Many training providers will only provide office hours or extended office hours support; not many go late into the evening (after 8-9pm) or cover weekends properly. Always avoid training that only supports trainees with an out-sourced call-centre message system when it's outside of usual working hours. Training organisations will give you every excuse in the book why you don't need this. But, no matter how they put it - support is required when it's required - not when it's convenient for them.

It's possible to find professional companies that offer direct-access support around the clock - even in the middle of the night. If you accept anything less than support round-the-clock, you'll regret it. You may avoid using the support during late nights, but what about weekends, evenings and early mornings at some point.

Quite often, students have issues with one aspect of their training usually not even thought about: The way the training is divided into chunks and sent out to you. You may think that it makes sense (with most training taking 1-3 years to pass all the required exams,) that a training provider will issue a single section at a time, as you pass each element. But: How would they react if you didn't complete each and every exam within the time limits imposed? And maybe you'll find their order of completion won't be as easy as some other order of studying might.

To avoid any potential future issues, most students now choose to request that all their modules (now paid for) are sent immediately, and not in a piecemeal fashion. You can then decide in what order and how fast or slow you want to work.

One of the newest areas within this particular field is called Computer Forensics. We relate forensics with television programmes like CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). There might though be a tad less glamour to the actual workload compared to that carried out by the celebrities on television! And yet, forensic investigation using sophisticated technology can provide a very gratifying career. A Digital Forensics specialist will search for and explain digital artefacts that can often be utilised to resolve crimes.

Along with Security and Digital Forensics the relatively new field of 'Ethical Hacking' is emerging. The Certified Ethical Hacker ('CEH') and the 'Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator'('CHFI') are mid to high level certifications offered through the EC-Council.

For many people considering getting into I.T. as a profession, basic networking should be the starting place. Before you understand the way a Computer functions and communicates with other PCs, anything else is simply nonsense. Assuming at least a basic level of PC user skills, (read the more general Computer Training pages if not,) the starting point is nearly always 'CompTIA' A+ & CompTIA Network+ . Examples of these are included within the 'CompTIA' pages of this site.

Moving forward you can either go down the Microsoft MCSA or MCSE track if you're focused on 'software', or the Cisco CCNA or CCNP track if you're attracted to 'hardware'. Although, it must be said that a comprehensive understanding of Microsoft networks is pretty much a necessity for the majority of network environments, simply because of Microsoft's dominance in this field. Again, each of these qualifications are discussed in-depth on the relevant sections on this website.

Alternatively, you may choose to carry on down the vendor-neutral path with further 'CompTIA' certification (e.g. Linux+ , Server+ & Security+ ) or even try your hand at the wire-less (Wi-Fi) side of things with the CWNP or CWNA.

Industry acknowledged accreditations can be attained from the suppliers and vendor-neutral organisations. Several well respected neutral organisations are today providing increasingly more pertinent & significant certifications. The understanding of network interface-connectivity between and among networks is now becoming increasingly important. We are witnessing an important paradigm shift in networking technologies right now, thoughts generally are leaning towards 'greener' IT, and both processing power and data-storage are moving towards Cloud computing. The development of green IT addresses 2 important issues : minimising the effect on the earth is 1, but of equal relevance to commerce is expense. Lower power processors & computers create much less heat, so much less cooling is needed. Businesses with massive computer networks can bring down their electricity costs appreciably with 'greener' & much more efficient PC's.

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