Connector Identification

In addition to organizing your cables, and selecting high-quality cables, you must be able to identify the connectors. This can be surprisingly tricky given the huge variety of connectors, generational changes, and active vs passive connections. Awareness of the issues will help you to buy the right cables and adapters for your purposes.

Common Clues

Several clues can help you identify a connector: gender, color-coding, logos, and labeling on the cable itself. Beyond those, you have to look at the shape of the connector: its size, and the number of holes or pins (if visible).

Male-Female: Some connectors are female (a.k.a receptacle) and some are male (a.k.a plug). This terminology is straightforward and used throughout the electronics industry. Male and female connectors fit together as long as the number and distribution of holes and pins match.
Color Coding: When color-coding is present, it can be helpful. Sadly, it is not mandated, so, for example, USB 3 ports on Macs are black even though they should be blue.
Logos: Specific icons have been selected to represent different connectors. You should develop some familiarity with these.
Shape (Form factor): The overall shape and the number of pins (if visible) can help you distinguish connectors.
Generations with the same form factor: Be aware that successive generations of connectors support higher transfer speed and/or more capabilities (even though they may have the same form factor). In particular, newer standards are increasingly general purpose: they are able to transmit different kinds of signals, including power, video, audio, and network signals. Buying a cable with the latest standard may be more expensive, but should always be backward compatible with the older standards (as long as the form factor hasn't changed). HDMI cables are a good example.
When all else fails to help you identify a cable, it is a good bet you are looking at a video connector! There are just so many of these!
Watch this 4-minute video clip about identifying connectors

Hardware 3 (10 pts): Connections