I just spent $160 for computer training books. Should I bother?

One on Windows Server 2003

One on Group Policies (seems easy enough despite its size... like me)

One on Windows scripting


Or should I work on a different career?

Or should I return the books, apply the money to my credit card bill, and hope I can scrape by without any server credentials for the next 2 years? :D

Or are there alternatives?

train one to 'sit' or 'play dead.' But I don't think you'll ever train it to 'roll-over,' 'fetch' or 'beg.'

and have done before. If you are starting from scratch, get a 180 day eval version of Windows Server 2003 to actually do things on a real system. If you have been doing the job, it's probably a push, but the books tend to bring out little gems and shortcuts. Finally, no matter what, you got to keep on doing it. You'd be surprised at how much your memory loses when you don't do things frequently.If you are learning, nothing will teach you better than actually doing the tasks.

a trial CD and am now playing around with it.

The books will be of assistance; but I will probably return the scripting and/or group policy book.

I just hope I can put all this to proper use...

and have done before. If you are starting from scratch, get a 180 day eval version of Windows Server 2003 to actually do things on a real system. If you have been doing the job, it's probably a push, but the books tend to bring out little gems and shortcuts. Finally, no matter what, you got to keep on doing it. You'd be surprised at how much your memory loses when you don't do things frequently.If you are learning, nothing will teach you better than actually doing the tasks.

Of course, there's the upside of being FREE!!!! and the downside of having to read on a screen, but if you need to sit at the computer and tinker to learn this stuff anyhow, tabbing back and forth from text to work would not be so bad.

depriving the original author of what is obviously a lot of work?

Also, one book comes with the Server 2003 resource kit. Definitely more than a downloadable 2000 page manual...

It is 'free', but it isn't.

say you DL five books on the subject. One immediately proves to be crap and you delete it. Two you turn to for thier clear and concise answers very often and you wind up both buying them and reccomending them to others. The guy who writes crap doesn't get any of your money, but those who do get both your custom and your praise. I like to think of it as a free trial, I try things I might not have risked money on and grow to love and spread the word about some records, movies, etc. I still buy stuff I like a lot but I spare myself the bother of buying something only to discover is sucks monkey nuts and I can't return it once it's opened.

I know people can and do go round and round on the ethics of file sharing, I just thought I'd point out the possibility if you hadn't considered it.

And the books I bought weren't in the list.

Besides, I did read them (and others) for 30+ minutes at Borders; while one book had 800 more pages, the one I bought seemed to be more concise and clear - and had topics pertaining to backing up.

Hope your efforts at professional development pay off. It isn't a very large investment, you'd pay more for tuition and books (to say nothing of a parking pass and other miscellaneous expenses) for even a single community college class, if that helps to put it in perspective any.