Bread and Butter Information

[perrymans]

What is a good source of information on what current companies are doing from a tech's stand point, not my Mom and Dad's (ie cnet). I built my own machine a couple of years ago and have not kept up with the going's-on of late. I want to know A)which manufacturer's of parts are really the best; B)true information on system distributor's like Dell, Gateway, Compaq; and whether or not they are still proprietary and still not very good. C)best chipsets and bios to have and so forth.

I don't want corporate kiss up and I definetly don't want someone describing what a "CPU" is. I need bread and butter information!

Thanks. Sean.

 

[attrofy]

For a more focused view point, but one that is geared toward the tech's point of view is

http://www.amdmb.com.

Most of it is users building and assembling their own stuff, and with it, comes varried points of view. Some people know next to nothing, and seem to have more problems than the people that have built several dozen machines. As you can probably guess from the title, it deals with AMD chips and compatible Mother Boards. This also has great info on BIOS Revisions etc. Granted most of the info will not translate to Intel, but a good resource none the less. One afternoon of surfing that site will bring you up to speed on pretty much everything AMD.

Also, a great new magazine I picked up the other day called CPU Computer Power User. I think it is only in it's second issue (January). I really wasn't expecting much from it, but it blew me away. It had articles written on my level as an IT Manager. Not overly programer-ly, spelled out the really geeky parts, and was advanced enough that I didn't have to muddle through 5 paragraphs of how to turn the computer on. If you can't find them at your local newstand, they are offering 2 free trial issues. 800-733-3809 -

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/Default.asp

These are semi limited resources but I recommend both of them emphatically