To be able to listen to these online stations, the first thing you want to do is make sure that your computer or laptop is prepared to produce the necessary audio. You'll want to make sure your speakers have their sound turned up to appropriate levels or that you have a headset available. To adjust sound volume levels, there should be a sound icon at the bottom of your monitor screen of a little speaker. If you double-click on that icon, a volume control should appear. Clicking on the volume bar itself, by which you adjust volume up or down, should test out whether it's working correctly or not.

Next step you'll want to take is to figure out what type of radio station you want to listen to and from what part of the world you would like to listen to radio stations.

One easy to use, popular such website is www.live365.com. When you visit the website, just type in the type of radio or music you want to listen to and the location such as "New York" and you'll be taken to a page offering different stations. The sound quality is clear and loud, but you'll have to listen first to a brief commercial before you can begin listening to your station of choice. While we're on the subject of choice, however, it's a little limited. I searched for "talk" and news stations originating from Canada and was only offered music stations.

Another easy to use website is www.Pandora.com. Pandora works a good deal differently from Live 365 in that you are first presented with a search box asking you enter in what type of music or artist you want to listen to, and then the site (or program it uses) will "create" a station featuring music that should be by that specific artist or be like the song you ask for. Again, since I'm a news-hound, I entered "news." Every song you can think of with the word "News" in it appeared, along with the group Huey Lewis and the News. No talk seems to be available. Now, after Huey Lewis's song was over, did I get more Huey Lewis and the News? Nope. Don Henley. How the program came to this selection is beyond me.

Another online radio station site is www.Shoutcast.com. Don't get me wrong, this is a great and fun site, but when I tried to listen to "talk" stations, I could get "talk," but not news radio or talk radio in other countries. I could get heavy metal or classical from other countries, but not news or talk. So, it's better in my book than Pandora in terms of variety, but still more limited than need be.

Honorable mentions go to AOL's website, www.music.aol.com/radioguide/world-radio if all you want is music, and www.RadioFreeWorld.com is decent as a collection of links to other sources.

Looking for more variety, is www.Live-Radio.net. This site is a little clunky getting started, but the sound, after a few pauses starting up, was fine after just a few seconds. The content is much more targeted and specific, and I could actually listen to news and talk programs literally from around the globe. Another, final great site that offers even more international flavor is www.RadioTower.com. I still couldn't find a wide array of talk and news sources from Canadian radio, but then again, I was offered every province in Canada and went with Ontario by chance so was limited by what Radio Tower carried in terms of news or talk from Ontario.

In conclusion, if you have the time, you should be able to find the type of music, talk, or news from the location you want to hear radio stations from, all from the comfort of your home.