where'd u all learn your computer skills?

I learned everything by myself reading things on the internet (y!, google...). Also, some (a lot of) trial and error...

I actually learned by a man who lives deep in the Andes mountains. His name is Carl, and he brought forth a new era for humanity with his expert knowledge of Star Trek episodes.

I learned of looking thorugh forums like this, them either aking or googling for stuff I didnt get. Recently, ive met some guys who like pcs as much as me so where sort of having an orgy of tech sharing- I know about hardware, another about network, and another about coding.

Life is good- we're all getting lappies for gaming in school .

I learn about new lappies here (and other tech news on various forums and websties). Everything else - books. There is no substitute for reading if you really want to know. That's right. Internet - read the RFC for what you want to know. Programming - I happen to like O'Reilly, but any books will do. Structured classes are good for beginners who are not self sustaining learners, but if you read a lot, you probably are.

I've been using computers since '96 so I know a lot nowadays. Also, I took graphics courses in high school and such.

M.

My friends parents own a electronics shop that supplies lots of hard to find components for die hard electrical engineers. They also have a small computer repair dept. I spend most of my time hanging around the shop and fixing computers and such.

On the weekends we used to network 8 computers togheter and play things like Duke Nukem 3D, the original Warcraft and Command and Conquer. Yes, that's right. That was way way before LAN parties ever became popular.

That and through my various CS classes in HS, College, and through my employment after graduation.

A LOT of reading and breaking and fixing things. Plus in my line of work I'm surrounded by all sorts of computers and OS's, so I really have no choice but to know them..
Almost forgot building my own machines and sometimes for others. I don't like not knowing what's inside and that's what's annoying about laptops, I sure do wish they were easier to build from scratch.

Selt taught. Ive been dealing with computers since I was a kid.

I'v got my first Home computer in 92. In 98 I bought my first PC with win 95 first edition so thanks to that I practiced a lot of installing and uninstalling. Also went to info. high school, and a lot of repqairing for my friends who didn't know a damn thing about computers.
...oh...and because my latop was a junk when I got it from somebody, and now I'm working on rebuilding it, thanks to this forum I learned a lot about latop hardware too.

Ah... the memories... :P

Over the years of working in game development, I managed to get some free company training in the PC field since we had to build and rebuild many different configurations to test our games on. (If any of you remember Primal Rage for DOS, thank you for your support. ) Granted during those days we didn't have Windows 95 so things were a bit easier to get running as long as you stuck with a few general guidelines (for the time anyway)

On top of that, I based much of what I knew and learned from a arcade tech school I attended years before. The internals of a PC and the power supply share much in common so it only took a little adjustment.

Years later and just for kicks, I took the A+ certification course and passed it without breaking a sweat. Its good to know that I can still get myself out of a jam when a computer needs work.

i've had a natural curiosity from the womb....

the person that really kicked my geekness into high gear was this brilliant fella i met in 10th grade, he was a junior and in top of his class with full scholarship to NC State. He taught me the basics of everything, and i credit him for where i am today. We remained very close friends for around 10 years, kinda grew apart and havent even kept in touch for the last 4-5 years. Unfortunately his genius is being wasted by wal mart, his employer since 1992. the only job he's every had. it kills me.

Damn, thats unlucky. Any reason for him to be in such a lowly position?

he is afraid to leave, methinks. he's quite afraid of everything actually.

I too started using computers at a young age. But my curiosity didn't catch on until about 8th grade, when I was living near Tahoe where you stay indoors a lot between frequent ski trips. I spent a lot of my free time getting very comfortable with the internet. In high school I really started paying attention to software and hardware, and did a lot of reading to prepare for owning my own computer, which I got a year ago. Since then much of my software/hardware knowledge has been acquired through trial and error.

I know basic html (had a website a looong time ago) but that's about it, I am curious about programming but it's so intimidating...

Now that I'm in college and an art major I am teaching myself graphic arts and 3D modeling programs so I have a background before taking any advanced classes. Right now I'm taking a class that primarily uses Photoshop on Macs. It's my first time using Macs (not counting those fossils we had in elementary school to run Reader Rabbit) but they're pretty simple.

Dad worked for Digital in the 80s, got a lot of exposure to early PC-compatibles then, lots of hands on work, lots of research, trying stuff myself, spending money, and some actual courses.

I started at the ripe old age of 12. CP/M 80 baby. Now 22 years later I'm still at it. I officially have an EE degree but never realy used it. Started getting paid to fix computers in 92 and have been at it since. Now I've gotten my CCNA, CCDA, and CQS IPTD. Oh yeah A+ and way too many other certs for vendors that I don't really remember. Reading and breaking stuff is the best way for me to learn if I don't have to pass a test on it. If I have to pass a test I go to a boot camp to see how the vendor wants the questions answered. Every one learns differently.

I was just talking about this the other day.

Back in the "the day" rather than give you a CD full of demos, magazines would have code you would have to type and then compile. We're talking 24 years ago when I was the wee age of 12. After doing this thousands of times, you basically leaned very good programming logic. 1 out of 10 times, there was a misprint and the big thing was to fix it before next month issues published the correction.

Now back in those days, there wasn't a CompUSA, Dell, Etc.. You either joined a user group and learned how to repair your own system or you paid some guy with a PHD to do it for you. I joined a user group, every Weds. night we'd have the "nerd" meeting at someones house and trouble shoot problems people were having and every sunday we'd meet at a science museum or park center for a BIG meeting where software vendors would demo their wares and reps from the computer company would visit to talk. Their would be a fleamarket section open where people sold old computers, parts, home-made software, etc.

So I learned from necessity at any early age (first computer was 1K of memory), down to building a robot with a group in high school and coding it from scratch.


I find that with new technology today, I can just pickup on things after a little research. Things haven't changed that much, if anything, its much easier now than back then to build a computer; you don't have to solder chips on a PC Board anymore.