n00b, I think the good news is that there are also newbie people out there who l0ve teh codes but don't know crap about hardware, so these two camps of newbies should at least be able to help eachother out! ;D
One thing I'm a little surprised about on this forum is that there isn't a single, clear "newbie" forum. So it seems that some newbie stuff ends up in FAQ, and the rest is spread across everywhere else, a little inappropriately. With a separate, designated newbie forum, you can corral all the stuff in to one place, and the experienced people who want to help can; while those that don't, don't have to be bothered by it.