I agree. My 4 year old and I both love The Universe. The graphics and animations hold the attention of the youngsters when they're very young and the material is rich enough for them to grow into it.
You also need to think about and decide what sort of longevity and upward mobility you want in that (or any) field. You certainly need to understand the mechanics - how to install security software, etc. But, if you want to rise up, you need to understand the foundation. If it's network security, you need to understand network protocols and statistics. Get Stevens Vol I and Ethereal and start capturing packets and looking at real network traffic. Also, get a book on statistics that includes distributions. Then filter and dump the Ethereal traffic and analyze it. Create distributions of what "normal" traffic looks like under various conditions (time of day, location) and by protocol. Then you will really understand those things you memorized, like what's the problem with a xmas tree packet anyway? Also, if you're sure you want to apply the knowledge and not develop software, skip the compiled programming languages and learn perl or python (or both).
There are IT engineers and there are IT technicians. One is not necessarily better or worse than the other. Both have their roles. The difference is that the IT engineer has a deeper understanding of the fundamentals. When the technology changes, the IT engineers are in a better position to retrain themselves. The IT technicians often have to shell out for another course or three on the "next big thing".
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I agree. My 4 year old and I both love The Universe. The graphics and animations hold the attention of the youngsters when they're very young and the material is rich enough for them to grow into it.
You also need to think about and decide what sort of longevity and upward mobility you want in that (or any) field. You certainly need to understand the mechanics - how to install security software, etc. But, if you want to rise up, you need to understand the foundation. If it's network security, you need to understand network protocols and statistics. Get Stevens Vol I and Ethereal and start capturing packets and looking at real network traffic. Also, get a book on statistics that includes distributions. Then filter and dump the Ethereal traffic and analyze it. Create distributions of what "normal" traffic looks like under various conditions (time of day, location) and by protocol. Then you will really understand those things you memorized, like what's the problem with a xmas tree packet anyway? Also, if you're sure you want to apply the knowledge and not develop software, skip the compiled programming languages and learn perl or python (or both).
There are IT engineers and there are IT technicians. One is not necessarily better or worse than the other. Both have their roles. The difference is that the IT engineer has a deeper understanding of the fundamentals. When the technology changes, the IT engineers are in a better position to retrain themselves. The IT technicians often have to shell out for another course or three on the "next big thing".