CCENT

Me a Blogger? Okay - First. Thanks Wendell

TX858 — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:40:31 -0400

I want to thank Wendell and give a big thumbs-up to his books published by Cisco Press. I studied another author in 2000 and passed the old CCNA. I spent the next 4 years working Windows/Novell projects and didn't touch a router or switch so my cert expired. I decided about 3 months ago to re-certify (is that a word?) and quickly realized that the new CCNA exam is much different than the old one - much more in-depth and added content. Aside from the OSI model and basic CLI commands, I felt completely lost. So I asked around regarding what texts were best and Wendell's were highly recommended. I ended up buying his CCNA Pack (ICND1 and ICND2 texts) and I bought a "combo" book written by the author I used back in 2000.

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Get Smart about CCNA Security – Part 2 of 2

wendell — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:28:29 -0400

(Wendell here - Kevin's wrapping up today on CCNA Security - thanks, Kevin!) Kevin Wallace, CCIE #7945, CCSI, CCSP, CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, is a full-time instructor of Cisco courses for SkillSoft Corp. and is an author of several Cisco Press titles. Kevin’s Cisco experience spans 19 years and includes positions as a Network Design Specialist for Walt Disney World and as a Network Manager for Eastern Kentucky University.

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CCNA Security Posts from the Guy Who Wrote (part of) the Book

wendell — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:28:32 -0400

Wendell here. I've asked Kevin Wallace to take a few posts to discuss CCNA Security. Please fire away all the questions you have on this new cert! Thanks...

Kevin Wallace, CCIE #7945, CCSI, CCSP, CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, is a full-time instructor of Cisco courses for SkillSoft Corp. and is an author of several Cisco Press titles. Kevin’s Cisco experience spans 19 years and includes positions as a Network Design Specialist for Walt Disney World and as a Network Manager for Eastern Kentucky University.

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Chat Next Tuesday, CCDE Lab, New CCNA Web Site, Etc

wendell — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:18:51 -0400

When writing books, I have to stick to the topic. Blogging (supposedly) can be whatever's on your mind - quite a different beast. Today, I'm hitting a lot of small topics on a brief ramble.

First, I'll be doing a chat session for Network World on Tuesday the 8^th at 2PM Eastern US time. Join in the fun, ask whatever's on your mind. Or, go to http://www.networkworld.com/chat/ and queue up your question now. The official topic is " Cisco certs and Building a Home Lab", but I'll listen to anything that makes it through the content filters.

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The New CCNAs: All Carrot, No Stick

wendell — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:48:21 -0400

I mentioned Wednesday in this blog that Cisco announced three new CCNA exams this week at Networkers: CCNA Voice, CCNA Security, and CCNA Wireless. On the flight down to Orlando, I was pondering the question "why". Turns out that my #1 guess as to why was the main reason I heard from Cisco when I asked at the booth this week. But, just as importantly, I thought is was important to consider what the new certs are not supposed to be.

First on what it's not: It's not a new requirement on Channel Partners. Normally, cert changes have some requirements on Channel Partners, which then results in more time/expense, but no such requirement exists in this case. (Well, at least for today. Never know down the road. That's just me thinking out loud, by the way.)

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CCNA Home Lab: Survival Guide

Cloudy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:48:00 -0400

I never thought building a well-balanced home lab would be so challenging. Sure, anybody can buy a 2500 router and have at it, but to put together multiple routers and switches for CCNA and have a starter lab for CCNP is more work than I thought. So this blog will be about my practical, ongoing experiences in trying to build this lab and is geared towards arming you, the aspiring CCNA, with practical information about facing the challenges of doing so. Just FYI, I began my self-study for the 640-802 exam about 3 weeks ago (June 1 2008) so I'm just getting started as well, but have already learned that a lot of the issues I'll mention here are not addressed anywhere in a single place that I could find.

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Cisco Expands CCNA

wendell — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:37:34 -0400

It was a Networkers 1998 - Philadelphia, I believe - where Cisco first announced CCNA to the general public. Now, 10 years later at Networkers 2008 (aka Cisco Live), Cisco is announcing some major additions to CCNA.

I'm going to repeat this a few times so there's no question: the existing CCNA is NOT changing per Cisco's announcement this week. What is changing is that Cisco is expanding the CCNA program, adding three new certifications that have the CCNA name:

CCNA Voice
CCNA Wireless
CCNA Security

Good old 10 year old CCNA keeps the same name.

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IPv6 Addressing – Do You Choose to Practice?

wendell — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:45:47 -0400

Friday I posed an open-ended IPv6 addressing question. Today I'll start working towards the solution - but more importantly, I want to find out whether you personally, if you were preparing for the CCNA exam, would want to read/study IPv6 address (only), or whether you would also feel the need to practice IPv6 commands on gear/sim/Dynamips.

Before you answer, let me tell you an assumption I'd like to make when working through this: let's take Cisco's exam topics at face value. If you look at the CCNA and ICND2 exam topics, you'll see the following (quoting http://www.cisco.com/):

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Networkers Giveaway only for nww.com blog readers

wendell — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:46:35 -0400

I promise I'll get to the next post on IPv6 Wednesday sometime. It's been unusually hectic of late, as opposed to normally hectic. But before I whine any more, on to the non-technical purpose of today's blog entry: if you're at Networkers next week, you'll see lots of giveaways from Cisco Press at the bookstore - and this blog is the only place we're announcing one of the giveaways.

Here's the deal. You get a bunch of books if you win (somewhere more than 1, but less than 10, TBD). To enter, you have to stop by the bookstore between 3-4PM local on Tuesday, June 24^th, to enter the drawing.

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Back to the CCNA: IPv6

wendell — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:22:22 -0400

Way back a few weeks ago, when I had wrapped up the CCNP lab series, I asked via survey what CCNA topics you'd most want me to talk about in the blog. The top vote getter was IPv6. I had planned on getting back to basics a bit, picking a topic, offering some sample questions, and doing some CCNA exam prep topics here in the blog.

At the same time, there were more than a few requests for me to write more about labs and gear, and particularly about the whole "now that I bought the gear, what do I do with it" thing. So, I'm going to try and weave the two together, and we'll see how things go.

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All Hands-on Cisco Exam: Negates Brain Dumps?

wendell — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:54:46 -0400

Wow, I wrote my last post on a bit of a whim, and we got a great discussion going. Less than 10% of us think it'd make the Cisco Associate and Professional exams worse by moving to completely CLI tests. More surprising to me was that close to 70% thought that an all CLI test improved their chance of passing, with only 16% thinking it would decrease their chance of passing. Also, around 30% of you through that a 75 minute exam could hold 15 or more Sim/Simlet questions!

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The New Cisco Exams – All Questions Require the CLI

wendell — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:23:27 -0400

Don't panic. Don't rejoice. Don't send John Chambers a letter. But at the end of the post, I wanna know - did the title make you think "hoorah" or "oh @%$&"?

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A Sample CCNA/CCENT Study Plan

wendell — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:06:24 -0400

We've got several hurdles to overcome in getting better at passing exams. Our survey from a few weeks ago confirmed that the #1 hurdle is the time crunch. At the same time, another survey told us that about half of us think that you've been most successful on your exams when you've done more detailed planning of what you will do during your study time.

I'm convinced that the two are linked: a detailed plan makes you more productive when you do get to study, and that's especially true when you might need to set aside your studies for several days at a time.

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Components of a CCNA Study Plan

wendell — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:48:51 -0400

The last few posts, I've been focusing on our collective progress with passing Cisco exams this year, and what's holding us back. It appears that the planning more deeply - beyond just picking the exam and buying the right study resources - can certainly speed up the study process as well as make us all more successful in passing the exam. So, it seems appropriate that I spend a little time talking about the specifics of a plan.

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A Failure to Plan Means… What?

wendell — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:27:19 -0400

Last Tuesday's post and survey has had enough time to cook, so today I'm going to continue that thread, summarize some of the feedback, and talk about why some of us (me included) aren't quite making the progress we'd hoped to make this year.

First, to the data. As a quick reminder, last Tuesday I asked how you had done this year in your actual progress towards your planned Cisco certs, versus the progress you had hoped to make so far. So, let's start with a general characterization of the data to date:

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What Makes You Lose Sleep Before the Exam?

wendell — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:32:14 -0400

Exam day is approaching, and you're getting your last few study periods in before taking the test. The pressure builds - ok, it's not like passing the bar, or your last shot at passing your PhD orals, or taking the CPA exam for the 5^th time - but it's still pressure. So, what's keeping you up at night? What one topic is giving you the most trouble? What's just not making sense in spite of what you read or study? Or what topic did you finally have to give up on for now, hoping you don't see too much on that topic on your exam?

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2008 Resolutions – Where are You? (Surveys)

wendell — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:21:38 -0400

Bad, bad Wendell. Zero progress on my cert goals this year. How about you?

Back in January, I posted about our collective new year's resolutions regarding certification. We had a pretty healthy response on the survey as to what certifications you each planned for 2008. I promised then to help in an ever so slight way by asking you each quarter about your progress. Hopefully, stopping for a few minutes to consider your current progress will be worth the time. So... how's your progress?

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Introduction and Purpose

jer0886 — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:00:01 -0400

Well, hello! My name is Jeremy Cioara; welcome to my corner of Network World's Cisco Subnet for the month of May! Before I get to blogging, I'd like to give you a brief introduction, then talk about my purpose here.

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When do CCNPs actually get their hands on routers, switches?

wendell — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:25:36 -0400

I'm back! The beach was great - high 80's every day, beautiful weather, plenty of sun - just what the doctor ordered. But I returned to a surprise about one of the surveys I left in the previous posting - that around 50% of the folks that responded as "pursuing CCNP" said that less than 25% of their current job required them to work on routers and switches.

Frankly, the stats surprised me. Maybe it shouldn't have surprised me, and maybe everyone's ahead of me on this observation. So, today I'm going to make a few guesses about CCNP and job progressions, and ask all of you to give me your ideas regarding your current and hopefully future job roles.

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Vote Today, One More Site, and Other Rambles

wendell — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:31:00 -0500

Today I'm going on a bit of a ramble with a couple of topics - including a good site for perspectives before taking some of the Cisco cert exams, and a mention of another survey about time.

First, thanks to Dave Schulz for subbing for me last week and giving us some info about possibilities for a CCVP lab. Thanks again!

Next, if you've not done so already, check out the article by Jim Duffy and Linda Leung. It lists 20 sites useful for Cisco networking folks. I learned about a lot of new sites from the post.

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