All quiet on the idlepc front.

Lately i have spent some decent amount of time trying to keep the idlepc values down, as well as stay in tune with labbing/going over mock core questions. Today i struck gold.  A snapshot of my idlepc via the Activity Monitor on my Mac Book shows it running  at 18%. It does peak up to 25-30 % and then drop. For that i dont have any answers.  All i can say is that i am happy with it.  I kept trying different idlevalues and eventually i was able to get it low enough for my satisfaction.  Only problem here is that i have to do this each time i run dynamips so it could be 2-3 times a day depending on if i opt to turn of my laptop.

Ok nuff about idlepc values. Studying is still going strong. I noticed while going through some eigrp labs today that default-information all out command doesnt show when you check the running config.  I had it all set up after going over some eigrp tasks, and a show run | s eigrp came back with zilch on the command. I had to do sho hist to confirm that i did enter it in. A quik look at the doc cd doesnt say any mention of the fact that its not evident in the show run output when you enable it. Hmm, just something i came across today.

k well back at it again. Time for some labs, then watch some rescue me, and off for a good night sleep after that. Happy Labbing all.

The battle that is dynamips idlepc is at hand.

i finally got dynamips up/running. it took me some time, plus i m a but rusty with loonix/unix commands so i had to go digging around in the terminal on how to get dynamips going. Well its full blast cept i have to major concerns left. One find an ios that will let me set up a swi mode acc vla command on my fa/eth interface & two get this idlepc thing down. Although i am running 4-5 router instance for some of the labs i do, the idlepc is going over 100% as soon as i get two routers going. So intead of wasting precious time trying to get the idlepc settings going, i am taking it with stride and just spending my breaks trying to figure it out.

Thats all for now. back to the ole cli. Breaks over as well…………

Dynamips up and running.

Ok i finally got dynamips working after some silly errors. I have spent the last couple of hours tinkering with it to my liking as well as miserably trying to get the idlepc to around 40%. yes 40 is all i want for now, as soon as r1 gets cranking my 2gig processor goes to 100%. per the tutorial on the dynagen site i tried what they said but its no worky for me. Thus after spending the last 4 hours messing around with it. I feel that i have got it to a point where i can kick off some labs. Tomorrow i ll try to get the idlepc running to my liking. A good nights sleep never hurts, plus i am itching to go watch the latest episode of breaking bad.

Another weekend wrapping up.

And yet another study session going full steam. Lately i have been going over Switching theory/labs and writing my own core questions as well. I noticed this on some of the other blogs and decided it would be a good idea to come up with some core questions of my own.  I finally decided to get dynamips working on my mac as well. All has gone well cept for the ios which doesnt seem to be found via the image link. I have tried several ios versions 2600, 3600, & now am on a 7200 version. I m hoping to get it working tonight so i can start breaking in some lab time with the routing protocols as well as continue on with my switching labs.

Done studying for the night.

Just wrapped up reviewing Private Vlans with a smattering of voice vlans. The voice chapter is really small but i threw it in for good measure. Private vlans used to give me the fits but not anymore. Ok its time for me to get some claritin, allergies are killing me.  I m going to go watch the latest episode of Rescue Me and then its back to studying tomorow morning.

IP Expert core questions giveaway.

Mike Down from IPX provided me with their core questions quiz software. Its a .air ( click the link to download it ) installed file which is quite neat and doesnt require a login as compared to IE. There are 100 questions in it, and i am hoping it will increase in the weeks to come.  BTW its FREE, did i mention that.  What with the economy being what it is, and well yours truly being unemployed i definitely am not knocking it. I look forward to using it in the upcoming weeks as its questions total increase. I dont think it ll be a bad thing at all since i own the IE product and using both will only help me learn more if not hammer away some of the core stuff in my head. PS with todays economy who can complain about getting a free product. Not me.

Happy studying all. time for me to get back to the cli.

Full Steam ahead.

Yesterday i covered every dot1x command there is in the doc cd. I also spent time working on some open ended question material.  Toss in some qos commands and i cn honestly say it was a good day of studying. Today i plan on finishing out all the QoS related commands. My goal is to cover mostly every command under the switching section of the doc cd before renting a lab rack. The lack of switches doesnt give me the luxury to browse the doc cd while the clock is ticking away on a rack rental. I am hoping that in two weeks i have covered all that there i to switching and then move back in to routing protocol labs.

BootCamp completed.

Bootcamp part 1 completed. Part two will be in in July 09. I read a lot of reviews about Narbiks bootcamp and none, not a single one was wrong.  Its worth every penny spent. I went in not knowing what i would experience other then reading blogs/posts on ccie forums, and well i was not disappointed by any means. Narbik is awesome, he breaks it down on the whiteboard & i quote many a blog here he writes it down and also backs it up with his workbook content meaning there are labs to follow.  The week starts off exactly like how i read about it on other blogs,  Day 1 Switching, FR, Day 2 Ospf, Eigrp, Day 3 BGP Day 4 Ripv2, Qos & day 5 ends with Multicasting with the remants of Qos covered in the early part of the day.  We also labbed during the day after each lecture was done. Questions were recommended by Narbik as well as to email him after the bootcamp is over.  The bootcamp ends with some recommendations from Narbik as well as his comment to us 1st timers to repeat it a second time.

So i now have three plus months of time to work through all the material i received from Narbik.  Unfortunately being unemployed gives me ample time to work through his workbooks.  The past couple of days i have spent on  SRR and Classification. This morning i have gone back over the theory for .1x authentication and am going to spend the rest of the da labbing it up.

So its back to the cli folks. Happy Studying.