Going the Distance....??

HOW DO I GET MY FRIENDS AOL PASSWORD???

Heh, sorry im just playing around.

Anyway, here's the deal: I'm only a freshman in high school but I've been fascinated by computers for as long as I can remember. For a couple of years now I've been reading my ass off...actually there was time when I began to do bad in school because I just ignored everything but computers. So I've been reading and reading and I am better with everything than all my friends and everything, but to be honest I really don't see myself getting anywhere, and a lot of what I am reading is honestly useless. I know it takes a lot of reading and all; but I really should be somewhere by now. I see everyone on Antionline answering all these questions that I can't even ask, and I greatly admire that. I want to be able to do that. I'm willing to do whatever it takes, I'm not going to stop until I can. So i decided to try something new now. I've signed up for networking and security courses for summer and after school and the whole deal, hopefully it will give me a fresher start. Anyway I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction. Am I going about all this right? What should I do/read? Basically, ANYTHING!

Oh, I know this is a lot to ask too, but if anyone is willing to mentor or tutor or something along those lines, please notify me. [email protected]
Thanks in advance, RoyalT ::bandit::
[shadow][gloworange]Silence, is the true friend that never betrays[/gloworange][/shadow]

Quote:

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Originally posted here by RoyalT
I've signed up for networking and security courses

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woot, networking is the way to go :D

as it is, i'm in a network administration college course. right now we're playing around with windows2000 server (ugh).

anyway, if this is your first year of high school, that would make you 14, right? that's younger than what i started with all the networking and the like :(

a good place to start would be, believe it or not, gaming. well, internet gaming. or LAN parties. you have no idea how much you can learn from screwing around with IP settings at a LAN party, or setting up a small home network, or just trying to get on the internet sometimes. up until this course i'm taking, all of my computer classes added up to about 10% of my comptuer-ing knowledge. the best way to learn is through experience. actually, now that i think of it, of my five or six computer-related courses during high school, only one had anything to do with networking (it was a cisco class), and even then, it was before i was all that interested in networking. pretty much all i learned from that was a few acronyms, a bit of basic networking theory, and binary (oooh!). back then i thought something like knowing binary was a big thing. now i can speak binary :(

so, yeah. just tinker with stuff a whole lot. get a switch or a router or something if you haven't already, and then get a couple of computers on the internet. if you have dialup, sure they'll go slower, but just do it as experimentation. i can't stress actual experience enough.

and be sure to get to know the insides of a computer, too. if you like the networking, and you intend on being any sort of net admin/engineer, it'd be best for you to know that.