Hello World

[Br3ndo]

Hi everyone, my name is Brendan. Not very experienced what so ever with the intimate details of the computer sciences so hopefully this will help me to learn.

If anyone has some good introductory threads/sites/other resources they would like to share it would be appreciated. Looking forward to learning from all of you.

B

 

[office politics]

hi Brendan,

I've worked in IT for over ten years. I enjoy configuring systems, finding software, and solving problems. Feel free to contact me to discuss ideas or problems.

Most sub forums here have some good Sticky threads at the top. Those are the go-tos first. Also, my sig has many cool links for additional resources.

What's your home setup like?

 

[Br3ndo]

Hi, thank you for your response.

I primarily work in the office, almost exclusively on Windows though I have been considering trying Linux on my home laptop. At the moment I am trying to extend my understanding of a computer's software infrastructure (or internal interactions I guess) as well as to build a soft foundation in web programs & communications. Unfortunately I didnt grow up in a high-tech household so my baseline knowledge is more limited than I would like, it can be a bid difficult to know where to begin.

I appreciate any feedback on how to go about this, and if you have any recommendations on effective educational sources (wikipedia is great but meandering) it would be very helpful.

 

[office politics]

techrepublic has great newsletters covering a wide variety of tech topics.

I visit twit.tv to keep up on tech news and find new ideas.

software infrastructure sounds like it could be pretty advanced. at the basic level, I suggest reading on what common software people install on their machines and for what purpose. I have a link in my sig for that and the windows forum has a thread describing good windows software. The advanced part would be understanding the different layers of software on a machine. kernel, drivers, OS, virtualization, presentation and understanding the interactions between them.

for web prog and comm, I would setup a website on my machine. decide between asp.net and php. php is extremely easy to learn and setup. search for xampp. it does a lot of the initial setup for you. then search for some beginner php projects and start toying with the language. You'll want to know some html and javascript as well..

gotta run. best of luck to ya.

 

[carnageX]

for web prog and comm, I would setup a website on my machine. decide between asp.net and php. php is extremely easy to learn and setup. search for xampp. it does a lot of the initial setup for you. then search for some beginner php projects and start toying with the language. You'll want to know some html and javascript as well..

gotta run. best of luck to ya.

Coding PHP is gross . Takes forever to do simple things lol. Maybe that's just because I prefer .NET and using Visual Studio, though . Although, there apparently is a PHP add-on for Visual Studio in the Extensions downloader.

 

[Br3ndo]

Thank you very much Office Politics, that is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

I am getting some fundamentals course notes from a class I took at university as well, Electronics for Scientists and Engineers, which will hopefully support that knowledge. We got down to the shift register and S-R latch kind of level but I got stuck thinking I had to understand literally every single aspect from the ground up so my retention wasnt the best.

Anyways, thank you again, I appreciate your help. The internet is great, hopefully I will be able to positively contribute at some point.