Thoughts and Tips for a Beginner

Most of us here own CookShacks which are electric so we dont see it as a sin. You just wont be able to enter in 99.9% of competition cooks.
As far as tips go, the CS gods have installed an awsome search feature to the forum not to mention listing archives for the different foods.
Tell us what kind of smoker you purchased and there may be someone on here that already has one and can save you some hard learnt lessons that have to do with your particular brand.

I purchased a Brinkmann Gourmet Electrical smoker (the red one). Thanks for the help.

That's what's called a water smoker. I think it's safe to say most folks here own a Cookshack electric smoker (or more than one in some cases) and that a lot of them had water smokers before spending a bit more.

I used to use a gas Brinkmann smoker that I had converted to natural gas. Made many a delicious meal, especially chicken, but I really wanted to be able to do foods like jerky and sausage.

You can find some advice and recipes here that will be worthwhile for water smokers, plus many references to other sites. Another spot you may want to check out is the Virtual Weber Bullet

since i taught my self to smoke using a webber bullet here's what i learned
1- read
go to the library and read everything you can. 25 years ago there was no food channel
2- watch
that said watch every program you can that remotely resembles smoking or bbq
3- this is the most important
have fun!!!!!!!!! keep notes, come to this site or others ask questions and just generally have a ball
jack
ps. electric a sin???? man dont let peg hear you say that she loves her sm150 and come to think of it my fec100 runs on it lol