Where did you learn?

[Sir Shfvingle]

I am continually amazed at the vast intellect and knowledge of the people here in the Basement forum. Everyone's knowledge has been very helpful in esablishing an understanding about certain areas of the computer and in making decisions on what parts to buy. Lately, I've been doing much research and reading on the computer hardware/software industry and have considered choosing that field of work for a possible career. I would be extremely grateful if some of you techies out there could give me a brief insight into how you got to be so knowledgeable, whether it be professional training or just fidedeling around. And if you are a professional in the computer industry, what area do you work in(and if I may be so bold as to ask, for whom do you work)?

Any and all knowledge is readily accepted

[Doono]

The majority of what I learned came from simply deciding to build my own computer then doing thorough research into each component, any specific details beond that has probably come from my study in electronic and communication engineering.

[Dewy]

I learnt most of what I know from fiddling around, well when I did learn stuff at school I already knew it . I did for a short amount of time work at InTACT which is part of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) government. The IT industry is massive what specific things do you like? Working with servers is awesome (I was lucky enough to get down in the data centre at InTACT), programming is enjoyable if you like problem solving. Sadly loads of jobs in the IT industry are completely boring, well that's the way I see it.

[GasMask]

Watching people fiddle LOL.

I have friends who make computers i learn from them.

My knowledge comes from everyone and everything any errors i have encountered i know of and try to help those in need.

Also been computer savvy for around 5 years now.

School has taught me an awful lot and the fact that whenever i get free time i love to fiddle with computers its amazing.

So in short everything i know i learn from myself and take advice from others and blend that together and combine to help others.

[mrcrusty]

Self taught I guess. I do work at a PC parts store, but my knowledge on PC components comes from self research and the like.

As Dewy said though, the I.T industry is massive, what specifically are you interested in?

The line of work I'll probably end up in and the line of work I'd like to end up in are completely different but both are in the I.T industry, and sadly, neither of them would require me to know when the latest series of AMD graphics cards come out. Or new PSUs.

As a rule though, PC building and enthusiasm is a hobby. It isn't common, or easy, to make a career out of it.

[Samariten]

Also self taught better to know yourself then rely on others

[Bolkonsky]

My basement. Quite literally. I found a bunch of old computers, tried making one decent one, failed, tried again, failed again, tried again, failed again, etc, etc, etc.

My advice is find a couple of old junk computers, and try making one decent one out of it. Just for a basic groundwork in working on them. With old computers, you're bound to encounter various types of bugs that are less common with new computers, but still provide good groundwork for fixing computers. Also, I've never actually taken the course, but I have an A+ certification book from about 7 years back, that has been an unbelievable help when it comes to anything to do with computers.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Self taught...I don't have 1 minute of formal computer education. Started programming games on my Commodore Pet then my Commodore 64 at 11 years old. After that just started building my own computers, and learning the hard way, trial and error...mostly error! LOL Anyone remember trying to get Windows 3.1 to recognize your modem? hehe Paid my way through university by fixing/building/maintaining the PCs of other students in the pre-XP era (back when they couldn't just google the problem and watch some video tutorial on how to do it themselves).

[Garbarsardar]

I learned from reading The Basement. No, seriously.

[Sir Shfvingle]

Wow. So it looks like you can get a vast amount of knowledge by just listening, reading and fiddling.

[Bolkonsky]

Fiddling being the most important of the three.

I usually fiddle. Fail. Take my father's/uncles advice. Fiddle again. Succeed. Read why it worked. Having a good understand of what is what will help you, but all the experts just know what the problem is, and how to fix it, not why.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Fiddling being the most important of the three.

I usually fiddle. Fail. Take my father's/uncles advice. Fiddle again. Succeed. Read why it worked. Having a good understand of what is what will help you, but all the experts just know what the problem is, and how to fix it, not why.

So, so true. When I fix someone computer (usually by fiddling), and when it works, they ask "why did it happen?" the honest answer, much of the time is "no idea...each computer has a personality of its own" and they think I'm kidding

[irishron]

I started in computers when DOS was still king, Win 3.11 was still waiting for release. and having a couple of geeks at work to bounce ideas off of and get free utilities from. Trying to get past the 512kb memory ceiling was a trick in itself. I built my own and sometimes bought parts twice for being clumsy, and read a lot. We had a bookstore that catered to the State College in town and that's where I headed for reading material.

[GasMask]

ISHAN LMAO .


Yes being self taught is not the best at all i have a way of doing things from various people so im a hybrid i know how to do mostly everything on par but i would of never known if it where not for my friends.

Sometimes i do things and it brings back memories of times when i was learning .

Also i will never forget about my friend telling me to take a hard drive out you have to use 5 parts of your hands and after he took it out he said and that's how its done LMFAO so i tried doing that and fried myself i forgot to turn the power off by accident he never told me about that -.-.

Anyway i believe learning from others is the way in combat will you self educate yourself ? i highly dought it.

[Freddie]

To follow up on what Garb has said I would say yes you can learn by reading but to actually gain a working knowledge about these things you can only really grasp the subject by actually participating and getting involved.

For me I got my first PC back in the mid 90's, some else built it and it cost £1300. It featured a Intel Pentium 200Mhz MMX processor, a whopping 32mb of ram, 3.2Gb hard drive, 15" CRT monitor and Windows 95 with the disc non of that crappy OEM stuff you get these days. Oh don't ask me what the video card was back then a video card was there just to give you a picture, if you wanted faster games you would have to buy a new computer with a faster CPU.

Now I really liked my first PC and I was at school one day and someone told me about these new 'Graphics Accelerators' I was told these would literately transform games instantly and make them look beautiful. I was a bit sceptical at first and these things cost £100 which was a lot of money for a 15 year old back in 1996. Research was limited as the Internet was in its infancy (these were days when you had to pay just to have a ISP then you had connection charges on top) and most of what a learned was from a promo add in a magazine. In the end I took the plunge and got it. Of course back then Freddie was n00b and I didn't bother to check that my PC had the right hardware and I didn't give a second thought to weather my PSU would cope with it built was compatible (by luck rather then judgement). It then took me 3 days to work out how to install this 3DFX Voodoo card, I didn't know what I was doing but I got there somehow but boy oh boy it was worth the effort!

I gained a lot of knowledge from my first upgrade namely how to add new hardware and install software drivers. Replacing Windows and formatting the hard drive was nerve wreaking experience but I gained a lot knowledge by doing it and of course building PC's helps a lot. The rest comes from reading forum pages, fixing friends and families PC's.

[Jaketh]

self taught and learning from a friend

[Phier]

I put my first together when I was about 25, so ... a while ago.

Before then computers were strange magic scary boxes to open. After that they were easy to assemble things.

Now I don't do it professionally, so when I want to upgrade, which is every 3-5 years, I do a lot of reading on what the current state of the art is the best mobos and GPU's and such, and then put it together.

But its still all the same as the first one in terms of the basics. That was I think a 300mhz or so machine, now its a quad core blah blah. Same stuff when it comes down to it, like leggos.

[Musthavename]

Mostly self taught, asking my Dad if I had anything I couldn't solve myself. I got my first computer when I was about 11 or 12, then proceeded to build my own at 13 or so. I've followed most things since then.

[Jom]

Let's stick to useful information that can help the OP to improve his/her knowledge of computers, shall we?

[Sir Shfvingle]

Alright, I'm starting to get a bigger picture about you guys. It seems you don't have to work professionally or have formal experience to know a lot about computers. You just have fun learning about them and messing around with them. Thank you so much for all this insight. I will surely take it into consideration when making future decisions.