Understanding all this tech talk.

[AcousticBruce]

It took me hours and hours to figure out what is going on with winmo devices and roms.

Well I just received a Hero and I am lost again. SO I have some basic questions.

It seems there is a lot of HOW-TO threads. I just want to know why.
I have a goal to repost these answers for a general guide on how to understand in a quickerway for a potential sticky. So I will keep asking questions in this thread. Thank you all for the help, you folks are amazing.


What I want to accomplish
-I want the fastest most responsive rom on my device.
-I want tethering both usb and wifi.
-I want beautiful software like <a href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=828332">this</a>
-Auto compression of higher mp pictures for picture mail (if possible)
-syncing via USB to outlook like Windows Device Manager. (no cloud server or exchange)


What I do know / My questions
1) What does rooting accomplish?
2) If I have a higher software version then what the explanations say what do I do?
3) What does nandroid do and why?
4) Wiping and why?
5) What is the difference between custom kernals and roms? How do they compare?