This is what I will be doing next, just to recap then ts off to the land of the big bad assessor lab!

MST - not hard, but I dont get much exposure to this so I will do it again

DAI/DHCP Snooping - not something I do much either

BGP - Conditional advertisement, aggreration with leaking specific routes, communities and regexp (is there anything else left in BGP? :P)

Multicast - not difficult, but not exposed that much to it.

Done Security now..  I dont mind security.  As we all know, all you need to do with Security is change a few ACLs here and there, isn’t that right?

That means I have finished all of Narbik’s Advanced Technology Books.

I will go through the sections I think I didnt do too well in, then sit an assessor lab to see how I am really going.  My next post will be about the topics I wish to cover again before sitting the assessor lab.  Thing is, it seems so long since I did switching or OSPF that I might have forgotten it all!  No L2/L3 means dont bother with anything else in my opinion.  Ill go and have a quick look and see how much I really did forget.  Hopefully not much

Now I am going off to drink beer with my new workmates!

So no study tips or hair pulling today!

IP Services… one of the interesting ones.  Really something you could just ? through and get it right?  Maybe…

I think I will do ok…  I’ll need to watch out for the “make sure xxx happens” though.  Same old, same old.

Its not 5:30pm Friday night.  What should I do?  More study, or go out?

I spent a lot of time on BGP.  Narbik has some nasty regexps in his bootcamp book.  Hopefully they aren’t that nasty in the real lab.

My local Hungry Jacks would have me on their VIP list now.  This study stuff has increased my HJs (Burger King to the rest of the world) intake into orbit.  So much so that will be opening a HJs on the International Space Station just for me!  I have also been relaxing during down time by getting into playing Poker in the National Poker League and watching the World Poker Tour on Joost.  Vince Van Patten is a legend!

Anyway…

I will start work on IP Services now.  I always find that stuff pretty easy.  Security will be next… that’s pretty straightforward too.

So how about Spain last night?  Isn’t it amazing what Fernando Torres can do with a decent bunch of players around him.  Shame he has nothing like that at his current club… Well it’s not a shame really ;)  I was hoping Germany would win but Spain did the business.  Now all I can hope for is Christiano Ronaldo to piss off to Real and for Chelsea to sign Robinho!

Robert Williams, CEO of Certguard, the self-proclaimed “I hate braindumps” vigilante organisation has publicly defamed Ethan Banks on this website

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/28444

Mr Williams has claimed that Ethan has used Testkings to study for his Written Exam and as such Ethan should have his CCIE Status revoked.  Now, anyone who has pursued CCIE, is in the process of CCIE, or has otherwise supported someone in their pursuit, knows how long and arduous the process is.  Ethan has only said the content in these dumps is what the exam material is based on, not that he used it as his only study guide.

I reviewed some of the older TestKing material during my final review, although it wasn’t a major focus. The good news is that the TK stuff has a lot of the concepts you need to know. But if you’re looking for actual questions that will show up on the exam, I didn’t see that in any of the TK material I looked at.

Now…  Can anyone see in this quote where Ethan advocates using this material?  All he says are the concepts are there.  Nothing more.  If he only relied on Testking to study, as opposed to knowing the material, then he would not have been able to pass his written.  I think that is pretty simple.

The beauty of CCIE is you cant pass it by dumping.  I am sure we have seen vendors promoting their “real” labs…  But can you memorise eight hours of typing?  If one question about L3 changes, then that will ruin your whole topology!  You must know the material… Simple as that.

I can understand the crusade that Certguard are undertaking, and what the deal with dumping for exams does.  They even have a section where sites are combed to see if they promote dumps or not.  Have a look and see what he thinks of my site! :)  www.certguard.com However, I think the attack on Ethan is unjustified and is nothing more of an exercise to scapegoat a hard working individual and generate traffic/income/hits/interest in a site that people may not have known about before.

Now… on to EIGRP!

Back in the saddle again.  The past week or so I have been working on switching and frame-relay mainly.  I feel I am pretty much across these topics.  Trouble is, and what scares me is they (especially frame-relay) just seems a little too easy.  Last thing I need is to settle into some complacent state thinking I know everything when really I am leaving something out.

I have been looking a lot at these topics because if your L2 is broken nothing else will work.  I will put a similar amount of effort into OSPF/EIGRP/BGP too.  If I lose (say) 5 points because I completely screw multicast then that’s too bad.  If I screw IGP then I have the potential to lose a hell of a lot more.  This does not mean I will ignore QoS/Multicast/IPServices, but I think these topics are a hell of a lot more granular and also don’t have the dependency that L2/L3 does.

Now… onto EIGRP for the next few days then I will drill OSPF more than a couple on their honeymoon night.

I slept in this morning…  I was exhausted last night.  I know I havent updated my notes for two days.  I’ll need to sort those out later.

Today we are doing QOS, Security and tips & tricks.  Plus anything else left over.

My beloved Chelsea lost the European Cup final this morning on Penalties to Manchester United.  I woke up at 4am to see this… After staying up all night doing BGP labs.

Today we are doing Multicast, RIPv2 and IP Services.

If we won I would see if I could make the drive down to the Cisco office and do the lab today I would have been so high… But alas Chelsea falter again.  I have been supporting them way too long and should have expected this.  Hopefully I last the day.  Hopefully I don’t see anyone wearing a United shirt too.  For the record, my Chelsea shirt is staying in the drawer today.

I cant sleep.  What a fantastic opportunity!  I can do more labs!

I’ll do the rest of the frame-relay labs now.  If I have time left before class (we are doing OSPF and EIGRP today) I might see if I can squeeze in RIPv2 and/or IPv6 before Narbik beats us about the head with LSA floods and Not So Stubby Areas and the like.