Jonathan Bones
Baseband Member
- Messages
- 75
Greetings,
I recently took a job as a sales associate at a small computer hardware outlet-type store (cwo.ca if you'd like to get an idea of our stock), and am interested in increasing my knowledge of common hardware and accessories. It's my first experience in retail.
I know the basics. I've maintained my family's systems for the last several years with the help of my more adept friend. I'm capable of doing the majority of my own simple maintenance and upgrades. But on the whole, my knowledge is pretty superficial; I'm a casual hobbyist.
I was wondering if there were any simply written resources out there (internet preferred, but books are good too) that I could study to help me gain a deeper understanding of common hardware. I realize that the industry moves very quickly when it comes to the development of new technologies, but once you understand in detail how a computer works, I'd fathom that these things come a lot easier.
I'd say I'm looking for something just a little more complex than "For Dummies" quality of writing. Something with plenty of explanation and definitions along the way. So far, I've just been looking up things I'm unfamiliar with on Wikipedia, and going from there. It works, but it's an encyclopaedia-- there isn't much of a logical progression of subjects.
Some specific areas I'd like to focus on are processors, motherboards, and networking. But I could use a little bit of everything. As a reference, hey, I know what an IDE cable is... I can identify DX 9.0 video cards. And I know that new Prescotts only work with socket 775 mobos. But ask me to contrast motherboards based on FSB speeds, or what the practical difference between a Celeron and P4 is, and I'm pretty clueless. (L2 cache size? Sure. But then, what does that really mean?) When it comes to networking, about all I can do is point you in the direction of the CAT-5, routers, and ethernet cards.
Any advice you could provide me with would be much appreciated. Thanks for your time!
I recently took a job as a sales associate at a small computer hardware outlet-type store (cwo.ca if you'd like to get an idea of our stock), and am interested in increasing my knowledge of common hardware and accessories. It's my first experience in retail.
I know the basics. I've maintained my family's systems for the last several years with the help of my more adept friend. I'm capable of doing the majority of my own simple maintenance and upgrades. But on the whole, my knowledge is pretty superficial; I'm a casual hobbyist.
I was wondering if there were any simply written resources out there (internet preferred, but books are good too) that I could study to help me gain a deeper understanding of common hardware. I realize that the industry moves very quickly when it comes to the development of new technologies, but once you understand in detail how a computer works, I'd fathom that these things come a lot easier.
I'd say I'm looking for something just a little more complex than "For Dummies" quality of writing. Something with plenty of explanation and definitions along the way. So far, I've just been looking up things I'm unfamiliar with on Wikipedia, and going from there. It works, but it's an encyclopaedia-- there isn't much of a logical progression of subjects.
Some specific areas I'd like to focus on are processors, motherboards, and networking. But I could use a little bit of everything. As a reference, hey, I know what an IDE cable is... I can identify DX 9.0 video cards. And I know that new Prescotts only work with socket 775 mobos. But ask me to contrast motherboards based on FSB speeds, or what the practical difference between a Celeron and P4 is, and I'm pretty clueless. (L2 cache size? Sure. But then, what does that really mean?) When it comes to networking, about all I can do is point you in the direction of the CAT-5, routers, and ethernet cards.
Any advice you could provide me with would be much appreciated. Thanks for your time!