Hi CPAGuy:

First off I want to say kudos in considering moving or at least acquiring skills in the IT industry. Especially at the age of 38. Many people find it hard to self teach themselves a new set of skills after they've done something for many years. Kudos to you!

I recently came from a small service bureau where I was the one man IT Guy. They had a niche market providing household payroll to household employers. Their big referral partners were CPA's.

The reason I bring this up is because you could fit into this niche market. There are "special" programs that this small market uses to provide payroll provider type of service. The only problem that this market has is that the business is large enough to need a IT Guy but too small to afford a full-time let alone a part-time one. What do they do? They usually use a third party consultant for big type of projects or they usually have someone with tech savyness to fix IT issues. It's usually someone in customer service.

Though many would say this would be a bad position for you since you have little skills and no experience, but I think it would be perfect fit for you. Majority of the time you would be doing CPA stuff and a small portion of time to help desk. This small niche is growing since businesses are looking to go for local businesses than a business that is out of state. I know at least 40 - 50 small businesses that need a full-time IT Guy but can't afford one. However, they would be willing to hire a CPA / IT Guy full-time.

Take this in consideration when making this type of move. When you get into the 'IT Admin' realm or be the only IT Guy, you have agreed to an unwritten oath that many of us would wish we could change the fine print. I'm talking about 24/7 thing. When you become that guy, everyone assumes that you are available 24x7x365. It doesn't matter if its Christmas or your birthday. If the systems go down, its your responsibility to get it up and running.

The other part of the responsibility is keeping up with technology. You looked in the right place for that. TechRepublic is by far the best for news and discussions on existing and new technology coming out. Sign up for alerts and read as many articles as you can. Depending on the size of the organization you are in, you are going to be facing with a wide variety of technology.

There are many other unwritten oaths when it comes to becoming a IT Professional. I couldn't list them all if you asked me to. That would probably be a good discussion thread to start.

Good Luck in your journeys!