Getting an IT Help Desk Job For Dummies

Chapter 6

Feeding Your Inner Nerd

In This Chapter

• Getting a jumpstart on everyone else through personal growth methodologies
• Developing personal guides for expanding your knowledge base
• Fostering a greater understanding of the importance of cross-platform awareness

Getting an education is great, but unlike many other industries, IT technologies are constantly shifting, changing, and growing. In fact, the advances made in technology by the human race are accelerating over time. Since the advent of the home computer, computer technology has gotten smaller, faster, and more reliable.

This chapter is a guide to expanding your knowledge of things technical. Think of it as your go-to handbook of resources, tidbits, tools, and what-not that will come in handy for a range of things. I think that it's helpful to give you this guide so that you have a resource to look to when you have a question you need answered.

Exactly How Awesome Growth Can Be

Just what does that mean, though? Here's an example. If you are aware of NASA's Apollo missions to the moon, you will know that those spacecraft were mostly controlled by a guidance computer. What could be more powerful than a computer that tells a space ship how to get from the earth to the moon? Well, an iPhone 4S, for one. The Apollo computer ran at 1MHz (that's megahertz) and weighed around 70 pounds. In contrast, the iPhone runs at 800MHz dual-core processor and weighs about 4.9 oz.

The Apollo program was about 50 years ago. The iPhone ...