Addresses the written aspect of the CISCO Certification process but the reader will need to fill in the practical portion...
An ambitious collection of 2,000 practice questions and answers that attempts to familiarize the reader with the first CISCO networking exam, the CCENT.
Through the device of questions and answers, AL_Taiey encourages students to carefully read about the concepts essential to an understanding of how computer networks function and the process by which they are designed. By formatting the book into sections that map to critical concepts in the CISCO curriculum, AL_Taiey aids the student in concentrating on the areas in which they may feel they need to improve. The questions are direct even if the language is sometimes awkward. On several of AL_Taiey’s “check all that apply” style of questions, all the listed answers are correct, which forces the reader to carefully read all of the foils. This is a valuable skill if one is preparing for any CCNA exam. While the book may prepare someone for the written parts of the exams, tackling the entire book in one week, as suggested by the title, would be a daunting task. AL_Taiey describes the step-by-step processes by which one configures routers and switches, and this provides a good base of technical knowledge, but the lab experiences, simulations and practical knowledge required to pass this particular exam will have to come from somewhere else. For a student who has worked in the field or someone who has had access to the CISCO Academy curriculum, this book would function well as additional study guide/test prep material. But without this foundation, the most likely outcome would be an improved score on the written portion of the test; what is commonly referred to as a “paper certification.”
Addresses the written aspect of the CISCO Certification process but the reader will need to fill in the practical portion from other sources, or better yet from work experience, before attempting the CCENT Exam.Pub Date: July 8, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450237055
Page Count: 824
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A slow poke through Montana by Conrad (former editor of Horizons), a guy who likes a side dish of bile to accompany his travels. Conrad hits the road in the Big Sky State to take in the scenery and dig up a little family history. The family side of the story comes and goes—both grandfathers moved to the territory back in the late 1800s—with Conrad trying valiantly to paint them as fascinating characters. They're not, even with murder, mayhem, and adultery thrown in. Nor does Conrad succeed as an artful recorder of today's Montana. He can't help trotting out the obligatory Montaniana—barroom fisticuffs, brushes with Mr. Griz, trouty days, whiskey nights—while historical context comes in spurts from the ``Billings was named after Frederick Billings, an executive of the...'' school of background information. He mooches around with a fine disregard for the consequences, a little piece of bravery much to his credit. Most folks Conrad runs into are either forlorn, bitter, drunk, or just plain ready to brawl—bump into someone and get your lights punched out, mention the wrong name and get your lights punched out, offer an ill-timed comment and get your lights punched out. Then again, maybe he just spent too much time in bars. There is a wealth of detail in theses pages, some of it captivating, from ghoulish doings in Great Falls to the virtues of buffalo meat to tensions over wolf reintroduction to the quick portraits of the folks he crosses paths with, but little, if any, continuity. One item is cobbled to another, a pastiche from which an image of Montana never emerges. Don't expect to learn why they call this land the Last Great Place; even as a miscellany, Conrad's sidelong glimpse of Montana never conjures much excitement. (Photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-258551-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
While he wastes some time exposing cliches—Indians in westerns, unworthy sequels—that are cliches to expose, Eco...
Popular novelist (The Name of the Rose, 1983; Foucault's Pendulum, 1989) and notorious semiologist (at the Univ. of Bologna) Eco shows himself to be a journalist as well with this generally diverting volume of short pieces.
Eco calls these short essays diario minimo—minimal diaries—after the magazine column where he first published a series of such efforts (previously collected in Misreadings). The work presented here, much of which dates from the late '80s and early '90s, celebrates, or more often condemns, postmodern life in a style familiar to American readers. Occasional parodic fantasies in the mode of Borges or Calvino find Eco exploring the intriguing, if absurd, notion of a map in 1:1 scale, chronicling race relations in a future universe populated by humorously bizarre alien life-forms, or describing watches whose features cause one to lose track of the time. But Eco focuses on articulating his amusing complaints, analyzing our quotidian myths with light touches and lamentations that will recall Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck—at best, an academic Mike Royko—sooner than Roland Barthes. Pieces on once-current events have been carefully excluded, but most of these essays remain essentially journalistic in their devotion to exploring contemporary life. The title piece pits Eco against an English hotel bureaucracy intent on making it difficult for him to refrigerate an expensive salmon that he has brought from Copenhagen; others mock "how-to'' essays—on fax machines and cellular telephones, for example; there are cautionary tales of encounters with Amtrak trains and Roman cabs. All have as their subtext the chaos brought in the wake of unbridled technological innovation and intercontinental travel.
While he wastes some time exposing cliches—Indians in westerns, unworthy sequels—that are cliches to expose, Eco entertains with his clever reflections and with his unique persona, the featured player in his stories.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100136-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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