From the editor: We're sharing below a letter and addendum from Christian Diaz, this blog's unofficial Information Technology advisor. The links he provided should each share an email address providing additional information.
| Oct 14, 2025, 11:11 PM (5 hours ago) | |||
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Hello Mr. Barton,
You asked me about learning resources for IT. Here are some.
Link - A set of roadmaps or flowcharts for somewhat guided learning. Each box or stop is its own chapter or set of links to resources to learn before moving onto the next step. There's a whole lot of careers there.
Link - A lab-as-a-software solution for running any number of computers within a computer--better known as a '(type 2) hypervisor' which runs 'virtual machines'. Really, you run one and it's as though it's booting up a PC yet as a window in your PC. You can save them while they're on/off, make copies, mess them up, and restore them to any point of any tree you build of saves. Useful for experimenting and learning in an easy to restore environment--for example, to run risky commands or hacking a 'box' (VM or PC).
Link - If you have a spare computer--I recommend ThinkCentres or any 64-bit laptop--check out Proxmox. It's a (type 1) hypervisor--meaning, it's an operating system made just for running virtual machines.
Link - A lot of tutorials for running servers and the different parts of it. They keep a lot of stuff that mentions older software, but that generally doesn't matter because whatever it's talking about can still work for what it was and still is.
Link - A buyer's catalogue for VPS or Virtual Private Servers. Basically, cheap online servers for rent. Maybe useful when you want to run an email or website or game server--whatever, it's a server, and you pick the resources you want and where, etc, and it spits a list that you can sort by column/value of some aspect like cost or RAM or storage space, etc.
Link - In my opinion, the best domain name registrar. You buy .com's or whatever TLD there. TLD are 'Top Level Domains', and those are the .com .org .net and so on. Do stay away from godaddy, please.
Link - A comprehensive list of TLDs and registrars.
Link - Cisco Packet Tracer. This is for emulating networks and practicing with their routers and switches. The software itself is free, and a lot of lessons are too though not all. You'll probably want to use a book and make up your own experiments.
Link - A lot of times, you'll want to have access to resources to get books or software, and this is one means to attain it. This is a megalist of esteemed pirated resources made by the community at large. I'm sharing it because the best learning resources are often books, and you'll want to get those as reference guides for some fundamental aspects.
Link - You'll want to be using this if you're pirating. Free VPN services are generally trash. This link is to a cashback site that I've used to get PIA or Private Internet Access for free. Read the fine print on the instructions. You have to buy it a certain way and provide certain info and wait a certain amount of time to get your money back--like three months. PIA got bad press because a board member is former Mossad, another was a convicted hacker, and the company formerly used to sell spyware legitimately. I think that's like saying you shouldn't hire a former assassin as a bodyguard because 'they used to kill people so what would they know about protecting someone'. Not only that, but they've been taken to court by the FBI and PIA really doesn't keep logs, so they had nothing to provide. It's perfectly fine for non-state-security uses, I figure. Anyway, use a service that has port forwarding if you're going to torrent as it opens up access to connecting to other users.
(Note: Technically, VPN or Virtual Private Network is something anyone can build, say with a VPS. It's just an link (or tunnel) that simulates a network connection--not even necessarily encrypted. Colloquially, people mean to refer to these no-log privacy services, but that's not strictly what a VPN is.
Link - A book reader. Nothing special except that it opens all sorts of formats.
You were asking about cybersecurity stuff, and like I said before, that's something you evolve into from a combination of other skills where someone might find a different path that's more interesting. As you'll see on the reddit links and forum posts, it's not something that you start as because it includes a lot of other domains that you'll have to work up from such as networking, for example. It itself isn't a skill, it's a combination of kills that collectively make up 'cybersecurity'.
Having said that, there are some resources that jump more directly into that:
Check out Metasploit and books for that. Check out TryHackMe and HackTheBox.
Honestly, cyber security isn't really my domain. I work 'blue team' (defenders), not 'red team' (hackers)--and even then, not really, I'm still more into System and Network Administration and a touch of Cloud. You'll see 'red/blue team' often in cybersecurity industry talk.
Job-wise advice: I'm not real successful in this department, but I have listened to a lot of advice. If you want to know what's in demand, you look for job listings such as on Indeed (though you'll want to look for more) by searching starting with something like 'computer' or 'technician' or whatever software or skill listed in one of the bubbles on the roadmap flowcharts, and collect more words to look for and then use that journey as a guide to see what's 'really' in demand at whatever current time. Sort listings by date because a lot are 'ghost jobs' that are fake listings to collect data/resumes. Real jobs don't usually have them up for long. Truly though, as everyone always says about any career, 'it's all about networking/who you know'--as it always has been.
You'll have to learn CLI or Command Line Interface. This often means BASH for Linux or PowerShell for Windows. Those are the kind of things you'll want to find books for. I recommend that when learning Linux terminal to get used to using tmux and an editor like vim, nano, emac early on. Tmux is a multiplexer which is basically to split one command window into multiple panes and windows (layers/pages, if you will); you also use it so that things keep running when you disconnect form a server because if you don't, whatever you had open as the connecting user gets closed out. There's more to it, but it's really convenient if you're stuck remote controlling in an environment that's strictly CLI.
Regards,
| 1:01 AM (3 hours ago) | |||
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A couple of things that need mentioning:
Seriously, besides soft skills, IT is almost entirely made up of looking stuff up. RTFM was a common saying. Forums are around and meetups are great, but you're expected to make best effort to search for content on your own--a lot.
I figure that's going to have to be developed by some kind of goal or motivation--even if it's purely for solving puzzles or learning for the sake of it or fixing something that was messed up in the process of trying to do something else.
For example, a common 'right-of-passage' is setting up a Minecraft server. That requires some networking and command line if it's going to be on Linux. Where would you start? Would you notice if there's tools for that? If you run into problems, will you look for posts about the topic first? That's not to press upon this particular idea--it's just one of many.
Another link that your kid might like is: https://www.allkeyshop.
Stay away from accounts like 'steam accounts' for sale--just keys--and be sure to check the details and region or country locations that are allowed to activate a given key.
If you really want to keep to legitimate books and whatnot of hot topics, there's also https://www.humblebundle.
Regards,
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