Recommendations

Video training

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

In my opinion, Windows IT Pro magazine is by far the best IT magazines 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

{ 0 comments… add one now }