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The book is very detailed, and while I haven't gotten a chance to look at the included CD, it's a nice touch.
Get them. he explains these topics VERY well. wendell odom gives it to you in a no-nonsense way. read them. i always have to know "why" something happens, instead of just telling me, "yeah, it happened." and this book goes into detail on topics better than any video training out there. i've had the supposedly best cbt training video's and it doesn't go into detail as these two books do. i'd also say get some kind of hands-on training as well, if you are like me. i have to know all the details about something before i can truly understand it.
I graduated college with a 4 year degree in IS with an emphasis in Networking 2 years ago. I found the writing style very confusing. This is one of the books I tried, but it proved to be more of a chore to read than expected.This book is one of the more difficult to understand books. My recommendation is to read this book if you already have some established background in networking with Cisco. I, for some reason, never decided until recently to get my certifications. In addition, I haven't used much of my networking education for the last 2 years so I'm a little rusty as I'm sure you could expect. So, to give you a little background on myself. I understand that this is the beginner study guide, but it is still nice to know more detail on some of the protocols we are to learn and to understand their function.
I just think that Cisco could do better at finding an author for it's official study guides. I also found that he would spend quite a bit of time on some of the more simple subjects but never really offer much of an example or discuss many of the more complicated subjects. But again that's just my opinion, and I'm not saying these are useless as they do have some pretty decent reference tables within and can very well prove useful at helping people pass certification. Almost as though Odom gives the explanation to a scenario then goes back and gives you the scenario setup. I was a lab assistant for the CCNA/CCNP labs in my last semester and helped students with their homework for the 440 level classes. Unless you've seen the Cisco IOS in action and have been able to get a visual demonstration of these protocols I fear this book will prove much more confusing than helpful to the less computer savvy people out there that are trying to Cisco certify.
The book is written in such a way that it seems as though all explanations are in a backwards fashion. I found myself reading a paragraph then going back and having to reread the first half of the same paragraph just to understand the example he will introduce after the fact. In addition, Odom's ICDN 1 and 2 individual guides are equally as obnoxious to read in my opinion. I'm simply saying there are better books out there, like the Sybex editions.
There are no question and answers in the back of each chapter. And the exams are not split up by chapter: plus you have to download the exams, in addition of having to install a rather extensive test harness.
Last book in the series, hopefully he will be moving out when he gets his certification
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