So I've been out of programming for....years. I was an avid C++ programmer when I was like in 9th grade...of course that was pretty basic stuff then, but then I kind of dropped off the boat. I recently picked up Python, and I love the verbage of it, but I can never really seem to get anywhere with it either. I was wondering if you guys knew of any good tutorials/books that aren't annoyingly long that would give me a quick intro to stuff without starting at "Hello World" and 2+2=4 stuff.

Also, wondered what kinda netbook would be best for Pentesting with Backtrack. I've always been a fan of the 3e, but I'm not as confident in my advanced hardware knowledge as I'd like to be so I thought I'd drop a line...

Thanks