evilrouters.net

Last Friday, I asked in anyone was aware of, or would be interested in, a mailing list for the discussion of topics related to CCNP certification and exam preparation. I still haven’t heard of (or found) any lists that really fit in with my idea, so I took the liberty of creating one.

A mailing list named, simply, “ccnp” has been created at FreeLists:

“…FreeLists, a service providing free, commercial-grade Internet mailing lists to all interested. Our lists are all internet and technology-related. Thus, we provide a free focal point for technology-inclined individuals and groups on the Internet. We do it all without the support of advertisements, ensuring the highest-quality mailing list experience for you and your users.”

I know (work with) the guy who runs this shop and it is a very well suited “home” for this list.

If you’re interested in participating, you may subscribe by sending an e-mail to “ccnp-request@freelists.org” with a subject of “subscribe”. You may unsubscribe by sending a mail with a subject of “unsubscribe” (and confirming your requests). I hope that this list can be a useful resource for those of us preparing for CCNP certification. As such, there are no formal rules, with one exception: I reserve the right to do whatever I want if you: spam, become annoying, post off-topic too much, etc.

After subscribing, you may post to the list by addressing your messages to ccnp@freelists.org. For those of us who like to filter these messages, you’ll notice that all posts have “[ccnp] ” prefixed to the Subject: line, making it trivial to do so. When you subscribe, feel free to send an “introduction” message (especially since I anticipate this will be a very small group at first).

Feel free to spread the word!

That’s all, see you on the list!

I’m aware of a few mailing lists for folks studying/preparing for the CCIE-level examinations, but haven’t been able to find anything useful for one working his or her way towards CCNP. I subscribe to some of the CCIE lists, but, to be quite honest, most of that stuff on the list is still way over my head.

Is anyone aware of mailing lists aimed at those working towards the various CCNP exams? Failing that, would be interested in one? If I can’t find any, I may just start one — nothing too in-depth, but basically a place where one can post questions/answers to various scenarios, study topics, etc.

iman jalali, director of sales and support at trainsignal, was nice enough to send me a free copy of their ccnp video course.

the ccnp certification training package, according to the website, contains over 50 hours of training for the bsci, bcmsn, ont, and iscw exams for the ccnp certification.

the videos are led by chris bryant, ccie, who never misses an opportunity to try to get you to visit his own website (link intentionally missing), where he sells his own training products as well. i don’t particular care for him, but i’ll try not to let that bias my opinion of trainsignal’s course as a whole. i hope to “review” it here soon.

while there’s a plethora of labs to work through if you’re preparing for cisco’s ccie examination, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot for the lower levels, specifically the ccnp (what i’m currently working on). it could very well be because i haven’t bought any of the “official” cisco press books, who knows.

regardless, i, like many others, have been making extensive use of dynamips for running labs on a pc (even though i have a stack of cisco gear sitting right next to me). it’s just easier to not have to mess with the physical cabling, plus i can take it with me (i have dynamips and dynagen set up on my macbook).

i’ve considering making up some of my own lab topologies and then creating some exercises to go along with me. there are plenty of lab topologies already available (some even with the dynagen .net file), but i haven’t found many that have actual lab exercises to go along with them.

if i were to make up some of my own (complete with visio diagrams, dynagen .net files, and exercises to work through), would there be any interest?

p.s. i don’t use gns3 so you’d have to come up with your own config files for that.

if you happen to be going to cfunited (like me) next week, be sure to read through the cfunited attendee packet — some good info in there to know ahead of time.

this will be my first time attending cfunited and my first time in washington, dc, in about 15 years. anything i should know beforehand? =)

on season one, episode 9 of “house“, the was a conversation between john henry giles and dr. gregory house that went like this:

“i know that limp. i know the empty ring finger. and that obsessive nature of yours, that’s a big secret. you don’t risk jail and your career to save somebody that doesn’t want to be saved unless you got something, anything, one thing. the reason normal people got wives and kids and hobbies, whatever, that’s because they ain’t got that one thing that hits them that hard and that true. i got music. you got this. the thing you think about all the time. thing that keeps you south of normal. yeah, makes us great. makes us the best. all we miss out on is everything else. no woman waiting at home after work with a drink and a kiss; that ain’t gonna happen for us.”

wow… that really struck a cord with me.

see, i got that one thing. for me, it’s computers. as i write this, my girlfriend is at work and has been for about the last 10 hours. i came home when she went to work and i’ve pretty much been sitting here in front of a computer since then.

i’ve caught up on some work e-mail, read up on some bgp stuff, creating and set up some mpls vpn labs in dynamips, checked myspace and facebook, etc.

it was a beautiful day outside, if the weather widget on my dashboard and the kids playing up and down the street are any indication. i wouldn’t really know though, i haven’t stepped outside since i got home about 10:30am this morning.

when the girlfriend gets here after while, she’ll have my full attention and i won’t even touch a computer until after she leaves tomorrow, but, for me, computers — networking, to be more specific — is “the one thing”.

kinda makes me wonder if i shouldn’t re-evaluate things…

it’s 3:30am and i’m surfing aimlessly. i’ve been reading a bit on “ccie candidate”. at the bottom of the “still slogging away” post, ethan writes:

“if ccie is important to you and you still have a choice, don’t get married, have kids, or buy a house until after you have your digits. the rest of you feel my pain, i have no doubt.”

the girlfriend and i have been talking a little about the future and marriage lately (nothing serious, trust me) so those words really hit me. i’m not working on the ccie just yet — eventually; have to knock out the ccnp first — but it’s definitely something i’ll keep in mind!

thanks, ethan!

the toronto star tells the story of chris avenir, a first-year student facing academic expulsion “for helping run an online chemistry study group via facebook“.

“so we each would be given chemistry questions and if we were having trouble, we’d post the question and say: ‘does anyone get how to do this one? i didn’t get it right and i don’t know what i’m doing wrong.’ exactly what we would say to each other if we were sitting in the dungeon.”

as an educator, i think ryerson university is taking this way too far (based on what i know). if there was blatant cheating going on, then by all means punish those involved. if this is, as the article says, the students were simply using the forum to “brainstorm” in groups then it is completely absurd.

i *encourage* my students to work together in groups. working together in groups in something that higher education should teach you. every one of these students will have to work together in teams once they get out into the “real world” and will have to collaborate with their peers. it should also be common knowledge that having multiple people in your group who can provide their own insights is an asset, and makes the team greater than the sum of its parts.

again, blatant academic dishonesty should be punished. from what i’ve read, however, that is not the case here.

best of luck to you, chris avenir.

jeremy works at a post-secondary educational institution. his job duties include managing high-speed fiber optic networks, administering win2k/win2k3, debian, gentoo, and rhel servers, database administration, security, and occasionally hacking on some perl or php.

he also serves as an adjunct faculty member, teaching network security courses. he is a staunch advocate of foss, is currently working towards a bachelor’s degree in information technology, and also owns a consulting company.

jeremy has been a technological swiss army knife since the oregon trail was text only. his favorite color is sushi. he has never been to the moon.