Where did you acquire your technical savy?

[Executor]

Manuals, Forums, Dad, and lots and lots of books.

 

[Zebo]

<< . Never trust everything you read on the Internet unless you know the source is reliable. >>



Especially bomb making recipes.

 

[fitzhue]

I don't really know where i learned what i did. i would probably say trial and error though. That seemed to work well, never really had any problems. Somehow i just learned stuff along the way.

 

[jaydee]

Talking to my friend (who is a genius) in a 40 minute study hall every day for 2.5 years now, and reading anandtech and tomshardware everyday afterschool for about as long.

"You can learn a lot by observing"

 

[DDad]

I read the book "Everything you never wanted to know about Packard Bell, but have been Forced to find out!"

Seriously, it all started when I got married- my wife owned a PB- a 486SX25 (BTW, this was in 93- a fairly respectable machine for it's day). She wanted more memory, and a CD-Rom added to it- my local shop wouldn't touch- the guy hated PB's! He would sell me the parts, however. As I recall, it was around $300 at the time

 

[dolphin512]

i started with when my parents bought the family a 286 oh so long ago when i was about 7....i really started to learn though when we got our 486 and i was the only one who ever used it so no one minded that i screwed it up all the time...of course all those screw ups help me learn a lot about troubleshooting software and the like...most of my hardware knowledge came a few years ago when my dad's store needed a new machine and i just volunteered to build one...it took me awhile because i basicly did it on my own without even reading any thing on the net(when you have to discover everything for yourself you learn a lot). Since then all of my knowledge has come from trial and error...mostly through building people new machines, upgrading my own...or administering my high school network(hey no one there knew how to do it so i convinced them to pay me for it)...oh ya and the occasional anadtech article helps a lot too...now i just have to get that comp sci degree out of the way(Go Baylor!)...at least school is interesting now!

 

[MWink]

Trial and formatting! :Q Also, a little from my father. Also, a good bit from AT.



<< I find it easier to read a book while sitting in the, uhhh, "library". Hard to get web access in there, if you know what I mean >>



It's called "wireless"! Get with the times!

 

[Justin218]

Trial and Error, and web sites

 

[Dark4ng3l]

First came anandtech, then came hobby

 

[Workin']

<< It's called "wireless"! Get with the times! >>

Yeah but what do you do with the laptop when it's time to do the, umm, "paperwork"?

 

[bjc112]

T&E

and mainly these forums now i am pretty knowledgeable

 

[Paulson]

Trial and error have been used over and over for me...

Plus I learn a lot on these forums, also keep up to date on all sorts of info.

 

[xWeston]

like the others have said...
Trial and error and websites (forums as well as reading all the reviews/news)

 

[RC5Bri]

Trial and error for me also. I made a lot of "mistakes", and learned from them. One thing that also helps is, that you shouldn't be afraid to fail or mess something up. My friends and family don't like to "poke around" with the computer because they think they might delete something or have something stop working.

But I also have to say that I have learned a lot from forums like AT. Normally, a question that I have has already been answered, so I just search it out.

 

[CTho9305]

here, and I used to get a lot here but now they suck
and, of course, a lot from forums

some from my job.
some from books.

 

[edjam]

All of those, as well as AT forums

 

[clockhar]

I think we have a winner ... good 'ole trial and error seems the common answer with various, smaller sources of info (job, school, forums, online, books, etc.)