[sls2k8]

i will soon be starting a hons. degree course in networking an decurity, i would like to know if there re an good resources on the net that i could use to pick up some more skills within networking. i have been using xp across i wireless router to set up simple sharing folders and printer sharing. thanks in advance.

[spot]

That's a strange concept but I'm sure you know why you're doing it. Networking and security are operating system and device dependent to such a huge extent that anything you learn in one environment is hard to transfer as knowledge into another. People tend to specialize as Microsoft certified or Novell certified or even, these days, linux certified. It's more a continuing education qualification problem than an honours degree specialism. But I say that from a position of total ignorance and I'm obviously wrong since you're doing it.

I think I'd read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet and branch along the security aspects as you find them. The entire thing's about networking, obviously, but if you can get a feel for how it developed you'll have a base to add to. Work out sideways, keep going back to where you branched out from, you'll find there's a lot there. Discussing it in the thread here would bring other points of view in too.

[serverguy]

I thought the Cisco courses were pretty much the normal Networking courses?

[spot]

Perhaps Cisco has a university honours degree course in networking and security in the UK, nothing would surprise me any longer. When I was a lad you'd just get Certified as a professional qualification but it'd be rather meaningless in an academic setting and it would take a lot less than three years.

[caggles]

I took the Cisco Networking courses, and while I agree that set up networking varies greatly from OS to OS, the Cisco program (at least the one I took) focused on the lower level hardware and networking concepts anyways (like physical, data link and network layers: hubs, switches and routers, respectively). We did use Windows NT when we were working with the workstations themselves, but at least it's a great place to start. A lot of what I learned had to do with the standards and what happens between the computers instead of what happens within the computers themselves.
Anyways, the course info is technically owned by Cisco and I don't think you are allowed to access it (legally) without enrolling in one of their courses, but I know you can get one of a million books available that are designed to help you study for the CCNA exam. The "for dummies" one is really good, there's one that's for being ready for the cisco exam in 30 days (i can't remember what the title is, and i'm only partially sure that it's 30 days... but i'm sure if you searched for it on the net, you'd find the one that i'm talking about) and you can also get the official cisco text book, which probably costs a good $200, but it's practically the bible on all things cisco networking.
And by the way, if you're worried that by studying Cisco stuff, you'll only be able to use Cisco devices, don't worry. The course relies on industry wide standards for most of it's content, and those standards/devices/commands that are Cisco proprietary are clearly labelled as such, and there aren't many of them. Most of the concepts taught are used consistently across the entire industry.
In any case, this would certainly be a good place to get started learning about networking (though admittedly, this course does deal very sparsely with security; all i can remember about security is router passwords, access control lists and NAT)

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by caggles

I took the Cisco Networking courses, and while I agree that set up networking varies greatly from OS to OS, the Cisco program (at least the one I took) focused on the lower level hardware and networking concepts anyways (like physical, data link and network layers: hubs, switches and routers, respectively). We did use Windows NT when we were working with the workstations themselves, but at least it's a great place to start. A lot of what I learned had to do with the standards and what happens between the computers instead of what happens within the computers themselves.
Anyways, the course info is technically owned by Cisco and I don't think you are allowed to access it (legally) without enrolling in one of their courses, but I know you can get one of a million books available that are designed to help you study for the CCNA exam. The "for dummies" one is really good, there's one that's for being ready for the cisco exam in 30 days (i can't remember what the title is, and i'm only partially sure that it's 30 days... but i'm sure if you searched for it on the net, you'd find the one that i'm talking about) and you can also get the official cisco text book, which probably costs a good $200, but it's practically the bible on all things cisco networking.
And by the way, if you're worried that by studying Cisco stuff, you'll only be able to use Cisco devices, don't worry. The course relies on industry wide standards for most of it's content, and those standards/devices/commands that are Cisco proprietary are clearly labelled as such, and there aren't many of them. Most of the concepts taught are used consistently across the entire industry.
In any case, this would certainly be a good place to get started learning about networking (though admittedly, this course does deal very sparsely with security; all i can remember about security is router passwords, access control lists and NAT)

That was a very interesting read. Thanks for the insight. I thought that the Cisco courses were the way to go for networking.

[spot]

Originally Posted by serverguy

I thought that the Cisco courses were the way to go for networking.

Indeed it was and indeed they are but the OP is trying to prepare for starting an honours degree in networking and security - that's a long way different to trying to get a job.