I Want to Hack

Hi there! We are looking at the 5 Import functions built in to Google Sheets. There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!

Hi there! We are talking about how to create custom named functions in Google Sheets (works in Excel too). There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!

Hi there! We are talking about how to reduce errors with data validation and conditional formatting in spreadsheets this week. There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!

Hi there! We are discussing nesting functions in Google Sheets this week! There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!

Hi there! We are discussing how to add a grainy effect to our CSS backgrounds this week. Full video walkthrough and article in the links below

Hi there! We are using LOOKUP functions in Google Sheets and Excel this week! We're focused on the XLOOKUP in the pod, but all are explained in the video linked below

Hi there! We are building a dynamic daily task list in Google Sheets this week!Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials?

Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials?

Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials?

Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials?

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials?

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:A walkthrough of publishing my second digital product of the year: Sacred Geometry. I discuss my motivations for this type of design-centric product as well as describe the process I went through to create and iterate it. Also, why I made it FREE. I give my brief take on using the Gumroad platform and on my continued product & project creation for 2022. Below is the link to my blog post which was featured on Hashnode. Resources mentioned: Sacred Geometry Blog Post (featured on Hashnode!) Gumroad Platform Youtube Walkthrough of Sacred Geometry My Free Personal Finance Google Sheet P5.js Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:I have officially released Infinite Memory and submitted it to Hashnode + Netlify's Feb 2022 Hackathon. I also learned how to release a proper version of a codebase on Github which led me down a brief educational rabbit hole in Git's documentation and resulted in a short blog post as well.Resources mentioned: My Hashnode Blog Git Tags and Versioning Blog Post Git Tagging Documentation Infinite Memory Verse Site Infinite Memory Github Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Finished the freeCodeCamp Scatterplot Project! As usual, it was some small mistakes that were preventing me from passing all the tests a couple weeks ago. It always pays dividends to walk away from something (when possible) and come back with a fresh perspective!I also have some additional functionality to add to the Infinite Memory Verse Site to get it ready to submit to Hashnode's February Hackathon challenge.Resources mentioned: My Scatterplot Project My Article about the Scatterplot Project Infinite Memory Verse Site Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Finished up the memory verse vanilla js website I've been working on. Check it out. I also live streamed the recording of this podcast. Been enjoying some Twitch lately; find links to follow below!  Resources mentioned: Infinite Memory Verse Site Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:I began another scatterplot project, but then decided to spend a fair amount of time producing geometric designs in Adobe Illustrator in the same vein as line drawings I used to love doing with pen, paper and ruler. (no spirograph for me!)Resources mentioned: Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Victory is mine! I've found and corrected the error which I couldn't figure out last episode in my bar chart.Resources mentioned: D3js.org Tutorials Teacher D3 reference My completed project on CodePen freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Been having a blast learning D3 over on freeCodeCamp. I walk through an overview of my current project and what remains to complete it. Including discussion of the joy that comes from solving frustrating problems.Resources mentioned: D3js.org My current project on CodePen freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Had a ton of fun with my five year old building a spreadsheet and then learning some new stuff myself as he wanted to select multiple values using data validation. I looked up a custom script to do it, implemented it and then did a short video walkthrough of how to go about it yourself!Resources mentioned: YouTube Video Walkthrough The Custom Google Sheet (you can copy and use yourself!) Links for the coding challenge I'm doing: 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Days 4-7 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge.A quick run through of what I've been working on the past few days.Resources mentioned: D3 library MERN tutorial on MongoDB 2022 Web Developer Challenge 100 Days of Code freeCodeCamp Data Visualization Certification freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge) Tweet at me My other podcasts re-verse Sieis Soundtracks fna show Swansong I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Day 3 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge. I get excited about data visualization on the web. I've done a lot of this in spreadsheets and dabbled in Tableau during the course of Google's Data Analytics Certificate that I took last year, but it was a lot of fun to begin combining the visualizations with web development!Resources mentioned:D3 library2022 Web Developer Challenge100 Days of CodefreeCodeCampData Visualization CertificationfreeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)Tweet at meI would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:Day 2 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge. I discuss my intrinsic motivations to do this, how I'll be combining my current business background with my ongoing desire for digital entrepreneurship, and what the next 100+ days of the coding challenge will look like.Resources mentioned: 2022 Web Developer Challenge100 Days of Code freeCodeCampfreeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)Tweet at meI would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:I'm starting the 2022 Web Developer Challenge and in this episode I discuss my intrinsic motivations to do this, how I'll be combining my current business background with my ongoing desire for digital entrepreneurship, and what the next 100+ days of the coding challenge will look like.I made a Google Sheet here to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge. Make a copy and use for yourself if you'd like!I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!Episode Overview:This episode walks through how I've been structuring my web development life within my hopefully healthy life of work, family and recreation. It's already a full plate, but I do aspire to continue learning and creating, and I believe there's enough margin to do some of it all! Hugo Static Site Course Trailer & PlaylistThis Season Overview:I'm going to be trying to make money on the internet as supplementary income this year.I'll be trying out at least 7 different ways to do this including:  Software as a Service Digital Products Digital Services Traditional Products Drop Shipping Educational Products Contract Work. I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis Email me at eamonncottrell at gmail dot com

Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!I'm going to be trying to make money on the internet as supplementary income this year. I'll be trying out at least 7 different ways to do this including:  Software as a Service Digital Products Digital Services Traditional Products Drop Shipping Educational Products Contract Work. I would love to hear from you! Find me on eamonncottrell.com Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell  Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell Follow me on gitHub @sieis Email me at eamonncottrell at gmail dot com

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: HopeSome reflections and encouragement regarding Crucifying Complacency Computer Programming  Lifelong Learning Community Hope ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: ICO not ICOSome small but fun things this week so far. I do love the satisfaction of finding out how to do the little stuff. It irked me recently why my github pages site displays a generic, lame preview without any image when I share the link with anyone via text. Well, all it takes is a little Googling to figure out how to throw down the proper meta tags and link up a sweet image to fix that. Apple Technical Notes for Link Previews Favicon Generator. Simple and works like a charm.  Tripetto. Sleek functional and free form builder. Well played. Google Forms. Functional and free but not sleek. Averagely played. ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: Heat(around(the(corner)))The journey continues into algorithms in CS50, and I'm hoping to knock out a brief rebuild of my personal site using the JAMstack this weekend.Some thoughts today on finite time and the infinite possibilities in this world of computer science and web development. Staying on track while not neglecting the necessities in a full life. Harvard's CS50 (the full course) CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.) Stackbit: an outstanding addition to the Jamstack ecosystem that I discovered this past week via an episode of the JAMstack Radio podcast. ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: JMSTK'NSome things dismal; some phenomenal. And with CS50 progress still underway, a combination of the two in many cases. I have found a great intrigue with the Jamstack and specifically this past week with Stackbit, a tool to spin up jamstack sites super easily and efficiently. I powered through some difficulties in ARRAYLAND with CS50's week two assignments. And, I'm looking toward the future as a solo coder/learner hoping to find ways to collaborate with others without the luxury of a bootcamp environment. Harvard's CS50 (the full course) CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.) Stackbit: an outstanding addition to the Jamstack ecosystem that I discovered this past week via an episode of the JAMstack Radio podcast. My caesar.c code: quite satisfying after some head scratching over the mechanics of the cipher switch ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: CS50_go_timeWidely regarded as a premier introduction to computer science, my own knowledge, though currently broader in scope, will no doubt benefit from the wealth of topics and deep dives into the subject. I've been attracted to the course and the professor's dynamic teaching style for many years, and am finally going to set out what I first began in my early MOOC days. Harvard's CS50 (the full course) CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.) My credit.c code: not elegant, but it works! Hack Reactor part time remote program Galvanize scholarship ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: Static Site GeneratorsThese things are awesome. Super fast load pages with a zillion use-cases. List of Static Site Generators Hugo (which I'm currently using) GitHub Pages for hosting and deploying a simple site at [.github.io] Netlify for auto-deployment from Github or GitLab etc My GitHub Repo for the current site Current site at eamonncottrell.com ♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

♦ Connect! I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter. Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts! ♥ This week's episode: Multiple SSH Keys for GitHubI ran into an issue where I needed to push changes to a repository that was on a second GitHub account I created for a simple website project. I was receiving an error from the terminal in VS Code that I didn't have permission to do that. I had already added the SSH key to my GitHub account, but was still giving me an error. I found help in GitHub's docs by telling my computer's ssh-agent to add the newly created key, and was ultimately able to solve the problem and rejoice in my victory! :)♠ I Want to HackI Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.♣ Undertow & Eamonn I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.  I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

The long overdue 2013 debut of the podcast has arrived. I've been coding away on codecademy.com for the past 49 days. Regrettably, I failed to code yesterday, resulting in the loss of my streak. This mars nothing but my ego as it will take me nearly a full two months to surpass my current record. My streak is reset Enjoy our seventh I Want to Hack podcast episode below or in iTunes. We discuss putting some of my new coding knowledge to use behind the scenes in GoogleDocs. Subscribe for free!

Well we've received from important feedback from our listeners: we're way over their heads.Being a beginner's podcast to all things IT (or, at least some Python at this point) this is not a good thing. As such, we're dumbing the episode down a bit and trying to focus on a few poignant points rather than trying to cover a bunch of material in one fell swoop. Subscribe to the audio podcast via iTunes for free! In the sixth episode of iw2h, we discurss Python's random module as it pertains to a couple coin flipping functions.Coin flipping code discussed.Don't forget to subscribe to the show for free on iTunes!

Be sure to listen on iTunes! So we've been in a discussion sequence centered around object-oriented programming during the last few sections of Python. Among a wealth of items that orbit over my head, we have learned about creating user-defined classes. Here's what wikipedia has to say about classes.This has been excellent, albeit slow, work. Join Angela and I as we (mostly I as she is exhausted today) rant a bit about the problem set I did defining various classes in order to implement a program that has a robot clean the surface of a rectangular room. The graphical display of the program plus some of the Rectangular Room functions and class definition. I cannot take credit for the programming of the graphical representation of the cleaning robot program that was written. The Python shell that we're using comes with PyLab, a built in program that allows you to generate line graphs and other types of graphical representations while using Python. The instructors for the course actually programmed all the PyLab code for the rectangular room and robot seen above.Here's a link to the entire code that was written for your viewing reference. Subscribe to the podcast for free in iTunes! Eamonn and AngelaUser-defined classes--oh, joy!Class Behemoth attacks Eamonn and Angela with topics on object oriented programming and Eamonn's first encounter with user-defined classesno00:17:19

Here is Podcast number 4 which covers a program for which I scripted several of its items in order for it to encrypt a string of words using a Caesar Cipher and similarly to decode a string that was encrypted with a Caesar Cipher.  Part of the program to encrypt and decode Caesar Cipher messages on the right and the same program in action on the left. Subscribe to the podcast for free in iTunes!

Here's the third podcast episode featuring yours truly and my wonderful wife, Angela. We discuss the meager scraps of my first coding efforts and touch on the topics covered in the previous two blogs, hang_me and bouts of binary. Here are the links to the codes in the order they are referenced:Credit Card programTowers of Hanoi wiki and codeAnd a picture of the hangman code is in the previous blog posting Click to download in iTunes for free.

Over the course of the past nine days, I've begun the trek toward Python comprehension.Utilizing EDX's marvelous Intro to Computer Science and Programming course online, I've been introduced to the various types of programming languages, the basic architecture of computers and programs, some branching programs, iterations, guess and check algorithms, floating point accuracy and loop mechanisms. I'm a bit overwhelmed, but the problem sets after each lecture really drive home what's going on. I learn best in a trial scenario where I can actually do what has just been explained.I'm hopeful that given a few more weeks of class coupled with the beginning of a Computer Science course this Monday (surely there will be positive overlap) I'll be an aspiring Python pro. The I Want to Hack podcast will be available on iTunes very soon also; I submitted the feed today (Oct 14th) and they'll have to validate it and everything before it is live on their store.Also on the agenda this coming week will be the purchase of a Security + training book to delve into that certification. This will represent the first actual money that I'll sink into this endeavor. May the force be with you,/e

As time goes by, brevity seems more important. As such, I'll try and be as concise as possible here.I'd like to learn how to hack stuff.That's as simple as I can break it down. After meeting with an IT security professional, I've began taking steps toward this end. Today is actually day nine in my current endeavor, though I've only just begun ye ol' Blogger.I figure there are others like myself who know next to nothing about breaking into the computer tech security field, but who are also like myself intrigued by it. Well, I'm starting from scratch and documenting the journey--however far it takes me.We discussed some short and long term goals last week:Security + certification from CompTIA...this is great book knowledge type stuff that will help down the road on a resume as far as actually landing a job. I've yet to get the Security + book, but this needs to happen soon as this is something that I can begin immediately.CISSP...this one is a must have according to my friend, and in order to even get it, you've got to have something like 5 years of experience. Apparently "experience" in this case is a somewhat flexible term that many things can count toward. More shall be revealed; this too is a little ways down the road, though a definite must have for career purposes.OSCP Security...I'm perhaps most excited about when I'm ready to tackle this bad boy. This is a very hands on security certification that cost about $1100 for the online class and 90 days of the lab. At the end of it, you are tested by hacking into a network over a period of 24 hours. The deeper you get, the better you score. Very cool. Programming...I've always wanted to learn a computer language, and if I'm going to pursue this security stuff, now is the time to go ahead and do that. He suggested Ruby on Rails or Python.MOOC...this stands for Massive Open Online Courses. In essence, they are totally free university courses from big time names like MIT, Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford hosted on sites such as edx.org, coursera.org and udacity.com. Can't believe I'd never heard of this until now actually. As fate would have it, MIT has an introductory programming course via edx.org on the Python language that started Oct 3rd and an introductory Computer Science course that starts on the 15th. I've enrolled in these and a few others, but for the sake of completion, I am committed to these two for now.Tons of specialized GIAC training from SANS. This stuff is incredibly costly, though there are some ways to help out at conferences for a discounted rate. After getting my feet wet, I'll consider delving further into these options.Formal Schooling...we talked a bit about Masters Programs for security. There are significant scholarships available for this through the government that are bound to agreements to work for the government for x amount of time upon graduation. Pretty good deal. Norwich and James Madison Universities both have online Masters programs.Quite the handful of items to consider. Thus far, the EDX Python course has proved to be pretty cool. The EDX site is extremely well put together. Very minimalist layout that works well. I'll be producing an accompanying podcast to this blog on a weekly basis. Both of which will serve simply to follow me, a noob to InfoSec, on my journey into the unknown.May the force be with you,/e