Tons of Answers at Networkers

Cert questions answered, lunch, wireless, and meet the engineer

I got a lot of answers this week. In some cases, the questions were pretty pretty central to the world of Cisco certs, in other cases having to do with networking in general. Most importantly, the Folks from Learning@Cisco answered a lot of the questions we collected in this blog last week. So, while I have some time on the plane testing out the new Wi-Fi service, It seemed a good time to add one more post about Networkers.

1) using the CNET bandwidth tester, the wifi on my Delta flight back home registered 1.2MBps. I was impressed. Wonder what it will be when people start using it a lot. Anyone else out there tried it yet?

2) way cool story. After last week's post, where you offered your ideas of what to ask the cert folks at Cisco, I heard from them. I sat for 30 minutes asking most of the questions (I ran out of time) listed in that post. Details to follow in the next few posts.

3) Cisco added a new feature to the show this year called Table Topics. It is way cool in my admittedly nerdy opinion. Ever go to a trade show and eat a meal at a table with a bunch of strangers? Some folks don't want to talk, you may not want to when others attempt to be polite, and it can be a little weird. So, Cisco set aside a lunch area each day. There were about 30 tables and topics. You walk in to lunch, pick a topic from a list, get food, and sit. Each table comes with someone from Cisco who knows the topic, and you can chat with them and others who care. I had a couple of informative conversations during the week as a result - conversations I'd never have had otherwise.

3.5) please excuse typos from here forward. I'm doing this post on my IPad directly into the web site, and I can't scroll down to what I typed below any more. It's all part of a "use IPad instead of laptop" test.

4) meet the Engineer - at least I think that's the title - is a similar program in some small ways to the table topics. It's not new, but one of the presenters was pushing it, saying that they we re sometimes didn't have enough people stopping by. Its not new this year, but prerry cool. Cisco sets up an area with a ton of white boards, divided again into topic areas. You show up, tell the folks up front what you want to discusss, and they hook you up with an engineer or two. Have a design you're considering? Get it reviewed. Have questions from a session that didn't get answered? Follow up there. Go any direction you want. I filled in some holes on how campus design is changing, and I got some insight on IOS mechanics with licensing that fits into the whole "list of certain questions" thing. It was very useful.

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