I work in a data center in New Orleans, and so I am fairly familiar with this topic. Of course they're vulnerable. If you live in a region like this you better have a well thought coop/dr plan. We have a hot Site an actually migrate production services there several times before hurricane season and testing services there is part of our development/test process before things go into production. Outside of that, our building was designed to withstand a category 5 storm but the biggest problem is power. We are good for 72 hours on fuel for our generator, but if a Katrina size storm hit again refueling could become problematic. Also, there are personnel issue (evacuation orders, etc). If im at a small data center (relative to amazon/fb/etc) I would have to guess they are already all over this.

I would look to pattern some of the many programs out there already. * Cover the highlights from A+ - Going over the highlights of hardware and actual function is a good place to start. Explain the basics, and potentially let them build a computer From the roll into the OSI / TCP-IP models - After learning how a computer works physically, rolling into the logical is well... logical. * Cisco ICND1 - This covers basic routing and switching, IP addressing, DNS, protocols, packets, frames, and a host of other stuff. * BASIC programming - I took this class in 10th grade 20 years ago, and probably took more away from it that I use now than any other class from high school. This provided the foundation to lead to analytical problem solving and understanding computer logic. I haven't written a program in BASIC since then, and it is still one of the best classes I've taken. I would also agree with one of the previous posters, I don't see the value of a hard text on this, it would definately be easier to keep current, as well as being more relevant if it was available online.

packetnews.com... My favorite irc search engine. Not quite as user friendly as bit torrent, but gets the job done, and has irc has been relatively unchecked with all the latest in copyright infrigement. Sad, still relying on the same program I used a decade ago.

For those of us who live in the desert (outside of Palm Springs). When its 120 in the summer, the already enjoyable experience of sitting at stop light can be coupled with the AC kicking out smoldering hot air. I'm sure those with small children won't mind...