Video training

• Technical video training (Exchange, SQL, Active Directory, etc): Train Signal or TrainingCenter
• Productivity and development tools training videos: Lynda, or TrainingCenter

Magazines

• In my opinion, Windows IT Pro magazine is by far the best IT magazine on the market. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve found the exact solution to a problem I was having in the latest issue of this magazine. The product reviews are excellent, and it’s the best way to stay up to date on all of the IT news and technology.

  Note that it obviously mainly covers applications installed on top of Microsoft operating systems. You won’t find much information on Unix variants or applications in this magazine.

  If you are in the USA, then you can get a 75% discount on the standard retail price by clicking on the graphic above.
  
  If you live outside of the USA, then you’ll have to pay the usual price and purchase it from Amazon in the USA.

  Why would I tell you to purchase the USA edition if you don’t live in the USA? Well, when I purchased the Australian edition from the local magazine shop, I was reading articles that I had read 3 months prior in the USA edition of the same magazine. So if you want the very latest articles, then you still need to purchase the USA edition from Amazon.
  

Books

• It’s not everyday that you can be reading a 3 inch thick IT book on the train on the way to work while laughing out loud at Mark Minassi’s great sense of humor. I kept getting strange looks from people that saw that I was reading a hard-core computing book.

  This book is not only very enjoyable to read, but is extremely well written, technically correct, and very clearly explained.

  I’m a huge fan of Mark Minassi. You’ll find it hard to find a better educational author on Microsoft topics, in my opinion.

  I consider Mastering Windows Server 2003 to be “the bible” for people interested in learning about Win2003. Even though topics are very clearly explained, there is also a lot of depth to the explanations.

  After you’ve finished reading it, you’ll find that it will become a reference book which you will want to keep close by at all times. In fact, the book also comes with a CD which has the entire book contents on it, in order to make it easy to carry it with you when you go out to customer sites. It also makes it very easy to search for terms quickly due to it being in digital format.

• And here’s another Mark Minassi book to add to your collection.

  This book is a great complement to the original Mastering Windows Server 2003 book mentioned in the prior entry.

  Mastering Windows Server 2003, Upgrade Edition for SP1 and R2 covers the updates from Win2003 service pack 1 and also all of the updates and new features available in the Windows 2003 R2 release.

• Hacking Exposed is a must read book. It will teach you how to hack a network step by step.

  You’ll learn how to hack: Windows, Unix, routers, firewalls, and client-side applications.

  It’s impossible to learn how to defend a network, until you learn how your enemy is attacking you.

  I must warn you though, that by the time you finish reading this book, you’ll end up as paranoid as I am. Well perhaps not as much as me, but you’ll be well on your way.

• These days almost everything is web enabled: banking, financial transactions, intranets, extranets, CRM and ERP systems, email web clients, etc.

  Hacking Web Applications Exposed is a book that focuses solely on teaching you how to hack web applications step by step.

  Hacking Exposed (the book mentioned in the prior entry) deals with hacking operating systems, network devices, and client side applications. Hacking Web Applications Exposed is a good complement to your security knowledge, since the original Hacking Exposed book doesn’t really cover this very important topic.

  The scary part is that you’ll come to realise that even though you’ve done everything within your power (as an IT person) to secure the network infrastructure, such as routers, firewalls, intrusion prevention devices, etc….the hacker can go right ahead and hack a web application you may be hosting. And there’s nothing you can do about it from an infrastructure perspective.

  This is why it’s important to understand how hackers can attack web applications, and what you need to do (on the application side) to prevent security breaches.

Online productivity tools

• Central Desktop is a great web portal which can be used for either project management or building an intranet. It allows you to manage: tasks, milestones, project communication, web meetings, web collaboration, version-tracked files and documents, discussion threads, shared calendars, and many other useful features. You can try it for 30 days for free (with all of the features), and if you want to keep using it beyond that (still for free) you can do so, but with limited functionality.

  If, after the first 30 free days, you decide to subscibe to this service, it’s good to know that the charge is per amount of concurrent projects that you wish to run - rather than by the number of users using the site. If you’re an IT consulting firm, this means that you can easily use this tool to manage your customer projects, and allow your customers to actively participate in the project portal site without needing to worry about additional licensing costs.

  Be sure to give this tool a try for the next project you run. After using this tool for the duration of a project, you’ll find it hard to go back to managing a project the old fashioned way.

Infrastructure and network services

• Web hosting: HostGator offers excellent value when it comes to web hosting. You can pay $9.95 per month for 100GB of storage space, and very importantly, they allow you host an unlimited number of web sites within that same account. I personally use this service myself, am currently hosting 5 websites within the same account, have plenty of room for web content (100GB), and I get all of that for just $9.95 per month.

Marketing

• Email autoresponder: aWeber
• eCommerce system: 1ShoppingCart (free 30 day trial)
• Ad/link tracker: AdTrackz

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Please feel free to leave your own comments below detailing your own suggestions for great books, magazines, resources, etc.

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