Customer Reviews

Cisco Networking Academy Program: First-Year Companion Guide (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I found the content within this book is an excellent aid to the CCNA online courseware (version 2.1). Further, without this book I would be unable to study all the material offline, because courseware (version 2.1) is designed to restrict printing.

The book doesn't follow the courseware, chapter to lesson; but the order is still the same, and the contect is mostly word for word.

The Flash Card software, found on the CD, tests your knowledge, and when you fail a question the software directs you to the chapter where you need to review. This software can be downloaded for free from Cisco.

The courseware movies, also found on the CD, are the same found online. Having them on the CD reduces the time waiting for the download to complete.

The Additional content found after the chapters can aid in your training, and is not easily found anywhere within the online courseware. If you want these resources, you'll need this book.

Be warned, there is a great difference in courseware between version 1.0 and 2.0 (version 2.1 is a cleaned up and slightly modified revision of 2.0). If you are taking the version 1.0 course, this book will not follow your training as well as you might want.

As a companion piece to the Cisco Academy curriculum this book will supplement the student's understanding of the classroom material. It provides additional information in a more detailed form than the on-line curriculum and therefore may enhance the student's ability to grasp some of the more complex elements such as subnetting.

When you want information about Windows 2000 you ask Microsoft, Netware 5 you ask Novell, with Cisco Routers and the CCNA exam you need to go to Cisco. The First year companion is the book that Cisco trains with at the Cisco Academy and this should be your book too.

The First year companion is 19 chapters starting with basic networking and the OSI model all the way through Network Management. Each chapter is detailed and well documented, yet easy enough to understand that the reading will not lose anyone.

You have figures, pictures, diagrams, tables and review questions with each chapter. You will cover topics like the seven layers of the OSI model, networking devices, ARP and RARP, topologies, TCP/IP, routing and router configuration, RIP and IGRP and the command summary.

The author does a great job in giving you as much information as possible. I think that there should have been practice questions or tests on a cd-rom included with the book; the cd included with the book is filled with videos that enhance the chapter covered in the book. Overall one of the best books I have ever reviewed.

The book is supposed to be a companion guide to the Networking Academy Curriculum but you have to follow along with a chart to figure out which chapters in the book go with which chapters in the curriculum. The book needs re-organization.

I've bought other networking books but its all here, if you want CCNA then start with this. This book and its Second Year companion will not only get you through CCNA but will ensure that your knowledge of networking per say is much wider. Feel free to read from other sources but as with its 2nd Year companion its all here. The quality of the book, its presentation and the CD is a credit to Cisco Press. There is also a number of future publications in the pipeline for the CCNP and Routing is already out. I'm not usually so enthusiastic about training materials as I have so often been let down BUT NOT HERE!

Am I the only one to have noticed that this 2nd edition has not been proof read? How can this book warrant three stars?

The much vaunted accompanying CD does not include any of the first year material! Order a new one at the official CISCO site and it takes 3-4 weeks (duplicate requests are deleted). Not much help when you are in the sixth week of a ten week CISCO course.

The only thing that CISCO cannot transfer/FTP on a CISCO system apparently is the information missing from a CISCO CD, I know I asked them.

As for the proof reading there are repeated ends of paragraphs, incorrect illustrations, but worse than that there are errors of fact, including exam answers. Not very helpfull when you are trying to get to grips with networking.

It is possible to see the number of errata on the CISCO website they have also sent me a Word document five pages long, however it still doesn't cover all of the errors.

Chapter eleven is a prime example with an important missing illustration, and text that says when sending an ARP Request that the MAC address is set to all binary 1's?

And this is the only authorised text book!

I have rated this book as 1 star because I thought that the second edition would have all the 'bugs' sorted out. I have no issue with the content of the book itself, this is excellent. What I do have a problem with is that the book promises wonderful things from the companion CD. It is meant to contain interactive e-Labs(which it does), CCNA practice questions(which it does not!) and movie clips which relate to sections in the book(which it does not)!!!! Not Happy!!!!!!!!

I found the book to contain excellent content, especially for the first year of Cisco training. I wouldn't mind if they skipped the chapter on Computer Basics, most people should have covered this in another class. The book does not get very advanced, but of course, it is the first year companion and is not meant to be. One reviewer mentioned that the book contains chapters devoted to Cisco router configuration and Cisco specific chapters, of course it does, the book was published by Cisco Press as a study guide for Cisco routers.

The drawbacks to the book are that there are too many typos, incorrect diagrams, text references to listings & diagrams that are mislabeled, etc. The most disappointing part is that the text refers to the movies on the CD to help you understand the concepts, but the movies don't exist. I sent an e-mail to Cisco inquiring about the missing movies from the CD, but never received an answer. Also, the practice labs are pretty slow to start up.

Overall, the book was very helpful if you disregard the misprints and get over the missing practice questions and movie clips from the CD. I expected more from Cisco Press and would expect a third edition to be out soon to replace this one.

This book was not what I expected from a Cicso Press book. For one thing... the gloassary in the back of the book is missing too many definitions to be anything effective. Cisco also decided not to include any of its graphics that you find in their accedemy web-site into the book. Also, the chapters in the book do not corespond with the chapters on-line, which made it confusing for me when it came time to take the chapter 2 quiz. I've only used this book maybe twice through-out the semester. You don't even need this book!!!

Very good book for my University course in Networks and telecommunications, hard to find at bookstores