How To Earn Cisco’s VPN Specialist Certification
July 18, 2008
How To Earn Cisco’s VPN Specialist Certification
by: Chris Bryant, CCIE ##12933
There’s quite an emphasis on security in today’s networks, and that’s reflected in Cisco’s certification tracks. Cisco offers a CCIE Security track and the Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) intermediate-level certification, but there is no real equivalent to the CCNA on the security side. Instead, Cisco offers several different Security Associate certifications.
The good news is that you’ve got a lot of security specializations from which to choose; the bad news is that you’ve got a lot of choices! In choosing a specialization, take some time to choose a certification that will be of practical use to you in your current position or in your “dream job”.
One of the more popular Security Associate certifications is the Cisco VPN Specialist certification. This two-exam track consists of a Securing Cisco Network Devices (SND, 642-551) exam and a Cisco Secure Virtual Private Networks (CSVPN, 642-511) exam. To earn the Cisco VPN Specialist exam, you must hold a valid CCNA certification.
Expand your Internet Business
July 13, 2008
Expand your Internet Business
by: Sharon Agar
Think of your website as an extension of an existing
business, without the walls of wood, concrete or steel
around it. Just as you would manage a business housed in a
building, a website business housed on the Internet needs to
be managed as well. It is your contact to members, clients
and or buyers. Your business provides a need, a solution, or
a product which is represented by your website presence.
Naturally you will want to promote your website and expand
its potential.
One way to do this is to collect the email addresses of
those who visit your site. Increasing the number of visitors
to your website will increase the odds of a product being
purchased or your membership growing. An excellent method of
collecting email addresses of those visitors is to use an
opt-in option which allows them to basically “volunteer”
their address to you in exchange for something from you, for
example a newsletter.
Two Dads: One Computer-Maniac, The Other Computer-Phobic
July 10, 2008
Two Dads: One Computer-Maniac, The Other Computer-Phobic
by: Jesse S. Somer
I have two Dads. That sounds strange doesn’t it? One is my genetic father, and the other is my geneticist father. The genetic Dad I’ve only ever lived with for one year when I was an infant, while the geneticist Dad is what you would call a step-father, but I’ve lived in close proximity with him for more than 20 years. I feel close to them both. I connect differently with each of them but on a pretty much equal level. The reason I’m sharing my personal information with you is because I’ve just had a realisation about my fathers in relation to the area that I work in: computers and the Internet. It’s really quite interesting.
One father is a computer maniac. Whenever a new technology, software, gadget, or website emerges he is one of the first to grab it up and evaluate it. My other father has an old piece-of-crap box that looks something like a computer, with a tediously slow dial-up connection to the World Wide Web. Compared to the wireless, broadband Mac personal computer and mobile-connected Mac laptop of the enthusiast, they couldn’t be from further parts of the galaxy.
Medical Office Software Simplifies Business Procedures
July 6, 2008
Medical Office Software Simplifies Business Procedures
by: Jordan Bartlett
What’s the best thing you can do for your practice or clinic? Do you have a small practice or large practice? How will the needs of your practice be fulfilled so that it can run smoothly and more effectively? One of the most critical and best decisions to make for your practice is to find the medical office software that best suits the needs of your staff, clients, and business. By meeting the needs of all the targeted areas of your practice or clinic, you’ll save in time as well as in costs.
The medical practice software you choose for your practice will allow flexibility for you and your staff. This means no more hassling with outdated software and hard-to-find data sheets on the patients. The web-based software comes with customizable views that enable your staff to quickly pull up relevant information on and for the patient. The easy-to-use tabs help organize and sort the data on a single screen without needing to have multiple windows that become cluttered and hard-to-read. With custom fields, your staff will be able to store whatever kind of information on the patients in the areas they want for quick retrieval. Your staff will benefit from pop-up reminders, memos, and ticklers along with automatic alerts for co-pays, recalls, and other medical billing procedures.
The Simplest Of Things Can Spoil An Image
July 1, 2008
The Simplest Of Things Can Spoil An Image
by: Florie Lyn Masarate
But using simple techniques combined with a bit of care, you can easily give you images the attention that will do them justice.
The materials used in printing your images play an important factor in the quality of the finished print.
1. Printer.
When buying a printer think about the materials that you use. If you are planning to print large format images, choose a printer that can handle rolls of photographic paper. These printers are usually more expensive, but great savings can be made when buying paper.
2. Paper.
Photographic paper comes in many different sizes and textures. No harm in testing out a few different papers from different manufacturers to see which one suits your needs best.
3. Ink.
It is strongly recommended to buy inks from your printer’s manufacturers. Third party inks may mean greater savings on your part but it does not guarantee that they will be suited for your printer.
It is advisable also to plan well in advance when you plan to buy a printer. If you are only going to print a small amount of images it may be better using a local photo lab.
Cisco CCNP Certification / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Troubleshooting Route Summarization
June 28, 2008
Cisco CCNP Certification / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Troubleshooting Route Summarization
by: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
As you earn your CCNA and CCNP certification, you’re going to have to get comfortable with manually summarizing routes. This isn’t just another reason to learn binary math (although it’s a good one!), but summarizing routes is a true real-world skill that can help your network operate more efficiently. So the question isn’t just how to summarize routes, it’s why.
When you summarize routes in RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, or OSPF, you’re replacing a series of routes with a summary route and mask. With RIP, IGRP, and EIGRP, this actually lessens the size of the routing update packet itself - multiple routes are replaced with the summary route. For instance, the routes 8.0.0.0/8, 9.0.0.0/8, 10.0.0.0/8, and 11.0.0.0/8 can be summarized as 8.0.0.0 252.0.0.0. Only the summary address will be found in the update packet, making it concise yet complete.
Summarizing routes can also make the routing table smaller, yet still allow for complete IP connectivity when done correctly. Using the above example, the four more-specific routes will be replaced by a single summary route. Since the entire routing table is parsed before the routing process is complete, keeping the routing table as small as possible does help speed the routing process as a whole.
Linux Terminal Control Sequences
June 24, 2008
Linux Terminal Control Sequences
by: Sitecritic .Net
Linux terminals share alot in common with their primitive ancestors such as vt100 like consoles. These early devices is capable of sending sequences that signaled events outside of the normal flow of typed characters, such as escape, tab, linefeed…etc. Linux uses CTRL key to send out these out of band signals.
This article summarises many of the commonly used control sequences that are used in all Linux terminals.
CTRL-C
This is the most commonly used sequence. In the bash shell, CTRL-C will terminate any currently running process and return you to the bash prompt. For example, if you accidentally run a command that does not stop, use CTRL-C to cancel the command.
CTRL-D
Many Unix commands read their input directly from the keyboard. An example is the WC command. WC counts the number of lines, words and characters that a user types in from the keyboard. So if you tpye WC at the command prompt, the command will wait for your input till you use CTRL-D to signal the end of transmission.
CTRL-Z
Cisco CCNA / CCNP Exam Tutorial: Five Debugs You Must Know
June 21, 2008
Cisco CCNA / CCNP Exam Tutorial: Five Debugs You Must Know
by: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass the BSCI exam and move one step closer to CCNP certification success, you’ve got to know how and when to use debug commands to troubleshoot and verify network operations. While you should never practice debug commands on a production network, it’s important to get some hands-on experience with them and not rely on “router simulators” and books to learn about them.
When it comes to RIP, “debug ip rip” is the primary debug to use. This debug will show you the contents of the routing update packets, and is vital in diagnosing RIP version mismatches and routing update authentication issues.
You know how to use the variance command to configure unequal-cost load-sharing with IGRP, but IGRP has no topology table that will give you the feasible successor metrics you need. With IGRP, you need to use the “debug ip igrp transactions” command to get these vital metrics.
Several factors are considered by OSPF-enabled routers when it comes to forming adjacencies, including hello and dead timer settings. If an adjacency doesn’t form when you think it should, run “debug ip ospf adj”. The reason the adjacency isn’t forming is usually seen quickly with this command’s output.
Advanced Link Checks
June 17, 2008
Advanced Link Checks
by: James Mahony
You should be able to find several indispensable facts about SEO in the following paragraphs. If there’s at least one fact you didn’t know before, imagine the difference it might make.
View the source of each and every page: is there JavaScript and CSS on the page? Remember that spiders may not index pages that have more than 10k or so of JavaScript or CSS embedded in them. Spiders don’t enjoy getting tangled up in JavaScript. So as a general rule you should avoid putting out prompts and alerts using JavaScript every time that a page loads. Because of this rule, it is also wise to avoid link partners who do so on the pages that they link to you from. If anything looks fishy, it probably is.
How Google Page Rank Works
June 13, 2008
How Google Page Rank Works
by: James Mahony
Are you looking for some inside information on SEO? Here’s an up-to-date report from SEO experts who should know.
A ‘Page Rank’ is a number Google gives to a web page that represents how important Google thinks the page is on the web. When one page links to another, Google considers it to be effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more ‘votes’ there are for a page across the whole web, the more important that page must be. But that’s quite an assumption, isn’t it?
The importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself really is, meaning in Google calculations a page’s importance comes from the votes cast for it. These votes are then taken into account when the page is ranked.
As a general rule of thumb, Google Page Ranks along with Alexa ratings are the best indicators of how well your SEO work has been going. Granted, the ranking that you appear in on the results for your most important key words is the real indicator, but a strong Google Page Rank will help to boost this position substantially. The more links that you have pointing at your site, the better off you are. That’s a basic rule that will apply throughout your SEO operations.
