my car kicked a ces light a while back and i found out i have to buy a scanner or buy a cable & software and connect it to my laptop to see what codes were thrown,so i figured what the heck ill buy the cable for diagnosis and eventually learn how to tune with it,so where should i start? what will i need to start tuning?and is there any good tuning articles to help guide a tuning newb? any pointers would be greatly appreciated,thanks in advance.

You don't need a cable to see the codes.
Jumper the A & B pins on the ALDL connector and the SES light will flash the sequence indicating the number of the codes that are set.
Some older setups need a 10K resistor to log data but I don't believe it is needed to flash the codes on the light.
Tuning is a whole nother thing. Check out the DIY_PROM board stickys for enough info to make you eyes bleed.

yes i do need a cable,some 94's you can read the codes that way and some you cant ,mine is one that ya cant.