Networking information

There are some sites such as www.zdnet.com that you can look at, but the best thing you could do is get a good book on networking and study it. Then, you can use different sites on the net to enhance what you've learned, instead of trying to learn everything from the net. As far as a good book, most books that prepare you for either Microsoft's Networking Essentials exam or the Network+ exam will help you a great deal. Hope this helps.

http://www.3com.com/smallbusiness/index2.htmlhttp://www.cisco.com/public/solution_overviews.shtml

The above 2 sites should help you out you don't mention what your skill level is or how large a network you want to build.

The CISCO and 3Com sites should help you out.
One big thing to remember if you have a small network look for Hubs Switches Routers etc... that have livetime warantees and that are expandabe if you think you may ever need to grow. Don't forget to get on the mailing lists for all the free seminars you can find in your area.....

In addition to zdnet (excellent site!) you are also using another great tool right now which is this TechRepublic site. Subscribe to their tips or list serves for additional information. Novell and Microsoft both have a wealth of information on networking, and both also have e-mail subscriptions available. Also try training sites (some are free) such as gocertify.com, cramsession, and comptia for more information.

ALthough you don't give a whole lot of information, you could start with the major vendors: Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, 3Com, etc.. It may require some digging, but you should be able to find the information you're looking for. As far as generic sites, with more generic info, there are thousands - too many to try and list. Some are good; most are crap - stick with the major ones.

websites like tomshardware would have something like that

You could try http://www.nwfusion.com. That's NetWork Fusion.com. They have many resources available to Pros and beginners. Good luck.

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As a former-aspiring-network-engineer, I've seen a few goodies that hackers of any hat color enjoy. Be familiar with these tools.
Some good ones to start with are:

nmap - network mapper and port discovery tool
(start out with one with a GUI like Zenmap or nmapFE or you'll be lost in the beginning).
http://insecure.org

WireShark - packet sniffer
(Did you know that many IMs pass data in unencrypted HTML?)
http://www.wireshark.org/

Kismet - wireless packet sniffer/network analyzer
http://www.kismetwireless.net/

The list goes on, but this should be handy:
http://nmap.org/images/wash-post-nsa.jpg (You might have to squint.)

Another good reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_test

And finally, if you really want to get into it, check out the Black Hat conferences, and try lurking in some of the freakier IRC rooms (No, I don't know them. I'm just a guy who put his Cisco certs on hold to keep a steady job.)

Back to reality and white collar jobs:
I encourage taking the CCNA, CISSP courses as the principles presented, while flavored for Cisco, are applicable in any environment.
Security + from CompTIA is also a must.
As far as programming, do as you like, but as an aside, NOD32 (renowned as one of the badassest AntiViruses out there) is written in pure Assembler. I recommend healthy doses of C and C++ (especially in the GNU arena) as they're generally considered tighter and faster than most other languages (because most other languages either started out their lives as scripting languages for interpreters or take cross-compatibility to extents that speed and size-constraints are sacrificed).

Best of luck, friend.