A Technet subscription might be a useful tool at this point, Jake. It's mostly geared towards Admins but it's the cheapest way I have found to get software for getting started learning. I used it to get Server 2003, 2008, Sharepoint and Infopath all up and running for some demos. Really easy to do it all on a VM as Erwin suggested.
Active Directory is something I'm not super swift with yet, but Technet helps there a lot. I think the student rate was $249, normally $349 for a year. You might find it on sale... they offered me the student rate to renew but after I had learned what I needed for the time about SharePoint, I didn't need it any longer. The magazines that come with it are a useful resource, however, to keep handy as reference.
A Technet subscription might be a useful tool at this point, Jake. It's mostly geared towards Admins but it's the cheapest way I have found to get software for getting started learning. I used it to get Server 2003, 2008, Sharepoint and Infopath all up and running for some demos. Really easy to do it all on a VM as Erwin suggested.
Active Directory is something I'm not super swift with yet, but Technet helps there a lot. I think the student rate was $249, normally $349 for a year. You might find it on sale... they offered me the student rate to renew but after I had learned what I needed for the time about SharePoint, I didn't need it any longer. The magazines that come with it are a useful resource, however, to keep handy as reference.