Customer Reviews

CIW Foundations Exam Cram (Exam: 1D0-410)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

keep this book from being as useful as it could otherwise be.

In particular, the sections on the OSI model and DNS contain contradictory information, and a number of the sample questions patently record the wrong answers (i.e., you can tell because the answers in the questions don't correspond to the explanations provided). The section on subnet masking would be inadequate for anyone who doesn't already understand how to generate subnet masks. The book's discussion of HTML includes patently incorrect markup - don't rely on the book for any HTML coding. Finally, the book goes into intricate detail on many areas covered only very superficially on the exam, and leaves out some areas the exam requires (i.e., don't worry about most of those command line discussions for various programs, but do seek out additional information on, say, hacking and evaluating security risks).

Taken with a grain of salt - and read critically and carefully, checking all important sections against tutorials available on the web or other reference materials - this book can help you structure your study for the Foundations exam. At present, it's the only thing out there on the exam, and it does provide a systematic overview of many exam topics. Under the circumstances (since it's the only book on the market) I'm not unhappy to have bought it - but if I were planning to take the exam a few months from now, I might well have bought something else instead...

I bought this book, read it easily within ten days and passed the exam. Exactly 15 days after this book came to my door from Amazon, I became a CIW Associate.

I think this is a relatively well-written and organized book. It has some errors, as do all books, but for the most part it is quite accurate for being the first book dedicated precisely to this topic.

This book covers the network fundamentals relevant to CIW quite well. I had least experience with the network aspect of the exam in comparison to other portions prior to studying, but after this book and after my exam I scored highest on the networking section. I do think it did a good job with the other sections as well. I did see some questions on the CIW exam I didn't expect. So I would advise you to study some very basics of JavaScript as well (such as writing to a browser and prompting for user input).

This book has about 10 questions after each chapter (15 chapters total) so that you practice topic-relevant material. The questions not only explain the right answer but also the reasons why other choices are incorrect. I liked this a lot. There was also a full exam at the end (another 60 questions) and hence a total of more than 200 practice problems in the book.

Some of CIW's exam questions (in the real exam) were really ambiguous and hence almost anybody will get one or two questions wrong even if you know the question topic very well. I was disappointed with the exam makers for this. So, the best thing you can do (even if you may be ready for the exam) is to get a book or study reference to go over the material again and make sure you'll pass the exam on the first try, especially if the exam costs $125 and you can get this book for around $25 at amazon. I hope you found this review helpful. :)

This book does provides a good overview of networking principles (IP addressing schemes, net masking, OSI layers, etc.) and other topics beyond memorization of HTML tags. Unfortunately, there are also a number of glaring errors in the text and chapter practice tests in this book; errors that leave me frankly astonished and frustrated with my test preparation routine. (...) I am unaware of any other test prep books for the CIW Foundations Exam, so this book may be your only choice... but be forewarned!

Book seemed to have many errors. Many times I had to go to the W3 to check to make sure I was not taught wrong. Thumbs down on this book.

This book gets some basic, high-level Internet information correct, but there are many errors. While a network engineer may scoff at the networking chapters, it does seem to cover the topics required for the exam. From a programmer's perspective, the HTML and programming chapters are poorly done. According to the author's bio, this is a book written by a person with networking experience, but very little programming experience, and it shows.

This book is useful as a review of information you have learned elsewhere if you approach it with the goal of finding all of the errors. Typos are one thing, factual errors are unacceptable.

The rating is two stars due to the networking content. Otherwise, it would be one star.

The book had alot of incorrect information, one being about the two main subcategories of DSL, it should have read ADSL and SDSL not VDSL and ADSL. Also I had a question on the test about a type of virus that was not even mentioned in the book and not to mention thast the book was writen very poorly with all types of grammer errors.

This book gives detailed descriptions of topics where only a general knowledge is required for the test, whereas other important topics (like e-commerce, copyright and trademarks, firewall topology and the hacker process to name a few) are left out completely. The book also has too many errors and typos.

Unfortunately it is the only Foundations book out there at the moment. If you decide to buy it, be prepared to do a lot of research on the net to find the info missing in this book.

As a Ceritifed CIW instructor, I'm sometimes asked by students as to which books are suitable to augment the already comprehensive official curriculum. I've looked at the ones currently out there, and this book unfortunately, does not meet many of the mapped objectives. For example, the over emphasis of Networking seems to be about an introduction course the the Cisco CCNA rather than the book trying to give an overview of the CIW objectives. Subsequently, because of the undue weightage, the other objectives suffer, and notably, the HTML section which is briefly skimmed through.

While this book might give some additional info for those who have an added interest in networking, nevertheless, I feel that there are other books out there that give much more networking info and cost the same.

If your thinking of doing self-study alone to pass the Foundations exam, this book is certainly helpful. The cramsession web-site also has some good pdf downloads. Unfortunately there are many mistakes (which are only obvious as you read other sources) and some misleading question / answers. However, if used in conjunction with other e-commerce / firewalls / html references and online exams, you should pass. I recently took the exam and found 40-45 questions matched the cert21 exam questions.

CIW, Certified Internet Webmaster, is gaining respect and popularity throughout the IT industry. While there a re few books or study material available, since most of the material is from ProSoft classes, it nice to see Coriolis taking a lead in giving you a final prep book to work with.

CIW Foundations consists of Internet business, HTML and networking fundamentals, and this exam cram takes care of the highlights but will need to get more material and Coriolis should look into an Exam Prep version of this book.

Topics like general networking, OSI model, ISO, IEEE, ICANN, W3C and other organizations, common protocols like IP, IPX, TCP, SPX and AppleTalk, encryption, network monitoring, web pages and HTML, security and Internet search engines are covered in the book.

Over 400 pages also include a sample test however no cd with practice questions included. Overall you get a great deal of information in a small package, well done.