Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
The hardest thing when running cable is keeping it tidy. Take your time, carefully plan your routes and since you are new to this, leave yourself a little bit of extra slack (a few inches) on the ends to allow for any mistakes.
You'll be fine!
The method of learning depends on the individual - people learn better using different methods. 70-640 is a good place to start with AD although this exam is specifically aimed at 2008. If you're learning a lot from this book, it may be worth grabbing either the TrainSignal or CBT Nuggets...
Maybe check out these people - I've been looking at using products such as this for a similar project.
http://www.tp-link.com/products/productDetails.asp?class=wlan&pmodel=TL-WA901ND
Have a look around their site for alternatives, they are quite good on price too.
For learning purposes, I simply had a custom white box machine with an Athlon x64 4800 on a ASUS M2N4-SLI Board, 4GB RAM, Fanless Graphics Card, Silent CPU Fan and installed ESXi on this. The components were energy saving and the noise was 'virtually' none existant (no pun intended). This was...