I am writing this guide, which I hope will be stickied, to cut down on the amount of threads that pertain to the same subject, like “which computer for engineering” or “what specs do I need for software” or “will computer x run software y” questions that drive me up a wall.
My suggestion to anyone, before posting a topic is to use Google to search for your topic. I promise you, your question is more than likely not original.
This is done quite easily and efficiently. The best way to do it is as follows…
To search a specific site for content, in the google search bar type…
Site:CollegeConfidential.com
Next you will want to narrow your search down on that for specific subjects.
This can be done using the following operators…
First, the quotation mark operator (“ “) when put around a phrase or word will treat that phrase/word as a string of text causing google search for that exact string.
Next, the tilde operator (~) when this operator is put in front word of a word, it will cause google to search for that word and all possible synonyms.
Thirdly, the negation operator (-) when this operator is put in front of a word, it will cause google to ignore anything with that word in it.
Lastly, the 2-dot ellipsis operator (…) when this operator is placed between two dates, it will only search for pages that are within that range of dates.
As an example, pretend that you are new to the forums and came to ask about what laptops are good for engineering. You would do the following…
Site:talk.collegeconfidential.com ~laptop “engineering” 2012…2015
(talk.collegeconfidential.com is the actual url for the Collegeconfidential’s forums, so typing in simply collegeconfidential.com will search more than the forums)
If you search for this in google, you will get threads upon threads that are all relevant to that search.
So please, before posting about your topic, be aware that it more than likely isn’t an original question and has been beaten to death 1000 times over. Use the tool I just gave you and read for at least 2 hours, and if your questions still aren’t answered make a thread about it.
I really am begging you because if I have to read about another “what computer for engineering” thread I may gouge out my eyes. (not really but I like being melodramatic)