Customer Reviews

CCNA Certification Kit, Third Edition (640-801)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have purchased the kit after reading the comments from other CCNA enthusiasts and they were right... this is defenitely the way to go to get your CCNA. Todd Lamme, wrote a good book! However, the Router Simulator had a few bugs in it that prevented me from entering free hand code to the router telnet simulation. It is still at version 1 and I think that it should be enhanced a little more. Moreover, like all tech books, there were a few minor typo mistakes that I saw in some illustrations, but nothing serious.

I passed the exam the 1st time with a 849/822 but it was because I did not study hard enough. What I used is this kit, Boson's CCNA exam Questions and Answers (that you get with the CDRom) and about 2 hours a day for 1 month of studying. Also, do go to the CISCO website to get some further reference.

Good Luck.

Next, CCNP!!!

I was nervous about taking the CCNA 2.0 and a friend suggested the Sybex materials by Todd Lammle. I am indebted to that friend and Todd Lammle for life. Lammle takes what is exceptionally technical material and makes it understandable. If you're willing to trudge through the book and really put your mind to work, the material will become crystal clear. Lammle just doesn't provide the answers, he shows you why they are the correct answers, which will make you a more productive CCNA. I've read other Cisco books and this is by far the best. I also recommend CCNA Jumpstart by Sybex.

This is the only package you need to pass new Cisco CCNA 2.0 exam.

Although, Cisco Press's exam kit is another good source for this exam, you will not get the same quality for the price you paying for this.

Good luck all!

I had the Cisco official Course material for the CCNA2.0 course. I brought the CCNA2.0 certification kit it has been my best buy till date. The concepts have been really well explained and if you understand them one shouldnt have any problem passing the exam with high scores.I didnt bother to look at the Ciscos course materials cos I though this book was well organized. Dont expect the questions to be straight out of the books , read the book , check the review question dont memorize it and am sure everybody should pass. Also there were some errors in the book send an Email to MR.Todd and was surprised to get an email back telling me to look at the sybex web site and check the errata sheet. Looking forward to the CCDA and then CCNA

I have looked at most of the available CCNA books. It isn't worth it, you just get confused. This book is enough to pass the test and learn about the basics of Layer-2 and 3 theory.

There are a LOT of mistakes in the first addition. The errata on the sybex.com website has all the mistakes, but whew!

The e-trainer is a frustrating tease. I was so fed up with it after the first lab that I was about to purchase a used router. Even the most basic lab(chapter 4) doesn't have all of the functions supported. However, like I said, it is a tease. The point of the e-trainer is to give you a path to Mr. Lammale's partner: RouterSim. If you have your invoice from this package, RouterSim will cost you $130 extra as an upgrade to e-trainer, or $230 without. So the minute you order this, I recommend going to routersim.com and picking up your updated copy because you won't have the annoyance of e-Trainer to deal with during the labs.

Buy this set, get the upgrade, make Sybex and Todd rich, pass the test, start your path to being 1% as rich as Todd!

I bought this book and studied it for a month straight and it tought me everything that was needed for the CCNA. The sample questions were extremely close to the real test questions. It helped me pass the test on my first try. I highly recommend this book for anyone serious about the test.

Yeh, yeh, yeh, I know this is suppose to be the best book on the market, but geeze you'd think Lammle et. al. could put half as much effort into correcting the mistakes and errors as they do into the marketing... Yes, yes about 1/3 of the errors *are* covered on the errata page at their website... but guys, this is the second edition in, what, it's 5th printing?? Lots of errors, contradicitons, gross errors (similar with CD/flashcards). Virtually all printouts are "cut," and one has to search repeatedly for the very rare complete, i.e. helpful, printout. Some *very* poor diagrams throughout, e.g. figure 10.9 in which you have to guess which router is which, guess who has what addresses, guess which route is where, etc. - and this is suppose to be helpful? That's the book. And then we come to the complete debacle of an "e-trainer." What a mess. Yeh, yeh the first third works okay, but then it's very rapidly downhill from there. I got sucked in by the hype 'cause the "Virtual Lab e-trainer" was "Designed for Use in Conjunction with Sybex's" CCNA (Lammle) Guide. What the advertising didn't mention was that many (most?) of the labs in the book simply are not *in* the supposed "e-trainer." In some chapters only one in three labs is included, in others one-half of one lab out of four labs in the book is semi-on-the-e-trainer; another section has only one out of seven labs from that chapter in/on the "e-trainer." E.G. there is virtually no WAN coverage (no PPP, no HDLC, no ATM, no ISDN, and an extremely poor Frame-Relay). The IPX numbering scheme is amazingly fouled up (e.g. all three routers having the same MAC addresses??). It just goes on and on, or, more accurately, it doesn't go on at all. It sometimes does not remove static routes, it tends to apply clock rates to all serial interfaces, in telneting it'll actually change the hostname, duplicate hostnames, all sorts of things. To say the software is "buggy" would be an understatement. And, of course, there are a very great many commands not supported. This e-trainer mess comes across like a *very* bad piece of shareware/freeware.... Yeh, yeh, it might be better than nothing - but certainly not by much. And, yes, if you've never touched a router in your life it *might* be helpful (but, I suspect, it might just as easily be more frustrating than helpful). Buy the book, and hope you find the errors - and I am authentically sad if this actually *is* the "best" book out there. Habraken has a pretty good book. Forget the "e-trainer" though - just about a thorough waste of money. ...

This is excellent for us who want to learn on Cisco Routers and Switches and who are interested on CCNA exams. Certainly this is the best book, well written most of the topics, easy approach.

e-trainer is remarkable, incomparable for those who have no routers, no experience. Todd is giving us a virtual router setup with a hidden instructor. I am an MCSE with little router experience. I have found this helpful. Thanks

I passed my CCNA exam after using this kit. I am an MCSE and MCP+I and now a CCNA thanks to these materials. The kit covers the vast majority of what you need to know to pass this exam.

After using several other books to prepare for other exams, this is by far the most thourough. The simulator did have some bugs, but it was still a valuable tool to simulate hands on practice. You can pass the exam using this kit alone, or got to ... for the complete router simulator.

This is excellent for those who want to learn on Cisco Routers and Switches and who are interested on CCNA exams. Certainly this is the best book, well written most of the topics, easy approach.

This kit is probably the cheapest way to get certified for CCNA 2.0. My employer paid for the ICND training in preparation for the CCNA exam, and I have to say that this book covers the material in a more structured way. The labs with the virtual lab are good, but don't expect anything to work outside those labs. For the exam, the labs are enough though, but if you want more pratice with routers, this virtual lab is not enough.