Late March is one of the few times of year you'll actually find me glued to my television -- because that's when the NCAA basketball championship tournament gets into full-swing.

It's not unusual for me to concurrently watch games, jump on my cell phone to call fellow fans and send e-mails or text messages about various plays that I liked or hated. If my favorite teams are on the tube, I'll probably run home to watch or monitor the action on the Web. Yet next to some other people, I'm just a plain ol' fan.

David Whitcomb is a Double Agent for Geek Squad, which means he spends part of his professional life in Best Buy stores and the other part on the road fixing people's systems and networks. An avid basketball fan, he can't always run home to see his favorite team (the University of Pittsburgh) run up and down the court -- because he's often an hour from home or even a plane ride away. So he plans to watch the NCAA tournament on his laptop, by taking advantage of a Slingbox that he has sitting in his home.

Slingbox is a device that pulls the TV signal from your favorite source (cable TV, Windows Media Player, TiVO) and makes it available to the viewer over the Internet. Mr. Whitcomb simply needs to plug his laptop into a remote high-speed Internet connection and he can connect to that Slingbox, thus being able to stream his home cable signal to wherever he is. He can watch his hometown news, favorite network shows, or the most important of all -- basketball, whether it's on CBS or ESPN.

Earlier this season Mr. Whitcomb was on the road when Pitt played Syracuse. So he settled in at a coffee shop and connected his laptop to the shop's Wi-Fi Internet hot spot to watch the game. When Pitt started coming back from a 13-point deficit, he started shouting as if he were in the stands -- and disrupted the decorum in the coffee shop. So he politely moved himself and his laptop into his car, which was parked outside within range of the coffee shop's Wi-fi signal. There he could be a true fan without disrupting others.

Mr. Whitcomb also likes to watch post-game TV reports if he misses key games and has done so while in California, Florida, Virginia, Spain and France. During the first round of the NCAA playoffs, he plans to be in Costa Mesa, Calif., connected as usual -- in HD (High Definition). If his cable box is not turned on when he connects, his Slingbox will allow him to turn it on remotely. He might even watch a few on-demand movies between games.

Mr. Whitcomb's associates at Geek Squad have released a list of suggestions for basketball fans. A few of the more intriguing suggestions are:

1. Use Slingbox or Sony's Location Free TV to watch while out of your home.

2. Connect to friends (even those from rival schools) to trash-talk using a Webcam and PC -- or push the limits using an Xbox 360.

3. Go digital with your office pool. Track it at runyourpool.com instead of by paper.

As a basketball fan, I would find any of these enticing. There's also Madness Tracker, where you can use your PDA to keep track of your NCAA pool.

Still not enough? Visit the blogs of NCAA coaches and analysts. Duke's coach, Mike Krzyzewski, for instance, analyzes games and gives commentary.

I have posted links at megabyteminute.com. They're fun even if you're only a part-time fan.