Hi guys..ive already cmpleted my ccna..wana do ccna security...plz guys send me some study materials..plzzz..im preparing this course on my own..it wud be rily nice if i could have smefing to study...

Dear Jon Hartman;
I am studying CCNA security 640-553, would you please send me any study materials to pass the exam? My mail:kalkidan5033@yahoo.com
Many thanks in advance!

Congratulations !
I took and passed this exam. Here’s a post of my experience: http://blog.ccna-security.net

Just put up a forum for people to vent about their sony horror stories at http://sonyiscrap.com

Good for people to know.

Sensei, I think it all depends on your family and what you want your kids to see. If you are going to forbid your kids to do something, then you have to forbid your kids from seeing their friends as well. SOme parents don't care about what their kids do, and some do. I take a sensable approach to playing games with my child. The games we play, are based on the ratings, and I play them first. He is a young teen so he can play all rated "T" games, but if he wants play "M" games, I have to be there to enter the password. Which means - I play with him. I see what he is doing, and I can stop it at any time if he is doing something besides playing the game.

Do I think some games are off limits? Yeah. The Blood and Gore of Doom 3 and things like that are horrible for a teenager. I can play them, Heck I played Doom 2 for so many countless hours. It is that I am an adult and I can handle those games. A young teen might not be able to handle them as well as I can. Games like GTA are horrible. I am pretty open minded, but what those games are about just does not appeal to me. Yeah the technology is cool in a lot of ways, but still, shesh, I have seen the same engine and stuff in a "spider-man" game, which, while you still beat people up, and do tasks, you don't have to find the prostitues and drugs.

Games can be fun, if you play them together, use it as entertainment, not the default entertainment. What I mean is that if you use games as a reward for things, then it is not a "given" that I am done with everything it is time to go play video games. We have rules that in the house about what has to be done, then when you are done with all of that, I am free and he is free, then we play together. So it usually is after dinner, and only usually 2-3 nights a week. Other than that, we are busy doing things, or he is gone with friends, etc.

Overall I think they are constructive, as they teach critical thinking, creativity, logical thinking, problem solving skills (depending on the variety of the game, depends on the complexity). Games like the Lego Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars games are AWESOME. Having to figure out the puzzels and get all the stuff is hours worth of work. I have spent countless hours playing those games. Why? I have played most the levels multiple times, but you want to get all the achievements. The challenges. Yeah, once you know how to do it, it becomes second hand, but that little bit of something else to do, is something that just makes you want to do it all over again. I have seen my nephew (who was 4 at the time) able to solve these levels. Critical thinking at its best.

I think you just need to know the audience, what they can handle, and play to their strengths. Everyone is different. If they are mature, then let them at something less tame. If they cannot handle it, bring them back down. There are several games that can be played. The old Mario worlds are Awesome for kids.

hi, Sensei

i have recommend this article on my blog.

great job. :)

I agree, I have never had a tech support issue (as I never called Sony Tech Support), but I have had many problems with Sony products, and it's nice to find people who feel my pain

I used to own Sony products that worked fine, I had 2 Discmans, a Trinitron television, and a PS2 (which for the most part, served it's purpose just fine, until the DVD-ROM drive failed), and I have a PSP which I haven't had many problems with, but lead to problems with other Sony hardware it connected with

My first Sony mistake I purchased was a Sony Vaio, I got at Vaio in order to burn some home videos to DVD, so I got the computer out of the box, set it up, booted it, collected some video to burn to a DVD, launched Click to DVD, uploaded some video, and right during conversion, Click to DVD froze, then crashed, and this happened every time I tried, I also played some games on it, and when installing Direct X 9.0c, some of the games I had working before stopped working

My second Sony mistake was a LocationFree player, when I got my PSP, after some firmware updates, I noticed they had an option for LocationFree player, I thought it would be a good idea to watch the shows I recorded on my DVR on my PSP anywhere, so I wouldn't have to be at my TV to watch what I recorded, and to share it with friends, well, it worked fine in my house, but when trying to access it from the internet, it would fail to connect, and the LocationFree said everything was set up correctly

My third Sony mistake was the Sony PS3, I got the PS3 so I would be able to watch Blu-Ray movies and play HD games, now I with all the problems I have been having with the PSN's video download feature (PS3 registration), and the problems I am having in Linux because of HyperVisor, I now regret that I have even gotten the PS3, I think I should of gotten the Xbox 360 instead, and HD-DVD should of won the format war (Blu-Ray didn't include some really great features the HD-DVD had)

While in general, I agree with your analysis, I have to say I don't know if the active/standby is always the best in the situations you represent. Lets say you have a website such as frys.com, hosted at a single hosting environment. While redundant links, etc. are required, and proper capacity planning are also in place, having those servers (as you said, sunk costs) sitting there, limiting the usage is just crazy. Why have servers running at 50% or less cpu, but not put the others in the cluster to work as well. This way you can take down some for patching, etc. and you will not kill off the entire traffic load.

While active/standby is attractive on several levels, active/active is attractive as well in terms of the customer experience. It all depends on what level you are looking at. If you are looking at a pure networking level, or from an application and maintenance perspective, A/A clusters get a bit more attractive.

Again - each Business Case is unique, and this is why the architects get their money for developing systems :)

@mordred - Wasn't sure if it was a step back, since I'm working on the jump from CCNP to CCIE, but it was a good experience.

@CiscoDisco - I'm always hesitant to recommend practice test vendors, because I've seen two sides of them. On one hand, you have ones like TestKing that have ridiculous amounts of questions, many of which are outdated and many others with wrong answers.

I actually like those, because you get an idea of the intensity, yet still have to know your stuff. I've run across unscrupulous ones from another vendor that basically are the test itself, which ends up stealing credibility from everyone.

As for the sample ones I used, there were ones on the CCNA prep center, and some other ones from various vendors that you can locate with a google search. It was 10 questions here, 10 questions there.

The lab questions were clear enough if you knew where to look for them. I had some parts where I could have sworn the information should have been there and it wasn't. That's when I noticed that the smaller resolution screen generated some horizontal scroll bars. ;)

Hi,
I think all that matters is that you know the stuff. Scoring less or more is not a 100% clue to ones abilities.

You wrote about "practice test vendors". Were they to some extent useful?

Also "CCNA prepcenter". Were the VPN and AAA questions helpful. If you would post the link, it would be great.

Finally the Simulation- LAB - SDM Questions, were they clear enough? I read many threads people complaining about it.

Thnks for your input.

Regards
CD

Congrats ... you are getting there :)

@Mordred - Good point on the hardware lock-in. I'd make a comparison between Sony and Apple, but at least Apple produced a product with with such an awesome interface (cough)iPhone(cough) that that no phone manufacturer has caught up yet.

@Grant - I'm with you on the quality point. I've since replaced my DVD burner with an HP, since the Sony ended up later flaming out.

Casino 49460ce065
Casino 49460ce065

I disagree that Sony's "quality is usually great". It used to be. I grew up with a family that bought Sony electronic equipment, and as a result, I followed suit. Over the last 3 years, for my loyalty, I have been rewarded with a 17 inch sony computer monitor dying after a year an a half, both the DVD writer and CD reader writer in the computer dying. And, I purchased 2 standalone DVD players, both of which died within a year. I tried calling customer service, got the runaround, and as a result will not buy anything of theirs again. I bought an under $60 DVD player at Walmart and it's been fine for over a year now (fingers crossed).

I can understand your frustration. I think of any technology company, Sony ties its products together and makes it so you have to be "entrenched' in the Sony universe. Look at their memory sticks, propriety connections for PS3, etc. Are those necessary? Nope, but it makes sure that you have to purchase a fully Sony replacement. The other thing is that they are not necessarily concerned with standards. Their DVD burners have always been a bit off spec. They work well for them (as all their DVD players are off spec) but others will not. Why is this you ask? Well it is because they did not want to pay Panasonic a licensing fee to use their true spec DVD burning technology.

I think, with our experience, this is exactly what you got caught up in. Sony was off spec, and their burned DVDs would not work elsewhere.

This is why, while their quality is usually great, I stay away from Sony as far as possible. I find taking a chance on a different manufacturer of items with maybe 1 or 3 more PPM failures, and less cost, will be much more capable and flexible going forward.