I am a Software engineering student, well-versed in C++, but I am interested in programming using I/O from more varied sources than just file I/O with .txt files. For example, I have heard a bit about using winsock and win32 to get input and output over networks.
Does anyone know of a good resource for this?
First off, you may not want to limit yourself to the Winsock API. You may find it more suitable to work with POSIX based socket functions. That way your application may be more portable. Here is an in depth tutorial that should help out.
If you don't want to limit your new-found knowledge to a single operating system, you might want to look at a network library that abstracts a little bit from POSIX or Winsock. I've used ACE with good results - it gives you sockets that work on any platform, but also has higher-order communication objects on top of them if you decide that you'd rather want that.