It's not easy, and they don't play nice. If you are going to do futures I'd suggest picking up
John Carters book Mastering the Trade, and a good book on technical analysis. Carter has some good strategies that may or may not work well with your personality, thats for you to decide.
Learn how to read the tape, check out the videos on this site you will learn a lot of invaluable things there. Just remember, you will not be trading the e-minis but you will be trading other traders. They think that way, and you must as well if you don't want to get bullied around and thrown out.
One other thing, download E-Signal and make sure you can look at the futures. Then create a setup that you like, find out the pivot points (there are calculators here) and watch the Trin, Tick, Put/Call ratio, etc. This way before you create an account you are familiar with how the price moves, how it acts at various important levels, etc.
And Interactive Brokers will let you trade futures. So will Trade Station, but I believe you have to be considered an active trader for at least 2 years.