Cables, not Boxes
If you are still living in the electronics stone age of CDs and DVDs and huge stereo systems that still take Cassette tapes and entertainment centers that have a billion different receivers and players and all of that, it is time to upgrade to the modern web-based digital age. Of course, upgrading all of your electronics with new modern products can be incredibly expensive, but if you’re smart about it, you can get these things for a fraction of the cost you will eventually pay, and you’ll begin saving tons of money off of the vast array of free products in the web.
You can get great products like blu-ray players, Netflix receivers like the Roku box, stereos with iPod/iPhone jacks, car radio station receivers that work with your iPod/iPhone, or a ton of other similar products. Or, you can go the substantially more inexpensive route and upgrade to these new technologies through your old technologies and some wires.
If you have an HD television and a laptop that came out in the last 2 or 3 years, then you will most likely have an HDMI port on both of your devices. All you need is an HDMI cable (which has audio and video in one cord), which cost as little as $10, and you’re set to begin browsing the web and stream through sites like Hulu and Netflix with the click of a button. If you don’t have this exact set up, I would just drop by your local electronics store and find the right converters and adapters that will work with your system. It is usually pretty easy to find and drastically cheaper than any of the boxed products I already mentioned.
The same works for your audio devices. Thankfully, car companies are becoming smarter and are finally including simple digital audio ports along with the typical CD player. This allows you to buy an incredibly cheap ($5) audio cable (the ones with the light green cap) and hook it up to your iPod/iPhone. Along the same lines, with an even older technology, I ended up buying a simple cable that connects to an iPod/iPhone jack and splits into an audio out/audio in (red and white) cable that I was able to hook up to my friends broken 15 year old stereo system. He can now take advantage of the great speakers it was hooked up to and listen to his entire music library.
Happy electronics window shopping!