Update for the past few days.

Well the 25th was spent with the family for our anniversary, thus no studying. I did a few tasks of the IE Vol 3 lab one the next day, and well most have been spending time ramping up for a work related certification that i need to fini. I picked up from the beginning last night and went through IE Vol 3 lab 1 up til the Ospf section.  I am working today thus no studying will take place for the day. I have some rack time rented for tomorrow and am looking forward to spending 5.5 hours on a rack working through some IE labs.  I dont feel like i accomplished much this past week so hopefully i can make up for it in the next few days.

3rd Anniversary.

Thus no studying tonite. Going to hang out with the wife and our lil daughter. I didnt do much studying last night since had to prepare for a work related certification which is due by end of this month. Yea i am really pushing my luck on that one so i need to crush it before the 30th.  I am hoping to make up for any lost time tomorrow & saturday. More posts to follow.

Petr from IE blog has posted his second writeup on MSTP. This is good stuff, i read through the Private vlans writeup he did and it helped me understand PV much better.

Ok folks, time to head out to the home front.

Mikes back.

As is the norm i was reading some of the daily ccie blogs that i follow this morning. I was over at cauews blog & came across his latest post about Mike Down being back. Its good to see him back and blogging again. Check out his new blog & welcome him back.

Dog days of September.

The good ole dog days of September are coming to an end. I can smell the coolness in the air, that 90-100 degree Texas heat is beginning to slowly move on till next year. I am now roughly two months out before sitting for the lab exam.  I spent the past two days going over several of the IE labs. Today i covered lab 8-9 Switching only, and then decided to take a chance on the IE vol 3 labs as well. I have had this nervous itch in my side to get cracking on the vol 3 labs, and finally got a chance to do so today.  I did make some silly mistakes as mentioned the other day, but it has been over a week since i did any cli work, so no harm done. I have also noticed that going 4-5 hours configuring nonstop is helping me build stamina and speed so that in itself is great.

Although i still have some theory to cover on switching, i am opting to chok up at least 3 days a week to some labbing especially the higher IE labs ( Vol 2 ) mixed in with some vol 3 labs. I still haven’t gotten to work on the IPExpert labs, and hope to incorporate those soon.  I have the last big two to cover theory wise, OSPF & BGP. I am fair with them, but no expert by any means thus am going to spend an hour or two in the morning before work going over their theory.

That,s all for now. Tomorrow is another day, and i plan to finish up what i had left on the Vol 3 lab from today.

IE vol 2 labs 6-8.

I spent the past couple of days reading over mstp & vtp/stp concepts several times to capture anything that i might have forgotten as well as familiarize myself with the concepts that i already know.  Since this morning i have been going over the IE vol 2 labs, and it has been a humbling experience. I did forget some stuff since its already been a week when i last touched the cli. I need to change that aspect and dedicate a couple of days during the week to going over some of the harder labs. I do feel a bit down since i missed some of the tasks and royally fudged a couple of easy ones, but to err is human & as long as i learn from them, then that’s what matters.  I had read a while back from 2007 on a GS post by one of the brians ala IE to repeatedly drill through labs 7-11. I plan on taking this another step and going through 7-20 if the higher number labs are more difficult, otherwise i am going to move on to the Vol 3 labs once i feel comfortable enough practicing vol 2.

Switching is coming to a close, i still have a few more chapters to go over which makes me feel good.  I am going to give the last few days of September up to Switching and lab practice, then its back to working with ospf. Hope i havent forgotten everything that i covered a while back on it. .

well back to the ole cli, and then a break for the night.  Tomorrow patiently waits for me, and i plan on welcoming it with open arms and some more labbing.

Private Vlans revisited.

I went back over the Private Vlans theory last night, not only did i read over the doc cd, i also took the liberty of reading petrs Private Vlans blog post.  Great stuff, he breaks it down in a very simple manner identifying the differences between, promiscuous, isolated and community ports. For more details you can review the Doc cd. I plan on reading his write up on PVST and MSTP as well.  Tonight i went back over VTP, refreshing my knowledge of it as well as pruning. Good stuff to go back over. The weekend is set for some labbing. I have to take some time out for family stuff so no labs tomorrow.   I already booked some time for the weekend so am looking forward to that.

Ah yes, congrats are due for Barooq who passed his CCIE.  I went over to cciepursuits website and found his latest post mentioning Barooq passing the lab. Nicely done my friend. I also see he has posted his review of the lab.  It makes for a nice read. Lets see what his next step is, i assume another CCIE track.

Well thats all for now. Time to go hit the sack and get up early to do some more studying and then some quality family time.

Voice VLANs.

I am almost back to my usual ornery self.  My cough is on the tail end of getting kicked in the butt thanks to some Robitussin cough syrup.

Last night i went over Voice VLans, a bit surprised that there wasnt much to read on the fore mentioned. A quick search of cisco.com didnt provide much either other then the usual re-directions to the doc cd or a different version of the same document. Well i am wont go searching for more stuff to read about voice vlans, less is fine by me since i have tons of other stuff to read.

Tonight I plan on going back over Private Vlans via IE blog to iron in the theory once more.  My saturday session is out the door for a remote lab since i have to take care of some personal stuff.  I plan on getting back in the saddle on Sunday with the remote rentals.

Enduring through the haze.

Not much studying last night, my plan of going over theory fell short.  Ended up going out to eat dinner. But still was able to spend 30 minutes on CDP. All i could muster was 30 minutes so it had to be an easy topic to go over. Nothing much doing with it but two pages worth of theory and then its mostly configuration commands that are self explanatory.  I am hoping tonight will be much more worthwhile.

Oh and i am still battling this cough/cold that i have, thus the title enduring through the haze. Nothing like cough syrup to make you go batty. Least for me.

Update for this weekend.

Well the weekend came and went. I was busy with some personal stuff, but still managed to get away and work on the rented lab sessions that i had. I used both ccie4u.com and cconlinelabs.com since i wanted to compare the two. Only difference is the cost, ccie4u.com gives you a break by a couple of bucks but you pay for it by getting less rack time.  I did end up finding an even better deal at IE.com, they have 5.5 hours for roughly $14 bucks which i plan on using this coming weekend.

Lab rental thoughts aside, i did quite well on my labbing this weekend. I did make some mistakes which were well placed, and had me thinking through my coughing through the weekend.  The only tasks i thoroughly messed up were private vlans & a 802,1x authentication question as i worked through the 1st 4 IE vol 2 labs. I was surprised that i didn’t get either of them.  Thus i revisited both concepts once more. I also found off of IE.com a nice tutorial by petr about private vlans. Well put and nicely done,  and i did print it out for future reference, along with labbing it up.

By sunday i had gone through 4 of the IE labs strictly switching and felt good about my accomplishments.

I spent yesterday going over UDLD which isnt much of a read in the Doc Cd but was a stumper for me on the last IE lab.

Going forward, i am going to go over the rest of the Doc Cd topics and then continue on with the rest of the IE labs this weekend. Since their ( IE.coms ) rack is decently priced. I plan on tackling 4-5 labs this weekend as well. I have taken two extra days off from work on monday & tuesday thus the labbing will continue. I hope to complete all of IE vol two labs by then.  On a previous post i had mentioned working through some IPExpert switching labs, but i have changed my mind and am going to finish up all the IE vol 2 switching labs first.  Next up will be the aforementioned IPExpert labs, followed by full blown go at Vol 2 labs tackling FR, EIGRP,RIP, PPP & my fave Switching.  Then its on to Ospf & Bgp.  For my sake i hope this goes as planned or else i am going to be sweating bullets in October.

Uneventful night.

I got home last night from work, hoping to read through some port based authentication. But no such doing.  Ended up doing family stuff.  Thus i am going to chok this night up as taking a break from studying. I dont know if i would have done well either since yesterday i have had a slight fever.  Today i feel much better, and am hoping come 5 pm, all will be well with moi. I need to be 100% for this weekend, since i have quite a bit of labbing to do.  I spent most of this week reading theory and familiarlizing myself with concepts that i need to lab on.

Heres to getting better and several hours of studying this weekend.