Career wise is programming or system administration better

Most of my employment skills are working help desk and technical support for xbox, cable company and FedEx online. I have good knowledge on Windows Xp, 7, server 2008 is pretty easy. Have been trying to do Linux certification as I signed up for Linux + but it's been a hard learning curve and a bit of a nightmare. I will finish course and succeed in it but I am looking for developing a path that will in this next year get me into a new career and give me very valuable skills in that timeframe. I had interest in programming careers as I see there is especially a lot of career potential in mobile apps and web services/development. I only really have skills on programming side with some HTML and XML, had interest in PHP. I want to work on a server support role and web services has definitely been where my dream of being in IT career began. I just ended up working more in help desk and did network administration in tech school and college but sometimes still wondered and want to know how to work in a Web support/services role or deal with like Apache server and etc.. Would anyone suggest I learn more programming and do languages as PHP, Python or some JavaScript , Ruby on Rails or do system administration like Linux+ and MCSE? What do you think the best strategy is as well on timeframe to master these areas enough to be at least in a mid level career? What is the path to server and web services support? Please help me find best path for me to go?