up my collection and I even bought some videos from some of my favorite classic television shows like "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched". I had one VCR in my family room and one upstairs in my bedroom and it was pure heaven.

Then along came the advent of the DVD player. Now I'm not one to snub technology, but it had taken me the better part of a decade to accumulate my vast collection of VHS tapes. What was with this DVD stuff now? I resisted jumping on the DVD bandwagon for as long as I could. Then, when my upstairs VCR broke, I knew I had to make a decision.

What was the sense of buying a DVD player, I asked myself. It won't play any of my VHS tapes and it won't record programs the way a VCR does. So what, exactly, was the point of the whole DVD thing?

My husband made the decision for me-- he went out and bought a DVD player on sale. He then bought a couple of DVDs of his favorite movies. My husband loved how the DVD player worked, how much better the picture quality was-- and those goofy "extras" that were included in his new "Jaws" DVD.

Still, I had reasons for wanting to hold onto my VCR:

I had a large collection of VHS movies and television programs.

My camcorder used VHS tapes, which meant the only way I could view the footage of my children would be via a VCR.

I liked how I could forward or rewind a VHS tape to exactly the part I wanted-- easier than the DVD "chapter" system, in my opinion.

I hate change. The DVD player was just one more electronic device that I would have to learn how to use. And it came with one more remote control to add to our collection.

That was a couple of years ago. Today we own three DVD players and about two dozen DVD movies (most of them are movies for our kids). But we still own one VCR. Granted, it's in our basement, hooked up to our kid's playroom TV. Still, when I'm in the mood to watch my treasured old movies and videos, I have a place to go. And if that VCR ever breaks, you can better believe I will be buying a new one.

So you just bought that new movie you have been waiting for several months to finally com out on DVD. You rip the DVD case open, grasp the DVD disc in your hand, open your DVD player's disc tray, place the DVD in the tray and look frantically around your living room for the remote control.

Once you finally locate the DVD player's remote control, you navigate through the various menus found within the disc, and finally play the movie. Everything seems to be going great, as you are sitting comfortably on your living room couch, waiting for what's going to happen. Then suddenly, without warning, the DVD starts to skip and quickly you become mad.

At first you are thinking to yourself, "What the.." Because its a brand new disc. The second thing going on in your mind is the fact that you waited literally forever for this DVD to come out, and its only playing halfway through.

immediately, most users blame the disc as being defective. You wouldn't believe how many DVD's retail stores such as Wal-Mart take back because the users considers them to be defective, since they skipped in their home DVD players.

While a very small number of these discs are defective, a very large number of the same discs are in perfect condition. The problem with most of these returned discs does not lie within the disc, but the DVD player itself.

Think about it, how old is your DVD player? DVDs are not the new technology that they once were, and with that being said, a lot of home DVD players are now several years old. Being several years old, take a minute to ponder how much you have used that DVD player in those several years, and also take into consideration how much dust has probably gone through that unit in the same years.

Now think about the last time you took a DVD cleaning kit and utilized it in your DVD player. If you are like most DVD owners, then the answer is probably never. In truth, a lot of people do not even realize that DVD cleaning kits even exist.

In reality, DVD cleaning kits are priced well under ten dollars and include a very special DVD that has special little scrubbing devices attached to it. These little brushes spin around cleaning the DVD's laser head from dust and other obstructions.

Once cleaned, a home DVD player will deliver playback of all your DVDs just like it did when you originally purchased the player. So the next time you have a brand new DVD that starts to skip in the middle of its playback, don't jump the gun by stating you have a defective DVD. Instead, go out and purchase a DVD player cleaning kit, and clean your DVD system. Trust me, if you regularly clean your dvd player, then you'll likely never have any problems with unscratched DVDs, and not only will you be helping yourself out, but you will also be helping out the stores that you buy the DVDs from.

Written by James Fohl

Pretty much everybody who owns a modern computer system knows that is possible to watch DVD movies on a computer equipped with a DVD drive. Many other computer users also know that it is even possible to download episodes of television shows that are viewable on their computer monitor.

Something a lot of computer users do not know however, are that television tuners exist for both desktop and laptop computer systems that allow the user to watch the same television they would see on their television sets on their computers.

The secret is not a piece of computer software, but rather a piece of computer hardware, known as a television tuner card. These pieces of computer hardware pretty much take the television cable signal and displays it either in a resizable window on your computer screen, or takes up the entire screen.

TV tuner cards for desktop computers are not something new. In fact, they have been around for quite a long time. For example, Apple made a black cased computer system back in 1993 that featured a built in television tuner card.

Television tuner cards can be purchased from large electronic stores, and can easily be installed in a desktop computer case. You simply open the case, insert the tuner card in an empty PCI slot, install the bundled software and you are good to go. Television tuners are now even available for laptop users, although these tuner cards are external devices that plug in to the laptop computer via a USB port.

Television tuner cards have many wondrous uses for computer users. They free up desk space, which is a major plus in crowded business offices and cubicles. Also, with the sophisticated bundled software, users can now digitally record all of their favorite television shows. With these recorded copies, they can edit out the commercials and burn them onto DVDs to watch them on their larger television sets. Third party software even exists that give users of television tuner cards even more power. These third party software titles allow users to tell the program to automatically record a list of programs, help automatically delete the commercials, and even record a television broadcast directly to a CD or DVD as it is being broadcast.

Television tuners are not without their disadvantages, however. Topping the list is the fact that the cards still require a cox cable. This means that your desktop computer must be situated where the television cable runs. It also means that if you were hoping to be fully mobile and watching your favorite television shows with your laptop, then you are going to be quite disappointed, as a TV tuner takes the mobility usage out of a laptop computer.

If you can put up with these slight problems, and are itching to do both your computer work and watch the local newscast at the same time, then perhaps a television tuner for either your desktop or laptop computer is a great idea.

I grew up in the 80s, and I have to admit that I watched a lot of television as a kid. I don't feel that it necessarily stunted my intellectual growth or ruined my attention span. But it did give me exposure to a number of classic kids' shows that fans enjoy to this day as well as a few that haven't quite stood the test of time.

My childhood days coincided with the heyday of both Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Sesame Street's classic characters taught me letters, numbers, and even a little bit of Spanish. This was before the days of Elmo, when Kermit the Frog would still stop by the show and do news reports. One of my all-time favorite books as a kid was The Monster at the End of This Book which starred Grover from Sesame Street. While Sesame Street dealt with specific educational points like a letter of the day, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was more concerned with teaching us how to be better people. Mr. Rogers was everybody's favorite neighbor and we loved the half-hour we could spend at his house feeding the fish and following the trolley to the land of make-believe. These two shows have the ability to entrance kids to this day, although their parents' nostalgia probably has something to do with choosing the program in the first place.

The shows that haven't stood the test of time so well are the cartoons. I think part of the problem is that animation standards have improved over the years. So no matter what the plot, if you see an older show like G.I. Joe, the fuzzy lines, lackluster colors and out of sync lips detract from the show. It's always sad when you visit a favorite show of the past and it's not nearly as good as you remember it. In fact, sometimes it's downright awful and you wonder what you ever saw in it in the first place. When Cartoon Network brought back Voltron and Thundercats several years ago, I just couldn't resist checking them out. I had happy memories of spending my afternoons watching these action packed shows and sometimes acting out new adventures for the characters. But to my jaded eyes, the cartoons in front of me just didn't live up to my cherished memories. Who knows, though? Maybe today's hottest cartoons will feel just as dated twenty years from now.

I don't know if today's kids have ever rediscovered an 80s television show on cable and become instant fans, but they have certainly had plenty of opportunities to become fans of remakes of popular shows and/or toys of the past. Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake are two television/toy combos that have made recent comebacks. Is Rainbow Brite far behind? Cabbage Patch Kids have also returned in their classic style. While not a television show (although I do believe there were a few videos created to cash in on the Cabbage Patch Kid craze), these are still quintessential toy icons of the 80s.