I follow along as best I can with most of the videos and forum posts, soaking up as much as I can. But I constantly feel like the kid at the back of the class that answers every question by attempting to stall until the teacher gives up and asks the kid at the front who's straining to see if he can touch the roof from a seated position.
Anyone else feel this way? And what are you doing to combat this? I've been furiously reading as much as I can and I've been making *some* headway but I think my approach is chaotic and not producing the best results possible.
Do you also listen to Logan and Wendell's conversations and feel the need to accuse them of sorcery and witchcraft? What's your strategy to keep up? Did you used to feel this way and have recently had a breakthrough? Let's get smarter together!
I learned/learn all of what I know from various forums, imageboards, youtube, and wikis.
How long have you ben trying to educate yourself? I've been learning stuff for several months and I feel like I have come a long way. However, I still learn something new everyday.
Trick is to approach a task, such as systems building (your own system or someone else's) and start to ask questions when you encouter problems/barriers. Then you find the answers and solutions to those questions by hitting sources using google. It can be other forums, news articles, anything.
So I wanted a new system, and I spent months researching every little detail, to ensure I got value for my money. Now, I struggle with coding languages, and that's where I might go next.
Rather than trying to absorb every bit of information possible, just tackle what's new to you and relevant for your needs. All those little baby steps and tiny bits of information will some up to the greater tasks.
I remember when I didn't know what CAS latency was, when I found out it felt like a breakthrough. I look back like that stuff is too easy. Truth is, you have to start small and get some of those smaller details and knowledge under your belt.
And once upon a time, I thought systems had to have two high-end graphics cards to run games in ultra lol.
Thankfully I have the ability of learning tech things extremely easily, so many times I can figure out near stuff simply by listening to it and reading a document or something about it.
Except subnet masking. Wtf is with subnet masking.
Subnet masking is simply like an address. Think of it in terms of street addresses and people.
First thing to know is that there are 4 octets of binary (meaning 8 bits) which total up to 256 different combinations of 1 or 0 (0 - 255 or 00000000 - 11111111).
The subnet mask dictates how many of those bits are to be used for the subnet (or street address in my analogy) and which are to identify the host (or person living at that address). The first subnet mask you would have seen is 255.255.255.0 which means that in the first, second and third octets, all 8 bits are used to define the subnet (or street address).
In real terms this means that if you change any number in the first three octets, it represents a different address (so 192.168.1.0 might be one, 192.168.2.0 would be the next, 146.173.87.0 is another) but if you change a number in the last octet, that is just a different person at the same address (So 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 are the same subnet, but two different hosts).
Remember I was saying the there are 256 different combinations of numbers per octet? Well in my example above, this would mean that since the first, second and third octets are used up for address, there can only be 254 unique people at that subnet (not super important why that is, I can explain later if you like. Just remember for now that the number of people at a single address is always the number of bit combinations minus 2. So if it's only one octet, it's 256 - 2 = 254)
Since this is quite limiting, we can use subnet masks to free up more space to have more people in the same subnet by taking away the number of subnets possible. If we take an example of 255.255.0.0 this would mean that only the first and second octets are available to dictate the subnet but now we have a WHOLE other octet available for more hosts per address.
That's the short and dirty version, but did that make sense to you?
all i can say is keep reeding and sooner or later things will fall into place as your understanding starts making links to other stuff you have read/learned.
to get a good rounded grip on tech it takes time, as you build up a knowledge base to compare against. theres not much you can do about it as the release cycle is about 2 years for cpu's and 2-3 years for gpu's
so just be patient, keep learning and it will all make sense 1 day...
Oh I sure I will get there eventually.
This was partly about trying to find out if there are any particular resources that people recommend, and partly to help other people who feel completely lost, not feel like they're the ONLY people that are completely lost.
I know in a lot of my classes that people are afraid of putting their hands up to ask questions because they're afraid people will think they're dumb. I never mind what other people think, I just want to learn!