First Tip of the Day!

I was thinking about starting a new not-a-regular series and calling it “Tip of the Day”. Where I’d highlight something I found, that I thought was interesting.

 

Today’s Tip of the Day is: Humble Bundle.

If you’re into cybersecurity and all things computer like me and you want to improve your personal library, go to humblebundle.com and look under their book bundles. They often have book bundles of 3 – 18 e-books for a donation (suggested donations I’ve seen at $18 or $25). They come in pdf or epub. I’ve seen bundles from PACKT, O’Reilly, and Sybex so far. Not just junk books, but books that are relevant to current certifications and issues.

Resist the urge for piracy and pay for your books (Next Tip article I'll do will be on how to become a book pirate! Arrrrr!). The second-best thing, besides the low price, is that humblebundle.com donates a portion of the proceeds from sales to charity. It’s like double karmic – you didn’t steal and you contributed to charity.

Don’t get taken to the cleaners when paying for books. Expand your personal library with humble bundle! (They should pay me for this paragraph, I sound like an advertisement.) I don't know what their schedule is for putting out new book bundles, so I usually hop over to the site a couple times a week to see if something new is up.

CompTIA Network+ Study Tips

 

How I Studied For and Passed the CompTIA Network+ 008 Certification Exam

This is a brief description of how I studied for and passed the CompTIA Network+ 008 on the first try. I took the exam and passed yesterday after about 2 and a half months of studying.

First I took and passed the CompTIA A+ certification exam(s). I think that they give you some foundational knowledge that helps with Network+.

I started prepping for Network+ specifically a week or so before completing my A+ exam. Here's a list of everything I did that I think helped me to pass.

• Print out and read the official exam objectives from CompTIA.

• Create Anki flash cards with all the acronyms on the exam. I copy and pasted the acronyms from the official exam objectives into ChatGPT and had it produce a list with definitions of each acronyms which I then put into Anki for daily review.

• Review the Anki flash cards EVERY day.

• Professor Messer videos. Over and over and over again. Watch the whole series once. Watch it again. Then watch it when your driving somewhere. Watch them when your working out. Go through his Network+ series repeatedly until you've taken your exam. He's got a new set of videos out for the 009 exam too.

• I took a bootcamp style class from Northern Virginia Community College. The class was 8 hours of lectures and labs for 4 days. It was instructor lead (Professor Nick Pierce) over Zoom and used Certmaster Learn. Make sure to do all the labs and PBQ's in Certmaster. When you get the PBQ's wrong, going back and figuring out the correct answers is a big help in learning to understand things.

• After the bootcamp I went back into Certmaster and re-read each chapter of the online textbook.

• Practice exams. I used the Sybex practice exams. Purchase the Sybex Network+ Study Guide and Practice Exam books and you get access to their online exam test bank. It's about 1200-1500 test questions. I did 20 exam questions everyday. Anything I got wrong, didn't understand, or needed help with I used ChatGPT to explain to me. I also had ChatGPT make additional Anki flashcards to help me with exam topics and concepts I missed.

• The final 2 things I did that I think really helped near the end of my studies were:
•  Jeremy's IT Lab. I got to day 30 of his series. I think that it really helped cement things I had been learning from all the other sources (Thankyou Dr. El Gbouri for pointing me to this resource).
• Professor Messer's Notes. They are an outline of everything and you should read through them for an overview and refresher on everything you've learned.

I didn't do all these things at once. I progressively went through my list above until exam day. Adding and completing things as I went along. Network+ can seem overwhelming. Take it all day-by-day and you will make it through it.